each crew, and to the owners of the
crafts and nets, are all determined by ancient custom. The unwritten law
is clearly recognised and understood by all concerned, and thus the
constant disputes which would otherwise inevitably arise are avoided.
Custom--_Aadat_--is the fetish of the Malay. Before it even the _Hukum
Shara_, the Divine Law of the Prophet, is powerless, in spite of the
professed Muhammadanism of the people. 'Let our children die rather than
our customs,' says the vernacular proverb, and for once an old saw
echoes the sentiment of a race.

The average monthly earnings of a fisherman is about sixteen shillings
($8), and though to our ideas this sounds but a poor return for all the
toil and hardship he must endure, and the many risks and dangers which
surround his avocation, to a simple people it is all-sufficient.

A fisherman can live in comfort on some three shillings a month, and
wife and little ones can, therefore, be supported, and money saved
against the close season, if a man be prudent. The owners of boats and
nets receive far larger sums, but none the less they generally take an
active part in the fishing operations. From one end of the coast to the
other, the capitalist who owns many crafts, and lives upon the income
derived from their hire, is almost unknown.

The fish crowd the shallow shoal waters, and move up and down the coast,
during the whole of the open season, in great schools acres in extent.
Occasionally their passage may be marked from afar by the flight of
hungry sea-fowl hovering and flittering above them; the white plumage of
the restless birds glints and flashes in the sunlight as they wheel and
dip and plunge downwards, or soar upwards again with their prey. I have
seen a school of fish beating the surface of the quiet sea into a
thousand glistening splashes, as in vain they attempted to escape their
restless pursuers, who, floating through the air above them, or plunging
madly down, belaboured the water with their wings, and kept up a
deafening chorus of gleeful screamings.

These seas carry almost everything that the salt ocean waters can
produce. Just as the forests of the Peninsula teem with a life that is
strangely prodigal in its profusion, and in the infinite variety of its
forms, so do the waters of the China sea defy the naturalist to classify
the myriad wonders of their denizens. The shores are strewn with shells
of all shapes and sizes, which display every delicate s