Crawfurd asserts that gambier has been exported from time immemorial to Java from the Malacca Straits. This statement appears highly questionable. Rumphius, who resided in Amboyna during the second half of the 17th century, was a merchant, consul and naturalist; and in these capacities became thoroughly conversant with the products of the Malay Archipelago and adjacent regions, as the six folio volumes of his Herbarium Amboinense, illustrated by 587 plates, amply prove.
Among other plants, he figures[1278] Uncaria Gambier, which he terms Funis uncatus, and states to exist under two varieties, the one with broad, and the other with narrow leaves. The first form, he says, is called in Malay Daun Gatta Gambir, on account of the bitter taste of its leaves, which is perceptible in the lozenges (trochisci) called Gatta Gambir, so much so that one might suppose they were made from these leaves, which however is not the case. He further asserts that the leaves have a detergent, drying quality by reason of their bitterness, which is nevertheless not intense but quite bearable in the mouth: that they are masticated instead of Pinang [Betel-nut] with Siri [leaf of Piper Betle] and lime: that the people of Java and Bali plant the first variety near their houses for the sake of its fragrant flowers; but though they chew its leaves instead of Pinang, it must not be supposed that it is this plant from which the lozenges Gatta are compounded, for that indeed is quite different.
Thus, if we may credit Rumphius, it would seem that the important manufacture of gambier had no existence at the commencement of the last century. As to “Gatta Gambir,” his statements are scarcely in accord with those of more recent writers. We may however remark that that name is very like the Tamil Katta Kāmbu, signifying Catechu, which drug is sometimes made into little round cakes, and was certainly a large export from India to Malacca and China as early as the 16th century ([p. 241]).
That gambier was unknown to Europeans long after the time of Rumphius, is evident from other facts. Stevens, a merchant of Bombay, in his Compleat Guide to the East India Trade, published in 1766, quotes the prices of goods at Malacca, but makes no allusion to gambier. Nor is there any reference to it in Savary’s Dictionnaire de Commerce (ed. of 1750), in which Malacca is mentioned as the great entrepôt of the trade of India with that of China and Japan.
The first account of gambier known to us, was communicated to the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences in 1780, by a Dutch trader named Couperus. This person narrates[1279] how the plant was introduced into Malacca from Pontjan in 1758, and how gambier is made from its leaves; and names several sorts of the drug and their prices.
In 1807, a description of “the drug called Gutta Gambeer,” and of the tree from which it is made, was presented to the Linnean Society of London.[1280] The writer, William Hunter, well known for scientific observations in connection with India, states that the substance is made chiefly at Malacca, Siak and Rhio, that it is in the form of small squares, or little round cakes almost perfectly white, and that the finer sorts are used for chewing with betel leaf in the same manner as catechu, while the coarser are shipped to Batavia and China for use in tanning and dyeing.
Manufacture—The gambier plant is cultivated in plantations. These were commenced in 1819 in Singapore, where there were at one time 800 plantations; but owing to scarcity of fuel, without an abundant supply of which the manufacture is impossible, and dearness of labour, gambier-planting was in 1866 fast disappearing from the island.[1281] The official Blue Book, printed at Singapore in 1872, reports it as “much increased.” It is largely pursued on the mainland (Johore), and in the islands of the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago, lying south-east of Singapore. On the island of Bintang, the most northerly of the group, there were about 1,250 gambier-plantations in 1854.
The plantations are often formed in clearings of the jungle, where they last for a few years and are then abandoned,[1282] owing to the impoverishment of the soil and the irrepressible growth of the lalang grass (Imperata Kœnigii P. de B.), which is more difficult to eradicate than even primæval jungle. It has been found profitable to combine with the cultivation of gambier that of pepper, for which the boiled leaves of the gambier form an excellent manure.
The gambier plants are allowed to grow 8 to 10 feet high, and as their foliage is always in season, each plant is stripped 3 or 4 times in the year. The apparatus and all that belongs to the manufacture of the extract are of the most primitive description.[1283] A shallow cast-iron pan about 3 feet across is built into an earthen fireplace. Water is poured into the pan, a fire is kindled, and the leaves and young shoots, freshly plucked, are scattered in, and boiled for about an hour. At the end of this time they are thrown on to a capacious sloping trough, the lower end of which projects into the pan, and squeezed with the hand so that the absorbed liquor may run back into the boiler. The decoction is then evaporated to the consistence of a thin syrup, and baled out into buckets. When sufficiently cool it is subjected to a curious treatment:—instead of simply stirring it round, the workman pushes a stick of soft wood in a sloping direction into each bucket; and placing two such buckets before him, he works a stick up and down in each. The liquid thickens round the stick, and the thickened portion being constantly rubbed off, while at the same the whole is in motion, it gradually sets into a mass, a result which the workman affirms would never be produced by simple stirring round. Though we are not prepared to concur in the workman’s opinion, it is reasonable to suppose that his manner of treating the liquor favours the crystallization of the catechin in a more concrete form than it might otherwise assume. The thickened mass, which is said by another writer to resemble soft yellowish clay, is now placed in shallow square boxes, and when somewhat hardened is cut into cubes and dried in the shade. The leaves are boiled a second time, and finally washed in water, which water is saved for another operation.
From informations obtained in 1878 it would appear that now the prevailing part of gambier is made by means of pressure into blocks.