six inches long, usually of carved work and about two inches diameter, in which is fixed lengthwise a blade of four or five inches, secured at the extremes by points bent to a right angle and entering the wood.  To this is added a piece of very small bamboo from two to three inches long, fixed at right angles across the back of the wood, with a notch for receiving it, and pinned through by a small peg.  This bamboo rests in the hollow of the hand, one end of the piece of wood passing between the two middle fingers, with the blade outwards; the natives always cutting FROM them.* With this in the right hand and a small basket slung over the left shoulder, they very expeditiously crop the heads of padi one by one, bringing the stalk to the blade with their two middle fingers, and passing them, when cut, from the right hand to the left.  As soon as the left hand is full the contents are placed in regular layers in the basket (sometimes tied up in a little sheaf), and from thence removed to larger baskets, in which the harvest is to be conveyed to the dusun or village, there to be lodged in the tangkian or barns, which are buildings detached from the dwelling-houses, raised like them from the ground, widening from the floor towards the roof, and well lined with boards or coolitcoy.  In each removal care is taken to preserve the regularity of the layers, by which means it is stowed to advantage, and any portion of it readily taken out for use.

(Footnote.  The inhabitants of Menangkabau are said to reap with an instrument resembling a sickle.)

LOW-GROUND RICE.

Sawahs are plantations of padi in low wet ground, which, during the growth of the crop, in the rainy season between the months of October and March,* are for the most part overflowed to the depth of six inches or a foot, beyond which latter the water becomes prejudicial.  Level marshes, of firm bottom, under a moderate stratum of mud, and not liable to deep stagnant water, are the situations preferred; the narrower hollows, though very commonly used for small plantations, being more liable to accidents from torrents and too great depth of water, which the inhabitants have rarely industry enough to regulate to advantage by permanent embankments.  They are not however ignorant of such expedients, and works are sometimes met with, constructed for the purpose chiefly of supplying the deficiency of rain to several adjoining sawahs by means of sluices, contrived with no small degree of skill and attention to levels.

(Footnote.  In the Transactions of the Batavian Society the following mention is made of the cultivation of rice in Java.  The padi sawa is sown in low watered grounds in the month of March, transplanted in April, and reaped in August.  The padi tipar is sown in high ploughed lands in November, and reaped in March (earlier in the season than I could have supposed.) when sown where woods have been recently cut down, or in the clefts of the hills (klooven van het gebergte) it is named padi gaga.  Volume 1 page 27.)