A new fishmarket has been erected, and this building, together with the right of buying and selling all the fish caught, is let annually to the highest bidder with the other farms. No regular fisheries are organised, nor is any record kept of the quantity and description of fish supplied. It is estimated at about 1000 piculs. In the capture of fish along the coast, seine nets and “kelongs” or bamboo traps are used. In deep water a baited hook and line.
An oil-spring exists in the forest, near the mines, at an elevation of 130 feet above the sea, the yield during wet season being about 12 gallons of petroleum every twenty-four hours. The highest land in the island is Bukit Kalám, 280 feet above sea level. The total area in scrubs and fern is 1000 acres, timber or forest about 300 acres. The quit-rents on lands sold for 999 years produce about £230 annually. It not being considered advisable to alienate any further crown lands at present on account of the low prices obtainable, the Government rice lands are let annually for prices varying from two to four shillings per acre. The edible fruits cultivated are fine oranges of several kinds, excellent pomoloes, Durian, mangoes, tarippe, rambutan, jack-fruit and champada, rose apples (jambosa), cocoanuts, mangosteen, rambi, bananas in variety, limes, guava, papaw, cashew nut, and several others, including the bread-fruit, baloonas, mambangan. The total revenue in 1877 was £7,490, the expenditure being £7,995. Imports, total value, £126,594, exports £112,996. Cattle and ponies are cheap—thus, good cows are worth £2 to £4 each; Shanghai sheep, £1 to £2; goats, 10s. each; ponies, £4 to £10. These last are imported from the Sulu Islands. Water buffaloes are generally used as draught animals, and are worth from £4 to £6 each.
The whole island is tolerably flat, and at one time was entirely covered with forests, yielding fine timber. Of late years, however, jungle fires have been frequent during the dry season; and at the present time but little old forest remains. The climate is now generally supposed to be drier and more healthy than formerly; but the flora has suffered much, many orchids and other rare plants, formerly found here in abundance, being now quite extinct. After the rains a lovely little blue burmannia (B. cœlestis), and a tiny sundew become very pretty on the plains. Yellow flowered xyrids and eriocaulons grace the wet ditches, and the orange orchards are redolent with perfume, the trees being then in bloom, and at night the gardens are illuminated with fire-flies.
ELK’S-HORN FERN.
I resided for some time in a house which had been occupied by Mr. Hugh Low, the garden and fruit orchard of which afforded the most delightful walks morning and evening. I never saw the elk’s-horn fern (Platycerium grande) so luxuriant anywhere as it was on the boles of some large orange-trees here. The barren fronds were broad, like the horns of the giant Irish elk; and the more slender fertile ones drooped on all sides from the base of the nest formed by the leafy expansions. I measured some of these fertile fronds, and found them fully seven feet in length. These splendid ferns (one of which is here represented in my sketch), and the choicest of epiphytal orchids, which had been planted among the branches of the trees, made a walk amongst them most enjoyable. I thought at the time I should never like to see orchids, and other rare exotics stewed up in a glass shed again, after seeing them thus luxuriant in the open air.
The flowering trees, many of which have been introduced into the gardens, are very lovely a week or two after the rains. Poinciana regia, two or three species of cassia, and Lagerstrœmia regina, and L. indica, with white lilac or rosy flowers, are common. Different kinds of jasmines, ixoras, and hibiscus flower freely nearly all the year, as also does Thunbergia laurifolia, which drapes trees, and fences, the fire-blossomed pomegranate, the fragrant oleander; there are also pools filled with the sunshade-like leaves and rosy flowers of the Sacred Lotus, the beauty of which rivals even the celebrated Lotus pools of Japan. One or two honey-suckles and Jasminum grandiflorum form tangled masses in the hedges, the pearly flowers of Pancratium zeylanicum spring up from the grass, sheltered here and there by caladium leaves, and a scarlet hippeastrum forms glowing masses in old gardens, and on waste places where houses have once been situated.
Where many indigenous plants have died out, this hippeastrum has become naturalised: the light sandy soil and hot sun seem to suit its requirements; and it increases so freely, that a barrow-load of bulbs might be dug from a square yard of earth. Another introduced plant, perfectly naturalised here, as also in Penang and Singapore, is the dwarf and acrid Isotoma longiflora, which bears snowy-white long-tubed flowers. The purple-flowered “Mudar” (Calotropis gigantea), and the glorious mauve wreaths of Bougainvillea spectabilis, are in places very beautiful. The climate is hot, especially during the dry season; but about five o’clock P.M., when the land breeze sets in, it is cool and agreeable.
Mangoes, especially the fine Manilla varieties, and pomoloes, grow well in the gardens and orchards, as also do oranges of various kinds. The soil is so poor, however, that in order to obtain fine fruit, it is necessary to keep a herd of cattle, and to fold them at night, for the sake of a good supply of manure. Where the trees are planted on the grass, a circle beneath each is cultivated with the “chunkal,” or heavy iron hoe; and this is regularly manured and watered. It is quite usual to see the boles of mango and some other fruit trees gashed with blows from a chopper at intervals, an operation analogous to the ringing or strangulation formerly practised in English gardens before root-pruning came into fashion. This is done to induce the trees to bear fruit earlier, and more abundantly.
There is only one species of bird endemic, a lively black and white one (Copsychus amœnus), which frequents gardens near the bungalows, and sings very sweetly during wet weather; indeed, it was the only Eastern song bird which reminded me of our dappled thrush at home. Of eagles and fish hawks there are several species. Tern are seen in flocks on neighbouring sand-banks. Golden plover and snipe abound on the plain near the shore, and there two or three sand pipers and rails. The white crane, or “padi bird,” is common; and the long-pinioned frigate bird wheels overhead, far out of gun-shot, diving now and then into the sea after food with wonderful velocity. The mellow whistle of the mino bird is one of the most familiar sounds of the forest, especially when the fruit of the wild figs ripen, and then white, large blue, and pretty little green tree pigeons of many kinds appear, attended by flocks of glossy, red-eyed starlings.