to stroll quietly each day for an hour about the gardens
near, and to the well, where some good insects were occasionally
to he found; and the rest of the day to wait
quietly at home, and receive what beetles and shells my
little corps of collectors brought me daily. I imputed my
illness chiefly to the water, which was procured from
shallow wells, around which there was almost always a
stagnant puddle in which the buffaloes wallowed. Close
to my house was an inclosed mu dhole where three buffaloes
were shut up every night, and the effluvia from
which freely entered through the open bamboo floor. My
Malay boy Ali was affected with the same illness, and as
he was my chief bird-skinner I got on but slowly with
my collections.
The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed
but little from those of all other Malay races. The time
of the women w7as almost wholly occupied in pounding
and cleaning rice for daily use, in bringing home firewood
and water, and in cleaning, dyeing, spinning, and weaving
the native cotton into sarongOs . The weavinOg is done in
the simplest kind of frame stretched on the floor, and is a
very slow and tedious process. To form the checked
pattern in common use, each patch of coloured threads has
to be pulled up separately by hand and the shuttle passed
between them; so that about an inch a day is the usual
progress in stuff a yard and a half wide. The men cultivate
a little sirih (the pungent pepper leaf used for chewing
with betel-nut) and a few vegetables; and once a year
rudely plough a small patch of ground with their buffaloes
and plant rice, which then requires little attention till
harvest time. Now and then they have to see to the
repairs of their houses, and make mats, baskets, or other
domestic utensils, but a large part of their time is passed
in idleness.
Not a single person in the village could speak more
than a few words of Malay, and hardly any of the people
appeared to have seen a European before. One most1'
disa©greeable result of this was, that I excited terror alike
in man and beast. Wherever I went, dogs barked, children
screamed, women ran away, and men stared as though
I were some strange and terrible cannibal monster. Even
the pack-horses on the roads and paths would start aside
when I appeared and rush into the jungle; and as to
those horrid, ugly brutes, the buffaloes, they could never
be approached by me; not for fear of my own but of others
3afety. They would first stick out their necks and stare
at me, and then on a nearer view break loose from their
halters or tethers, and rush away helter-skelter as if a
demon were after them, without any regard for what might
be in their way. Whenever I met buffaloes canying
packs along a pathway, or being driven home to the village,
I had to turn aside into the'jungle and hide myself till