652 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NUTMEG AND ITS CULTIVATION. 
lar enough they are better content, working harder and earning less 
by the former system than the latter. Few labourers in the world 
can equal them when working on their own accouut, but on regular 
wages they are most complete eye servants: they are however upon 
the whole the best class of field labourers. The usual monthly pay to 
good strong men is 3 to 3^ Spanish dollars per month, hut those who 
have become expert at any particular work very soon discover their 
value and cannot be kept without an increase of wages. Malays are 
to be had for dollars 2|- per month, audit is well to mix them with the 
Chinese; in making sheds for trees and all work where the rattan is 
used, they are more expert, they are also more to be trusted, and are 
a very wholesome check upon the vagabond sons of Han. Patience 
and temper are eminently necessary to get on with the Malay ; they 
are not to be driven, but kindness and a little banter occasionally 
have excellent effect upon them. The Boyans are the most quiet, the 
most honest, and the most to be trusted of any of the races we see 
here; they are very slow and not over bright, but they perform their 
work as well in the absence of the overseer as before him, and they 
are by far the best nut gatherers. The Klings, or natives from the 
coast of Coromandel, are good workers if they choose to exert them¬ 
selves, but they are the most wretched eye servants, and seem to de¬ 
light in chicanery of all sorts : unlike the Malay, fear is the only mo¬ 
tive capable of exciting them to action, and the application of the 
Mundoor’s or Superintendent’s rattan seems the only argument they 
understand; they are chiefly valuable in taking care of horses or cat¬ 
tle, cutting grass and driving carts, all other work is better done by 
Chinese or Malays ; their wages is about the same as Chinese la¬ 
bourers, that is from 3 to 3|- dollars per month. 
Manuring, making sheds over young plants, and extirpating bad 
grasses, are works which had better be performed by the regular 
monthly labourers on the estate, and indeed so soon as a plantation 
comes into bearing all contract labour must cease, as by admitting 
strangers the facilities for robbery would be more than any supervision 
could fustrate. The number of men to be kept on an estate, to pre¬ 
serve it in first rate order, after it has come into bearing, must de¬ 
pend of course upon the size of the plantation, but in general one 
man for every 100 trees will be found sufficient, provided there be 
some 4 to 5 thousand trees. On a small scale the proportion must be 
greater, as the idlers, such as those who take care of and prepare the 
spice, gather the nuts, and manage the horses and carts, tell more 
