Chapter 27

I presume to be the same plant.

PULSE.

Kachang is a term applied to all sorts of pulse, of which a great variety is cultivated; as the kachang china (Dolichos sinensis), kachang putih (Dolichos katjang), k. ka-karah (D. lignosus), k. kechil (Phaseolus radiatus), k. ka-karah gatal (Dolichos pruriens) and many others. The kachang tanah (Arachis hypogaea) is of a different class, being the granulose roots (or, according to some, the self-buried pods) of a herb with a yellow, papilionaceous flower, the leaves of which have some resemblance to the clover, but double only, and, like it, affords rice pasture for cattle. The seeds are always eaten fried or parched, from whence they obtain their common appellation of kachang goring.

YAMS.

The variety of roots of the yam and potato kind, under the general name of ubi, is almost endless; the dioscorea being generally termed ubi kechil (small), and the convolvulus ubi gadang (large); some of which latter, of the sort called at Bencoolen the China-yam, weigh as much as forty pounds, and are distinguished into the white and the purple. The fruit of the trong (melongena), of which the egg-plant is one species, is much eaten by the natives, split and fried. They are commonly known by the name of brinjals, from the beringelhas of the Portuguese.

DYE-STUFFS.

(PLATE 8. Marsdenia tinctoria, OR BROAD-LEAFED INDIGO. E.W. Marsden delt. Swaine fct. Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)

INDIGO.

Tarum or indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) being the principal dye-stuff they employ, the shrub is always found in their planted spots; but they do not manufacture it into a solid substance, as is the practice elsewhere. The stalks and branches having lain for some days in water to soak and macerate, they then boil it, and work among it with their hands a small quantity of chunam (quick lime, from shells), with leaves of the paku sabba (a species of fern) for fixing the colour. It is afterwards drained off, and made use of in the liquid state.

There is another kind of indigo, called in Sumatra tarum akar, which appears to be peculiar to that country, and was totally unknown to botanists to whom I showed the leaves upon my return to England in the beginning of the year 1780. The common kind is known to have small pinnated leaves growing on stalks imperfectly ligneous. This, on the contrary, is a vine, or climbing plant, with leaves from three to five inches in length, thin, of a dark green, and in the dried state discoloured with blue stains. It yields the same dye as the former sort; they are prepared also in the same manner, and used indiscriminately, no preference being given to the one above the other, as the natives informed me, excepting inasmuch as the tarum akar, by reason of the largeness of the foliage, yields a greater proportion of sediment. Conceiving it might prove a valuable plant in our colonies, and that it was of importance in the first instance that its identity and class should be accurately ascertained, I procured specimens of its fructification, and deposited them in the rich and extensively useful collection of my friend Sir Joseph Banks. In a paper on the Asclepiadeae, highly interesting to botanical science, communicated by Mr. Robert Brown (who has lately explored the vegetable productions of New Holland and other parts of the East) to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, and printed in their Transactions, he has done me the honour of naming the genus to which this plant belongs, MARSDENIA, and this particular species Marsdenia tinctoria.*

(*Footnote. 2. M. caule volubili, foliis cordatis ovato-oblongis acuminatis glabriusculis basi antice glandulosis, thyrsis lateralibus, fauce barbata. Tarram akkar Marsd. Sumat. page 78 edition 2 Hab. In insula Sumatra. (v.s. in Herb. Banks.))

KASUMBA.

Under the name of kasumba are included two plants yielding materials for dyeing, but very different from each other. The kasumba (simply) or kasumba jawa, as it is sometimes called, is the Carthamus tinctorius, of which the flowers are used to produce a saffron colour, as the name imports. The kasumba kling or galuga is the Bixa orellana, or arnotto of the West Indies. Of this the capsule, about an inch in length, is covered with soft prickles or hair, opens like a bivalve shell, and contains in its cavities a dozen or more seeds, the size of grape-stones, thickly covered with a reddish farina, which is the part that constitutes the dye.

Sapang, the Brazil-wood, (Caesalpinia sappan), whether indigenous or not, is common in the Malayan countries. The heart of this being cut into chips, steeped for a considerable time in water, and then boiled, is used for dying here, as in other countries. The cloth or thread is repeatedly dipped in this liquid, and hung to dry between each wetting till it is brought to the shade required. To fix the colour alum is added in the boiling.

Of the tree called bangkudu in some districts, and in others mangkudu (Morinda umbellata) the outward parts of the root, being dried, pounded, and boiled in water, afford a red dye, for fixing which the ashes procured from the stalks of the fruit and midribs of the leaves of the coconut are employed. Sometimes the bark or wood of the sapang tree is mixed with these roots. It is to be observed that another species of bangkudu, with broader leaves (Morinda citrifolia) does not yield any colouring matter, but is, as I apprehend, the tree commonly planted in the Malayan peninsula and in Pulo Pinang as a support to the pepper-vine.

RED-WOOD.

Ubar is a red-wood resembling the logwood (haematoxylon) of Honduras, and might probably be employed for the same purpose. It is used by the natives in tanning twine for fishing nets, and appears to be the okir or Tanarius major of Rumphius, Volume 3 page 192, and Jambolifera rezinoso of Lour. Fl. C. C. page 231. Their black dye is commonly made from the coats of the mangostin-fruit and of the kataping (Terminalia catappa). With this the blue cloth from the west of India is changed to a black, as usually worn by the Malays of Menangkabau. It is said to be steeped in mud in order to fix the colour.

The roots of the chapada or champadak (Artocarpus integrifolia) cut into chips and boiled in water produce a yellow dye. To strengthen the tint a little turmeric (the kunyit tumma or variety of curcuma already spoken of) is mixed with it, and alum to fix it; but as the yellow does not hold well it is necessary that the operation of steeping and drying should be frequently repeated.