Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/457

1770 they have acquired the property of intoxicating in a pretty high degree. Besides this they have tuack from the cocoa-nut tree, but very little of this is drunk as a liquor; it being mostly used to put into the arrack, of which, when intended to be good, it is a necessary ingredient.

Next to eating and drinking, the inhabitants of this part of India seem to place their chief delight in a more delicious as well as less blameable luxury, namely, in sweet smells of burning rosins, etc., and sweet-scented woods, but more than all in sweet flowers, of which they have several sorts, very different from ours in Europe. Of these I shall give a short account, confining myself to such as were in season during our stay here.

All these were sold about the streets every night at sunset, either strung in wreaths of about two feet (a Dutch ell) long, or made up into different sorts of nosegays, either of which cost about a halfpenny apiece. (1) Champacka (Michelia champacka) grows upon a tree about as large as an apple tree, and like it spreading. The flower itself consists of fifteen longish narrow petals, which give it the appearance of being double, though in reality it is not. Its colour is yellow, much deeper than that of a jonquil, which flower, however, it somewhat resembles in scent, only is not so violently strong. (2) Cananga (Uvaria cananga) is a green flower, not at all resembling any European flower, either in its appearance, which is more like a bunch of leaves than a flower, or smell, which, however, is very agreeable. (3) Mulatti (Nyctanthes sambac) is well known in English hothouses under the name of Indian jasmine; it is here in prodigious abundance, and certainly as fragrant as any flower they have; but of this as well as all the Indian flowers it may be said that, though fully as sweet as any European, even of the same kinds, they have not that overpowering strength; in short, their smell, though very much the same, is much more delicate and elegant than any we can boast of. (4) Combang caracnassi and (5) Combang tonquin (Pergularia glabra) are much alike in shape and smell: small flowers of the dog's-bane kind, hardly to be compared to any