4 
The rivers are numerous, but, owing to the formation of the 
land, their course, though always more or less synclinal with 
the mountains, and therefore running southward — or, as on 
the N. E. coast, northward — is of no great length ; and their 
mouths are, in all but one or two cases, obstructed by bars 
or mud- banks. The largest are: — 
On the East coast, the Pahang, the Kelantan and the Pa- 
tani; and 
On the West coast, the Perak, the Bemam and the Moar. 
All these, and a few others, to a less extent, are navigable 
by light craft for considerable distances. 
One pecuHarity arising out of the rivers running rather 
North and South than East and West, is that in some of the 
principal points of the river system, the course of the streams 
running down from the same watershed, but falling into the sea 
on opposite sides, have their upper waters almost contiguous, 
e, g, the River Pahang and the River Slim in 5^ North, 
and the River Serting and the River Moar in 3^ North. 
The climate is everywhere moist and hot, though seldom 
malarious, even along the low muddy banks near the coast. 
The mean temperature tn the Peninsula is, throughout the low- 
lands of the plains, about 80°. There is, strictly speaking, no 
winter, nor even any ver)' distinctly marked rainy season ; the 
alternate North-east and South-west monsoons distributing the 
moisture over the East and West slopes throughout most of 
the year. Except in some limestone tracts, especially in 
P^rak and Kedah, the soil is not very rich : but is probably 
capable of growing almost every tropical product. 
The average number of rainy days is about 190, and the 
mean rainfall of the Peninsula as a whole from 100 to 130 
