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Sumatra. 



originally a maritime and water - loving people, who built 

 their houses on posts in the water, and only migrated gradu- 

 ally inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into the 

 diy interior. Habits which were at once so convenient and 

 so cleanly, and which had been so long practiced as to become 

 a portion of the domestic life of the nation, were of course 

 continued when the first settlei's built their houses inland ; 

 and without a regular system of drainage, the arrangement 



chief's house and rice-shed in a sumatran village. 



of the villages is such that any other system would be very 

 inconvenient. 



In all these Sumatran villages I found considerable difficul- 

 ty in getting any thing to eat. It was not the season for veg- 

 etables, and when, after much trouble, I managed to procure 

 some yams of a cui'ious variety, I found them hard and scarce- 

 ly eatable. Fowls were very scarce, and fruit was reduced 

 to one of the poorest kinds of banana. The natives (during 

 the wet season at least) live exclusively on rice, as the poorer 

 Irish do on potatoes. A pot of rice cooked very dry and 

 eaten with salt and red peppers, twice a day, forms their en- 

 tire food during a large part of the year. This is no sign of 

 poverty, but is simply custom ; for their wives and children 

 are loaded with silver armlets from wrist to elbow, and carry 



