From this account it will be seen that the beverage is drank immediately after it is prepared, without being in any manner fermented, its intoxicating and narcotic properties must, therefore, be due to the root. This liquor is indulged in to a large extent in the islands of Oceanica, where the natives are generally passionately fond of it.
Another substance entering into the composition of the “buyo” is the extract of the leaves of the gambir (Uncaria gambir). There are different qualities of extract: the first and best is white, brittle, and has an earthy appearance when rubbed between the fingers, which earthy appearance gave it the name of Terra Japonica, being supposed, at first, also, to come from Japan, and is formed into very small round cakes. This is the most expensive kind, and most refined, but it is not unfrequently adulterated with sago; this kind is brought in the greatest quantity from the island of Sumatra. The second quality is of a brownish yellow colour, is formed into oblong cakes, and when broken has a light brown earthy appearance; it is also made into a solid cubic form; it is sold in the bazaars in small packets, each containing five or six. The third quality contains more impurities than the preceding, is formed in small circular cakes, and sold, in packages of five or six, in the bazaars.
The method employed in making the extract is thus described in the Singapore Chronicle:—The leaves are collected three or four times a year; they are thrown into a large cauldron, the bottom of which is formed of iron, the upper part of bark and boiled for five or six hours, until a strong decoction is inspissated, it is then allowed to cool, when the extract subsides. The water is drawn off, a soft, soapy substance remains, which is cut into large masses; these are further divided by a knife into small cubes, about an inch square, or into still smaller pieces, which are laid in frames to dry. This catechu has more of a granular uniform appearance than that of Bengal, it is, perhaps, also less pure. The younger leaves of the shrub are said to produce the whitest and best gambir, the older a brown and inferior sort. The men employed in the gambir plantations generally indulge freely in the use of opium.
Another extract made in India from the wood of Acacia Catechu,[29] and which bears the name of Cutch or “Kutt,” is used in combination with the betel nut. The trees are cut down, and the heart-wood chopped and boiled in water, strained off, and evaporated. This is poured into clay moulds and dried in the sun. Dr. Hooker gives a sketch from the life of one of the native “Kutt” makers of India:——
“At half-past eight a.m. it suddenly fell calm, and we proceeded to Chakuchee, the native carts breaking down in their passage over the projecting beds of flinty rocks, or as they hurried down the inclined planes which cut through the precipitous banks of the streams. Near Chakuchee we passed an alligator, just killed by two men—a foul beast about nine feet long, and of the Mager kind. More interesting than its natural history was the painful circumstance of its having just swallowed a child that was playing in the water, while its mother was washing her domestic utensils in the river. The brute was hardly dead, much distended by its prey, and the mother standing beside it. A very touching group was this! the parent with hands clasped in agony, unable to withdraw her eyes from the cursed reptile, which still clung to life with that tenacity for which its tribe is so noted, and beside her the two men leaning on their bloody bamboo staves with which they had all but despatched the animal.
“The poor woman who had lost her child earns a scanty maintenance by making catechu. She inhabits a little cottage, and has no property but her two oxen to bring wood from the hills, and a very few household chattels, and how few these are is known only to persons who have seen the meagre furniture of the Dangha hovels. Her husband cuts the trees in the forest and drags them to the hut, but he is now sick, and her only son, her future stay, was he whose end is just related. Her daily food is rice, with beans from the beautiful flowered dolichos, trailing round the cottage, and she is in debt to the contractor, who has advanced her two rupees, to be worked off in three months, by the preparation of 240 lbs. of catechu. The present was her second husband, an old man; by him she never had any children, and in this respect alone did the poor creature think herself very unfortunate, for her poverty she did not feel. Rent to the Rajah, tax to the police, and rates to the Brahminee priest, are all paid from an acre of land, yielding so wretched a crop of barley, that it more resembled a fallow field than a harvest field. All day long she is boiling down the catechu-wood cut into chips, and pouring the decoction into large wooden troughs, where it is inspissated.”
From the areca nut another kind of catechu is prepared, which is generally preferred as a masticatory. Heyne thus describes the process of its manufacture, “Areca nuts are taken as they come from the tree, and boiled for some hours in an iron vessel. They are then taken out and the remaining water is inspissated by continued boiling. This process furnishes kassu, or most stringent terra japonica, which is black, and mixed with paddy husks and other impurities. After the nuts are dried, they are put in a fresh quantity of water, boiled again, and the water, being inspissated like the former, yields the best or dearest kind of catechu, called coury. It is yellowish brown, has an earthy fracture, and is free from the admixture of foreign bodies.” It is probable that the flat round cakes, covered with paddy husks, met with in commerce is the kassu of Heyne.
The husk which surrounds the nut, and which is of a fibrous nature, resembling the coir of the cocoa nut is thrown away by tons, and allowed to rot. This substance has lately been experimented upon for the manufacture of paper, for which purpose it appears to be available, and, as there is no want of the raw material, perhaps at some future time it will become utilized as extensively as the “coir” of Ceylon.
The Bombay catechu is obtained from Acacia catechu, and the Bengal catechu from Uncaria Gambir. The Bombay produce is of a dark brownish red colour, and is stated to be the richer of the two in tannin. The Bombay variety is commonly called “cutch,” while the Bengal produce is of a lighter brown colour, and is termed “terra.” Catechu of good quality is also obtained from Pegu.
The catechu exported from Madras to England, Bombay, France, and Ceylon was—