discovered, and the day will come
when these hill sides, like those of Ceylon and Java, will be covered
with thriving plantations.

Failing winter, the Bornean has to be content with the the change
afforded by a dry and a wet season, the latter being looked upon as the
"winter," and prevailing during the month of November, December and
January. But though the two seasons are sufficiently well defined and to
be depended upon by planters, yet there is never a month during the dry
season when no rain falls, nor in the wet season are fine days at all
rare. The dryest months appear to be March and April, and in June there
generally occurs what Doctor WALKER terms an "intermediate" and
moderately wet period.

Tobacco is a crop which yields quick returns, for in about 110 to 120
days after the seed is sown the plant is ripe for cutting. The _modus
operandi_ is somewhat after this fashion. First select your land, virgin
soil covered with untouched jungle, situated at a distance from the
sea, so that no salt breezes may jeopardise the proper burning qualities
of the future crop, and as devoid as possible of hills. Then, a point of
primary importance which will be again referred to, engage your Chinese
coolies, who have to sign agreements for fixed periods, and to be
carefully watched afterwards, as it is the custom to give them cash
advances on signing, the repayment of which they frequently endeavour to
avoid by slipping away just before your vessel sails and probably
engaging themselves to another master.

Without the Chinese cooly, the tobacco planter is helpless, and if the
proper season is allowed to pass, a whole year may be lost. The Chinaman
is too expensive a machine to be employed on felling the forest, and for
this purpose, indeed, the Malay is more suitable and the work is
accordingly given him to do under contract. Simultaneously with the
felling, a track should be cut right through the heart of the estate by
the natives, to be afterwards ditched and drained and made passable for
carts by the Chinese coolies.

That as much as possible of the felled jungle should be burned up is so
important a matter and one that so greatly affects the individual
Chinese labourer, that it is not left to the Malays to do, but, on the
completion of the felling, the whole area which is to be planted is
divided out into "fields," of about one acre each, and each "field" is
assigned by lot to a Chinese cooly, whose duty it is to caref