90 A TEIP TO GUNONG BLUMTJT. 



aneroid, the soil very fair, perhaps not so good as Panti, 

 plenty of ferns and plants, he had been obliged to throw 

 the bulk of his away ; as Hill wanted to be off and the 

 launch, in spite of the rope, was steaming hard to avoid being 

 carried away by the current, we had to bring our questions 

 to an end, so away went the launch with a jakun they had 

 brought from the interior, while we returned on shore and 

 started for the u kangka" to get our dinner with the "kangchu. ; ' 

 ~No one would have guessed from our costume that we were on 

 oiir way to dine with probably the wealthiest planter in 

 Johor, the owner of about 1 00 plantations, but our dress 

 was suited to 'the road by which we had to travel, most of 

 the way ankle-deep in mud, and occasionally swamps with 

 a partial and very insecure floating-bridge of poles. We 

 reached the kangka about 5 p. m. bare-legged and bare-footed, 

 splashed and smeared with mud, but with the help of a cooly 

 and a pail of water, we soon set that right, and joined our 

 jovial host in doing justice to his plentiful but not varied 

 fare. He was very talkative, said the Maharajah was very 

 good (an assertion we were neither able nor disposed to 

 dispute) but that the Singapore Towkays were trying to 

 "pusing" (cheat) him about the Gambier or some other 

 "chukei-" (dues). The tigers, he said, did not trouble his 

 neighbourhood, but in Seluang district, (as we had already 

 heard) were numerous and had been committing dreadful 

 havoc among the Chinese plantation coolies, who for some 

 superstitious reason would not take any steps to put 

 a stop to this wholesale clestructien of human life ; the 

 Chinese vegetable gardeners in Singapore seem less influ- 

 enced by such notions, for they find no difficulty in setting 

 spring-guns for tigers. We were told that any cool}' speak- 

 ing of the tiger by proper name was liable to a fine of $10. 

 We questioned our host about gambling, which system he 

 thought best, the Singapore plan of (attempted,) suppression, 

 or the Johore license, we could not obtain a definite 

 answer but gathered that, while he admitted gambling did 

 a great deal of harm, and professional gamblers always win 

 and frequently cheated, still the coolies were very much 

 devoted to it, and were willing to risk ruining themselves ; 

 (ergo, they should be allowed to do so, especially as our 

 friend draws his share of profit from the system). We left 

 at 8.30 agreeably impressed with our host, a man who 

 deserves his position, for he started here 17 years ago in a 

 small plantation with a capital of $500. We saw the gambling 

 system in full play, it being the Chinese JNew Year, when 



