The _Blandong_ people or foresters are generally employed in cutting or in dragging timber during eight months out of the twelve, but they are obliged to watch the forests the whole year through: they are regularly relieved, and half the working men are at all times left disposable for the rice fields. The _Blandong_ people have always been accustomed to the work, and generally have their villages near the principal forests. It is one of the advantages of the system of contracting with the people for land payments, that in emergencies they are willing to lend their own buffaloes to assist those of government in dragging heavy timber, which could not be removed otherwise without great expence, while their children at other times watch and attend the cattle belonging to government. In short, the resources of the village are at the disposal of government, for a land payment considerably less than one-third of the expence of hired labourers, whom it would be difficult to procure, and still more difficult, from the character of the people, to retain in constant and unremitting employment. Under the system of granting remissions of rent, it has been calculated that in the districts of _Semárang_, where the assessment is comparatively high, on account of the vicinity to a large capital, a remission of eight rupees and a half, or about twenty shillings, being the average amount paid annually by each cultivator, government obtains a man's hard labour for six months of the year. But as the inhabitants of the same village are generally accustomed to labour in the fields alternately, and thus to assist each other, it has been found advisable to make the remissions of rent for the _Blandongs_ to the village _as a community_, in order to avoid the delay and endless vexation which would ensue, in adjusting the petty claims of each individual. In the maritime districts on the north-east side of the island, a very large proportion of the population is employed in the fisheries, and so moderate are the seasons, that except perhaps for a few days at the change of the monsoon, they are seldom interrupted by the weather.