A crystalline, poisonous, narcotic principle called picrotoxin, has been detected in these seeds, and occasionally employed externally in some cutaneous diseases. Cocculus crispus is used in intermittent fevers and liver complaints.

The annual imports now average 250 tons, and nearly the whole is consumed for illegal purposes by brewers.  Though the practice is nominally discountenanced by the Legislature under the penalty of L200 upon the brewer and L500 upon the seller, yet under the recent tariff great encouragement is given to the introduction of these berries, the duty having been reduced from 7s. 6d. to 5s. the cwt.

The capsules and seeds of Xanthoxylum hostile are also employed for the same purpose as cocculus indicus.  The bark of Walseria piscidia, a native of the Circar mountains, also intoxicates fish.

About 250 tons of Nux vomica, another species of dried flat seed possessing intoxicating properties, are also imported annually for the same purposes, and they fetch about 6s. to 8s. the cwt.

BETEL LEAF.—­Piper Betel, a scandent species of the shrubby evergreen tribe of plants belonging to the pepper family, furnishes the celebrated betel leaf of the Southern Asiatics, in which they enclose a few slices of the areca nut and a little shell lime; this they chew to sweeten the breath, and to keep off the pangs of hunger, and it acts also as a narcotic.

Such is the immense consumption of this masticatory, termed Pan, in the East, that it forms nearly as extensive an article of commerce as that of tobacco in the West.  The tax on the leaf forms a considerable portion of the local revenue of Pinang; in 1805, the tax yielded as much as 5,400 dollars.

Rumphius describes six species of this vine, besides several wild and cultivated varieties.  It is very easily reared in the Indian islands, but in the countries of the Deccan requires manuring, frequent watering and great care, and in the northern parts of Hindostan it becomes an exotic very difficult to rear.  The vine affords leaves fit for use in the second year, and continues to yield for more than thirty, the quantity diminishing as the plants grow older.

ARECA PALM (Acacia Catechu).—­This is a fine, slender, graceful tree, rising from 20 to 30 feet high, which, being a native of the East, is found abundant in many of the forests of India, from 16 to 30 degs. of latitude.  The principal places of its growth are the Burmese territories, a large province on the Malabar coast called the Concan, and the forests skirting the northern parts of Bengal, under the hills which divide it from Nepaul, the south and west coasts of Ceylon, the south of China, &c., the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and the Eastern islands, it produces fruit at five years old, and continues bearing till about its twenty-fifth year, when it withers and dies.  It thrives at a greater distance from the sea, and in more elevated regions than the coco-nut palm.  In Prince of Wales Island some hundreds of thousands of these palms are cultivated.