When road and rail are not available, our sole resource is the water, which has always been a vital element in Malay life. We may travel in canoes of various kinds, and for long journeys we may hire a roomy houseboat, such as we see here on the 24 Pahang river. If no boats are to be had, we may build a raft 25 of bamboo and on it drift down stream. Our journey will not be without excitement, as there may be rapids to be negotiated, and we must be careful where we bathe, as there are crocodiles 26 in plenty. Near the river mouths and along the coast we find sailing boats, often of the junk type, which remind us of China; and the larger ports have their coasting steamers, owned in some cases by Chinese capitalists in Singapore. Malaya, with its warmth, ample rainfall and many streams, is naturally the land of the rice swamp and coconut palm. As we travel southwards from Penang, the rice fields stretch monotonously mile after mile over the flat lands between the railway and the sea. These great levels do not make good 27 pictures, but here is one of them. The native in the foreground is beckoning eastern fashion, with the hand pointed downwards. The ditch beside him is an irrigation channel. The water is impounded in rough reservoirs on the valley slopes and allowed to flow down to these channels; sometimes, too, it is raised from a lower level by a primitive water wheel, with bamboo tubes fixed on its rim as buckets. Experience has made the native skilful in irrigation work of this kind.