The Kadyans are very quick in selecting rich hits of
forest and in raising fine crops of rice, which forms the
main portion of their food. Rice and fish from the river
or sea, fruits from their gardens or the forest, and a few
simple vegetables are all the food they require. They
also collect gutta and caoutchouc, camphor and rattans,
from the forest, and the sale of these in Labuan, or to
the Chinese traders who visit the coast, enables them to
obtain cloth, muskets and ammunition, tobacco, and any
other little necessaries or luxuries of Chinese or European
manufacture which they may require. Although
less active than the Muruts, yet there are some fine men
among them, and their women, as a class, are perhaps the
most refined and intelligent of all the aboriginals, some,
when young, being singularly attractive. The boys are also
bright fellows, with a keener sense of humour than is
common in other tribes. They live a free and easy life,
contented and happy, and I could not help contrasting
the peace and plenty enjoyed by these people with the
squalor and misery in which the poor of civilised lands
are often plunged. Here, in these sunny wilds, an all-
bounteous Nature, with a minimum of labour, supplies
their every want, and it would be difficult to find another
country where man is more truly the “ monarch of all he
surveys”—more truly independent on his fellow-man
than here in Borneo. Although these people are nominally
Mahomedans, still their women enjoy the greatest
freedom and are never secluded, as is the custom of
the Malays of the coast, indeed, many Kadyan houses
consist of one very large room only, there being no
private apartment of any kind. This is a rather singular
trait of these people, since even the Muruts and the
Dusan have one side of their houses partitioned off so as
to allow of a separate private room for each family, the
other half being open from end to end and free to guests
or strangers. The Kadyans take but one wife, and are
apparently good husbands and affectionate p aren tslarge
families, however, are exceptional. This question of
increase of population in the island is one I could not
profess to explain. Here is a rich and fertile islapd
larger than Great Britain and Ireland, with an entire
population scarcely exceeding that of London. In the
old times inter-tribal warfare may have operated as a
check, and even now whole villages are sometimes carried
off by epidemics, such as cholera or small-pox, yet when
we consider that there are practically none of the checks
on marriage itself as with us, and the readiness with
which food is obtainable in plenty, the easy and natural
way, indeed, in which these people live, it is a puzzle
that they seem scarcely able to hold their own.
In the case of the North American Indians or the
Maories of New Zealand, there is the competition of the
white races, but here they are not crowded out by a
stronger type, nevertheless, the population is supposed to
be less than was formerly the case. I f a Kadyan youth
wishes to marry, he has only to select a site for his house,
and clear the ground around it for a garden. He may
take an unoccupied plot anywhere, and there is no
ground-rent to pay, it is freehold so soon as he has in a
manner “ staked his claim,” 'by cutting down the brush
and burning the trees, in which the other “ lads of the
village ” will assist him. The ground is cleared towards
the end of the dry season, and with the commencement
of the first rains a few seeds of Indian corn, cucumbers,
betel pepper, &c., are sown, and yams, kaladi, sweet
potatoes, together with cocoa-nuts, and banana suckers
from his father’s or a friend’s garden, are planted. Then
timbers, rattans, and nipa leaves for thatch are obtained,