The Golden Chersonese and The Way Thither, page 309 by Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
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e chaff is driven away by the wind. It is husked by a pestle, and it requires some skill to avoid crushing the grain. All these operations are performed by women.
The Perak Malays don't like working for other people, but some of them cultivate sugar-cane and maize for sale. Even for clearing jungle-land foreign labor has to be resorted to.
Ah, that swamp is a doleful region! One cannot tell where it ends and where the jungle begins, and dark, heavy, ominous-looking clouds generally concealed the forest-covered hills which are not far off. I almost felt the redundancy of vegetation to be oppressive, and the redundancy of insect and reptile life certainly was so; swarms of living creatures leaped in and out of the water, bigger ones hidden from view splashed heavily, and a few blackish, slug-like looking reptiles, which drew blood, and hung on for an hour or two, attached themselves to my ankles. I was amused when Captain Walker congratulated himself on the absence of leeches, for these blood-suckers were at least their next of kin. I fell down into the water twice from the submerged ridge that I tried to walk upon, but there is no risk of cold from a hot bath in a stove.
Then we came to a smothered, reedy, ditch-like stream, in which was an old "dug-out" half full of water, in which we managed to stow ourselves, and by careful balancing contrived to keep its edges just above the water. Our impeded progress down this ditch startled myriads of whirring, splashing creatures. The ditch opened into a reedy swamp where hideous pink water buffaloes were wallowing and enjoying themselves, but on the report of a gun they all plunged into deep water and swam away, except for their big horns, looking more like hippopotami than bovine quadrupeds. They are nearly as ugly as a rhinoceros; all albino animals are ugly, and when these are wet their hides are a bright salmon pink.
The swamp merged itself into a lotus lake, covered over much of its extent with thousands of noble leaves and rose-pink bloss