Betel is not only used as an article of luxu ry, but as a kind of ceremonial which regulates the intercourse of the more polished chimes of the east. When any person of consideration waits on another, after the first salutations, betel is presented I as a token of politeness : to omit it, on the one part,' would be considered neglect, and its rejection would be judged an affront on the other. No one of infe rior rank should address a dignified individual without the previous precaution of chewing betel; two people seldom meet without exchanging it ; and it is always offered on the ceremonious interviews of public mis sionaries. In some countries, it is not uncommon for the guest, who receives the betel from his hest, to pass it between his thumb and fore-finger, and apply his own chunam, which never gives offence; and thought to have originated in guarding a stranger against the insidious conveyance of poison, formerly too frequently practised in destroying per sons who were obnoxious. Philtres or amatory charms are still conveyed along with the chunam, which are conceived to consist of some powerful sti. mulant. Mahometans abstain from this indulgence during the fast of Ramadan, though possibly not in. every country, as it would be too great a privation; and the use of it is so inferwoven with the existence of the natives of the warmer climates, that females of the higher ranks are said to pass their lives in doing little else than chewing betel. When the Cingalese retire to rest at night, they fill their mouths with it, and retain it there until they awake. According to Knox, who passed many years in captivity on island of Ceylon, most people going abroad carry a small box of gold or silver, containing the ingredients for compounding betel ; and the poor keep a constant supply about them in purses of coloured straw, se curely lodged in a fold of their garments. The stand or box containing it is often the subject of elegant workmanship ; it consists of silver, gold, or tortoiseshell, and forms a piece of ornamental furni ture in the houses of the wealthy. It is sufficiently valuable to constitute a present between sovereigns.
Extensive gardens for cultivating betel are formed in different parts of India. The soil most favourable for the palm is a black mould on a substratum of limestone, or intermixed with calcareous nodules. Here it is planted in rows, and carefully manured and watered, during several years. It begins to bear from the eighth or tenth to the fifteenth year, and remains in perfection for thirty years ; soon after which, it either dies or is cut down. Some, how
ever, continue producing fruit from the fiftieth to the seventieth, or even the hundredth year ; but it gra dually declines both in quantity and quality. It ap pears that a very fertile tree produces, at an average, -857 nuts, and an ordinary one 600 ; but not every where, as there are trees affording no more than 200. The betel-leaf is either cultivated in separate gar dens, where a red stony soil on the side of a rising ground is preferred, and plantains or bamboos plant ed along with the vines, which are arranged in trenches, to support them as they grow ; or when an areca plantation is formed, and the palms are fifteen years old, cuttings of the vine are planted near the roots, and trained up to the trees. In twelve or eighteen months, the leaves of the vine are fit for sale, and in three years they are full-sized ; but in •another year they die, when all must be removed, And young plants immediately substituted for them. ' We do not know whether their duration is never lon ger ; but in the southern parts of Canara in India, the gardens require renewal every four years, and in -eighteen or twenty the soil is considered to be ex hausted. These gardens are always surrounded by a hedge ; sometimes the cultivators are annoyed .with the .depredations of squirrels and elephants. The crop of the areca .is produced during three months; and the nut being pulled, is cut into seven or eight pieces, and piled up in a heap ; then the same quantity of it and terra japonica, together with 100 leaves of betel-leaf, are beat together with water, and the juice strained into a pot. This .is mix ed with a decoction of the bark .of the Mimosa In dica and water, and the nuts from the whole heap successively boiled in it. They are then exposed to be dried in the sun.
Betel is a very considerable article of traffic in India and China ; and, indeed, throughout Asia. In the British settlements of Bombay, Madras, and Bengal, the value of the imports amounted in a single year to L.138,836; and, if the quantities consumed throughout the East are taken into view, it wig. appear surprising bow they can be obtained. But, owing to the constant and extensive demand, the plants . affording the necessary ingredients are carefully cultivated ; and multitudes are employed and subsisted in the production of this Eastern luxury. (s.)