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[Page 579]

475
Some account of Batavia

to the inhabitants of this Island, as she has to some of us sons of the Less abundant north, they are not however totaly devoid of strong liquors, 
[Margin note]  Mahomitans
tho their religion Mahometanism forbids them totaly the use of such  by this means driving them from liquid to solid intoxicators, as Opium  tobacco &c &c.

Besides their Arrack, which is too well known in Europe to need any description, they have Palm wine, made from a species of Palm cald in the Malay &Javan Language Aren (  )  this Liquor is Extracted from the Branches which were to have born flowers, but are cut by the people who make it their business, & Joints of Bamboe cane hung under them, into which the Liquor intended by nature for the nourishment of both flowers & fruit distills in tolerable abundance, & so true is nature to her paths, that as long as long as the fruit of that branch would have remaind unripe, so long she supplys the liquor or sap, but no longer, this liquor is sold in three states, the first is almost as it comes from the tree prepard only a little by some

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