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CHAPTER IX- 



GENERAL REMARKS. 

 There is a good road stretching nearly from one 

 end of Penan? Island to the other, and intersecting: 

 the cultivated tracts ; besides which there are numer- 

 ous cross-roads. There is no want of land or water 

 carriage: provisions are good and more plentiiuf, 

 perhaps, than in the places further down the Straits, 

 although dearer than on continental India. Province 

 Weliesley, like all new countries, has its inconveniences. 

 Among these may be chiefly enumerated the rather 

 over- frequent visit* of tigers; the occasional swarms of 

 muskitoes, and tfie miry state of the new-made roads 

 in the rains. Tigers have l>een seen at Singapore ; 

 and if choice, and not accident, took them there, they 

 will probably, as they have done here, increase in 

 numbers as cultivation advances, until no more jun- 

 gle shall remain to shelter them. These animals very 

 naturally follow man where be is an agriculturist, 

 siuce they can easily help themselves to his cattle, 

 poultry, and dogs, which last animal is here with 

 them a favorite prey ; for where dogs arc plentiful, 

 men and cattle are little molested. Penang has for- 

 tunately escaped the infliction. Yet tigers annually 

 visit the Kra Islands, from the main land, and a 

 swim of twice the distance would bring them to 

 Pulo Jirju, from which bland to Penang the dis- 

 tance is still less. 



