LIFE ON A RUBBER PLANTATION 77 



up-countr}^ town of Malaya, and close to Port Swetten- 

 ham, the busy, up-countr}^ port which, during the last 

 few years, has been raised by the rubber industry to 

 a position of great importance on the Suez — Far East 

 trading route. 



" Linggi " consists of so many large plantations 

 and up-to-date workshops that in a whole day we 

 can only get the merest peep at the estate. We begin 

 sight- seeing about six in the morning, just as the sun 

 is rising, by going into one block of one plantation to 

 see the tappers at work. We are in the midst of a 

 carefully cultivated wood of Heveas ; all around us 

 stand a dignified army of straight, tall trunks ; high 

 overhead stretches a thick canopy of leaves. For a 

 few moments, the landscape strikes us as being a rather 

 sombre picture in browns and greens, and we cannot 

 see a single human being anywhere in the scene. 

 Presently the dawnbeams discover numerous chinks in 

 the canopy, and come streaming through the leaves, 

 here, there, and everywhere ; the ground is bronzed, 

 the trunks are gilded, the treetops are illuminated with 

 quaintly shaped patches of rosy light. Then, suddenly 

 the scene becomes a blaze of colour ; strolling leisurely 

 across the horizon come a crowd of figures, all of whom 

 are undoubtedly wearing some bit of clothing that is 

 bright red, green, blue, or yellow. 



These people are a gang of tappers, who are going 

 to make their daily round of certain trees from which 

 it is their duty to collect milk. They disperse in 

 various directions, some making straight for trees that 

 are close by where we are standing. As we get a nearer 

 view of the labourers, we are better able to study their 

 picturesque attire. Some of the men are wearing 



