242 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



quite unknown, and not a clod is turned over. The 

 mode of operation is for a man and woman to walk one 

 behind the other, the man in front, dibbling a hole with a 

 sharpened stick, into which the other drops one or two 

 seeds, and then scratches a little earth over the hole 

 with her toes. In this manner a large field is very soon 

 planted with crops without any lengthened operation. 

 In seven or eight weeks the corn is ready to pull, the 

 paddy in the intermediate lines between the corn being 

 rather poor - looking in consequence of being over- 

 shadowed by its long stalks. As soon as the corn is 

 cleared off", however, the paddy springs up rapidly, and 

 in two months more it too is ready for cutting. During 

 the time the paddy is coming to maturity the fields 

 require weeding three times. In some cases, while the 

 paddy is half grown, tapioca cuttings are planted. In all 

 cases no sooner is the paddy cut than something else is 

 coming on, either tapioca, kaladi, or what not, and before 

 such crops as the last named are ripe, banana suckers 

 and sugar-cane are planted. The ground being cleared 

 of the tapioca, sweet potatoes are put in round the 

 bananas, no further weeding is undertaken, and the 

 sweet potatoes are left to fight it out with the grass. As 

 soon as the potatoes begin to ripen, the yield is continu- 

 ous, but when the weeds finally get the mastery, the 

 people desert that place and make a new start somewhere 

 else. . . . These operations occupy a term of two years 

 or so, during which time crops of one sort or another are 

 following each other in quick succession and without 

 intermission. Paddy they store up, but nothing else, and 

 from year's end to year's end, whatever else they require 

 for the day's consumption, they send into the fields and 

 fetch." So prolific is nature that the inhabitants of six 

 crowded huts on the Kinabatangan have been known to 



