and, with the assistance of his friends, a good roomy-
house will spring up, if not quite mushroom-like in a
night, at the least in a week or ten days. A dollar or
two, or the jungle produce he could collect in less than a
month, will enable him to obtain the few articles of furniture,
cooking utensils, &c., which he requires, together
with a new “ sarong” or two for himself and his
bride. And she, the dusky beauty, will have made a few
neatly worked palm-leaf sleeping mats and other needful
trifles, and doubtless looks forward to her wedding with
as much pleasure as her fairer sister of the West. The
actual ceremony of marriage is here very simple. A payment
has to be made by the bridegroom to his father-in-
law, and this varies in proportion to the charms or other
good marketable qualities of the girl—an ordinary girl
being worth as much as a good buffalo, or say, £ 4 ; as
much as £20, however, is sometimes demanded for the
“ belle of the village,” but in addition to the first cost
such beauties are apt to give their husbands a good deal
of trouble afterwards, unless, indeed, they be of Cato-like
temperament. Marriages may be dissolved for the
merest trifles by either party, but if by the woman herself,
part of the money or goods paid to her parents is refunded.
In the case of the Mahomedans, a woman
retains all her real and personal property after divorcement.
A native, in whose house I stayed several weeks,
told me that his wife had been married to another Kadyan
before he married her. “ And did her husband die? ” I
enquired. “ Oh, no,” he answered. “ Then why did
she leave him ? ” “ She did not like him,” was the rejoinder.
And such cases of mutual separation are far
from uncommon.
These people, unlike the Muruts of the Limbang, had
plenty of rice and other food, the produce of their padi
fields and gardens. In some parts of the island it is
extremely difficult to purchase food of any kind, the
natives possessing only barely enough for their own
wants. Here, however, one could obtain fowls, eggs,
rice, and vegetables in abundance. The prices may be
interesting. For excellent fowls, from fivepence to
eightpence was charged ; eggs fivepence per dozen,
vegetables enough for two or three days’ supply for twopence
; while lodging, fire-wood, and plenty of jungle
fruit in season, may be had for nothing. Dollars and
cents were current here, but cloth, especially grey shirting
and a stout black fabric, were also readily received
in exchange at a slight advance on Labuan prices. The
men here were willing to act either as guides or carriers
for tenpence to a shilling per diem.
When I returned to the house at night from the forest,
I generally found a liberal share of the jungle fruit which
had been brought home by the men laid on my mats;
and after dinner my own men and the villagers would
drop in for a chat by the light of a flickering dammar
torch. Twenty or thirty dusky figures smoking or eating
betel-nut had a curious effect in the badly lighted
hut.A
ll through the fast month these people never eat
or drink anything between sunrise and sunset, but they
make up for this between sunset and sunrise, the women
being busy cooking rice and fish nearly all night. At
the end of the month, too, a great feast was held, at which
all in the village and neighbourhood met and smoked
the “ roko ” of peace, all old feuds and wrongs being for
the nonce forgiven or forgotten. Everyone came dressed
in their best head-cloths and sarongs, being armed with
their war parangs, and altogether forming an animated
and brightly coloured assemblage. This feast -was held