THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
13 
in lonely creeks and straits we see liim in a small boat, which 
is his cradle, his house, and his bed of death; which gives him 
all the shelter he ever needs, and enables him to seize the food 
which always surrounds him. On plains, and on the banks of 
rivers, we see the civilized planter converting the moist flats into 
rice fields, overshadowing his neat cottage of bambti, nibong, and 
palm leaves with the graceful and bounteous cocoanut, and sur¬ 
rounding it with fruits, the variety and flavour of which Euro¬ 
pean luxury might envy, and often with fragrant flowering trees 
and shrubs which the greenhouses of the West do not possess. 
\\here the land is not adapted for wet rice, he pursues a system 
of husbandry which the farmer of Europe would view with as¬ 
tonishment. Too indolent to collect fertilizing appliances, and well 
aware that the soil will not yield two successive crops of rice, 
he takes hut one, after having felled and burned the forest; and he 
then seeks a new locality, leaving nature, during a ten years fallow, 
to accumulate manure for his second crop on the old one, in the ve¬ 
getable matter elaborated by the new forest that springs up. 
Relieved from the care of his crop he searches the forests for 
rattans, canes, timber, fragrant v woods, oils, wax, gums, caout¬ 
chouc, gutta-percha, dyes, camphor, wild nutmegs, the tusks of the 
elephant, the horn and bide of the rhinoceros, the skin of the 
tiger, parrots, birds of paradise, argus pheasants, and materials 
for mats, roof, baskets, and receptacles of various kinds. If 
he lives near the coast, be collects fish, fish maws, fish roes, 
slugs (trepang), seaweed, (agaragar), tortoiseshell, rare corals and 
mother of pearl. To the eastward, great fishing voyages are an¬ 
nually made to the shores of Australia for trepang. In many parts, 
pepper, coffee, or betelnut, to a large, and tobacco, ginger, and other 
articles, to a considerable, extent, are cultivated. Where the hirtmdo 
esculenta is found, the rocks are clomb and the caves explored for 
its costly edible nest. In different parts of the Archipelago the soil is 
dug for tin, antimony, iron, gold or diamonds. The more civilized 
nations make clotns and weapons, not only for their ow r n use but 
for exportation. The traders, including the Rajahs, purchase the 
commodities which w r e have mentioned, dispose of them to the 
European, Chinese, Arab, or Kling navigator, who visits their 
shores, or send them in their own vessels to the markets of Sin- 
