of these we jumped, but when we came to canals we had to hunt for bridges or stop-offs. Most bridges are formed of a single plank, but sometimes we had to cross on the trunk of a tree, helped precariously by a handrail made of a sapling laid across on forks from bank to bank. The rubber groves are melancholy. The foliage is dark, and the trees are planted at such close intervals and so regularly that one seldom finds a glade. The ground beneath is clean weeded, and drab with dead leaves. As far as you can see are the black arches of rubber, and the white day beyond is blinding in contrast. There are thousands of acres of rubbertrees, each trunk with its little cup hanging, and each grove is as black as the last. There is a depressing tidiness about them. The outside edges of the groves are pictures que, especially when the trees are shedding their leaves. They turn brown and russet then, and make one stir with the idea of autumn the autumn which never follows our eternal summer. Beyond our bamboo hedge the rubber branches droop and close in our bungalow. At present the leaves are edged with paler green, and they fold down upon one another like the wing feathers of birds. It was an interesting walk. There are ant-hills as tall as myself in some parts. I knocked in the crumbling side of one, VOL. CCXXI.-NO. MCCCXXXIX. and the yellowish creatures came swarming out. The finely granulated soil of these heaps makes an excellent surface for hard tennis courts and roads. It is largely used for such purposes. We saw squirrels in the rubber, after the seeds which are now ripening, and near the coconut fields by the water we saw monkeys in swarms. The coconut groves are full of sunshine, and the fantastic heads of the palms are constantly in motion. Spread out like untidy windmills, the fronds catch every breeze. They grate and rustle, until you might think yourself listening to the sea. The winds flow through them like currents. Coconuts drop occasionally, crashing through the branches, and thudding to the ground from great heights. The fronds fall too as they grow old, and the coolies gather them into piles so that there may be no obstruction to the gathering of nuts. Yesterday evening we walked up from the jetty along the unfrequented river bund, and came across a watchman flinging stones from a sling at monkeys. There seemed to be a whole village of them in the jungle fringe, and we watched them for some time as they made incredible leaps through the air. They spread out all four limbs, and seemed to fly from tree to tree, catching at twigs to guide themselves, and to break their fall when land2A2 ing. We saw mothers with the monkeys would have chased him, and woe to Q if they caught him! Sometimes these grey creatures will set upon a solitary man, but they seldom attack unless they are in overwhelming numbers. The old males are very fierce. babies clinging to their stomachs, and though it must have been difficult for them to direct their leaps, they managed very well. All these monkeys were waiting for an opportunity to cross the bund to the coconut fields that stretch beside the river. The watchman who walks up and down has a frontage of several miles to guard, so that the monkeys have a good chance to steal nuts, though they usually betray themselves by chattering and jumping about. They were very angry at our dog Q, who ran along ahead of us. The bund, or embankment which keeps the river out of the fields, follows the stream in all its twists, and the jungle fringe grows on the outside in the mud of the river bank, so that while walking we had the coconut fields on our left, and the jungle immediately on our right. As the bund is raised considerably, at times we could look over the wild growth to the river. We went in single filefirst Q, trotting on feverishly on the look-out for excitement, then myself, and then R., with a stick in case of snakes. Whenever Q saw a solitary monkey, he made for it and barked furiously, even even rushing down into the slime. The monkey would cough and swing with rage. But if there were many monkeys together, Q would run on, as he seemed to recognise the danger. If he had been alone We were walking briskly along, startled at times by the darting mudfish, or admiring the long dagger-like seeds of some of the trees, which fall point down and plant themselves in the slime, when Q did an extraordinary thing. He stopped suddenly, crouched, and then leaned forward over his front paws, as if to see better. Then he half turned to come back. His black tail drooped. What had he seen? He went forward again gingerly, sniffed, started, and then turning, climbed down to the left, off the path, and trotted along the inner slope of the bund for about twenty yards. Then he climbed up on the bund again, and looked back over the space he had missed. Again he sniffed, crouched, and looked uneasy, and then went on. "There's something in the jungle that he did not like," said R. 66 Do you think it's a snake? Can't tell. Let me go first. Q would never have behaved like that unless there were some danger." We went along slowly, keeping a sharp watch on the mud to the right, expecting a python at the very least. Suddenly there was a commotion, and a and she hobbles about on crutches, and has done so for the past twenty years. Others have not been so fortunate. baby crocodile, not two feet some miracle she was saved, long, left the bund, and made a dash for the river through the jungle fringe. We were both startled. It was a sharppointed creature, of a mudbrown colour. We watched it until it was hidden by roots, and then I began to be afraid that the mother was not far off. There was little room on the bund, and a broad irrigation canal lay on our left, between us and the coconut fields. A large crocodile might give us a lively time. We decided not to take any risks, but to follow Q's example, and walk on the inner slope for the dangerous distance. Then we remounted and looked back. We could see nothing, but anything could have been lurking in that tangle of trees and mud. Crocodiles are fond of snapping up dogs and monkeys, and both are commonly used for bait. It is only a few hundred yards across the river from this place to the virgin jungle of the delta, where tigers stalk, and in times of want these beasts have been known to swim the river and fall upon stray cattle, or even There are many varieties of snakes brought in by the European assistants. Last week a young python was caught in the new clearing. It was ten feet long, and beautifully marked. In felling the jungle one constantly finds snakes, and the gangs of coolies kill them with enthusiasm There are whip-snakes, which twist their tails around trees and strike at your eyes when you pass; and there is the hamadryad, the dreaded kingcobra, the only snake in these parts which attacks unprovoked. His poison is deadly. A transport bull was pulling a punt up the canal a short time ago, and in sidling around a bridge it walked through a ground vine. It must have been bitten by the lurking cobra immediately, for in a few minutes, when the men had finished detaching and attaching the chains from the load, the bull was dead. If that can happen to an animal of tremendous weight, what chance has a man? These hamadryads are fortunately rare, but they crop up at intervals. Upon sighting you they come straight at you with great speed. If you're a swift runner you can outrun them. For my part, I think I should be paralysed with fear, as one is in a nightmare. A former manager of this estate was walking through the coconuts one day not so long ago when he heard a coolie give a scream. He looked around, and there was a hamadryad rushing after a tapper. It was useless to try to do anything. The snake was upon the man in a second, and it was all over. Mac was telling me how he was chased by one of these creatures in his own garden. He was sitting in his verandah (his bungalow has two storeys) when he heard a strange noise in the hedge, like a monkey screaming. He went down into the garden, and there was a hamadryad in the act of striking at a monkey. As soon as the cobra saw Mac, it left the monkey and came straight at him like an arrow. Mac turned and bolted upstairs three at a time, and locked himself in his bedroom. Then he got a plank and a pole. With the help of his servant he pushed the plank over the partition, and threw it on the snake. They managed to pin it down by the tail. Then they poked at it with the pole, and when it reared to strike, they broke its neck with a sharp blow. Mac said that it was fifteen feet long, and that the hood was as large as his two outspread hands. fawny brown, with two parallel stripes from the head down the back. They roam about at night looking for fruit and small animals, and they are useful in keeping down rats. One afternoon when I was sitting very quietly in the mosquito-room, I heard a scattering in the roof, and from the eaves came a column of rats, jumping and sliding from the rafters into the open. The moosang was getting busy. When I came here first the moosang woke me up every morning at about three, when it came home to sleep. It sounded like a herd of elephants trampling over the board ceiling. But I am used to it now. Last week one of the men came over with a live moosang spitting from a wire in which the head and tail had been twisted. It was a present for me. However, I could not bear to think of killing it for the skin, so we sent it back. Yesterday enter the moosang, stuffed ! Its eyes were blue glass. A stick extended down the back of its spine from the head to the middle of its tail, leaving the tip to droop. The boy trembled with pride at this object. It appeared that he had thought we might like it as an ornament! To-day comes the man who stuffed the animal, with a request for a dollar. We sent the moosang to an assistant who is interested in natural history. Speaking of queer animals reminds me of our boarder the moosang. Almost all the bungalows here have moosangs living in their roofs. They are crea- The early morning here is tures like large wild cats, of a lovely when it is chilly and fresh with dew. All the brilliant flowers stand up in their colours of red, orange, and blue, and the garden is a picture. Before breakfast we went for a walk up the coconut straight, and back through the rubber. The tappers were busy. We watched one man. He loosened the end of the dried rubber strip with his knife, pulled the strip off the old cut like a piece of grey elastic, and then shaved off a thin sliver of bark. The latex began to stream from the incision into the cup below the tin lead. Then putting the old rubber into his pouch, the tapper moved on to the next tree. These men are very deft. The European assistants and the native labourers turn out before dawn to work, and the former go to the distant parts of the estate on bicycles. The bicycle is the most important means of communication in this locality, where we are so far from the splendid Government roads. You meet cyclists tottering along, invariably with passengers on the carrier, whose awkward legs stick out into the path of the oncoming motorist. The machines carry incredible loads. Once we saw two men bicycles with a load of heavy planks stretched between them. There are Chinese pedlars with crates of chickens and ducks, and Malays with bulging sacks of fruit behind them. The tyres must be very strong. on The Government roads in this country are perhaps the finest in the world, and it is a joy to motor on them. We are separated from them by seven miles of estate, and a river over which we cross if we wish to go anywhere. The jungle river at the estate ferry is wonderful. A dense growth of Nipa palms crowds the shore, and behind it is the bakau, or firewood preserve, full of monkeys. There is a water-gate which gives on to a sort of bay in the jungle growth. This in turn leads to the swift river. In this inlet the ferry waits a clumsy wooden platform rowed by three men with long oars. The men set two planks from the bank to the ferry, and we run our car up them. Then we push off, stooping as the creepers trail over us, or leaning out to catch sight of orchids growing from the trees where large monkeys swing and chatter. Soon we are out in the stream, and the current catches us. Up and down the river the banks bend out of sight in heavy foliage, and if the tide is full you see floating islands of trees and palms swimming up and down. Ultimately they reach the sea, but till they do they are a nuisance, as they menace boats and bridges in their erratic wanderings. The Taiping Hills can be seen from here, blue in the distance, and there is usually a deep peace over everything. The sunsets at the ferry are past dreams. The green of the sky, the violet clouds, and the blazing west, where heaven and |