ch. vin.] Musical Instruments. 177 



white putty-looking mass below is packed up in bags, 

 and sold to the Chinamen, by whom it is again washed 

 and dried, previous to its being shipped to the Singapore 

 market. Two species of sago palm grow here, forming 

 stout-stemmed trees, thirty or forty feet in height. They 

 are readily distinguished by the one having smooth bases 

 to the sheathing leaf-stalks, while the other has the 

 leaf-sheaths set with stout black spines. The smooth 

 variety is most abundant. The dried leaf-sheaths of this 

 palm are utilised in the manufacture of neat baskets, 

 being neatly sown together with strips of rattan, and 

 fitted with lids. Rattans are much used in house building, 

 the largest timbers being secured by their aid only. 



It is singular that pegs or nails are never used by the 

 Malays, except in boat-building; and the neatness and 

 ingenuity with which rattan is used by these people is 

 wonderful. In one of the Kactyan villages, on the Lawas, 

 I saw a violin, the back, front, and sides of which were 

 actually stitched together with slender strips of rattan. 

 It had been copied from a European model, and had 

 a much better tone than one would expect to find under 

 the circumstances. 



The musical instruments made and used by the Malays 

 and aboriginal Borneans are inferior to those of Burmah 

 and Siam, or even to those used by the Javanese. The 

 pentatonic scale is employed, and the music is monotonous 

 and plaintive in its character. This is especially true 

 of the women's songs, which are mostly of a dirge- 

 like kind. I remember a Kadyan girl used to sing 

 sometimes during m} r first visit to the Lawas, and the 

 effect at night more especially was extremely weird and 

 melancholy. She had a rich mellow voice, rising and 

 falling in minor cadences, and dying away sweetly 

 tremulous as a silver bell. This poor girl's life, how- 



