by wedges in a groove at top,
compressing by this means the pulp of the nut, which yields an oil that
falls into a trough made for its reception below. In the farther parts of
the country this oil also, owing to the scarcity of coconuts, is dear;
and not so much used for burning as that from other vegetables, and the
dammar or rosin, which is always at hand.

TORCHES.

When travelling at night they make use of torches or links, called suluh,
the common sort of which are nothing more than dried bamboos of a
convenient length, beaten at the joints till split in every part, without
the addition of any resinous or other inflammable substance. A superior
kind is made by filling with dammar a young bamboo, about a cubit long,
well dried, and having the outer skin taken off.

These torches are carried with a view, chiefly, to frighten away the
tigers, which are alarmed at the appearance of fire; and for the same
reason it is common to make a blaze with wood in different parts round
their villages. The tigers prove to the inhabitants, both in their
journeys and even their domestic occupations, most fatal and destructive
enemies. The number of people annually slain by these rapacious tyrants
of the woods is almost incredible. I have known instances of whole
villages being depopulated by them. Yet, from a superstitious prejudice,
it is with difficulty they are prevailed upon, by a large reward which
the India Company offers, to use methods of destroying them till they
have sustained some particular injury in their own family or kindred, and
their ideas of fatalism contribute to render them insensible to the risk.

TIGER-TRAPS.

Their traps, of which they can make variety, are very ingeniously
contrived. Sometimes they are in the nature of strong cages, with falling
doors, into which the beast is enticed by a goat or dog enclosed as a
bait; sometimes they manage that a large timber shall fall, in a groove,
across his back; he is noosed about the loins with strong rattans, or he
is led to ascend a plank, nearly balanced, which, turning when he is past
the centre, lets him fall upon sharp stakes prepared below. Instances
have occurred of a tiger being caught by one of the former modes, which
had many marks in his body of the partial success of this last expedient.
The escapes, at times, made from them by the natives are surprising, but
these accounts in general carry too romantic an air to admit of being
repeated as facts. The