It was discovered, when too late, by the supercargo, that the village of Pedir was the worst place on the coast to procure either a quick dispatch or a cheap cargo of the Areka-nut; for the rajah is obliged to treat with merchants, to supply the ship with the requisite quantity which has been agreed upon: the other European vessels had anchored at the village of “Gingham,” about eight or nine miles further to the eastward. At this place, the contracts are made with merchants, not with the rajah; and the merchants pay the rajah his dues. It is always best to contract with the merchants, who can supply it at a quicker and cheaper rate than the rajahs, who must themselves apply at last to the merchants; and the payment proceeding through the hands of the rajah, or his ministers, the latter take care that some remains behind for their special use; and, at the termination of the affair, the buyer will find that he is the loser, not the seller. Sawang, Tellisomoy, and other places on the coast, abound also in the Betel-nut.[2] Another error which was fallen into by not being acquainted with the custom of the place, was purchasing the nut by the pecul instead of the _laxar_, by which much loss is sustained by the buyer. The luxur or laxar is in weight one pecul and thirty-five-hundredths of a pecul: it consists of ten thousand nuts, and from ten to twenty-five per cent., according to the bargain previously made, is given over, for nuts which may be rotten or otherwise damaged. Several vessels, the Eleanor, Helen, Dania, (Denmark ship,) and Peru, were lying in Gingham roads, for cargoes of Areka-nut. I took an opportunity of visiting the village of Gingham, proceeding thither in the ship’s boat. The coast to the eastward still maintained the same picturesque character as about Pedir, except perhaps in some parts where it was more densely wooded with cocoa-nut and other trees close to the beach. We passed a cluster of palm-leaved thatched, bamboo huts, which was the village of Ilbu. The village of Gingham was not visible from the roadstead, being situated a short distance up a river, and hidden by the dense foliage of various kinds of trees growing about it. A short distance further to the eastward, a cluster of habitations formed the village of Buron; and Sawang (or, as called by the Malays, Putukurra) is several miles still further in the same direction. I have before mentioned, that a Penang brig had been seized by the Acheenese grab, the Nacodar (or master) of which, having been accused of trading in arms and ammunition, with one of the rajahs upon the coast, at present at war with the ruler of Acheen: many of the commanders of vessels then on the coast were desirous of getting, if possible, the vessel returned. She was the property of several native merchants at Penang, and had been chartered by an English merchant there for the Pedir coast, first calling at the Maldive islands for a cargo of dried fish.