dingly the crop of 1776/1777
considerably surpassed that of many preceding years.

TRANSPORTATION OF PEPPER.

The pepper is mostly brought down from the country on rafts (rakit),
which are sometimes composed of rough timbers, but usually of large
bamboos, with a platform of split bamboos to keep the cargo dry. They are
steered at both head and stern, in the more rapid rivers with a kind of
rudder, or scull rather, having a broad blade fixed in a fork or crutch.
Those who steer are obliged to exert the whole strength of the body in
those places especially where the fall of water is steep, and the course
winding; but the purchase of the scull is of so great power that they can
move the raft bodily across the river when both ends are acted upon at
the same time. But, notwithstanding their great dexterity and their
judgment in choosing the channel, they are liable to meet with
obstruction in large trees and rocks, which, from the violence of the
stream, occasion their rafts to be overset, and sometimes dashed to
pieces.

It is a generally received opinion that pepper does not sustain any
damage by an immersion in seawater; a circumstance that attends perhaps a
fourth part of the whole quantity shipped from the coast. The surf,
through which it is carried in an open boat, called a sampan lonchore,
renders such accidents unavoidable. This boat, which carries one or two
tons, being hauled up on the beach and there loaded, is shoved off, with
a few people in it, by a number collected for that purpose, who watch the
opportunity of a lull or temporary intermission of the swell. A
tambangan, or long narrow vessel, built to contain from ten to twenty
tons, (peculiar to the southern part of the coast), lies at anchor
without to receive the cargoes from the sampans. At many places, where
the kwallas, or mouths of the rivers, are tolerably practicable, the
pepper is sent out at once in the tambangans over the bar; but this,
owing to the common shallowness of the water and violence of the surfs,
is attended with considerable risk. Thus the pepper is conveyed either to
the warehouses at the head-settlement or to the ship from Europe lying
there to receive it. About one-third part of the quantity of black pepper
collected, but none of the white, is annually sent to China. Of the
extent and circumstances of the trade in pepper carried on by private
merchants (chiefly American) at the northern ports of Nalabu, Susu, and
Mukki, where it