Both sexes are enslaved by the hateful and pernicious habit of chewing beetle and areca, which they contract even while they are childran, and practise incessantly from morning till night. With these they always mix a kind of white lime, made of coral stone and shells, and frequently a small quantity of tobacco, so that their mouths are disgustful in the highest degree both to the smell and the sight: the tobacco taints their breath, and the beetle and lime make the teeth not only as black as charcoal, but as rotten too. I have seen men between twenty and thirty, whose fore teeth have been consumed almost down to the gums, though no two of them were exactly of the same length or thickness, but irregularly corroded like iron or rust. This loss of teeth is, I think, by all who have written on the subject, imputed to the tough and stringy coat of the areca nut; but I impute it wholly to the lime: they are not loosened, or broken, or forced out, as might be expected if they were injured by the continual chewing of hard and rough substances, but they are gradually wasted like metals that are exposed to the action of powerful acids; the stumps always adhering firmly to the socket in the jaw, when there is no part of the tooth above the gums: and possibly those who suppose that sugar has a bad effect upon the teeth of Europeans, may not be mistaken, for it is well known that refined sugar contains a considerable quantity of lime; and he that doubts whether lime will destroy bone of any kind, may easily ascertain the fact by experiment.

Voyaging Accounts