A number of natives were fishing upon the banks of the river with their peculiar hand-nets, called “Gniap:” this net is of a similar appearance, but of course smaller, to that used in the “Sarambeau fishing rafts,” at Manilla, of which there is a very correct figure in the Voyage of La Perouse, 8vo. Engl. ed. vol. ii. p. 322. On examining the contents of the baskets, which were rudely formed from the spathe of the Areka palm, they were found to contain only a few small fish, prawns, and biongs, or crabs. On their success, my native attendants informed me, the fishermen depend for their daily meal. During the rice and betel nut harvest, they earn their subsistence by cutting and threshing the former, and gathering and shelling the latter; but when the season for those productions has passed, they depend upon the fish caught with the hand-net, as a subsistence for themselves and families. I stood by one of them to see “a haul:” after a short time had elapsed, the heavy net was raised, and contained only a solitary fish and a few crabs. The nets were baited with crabs’ claws, tied about different parts. On a marsh near this spot a flock of two kinds of crane was feeding; one species small and white, and named “Ecuar,” the other much larger, of a greyish colour, and named “Ngnar, ngnar,” by the natives. Fruit was at this season scarce, a few guavas, plantains, and “jack,” was all that could be procured; but during the season, mangoosteens, a variety of plantains and bananas, oranges, pine-apples, mangoes, and other tropical fruits, could be procured in abundance. Having ranged about the Pedir Rajah’s district, near the sea coast, I returned on board in the evening with the collection I had made. Among the natives that occasionally came on board with the cargo boats, as well as those seen on shore, consisting of different races of Hindoostan, Malays, &c. there were several with the African features and hair; none of whom, however, were well-formed or handsome men, but still seemed to possess great muscular power. They were of that African race designated the “Black Arabs,” who are shipped as seamen on board vessels at Bushire and other places in the Persian Gulf. When I was looking at this variety of the human race, one of the rajah’s followers said he was the property of the rajah, and he would sell him to me, if I wanted him. As I did not require a specimen of that kind, I declined this very obliging offer. The land and sea breezes were for some days very regular, and at others extremely irregular, varying also in their degree of strength. The range of the thermometer, during the short period I remained on this coast, was from 79° to 88°.[150]