242 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
quite unknown, and not a clod is turned over. The 
mode of operation is for a man and woman to walk one 
behind the other, the man in front, dibbling a hole with a 
sharpened stick, into which the other drops one or two 
seeds, and then scratches a little earth over the hole 
with her toes. In this manner a large field is very soon 
planted with crops without any lengthened operation. 
In seven or eight weeks the corn is ready to pull, the 
paddy in the intermediate lines between the corn being 
rather poor-looking in consequence of being over¬ 
shadowed by its long stalks. As soon as the corn is 
cleared off' however, the paddy springs up rapidly, and 
in two months more it too is ready for cutting. During 
the time the paddy is coming to maturity the fields 
require weeding three times. In some cases, while the 
paddy is half grown, tapioca cuttings are planted. In all 
cases no sooner is the paddy cut than something else is 
coming on, either tapioca, kaladi, or what not, and before 
such crops as the last named are ripe, banana suckers 
and sugar-cane are planted. The ground being cleared 
of the tapioca, sweet potatoes are put in round the 
bananas, no further weeding is undertaken, and the 
sweet potatoes are left to fight it out with the grass. As 
soon as the potatoes begin to ripen, the yield is continu¬ 
ous, but when the weeds finally get the mastery, the 
people desert that place and make a new start somewhere 
else. . . . These operations occupy a term of two years 
or so, during which time crops of one sort or another are 
following each other in quick succession and without 
intermission. Paddy they store up, but nothing else, and 
from year’s end to year’s end, whatever else they require 
for the day’s consumption, they send into the fields and 
fetch.” So prolific is nature that the inhabitants of six 
crowded huts on the Kinabatangan have been known to 
