during the short time I spent there, I came away with the impression that it is equal, if not superior, to Ceylon, but that Ceylon is the better governed both from the European and the native point of view.
On January 15th we got back to Singapore after a calm and hot passage, and found that we should have to wait some days for a steamer to Hong¬ kong. We spent part of the time in visiting the rubber estate of Tehran, to the manager of which I was introduced by a mutual friend. We crossed the island by rail and went by the steam ferry over the strait which divides it from the mainland to Johore, a protected State under a Sultan. Mr. Bryce drove us out six miles in his motor-car to Tebrau, a plantation of over 2,000 acres first opened out five years since, on undulating land from which the forest was completely cleared. As all the work was done by Chinese and imported Javanese labour, the cost of laying out a rubber plantation in this district seems very high to an old tea planter. But the work was well done, and the trees raised from seeds sown on the spot were growing rapidly in the flats, but not so well on the low hills where the humus was washed away by the rain after the forest was cleared. I could not help thinking that if rubber planters were not so anxious to get a large area cleared at once, it would probably pay better in the end to leave all the poorer patches of land in forest, as a shelter for the rubber. For Hevea in the Amazon region is not a gregarious tree and grows naturally in mixture with many other species in places where the soil is enriched by annual floods; and though at present I have not heard of any serious attacks of fungoid disease which have destroyed the rubber as coffee was destroyed in Ceylon, yet the exhaustion of the soil must be much greater when large areas are planted exclusively with one tree.
After tiffin we went in a dugout canoe up a narrow winding river overhung on both sides by dense virgin forest, which gave me a good idea of the difficulties of travel in Malaya. Progress was made partly by paddling and partly by poling, but the winding course of the stream was often partly blocked by fallen trees and creepers. There were fresh tracks of tigers, wild pigs and Argus pheasants on the sandy banks, and we saw hornbills, monkeys and a few kingfishers, Drongos, barbets and small herons. Large Ileslias floated about on their soft grey wings, and some Papilios settled on the places where the sun penetrated; but the ground was so densely covered with rattan and scitaminous plants that it was impossible to collect much either with gun or net, and I found, as Wallace has often remarked, that the only places for collecting were where good paths and clearings had been made. A man might live for years in this country without seeing half the birds and insects which exist in the forest. And though, with the help of the Malays, who in some cases become intelligent and good collectors, the fauna and flora of the Peninsula are now fairly well known, there are many large tracts at the higher elevations quite unexplored and likely to remain so.
The next morning I went out to see the tapping of the rubber trees, which has to be done in the early morning and evening only, as the latex will not run when the sun is hot, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. The coolies employed are mostly Javanese, who are paid very highly considering how
