Early Letters 



Our mode of life here is very simple— rather too much 

 so, as we have a continual struggle to get enough to eat. 

 The Sarawak market is to a great extent supplied with 

 rice, fowls, and sweet potatoes from this river, yet I have 

 been obliged to send to Sarawak to purchase these very 

 articles. The reason is that the Dyaks are almost all in 

 debt to the Malay traders, and will therefore not sell 

 anything, fearful of not having sufficient to satisfy their 

 creditors. They have now just got in their rice harvest, 

 and though it is not a very abundant one there is no 

 immediate pressure of hunger to induce them to earn any- 

 thing by hunting or snaring birds, etc. This also prevents 

 them from being very industrious in seeking for the '^ mias,'' 

 though I have offered a high price for full-grown animals. 

 The old men here relate with pride how many heads they 

 have taken in their youth, and though they all acknowledge 

 the goodness of the present Rajah's government, yet they 

 think that if they could still take a few heads they would 

 have better harvests. The more I see of uncivilised people, 

 the better I think of human nature on the whole, and the 

 essential differences between so-called civilised and savage 

 man seem to disappear. Here are we, two Europeans sur- 

 rounded by a population of Chinese, Malays, and Dyaks. 

 The Chinese are generally considered, and with some truth, 

 to be thieves, liars, and careless of human life, and these 

 Chinese are coolies of the very lowest and least educated 

 class. The Malays are invariably characterised as treacher- 

 ous and bloodthirsty, and the Dyaks have only recently 

 ceased to think head- taking an absolute necessity. We 

 are two days' journey from Sarawak, where, though the 

 Government is European, yet it only exists by the consent 

 and support of the native population. Now I can safely 

 say that in any part of Europe, if the same facilities for 

 crime and disturbance existed, things would not go on so 



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