Manchester Memoirs, Vol. I. {\go6), No. 4. 7 



time, the process of dipping and exposing being con- 

 tinued until the required shade has been obtained. The 

 dyed material is then freed from wax by thorough 

 washing in wood ashes, and after being ironed becomes a 

 finished sarong or slendang. 



Many sarongs are now printed in this country and 

 also in Holland, but the native still prefers the home- 

 made article, and is prepared to pay double the price for 

 it, that he will pay for an imported one. Perhaps his 

 faith in the superiority of the locally produced article is 

 not unjustified, for he has had frequent experience of the 

 fact that the colours of European-made sarongs are of a 

 very fleeting character, and it must be admitted that a 

 colour which will stand constant wetting and exposure to 

 a tropical sun must be fast in more than the ordinary 

 sense. If the trade in sarongs exported from this country 

 is to increase, this point must be more fully attended to 

 than it has been in the past. 



Malay Kris. 



To mention the Malay Kris is to recall at once count- 

 less acts of piracy and bloodshed in Eastern seas, in 

 which this weapon has been used with deadly effect. 

 The name is invariably associated with a zig-zag shaped 

 double-edged dagger, from 12 to 16 inches long, but, 

 though this form is very frequently met with, it is not the 

 only one in which the kris is made. The zig-zag kris is 

 purely a weapon, but in the countries throughout Malaysia 

 where the kris is so universally carried, the native finds it 

 necessary, or, at any rate, a source of great convenience 

 to use his weapon as a cutting tool, and for this reason, 

 the kris is frequently made with a straight blade, with or 

 without a double cutting edge. The single-edged blades, 

 however, are usually heavier and longer than the true 



