COMMON HOG. §7 1 
In the island of Sumatra there is a variety of this 
species that frequents the impenetrable bushes and 
marshes of the sea-coast. These animals live on 
crabs and roots ; they associate in herds, are of a 
grey colour, and smaller than the English swine. 
At certain periods of the year, they swim in herds 
consisting of sometimes a thousand, from o*ne side 
of the river Siak to the other, at its mouth, which 
is three or four miles broad, and again return at 
stated times. This kind of passage also takes 
place in the small islands, by their swimming from 
one to the other. On these occasions they are 
hunted by a tribe of the Malays, distinct from all 
the others of the island, who live on the coasts of 
the kingdom of Siak, called Salettians. 
These men are said to smell the swine long be- 
fore they see them, and when they do this, they im- 
mediately prepare their boats. They then send out 
their dogs, which are trained to this kind of hunt- 
ing, along the strand, where, by their barking, 
they prevent the swine from coming ashore, and 
concealing themselves among the bushes. During 
the passage the boars precede, and are followed by 
the females and the young, all in regular rows, each 
resting its snout on the rump of the preceding one* 
Swimming thus in close rows, they form a singular 
appearance. 
The Salettians, men and women, meet them in 
their small flat boats. The former row, and throw 
large mats, made of the long leaves of the Panda- 
mus odoratissima interwoven through each other, 
before the leader of each row of swine, which still 
continues to swim with great strength ; but, soon 
pushing their feet into the mats, they get so entangled 
as to be able either no longer to move them, or only 
to move them very slowly. The rest are, however, 
neither alarmed nor disconcerted, but k$ep close t© 
each other, none of them leaving the position in 
