TUBA FISHING. 247 



necessary for them to sleep away from their homes 

 I should provide them with food. Never, if I had 

 given due notice to the village headmen, had I any 

 lack of men for a deer-drive ; the difficulty was gen- 

 erally to turn back the lads whose strength was 

 less than their keenness. But these Malays would 

 work as well as play. One day, on the way to 

 a deer-drive, for which the men of two villages had 

 turned out in force, we had to pass through a deep 

 swamp, some three-quarters of a mile long, between 

 the two villages. We had a good day's sport, getting 

 two splendid deer, and when it was over I told the 

 two village headmen that they ought to build a light 

 trestle-bridge across the swamp. They both agreed 

 that it should be done, but all said that it would 

 cost too much. I thereupon proposed that the men 

 of Gebing should make half the bridge and the men 

 of Pengorak the other half, every man in each village 

 making his share, and promised for my part to provide 

 the workers with food. My offer was accepted on the 

 spot. A few months later the bridge was built, and 

 well built, at a cost to the Government of some four 

 or five bags of rice. And though it is some years now 

 since I left the district, I am told that the bridge is 

 still known by my name. This spirit of willing work 

 is not, however, I am sorry to say, typical of the 

 Malays as a race. 



I had been an honoured guest at a great seine 

 fishing held out at sea to inaugurate the first wetting 

 of a set of nets, and Ahman, my head boatman, hinted 

 to me that, by way of returning the hospitality, I 

 should hold, for the benefit of the whole district, a 



