Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

ENVIRONMENT
been formed exactly in the manner described, and measures about
sixty miles in length by about twenty in the broadest part ; the upper
part of it is fresh water and the lower part salt, and in most parts
it is so shallow as to be difficult of navigation, except for the native
canoes or boats specially constructed. The Cape of Patani is
another example of one of these long sandy peninsulas. It measures
about four miles in length.
The western coast is protected from the full force of the southwestern
monsoon by the Island of Sumatra, which forms a natural
breakwater, and gives to the Straits of Malacca the character of a
vast river or lake. With every tide the Straits fill from the open
sea, the tides rising to a height of between twenty and thirty feet.
Here and there, at intervals along the western coast, e.g. for many
miles along the coast of the Malacca District, as well as at the northern
and southern extremities of the coast -line of Selangor, extend
magnificent expanses of sandy beach, fringed here and there by
coconut palms, but more generally by what looks at first sight
something like a row of larches, in reality the Casuarina, or " sheoak
" tree of Australia. Here, more especially on the shore of
Kuala Langat, their favourite haunt, wander from time to time rare
scattered parties of the Sea-Jakun, the women fishing for the small
fry in the hot and shallow waters, the men spearing razorshells,
or digging out mussels with a quick twist of their jungle-knife from
among the roots of the " api-api " trees, or collecting cockles and
other bivalves whose tracks and haunts revealed themselves to the
initiated eye alone in the bright and smoking sands.
In spite of these and other most welcome breaks in the
monotony of the mangrove, however, there is less open coast on
this side of the Peninsula than there is on the eastern, and almost
anywhere the serried ranks of mangrove trees can be seen, working
their way out from the river-mouths into the sea, their network of
prong- like roots checking the dispersion of the soil continually
eroded and carried down by the wash of the tidal rivers, and build-
ing it up with continual accretions and by sensible gradations into
higher and firmer banks. One of the chief causes of this alteration
of the coast-line, which although it is gaining on the sea in places,
is in others losing ground with equal rapidity, is undoubtedly the
velocity of the tides and the continual alteration in the set of the
marine currents. For the alteration of the geographical character
of the interior, however, the chief factor is undoubtedly the climate,
which has a temperature varying from about 68" to a little above
90° in the shade in the plains, and the torrential rainfall (varying from
about 90 inches to 130 inches per annum)—a combination which
naturally tends to turn the greater part of the country into a
forcing-house calculated to promote the most rapid development
conceivable of every form of vegetation.