416 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



tlie Malay race, but liave an alphabet and a language 

 of their own. Each of their villages usually consists 

 of only a single street, w^hich is straight, and not 

 necessarily parallel to the road. Here it was market- 

 day, and, while we stopped to rest, I had a good op- 

 portunity of observing them. The women generally 

 wore only a sarong fastened at the waist and descend- 

 ing to the knee, the upper part of the body being 

 wholly uncovered. As we passed, the younger wo- 

 men made up for this deficiency to the best of their 

 ability with the scarf in which they were carrying 

 their children. These young women have the odd 

 custom of wearing from fifteen to twenty iron rings 

 in each ear, and as many more on their arms above 

 the wrist. 



A great many persons of both sexes, and even 

 some children, were afflicted with that unsightly 

 malady, goitre, and had large swellings, generally on 

 the neck, though I noticed one at the lower end of 

 the breastbone. The cause assigned here by the 

 Dutch officials for this disease is that these people 

 have been accustomed to use very little salt, the iodine 

 contained in that condiment being supposed to act as 

 a preventive to the development of the disease. It is 

 said to seldom or never appear among those Malays 

 who have lived on the sea-coast for several genera- 

 tions, and I do not remember to have seen a single 

 case in such a locality. 



The market-place was nothing but a shed, and 

 here a few Chinese and Arabs were displaying cotton 

 cloth, knives, and ornaments, and the natives had 

 brought dried and smoked fish, which they catch in 



