2 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



yet another range; and on all sides the horizon is 

 bounded either by forest-covered mountains or by 

 forest-covered plains. 



It is almost the literal truth that the whole penin- 

 sula is covered with forest. It is not that the country 

 is uninhabited, for it has a population of some hun- 

 dreds of thousands : but it is that the inhabited area, 

 every yard of which has been won from, and hacked 

 out of the forest, is infinitesimal in comparison with 

 the extent of the forest that remains untouched. 



Throughout its hundreds of miles of length and 

 breadth the Malay Peninsula is practically one vast 

 forest. The great alluvial tin-fields of Kinta, Larut, 

 Selangor, and Seremban, where tens of thousands of 

 Chinese coolies strip the surface to lay bare the ore, 

 are really mere patches ; and the towns, palatial and 

 magnificent though the buildings of some of them 

 are, are nothing more than specks in an expanse 

 that sweeps from one Sultanate to another, and is 

 only limited by the sea. 



Our railways and roads run through forest, and 

 our mines, plantations, and towns are bounded by it. 



It is, however, difficult at first to realise the environ- 

 ment of the forest. When the newcomer has left his 

 steamer, and the railway has taken him to the town 

 which is his destination, it is possible that he may fail 

 to appreciate the most wonderful of all the new sights 

 around him ; he may, and most frequently does, accept 

 the dense mass of trees and vegetation that shuts in 

 the railway line as "the jungle," and consider the 

 timber-clad mountains merely in the light of scenery. 



In a Malay village one may better realise the manner 



