Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/445

Rh mined even by the little taper lights of isolated missionary stations.

Wallaja-pettah contains some twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and is an unusually prosperous native town. It is enriched by an extensive inland commerce; and the neatness of its streets, and the comfortable appearance of its houses, give evidence of its prosperity. From the interior, grains, indigo, and other products are brought here and bought by the Wallaja-pettah merchants, by whom they are sent on to Madras. This town is a great mart for the areca-nut, which is often spoken of by writers on India as “betel,” or “betel-nut.” It is a nut with an intensely bitter taste, the fruit of a tall and beautiful palm, with a trunk but four or five inches in diameter, and crowned by a tuft of brilliant leaves. The nut is cut in slices, and one piece laid upon the pungent peppery betel-leaf, with a little moist lime and tobacco. These are wrapped in the leaf and chewed, very much as tobacco is chewed by some Americans. This practice is almost universal. Boys, men, and women, all chew; and they would as soon give up their rice as relinquish their “vittely-pakku," or betel. It stains