These plantations continue to increase with surprising rapidity and it may be said, at the present day, that four million trees are to be found in an area of 200,000 acres.
When one considers that each tree renders, on an average, from 5 to 6 pounds of gum, and that that of Perak—chemically proved to be pure—is quoted on the market at 6/10 per pound—whilst the best produced by other countries does not exceed 5/7—one can form a pretty correct estimate of the enormous sum derived from the Para rubber of Perak.
It was generally supposed that this valuable tree would suffer if it surpassed a thousand metres in height but in the Malay Peninsula it grows and nourishes even higher than 1,600 metres, especially the so-called ficus elasticus and India-rubber.
The British Government is doing its best to increase this cultivation, and "its best" in this case really means "the very best" because besides concession of land, and the providing of seed at a low rate, the Government aids this industry, in which so many millions are invested, by the making of fine, wide high-roads as well as by maintaining railways for the conveyance of goods, fixing a minimum tariff for the transport.
Perhaps some one will accuse me of being too partial in my remarks upon the work done by the British Government in this its remote Eastern Protectorate, but having assisted for many years in the ever increasing agricultural and commercial development of the peninsula, and having seen the steady conquest civilization has made by means of the most practical and surest methods—such as the patient training of the natives to the love of work, and the prompt and conscientious administration of justice—I cannot but admire the enlightened and benificent activity displayed by the English in those parts.
Closed this parenthesis about the plantations, which are now spreading far and wide over the forest (the wood-cutter's hatchet continually clearing new tracts of land for agricultural enterprises), I want you to return with me to the jungle which is still almost untrodden and where Nature reigns supreme over the thick tropical vegetation.
Having already spoken briefly and in a disorderly way of the riches which are here gratuitously offered—not the riches of Midas and Pymalion, because mother Nature does not refuse food to her children even if they are profaners of that wonderful temple of her fecundity—it is right that I should now draw your attention to two great friends of travellers in the forest. One is the bamboo and the other a creeper called the "water vine".
The bamboo, known to us only as one of the plants least considered in a large, well-kept garden, or as a polished walking stick, as the legs of a fancy table of uncertain equilibrium or as a tobacco box ably worked by Chinese or Japanese fingers, in the free forest becomes a colossal inhabitant. Its canes, at first tender and supple, grow to such a size, and so strong as to be used for water conduits. It is a vigorous and invasive plant that covers the surrounding ground with new shoots whilst in under its long roots spread out and suck up all the vital nutriment to be found in the earth around.
To one who lives in the forest, the bamboo is as necessary as food itself. It provides light, solid huts; it makes the blowpipe, arrow and quiver; it serves for carrying water and preserving fruit; it forms a safe recipient for poisonous juices; it is bottle and glass, and finally supplies the native cooks with a saucepan that only they can use because they have the knack of cooking their food without burning the bamboo. I have often tried to do the same but the result has always been that pot and pottage have been burnt together.