Sept. 1, 1903.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTUMST. 
179 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES RAILWAY. 
At Penang is a long, jetty. But I go too fast. I 
said uothing but aclniiration, At llie end of the 
jetty there is considerable aoeomniodalion for 
sitters. There were several Europeans waiting 
for the ferry boat ; all the seats weie occupied by 
the lowest class of Chinese, and we Europeans had 
to hang dbout on our two legs ; but let nie be ! If 
I told what I know and if I uttered eighteen- 
nineteenths of what I thought, Exeter Hall would 
ever debar me from that coveted seat in Parlia- 
ment ! 
My ever faithful was highly disturbed 
about my luggage, and wanted to hang on to 
every individual parcel himself. But when he 
realised that a label would carry it througli, he 
speedily reconciled himself to allow other people 
to carry the weights for him ! The ferry 
boat is an excellently appointed little steamer. 
You walk from the jetty on board, no jumping, 
no prancing, but just as it were from one platform 
to another, and on the Province Wellesley side the 
same. The drawback to a man, with a man, with 
a pame leg, is the rather steep gangway up to the 
first-class deck. Bud, really and truly, a man 
with a game leg has no rigiit in the East. You 
should take him away and bury him deep. If 
I were to attempt to describe the seats inside a 
first-class carriage you would think 1 had been 
drinking (^vhich I have— a cup of tea). Exha- 
ordiuary as their arrangtmsut appears at first 
sight, they are really very comfortable. It would 
be interesting to know where the model was 
adopted from, or if it was evolved from the fertile 
brain of a Straits official. If the ntndel is not 
well-known it is well- worth being examined by 
prospectors or constructors of proposed railways 
in the tropics. But once in the train, don't 
look out of the window. Of all the dreary 
dismal flats I have ever seen, this is the dise 
mallest. The country from Rotterdam to the 
Hague IS mountainous by comparison, I don't 
know why, but I could only think : — Dead 
donkeys, dead donkey?, dead donkeys. I remember 
an old saying that no one had ever seen a dead post- 
boy, a dead donkey and a dead something else. I 
forget the third. And it would come upon me that in 
these dreadful flats had been buried all the dead 
donkeys that no man had ever seen, no man 
ever could see and no man would ever wish to 
see. Arrived at Parit Buntar Station I was 
notified that there was an interval for refresh- 
ments. I slung niy game leg over my shjulder 
and made best time on the otiier ope to the buffet. 
The whiskey was very small and the soda was 
very tepid. Awfully thanks! 
It was a relief to arrive at our destination, 
BAGAN SERAI. 
There we got into Kreta Sfiwas, a two-wheeled 
conveyance. Once in it, it is not so bad ; but for 
a 16 stone man to get into it, it is as bad as 
anything in an Obstacle Kace. It is the same 
model as we have here in Sumatra. You are 
completely boxed up, and it is owing to that 
fact that I did not lose my life when (some years 
ago) I went over a 65 feet precipice in one of these 
machines. Had I been in a buggy I must have 
broken my neck : as it was, I was rattled about 
like a pill in a box and escaped with a bit of a 
shaking, 
I think the Dutch Government watches er 
the welfare of 
INDENTURED COOLIES 
even more carefully than the British Government 
does. But both display a strange neglect of the 
case of 
YOUNG KUROl'EAN ASSISTANTS 
in regard to their housing. In Sumatra I hafe 
known a Government Commissioner a.sking in- 
formation in an Assistant's house, wh(jje the roof 
was so bad, he had to keep his hat on ; and, 
walking a liundred yards to the cooly lines 
whicii Md newly been re-roofed, suggested that 
thfjy sflould again be re-roofed becauie there 
were two chinks which you could cover with a 
rupee, through which the sun penetrated. Across 
the water in this connection 1 won't say what 
I have seen. Only, Verb Sap. Young British 
life is precious now-a-days. They have better 
cooks in Perak than we had Upcountry in Ceylon 
SO years ago. tive what Dr. Thwaites says in his 
book about that question, 
CRIMPING. 
You, my de.i-s in Ceylon, think you are 
in a labour fix. You may thank your stars 
and planets that you liave no Demarara 
planters among you. A man that you call a 
crimp in Ceylon is a perfect ^ntleman among 
a certain section of Demarara sugar men. Such 
barefaced crimping I have never heard of, not 
even in Java, though I can give you an idea of 
how it went there at one time. It was on the 
Kloet. My ho^t took me to visit a neighbour, 
and said ' My friend and I are going to such and 
^uch an estate tomoi row, I have only one saddle. 
Could you lend me one ? ' ' CeTtainly,' said our 
host, ' anything to oblige your friend from Cey- 
lon,' 
' Would you send it over?' asked my friend, 
' You be damned ! ' said our host. ' K one of mJfi 
coolies gets over to your estate. Ml never see 
him back again ! ' W, T, McK, 
Serdaue, Sumatra, 25th Junq, 190.3. 
FEESH WATER PEARLS. 
AN AMEllICAN INDUSTRY. 
Along the Upper Mississippi and so«ie of its 
tributaries the pearl fishet has startt?^ forth ftgain 
to seek his fortune. During the winter months, 
says the New York " Tribune," he has stayed on 
laud, content to teJl storiee of his past misfortunes, 
of the luck which he expects in the future, and 
the various ways he will spend his weajth— when 
he gets it. 
In the winter time the pearl fisher may be a 
farmer, who sticks to his " section " as long as 
the rivers are frozen over, but v/ho cannot escape 
the get-rich quick <6ontagion which comes with 
spring skies and the return of the pearl fishing 
season. Hundreds of pearl fishers also come from 
river towns, where they have lived a precarious 
life through the winter, and having spent what 
little they gariied the foregoing year are eager to 
get back to the clam beds df. the earliest sign of a 
thaw. Tlie pearl fisher witt^ a family soon finds 
a home near the clam beds. He either pitches a 
tent on tli,e river's edge or rigs up a houseboat. 
In any case it is a miserable habitation, visited 
at all hours of the day and night by mosquitoes, 
and filled frequently with the miasma which breeds 
malaria. Having thus cared for the domeetic or 
social side of life, the pearl fisher equips himself 
