XIX.] VISIT TO .AIALAY VILLAGES. 705 



a single room, had raised, not flat roofs, and were provided at 

 one of the shorter sides, near one corner, with a hio-h rectangular 

 door opening, which certainly was not intended to be closed, and 

 on one of the long sides with a square window-opening. The 

 building material was bamboo, from eight to eleven centimetres 

 in thickness, mostly whole, but sometimes cleft. The roof had 

 a thin layer of palm leaves upon it to keep out the rain. The 

 house in its entirety resembled a cage of spills to which the 

 least puff of wind had always free entrance. The floor bent 

 and yielded much, and at the same time was so weak that one 

 could not walk upon it without being afraid of falling through. 

 One half, right opposite the door opening, was overlaid with a 

 thin mat of some plant ; it was evidently the sleeping place of 

 the family. Some pieces of cloth was all the clothing we could 

 discover. Of household articles there was scarcely any trace. 

 Nor were there any weapons, arrows, or bows. The fireplace 

 was in one comer of the room ; it consisted of an immense ash- 

 heajj on some low stones. Beside it stood a rather dirty iron 

 pot. All refuse from meals, bones and mollusc-shells, had been 

 thrown into the water under the floor ; there lay now a regular 

 culture-layer, a couple of feet higher than the surrounding 

 sea-bottom, consisting for the most part of mussel shells. The 

 floor of the room was very dirty and black ; it looked as if it 

 had never been in contact with a drop of water. The interior 

 of the whole house struck one as being as poor and wretched as 

 that of a Chukch tent. Its inhabitants appeared scarcely to own 

 more than they stood or walked in, i.e. for every person a large 

 piece of cloth round the waist. Small boats lay moored to the 

 platform. They were nothing else than tree-stems hollowed 

 out, without any separate planks at the sides, at most two to 

 two and a half metres long, and capable of carrying only two 

 men. We had met such a boat a little way up the river, rowed 

 by two youths, and laden with palm-leaves ; it was not more 

 than five to eight centimetres above the water, and appeared as 

 if it would capsize with the least indiscreet movement on the 

 part of the boatmen. Some dogs of middle size went about 

 loose on the platform ; they were at first shy and suspicious 

 of us, and growled a little, but soon allowed themselves to be 

 caressed. 



" Of the natives, the Malays, unfortunately we saw at close 

 quarters only some middle-aged men. When we approached the 

 long floating beams which led to the platform, the women and 

 children fled precipitately out of the nearest houses, and by the 

 time we got to the platform, they had fortified themselves in a 

 distant house, where they sat motionless and cast curious glances 

 at us through a hole. The children showed their fear of us by 

 loud crying, kept up the whole time. When we attempted to 



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