Instead of the usual and tedious process of drying the pepper in the sun after it has been gathered, I observed the planters, after collecting a large quantity together, steam it; by which, the drying process is expedited, without, it is said, the pepper losing any of its flavour by the operation. At the various plantations I visited, this process was found most generally adopted, although a small quantity was in a few instances laid out upon mats in the sun to dry. The steaming process is almost invariably adopted when the immediate demand for the article is very great, as it was at this time, pepper being in considerable demand at Singapore, for the English market. It was stated to me, that three thousand pepper-vines will produce fifty peculs of pepper annually. The pepper vines are planted in rows, a short distance apart one from the other, and were, in this instance, trailed up split pieces of dead wood, which served as a prop to the vines; some were tied to their support; but generally they naturally attached themselves, by giving out fasciculi of roots from the joints, at certain distances. Plantain trees were occasionally seen in the pepper plantations, probably for the certain degree of shade and moisture they may have afforded. It is said, that a pepper plantation will not thrive unless it be near one of the Gambir shrubs, or rather upon an estate where the Gambir extract is prepared. This was considered to result from the refuse leaves of the Gambir, after boiling, being requisite as manure for the vines. From my own observation, I ascertained this not to be the precise reason of the pepper-vines thriving better where Gambir-boiling houses and plantations existed, but from the Gambir leaves, after they had undergone the boiling process in the manufacture of the extract from them, being strewn thickly over the surface of the ground between the vines, for the purpose of preserving it in a cool and moist state. This was the principal reason of its being used, and, of course, the soil was finally improved by it, as well as it would be by any other dead vegetable matter. I did not observe in even a solitary instance that it was used about the roots of the vines, but, on the contrary, it was kept cleared from them, the roots of the vines having the earth hoed up about them, leaving a circular space around, and ashes were occasionally mingled with the earth about them, as a manure.