194 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



on tlie ground, disappearing until the Malay has in like 

 manner deposited what is considered the equivalent, and 

 then returning to carry it away. They appear extra- 

 ordinarily timid, and have no sense of shame. Mono- 

 gamy is the rule, but a few have two or more wives. 

 Intermarriage with Malays is extremely rare. Yet, with 

 all this, it would seem that they are in reality a Malay 

 people, which have merely developed their characteristics 

 by isolation. Their language, according to Forbes, is " a 

 corrupted Malay with a peculiar accentuation," but they 

 are said to have a language of their own, unintelligible 

 to their neighbours. The skulls brought to Europe bear 

 out the evidence afforded by their language, although a 

 slight tendency to frizzling in the hair seems to indicate 

 that the race may at some remote period have inter- 

 mingled with Xegritos. 



South of the Palembang district, and occupying the 

 terminal point of Sumatra, are the Lampongers, dwelling 

 in a country fairly well known to Europeans, and leading 

 a settled and agricultural life. They claim to be de- 

 scended from the Menangkabo Malays, but that there 

 has been a considerable admixture of Javanese blood 

 there can be no doubt. The spoken language contains a 

 very large number of corrupt Malay and Sundanese 

 words, but the character employed is not Arabic or 

 Javanese, but peculiar, as in the case of other of the 

 Sumatran languages of which mention has been made. 

 The communal system also exists, and here, as elsewhere 

 on the island, the Dutch, in dividing the country for ad- 

 ministrative purposes, have retained as far as possible the 

 boundaries, of the old native districts, here called inargas. 

 The country is not peculiarly favourable to agriculture, 

 and the native does not seek to improve it by irrigation, 

 so that the sawah or wet rice-fields are rare, and the 



