No. 



20 

 21 

 22 

 23 

 24 

 25 



Mean ... 176.9 ... 142 ... 80.2 



3. MODE OP LIFE. 

 Tlie main c-rop planted i.s rice, swamp rice, padi liaya, and hill rice, 

 padi hulcii. The ordinary wet rice, y)adi mwali, which necessitate,'^ 

 ii^rigation, is not grown. Fisliing and trapping are also Besisi occu- 

 pations and some of the traps are very ingenious. At the present 

 time a large number of men are working as jungle-fellers on a 

 neighl)ouring estate, but they are largely in the hands of the local 

 Chinese shop -keeper's to whom they are always in debt and whom 

 the local planters find it necessary to employ as intermediaries when 

 engaging labour. The Chinaman gets a commission on the trans- 

 action and ensures the repayment of the advances whicli he makes 

 in money and kind to the Besisi. 



4. HOUSES. 



The Besisi house is genei^ally a wretched and very dirty one- 

 roomed bamboo-walled hut, raised on piles, containing only a few 

 cooking pots, mats, fish traps and possibly a spear or blowpipe. The 

 Batin's bouse was the cleanest and best built of any that I visited ; 

 it was roofed with palm leaves, and besides the usual rough house- 

 hold furnishings contained some fine mats and a couple of handsome 

 blowpipes. 



The Besisi seems to shift house pretty frequently as the soil of 

 his clearing soon becomes exhausted and he prefers to build again in 

 the fx'esh ladang rather than walk to it from his old hut. This 

 custom, of course, militates greatly against any development of the 

 art of house-building. 



The fireplace is of earth, banked in by pieces of wood, and is 

 placed near a wall in the only rooan. As in jSIalay liouses there is 

 generally a shelf above it on which cooking pots and firewood are 

 stored, 



.5. MANUPACTIJRES. 



A list of the collections obtained- from the Besisi is given below. 



Many articles in- everyday use are, of course, obtained fi'om the 

 Malays and Chinese, among these being cloth, jewellery, pots and 

 pans, spears, etc. Srome things, such as di-ums (rebana and gendang) 

 and kites, though probably of Malay origin, are at the present time 



