Gold Is Found In Tolerable Quantities, Even By The Malay Easy-Going
Manner Of Searching For It, And Diamonds And Garnets Are Tolerably
Abundant.
Gold can be washed with little difficulty from most of the
river beds, and from various alluvial deposits.
The metal thus found is
pure, but "rough and shotty." The nearer the mountains the larger the
find. It is of a rich, red color. Iron ore is abundant; but though coal
has been found, it is not of any commercial value. The methods of
mining both for tin and gold are of the most elementary kind, and it is
probable that Perak has still vast metallic treasures to yield up to
scientific exploration and Anglo-Saxon energy.
Rice is the staple food of the inhabitants. Dry rice on the hillsides
was the kind which was formerly exclusively cultivated, but from some
Indians who came from Sumatra to Perak the Malays have learned the mode
of growing the wet variety, and it is now largely practiced. Partly in
consequence of a great lack of agricultural energy, and partly from the
immense quantity of rice required by the non-producing Chinese miners,
Perak imported in 1881 rice to the value of 70,000 pounds.
There is scarcely a tropical product which this magnificent region does
not or may not produce, gutta-percha, india-rubber, sago, tapioca,
palm-oil and fibre, yams, sweet potatoes, cloves, nutmegs, coffee,
tobacco, pepper, gambier, with splendid fruits in perfection - the
banana, bread-fruit, anona, cocoa-nut, mangosteen, durion, jak-fruit,
cashew-nut, guava, bullock's heart, pomegranate, shaddock,
custard-apple, papaya, pine-apple, with countless others. The
indigenous fruits alone are so innumerable, that a description of the
most valuable of them would fill a chapter.
Our homely vegetables do not flourish, but watermelons, cucumbers,
gourds, capsicums, chilies, cocoa-nut cabbage, edible arums, and, where
the Chinese have settled, coarse lettuces, radishes, and pulse, grow
abundantly, with various other not altogether to be despised vegetables
with Malay names.
The timber is magnificent, and under the unworthy name of "jungle
produce" a large trade is done in it. Perak is the land of palms, and
produces the invaluable cocoa-palm, most parts of which have their
commercial value, the areca palm which produces the betel-nut, the
gomuti palm from whose strong black fibres they make ropes, cordage,
and strands for capturing the alligator; the jaggary-palm, from which
sugar is made, as well as a fermented beverage; the nibong palm, which
grows round the Malay kampong, and is used for their gridiron floors
and for the posts of their houses; the dwarf-palms which serve no other
purpose than to gladden the eyes by their beauty; and the nipah palm
which fringes the rivers, and, under the name of attap, forms the
thatch of both native and foreign houses.
Road-making has not made great strides in Perak, but railroads are
being planned, and a good road extends from the port of Larut to the
great Chinese mining town of Taipeng, and thence to the British
residency at Kwala Kangsa, a distance of over thirty-three miles, the
electric telegraph accompanying the road. Others are in course of
construction, and there are numerous elephant and jungle tracks through
the western parts of the State.
Still, the rivers form the natural highways. Perak has two ports - Teluk
Anson on the Perak river, thirty-four miles from its mouth, and Teluk
Kertang, a few miles up the Larut river, and eight miles from the great
tin mines of Taipeng. The import and export trade is carried on mainly
with Pinang, and at this time one of several small steamers leaves
Larut for that port daily. A steamer calls at Teluk Anson once a
fortnight on her voyage from and to Singapore and Pinang, and another
calls at the same port every fourth day, as well as at the Dindings and
the Bernam river.
Trade is rapidly advancing. The exports of the State, which were valued
at 147,993 pounds in 1876, amounted to 513,317 pounds in 1881; and the
imports which amounted to 166,275 pounds in 1876, had reached 488,706
pounds in 1881, the whole import and export trade of that year
amounting to 1,002,023 pounds. The free population of Perak is now
estimated at
Malays 56,000
Chinese 40,000
Other Asiatics 850
Europeans 90
Aborigines 1,000
- - -
97,940
To which may be added a slave and bond debtor population of nearly four
thousand souls.
The revenue of Perak has risen from 42,683 pounds in 1876 to 138,572
pounds in 1881; and the expenditure, keeping pace with it, has risen
from 45,277 pounds in 1876 to 130,587 pounds in 1881. The chief sources
of the Perak revenue are customs duties, opium and other farms and
licenses, and land revenue; and the chief items of expenditure are for
civil and police establishments, roads and bridges, and allowances and
pensions to chiefs. It is worthy of remark that the military
establishment - for so the magnificent Sikh armed police force may be
called - costs more than the civil establishment. It may also be
remarked that the revenue of Perak, thanks to the financial sagacity
and wise discrimination of the Resident, is collected with little
difficulty, and without inflicting any real vexations or hardships on
the taxpayers.
Public works, such as the construction of good cart roads and bridges,
the making of canals, the clearing rivers from impediments to
navigation, the enlargement of experimental gardens, the introduction
and breeding of sheep, cattle, and improved breeds of poultry,
surveying wild land, and rebuilding and draining mining towns, are
being carried on energetically. It has been found, after long and
carefully-conducted experiments, that the lower mountains of Perak are
admirably suited for the growth of tea, cinchona, and Arabian coffee,
while Liberian coffee grows equally well on the lower lands. Coffee
appears to be so nearly "played out" in Ceylon, that many
coffee-planters have been "prospecting" in Perak; and now that the
Government of India has consented to the importation of Indian coolie
labor into the State, under certain restrictions, as an experimental
measure, a future of coffee may be predicted with tolerable certainty.
One of the causes for satisfaction in connection with this State is
that the Malays themselves are undoubtedly contented with British rule,
and are prospering under it.
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