1 62 The Gardens of the Szcn. [ch. vm, 



must be carried on by boats. Some of the inhabitants 

 grow a few flowers and herbs in boxes of earth ; and 

 occasionally papaw trees and gourds of different kinds 

 are thus cultivated. Little rafts, or floating tree-trunks, 

 are moored to the piles which support the houses for the 

 accommodation of ducks and fowls. 



The market held on the river every morning is one of 

 the most singular sights of the place. Here you may 

 see a hundred or more little boats containing fruit, fish, 

 rice, and other produce, for sale or barter. Among the 

 petty traders the Brunei women are most prominent, and 

 many of them present a most singular appearance, the 

 hats they wear being made of neatly plaited Nipa leaves, 

 and being from two to three feet in diameter, they serve 

 the purpose of both head covering and umbrella, and 

 they screen the whole body of the wearer from the hot 

 sun. Most of the women to be seen in the market are 

 old and coarse featured in many cases positively ugly 

 reminding one of the orang utan as they glance at you 

 from beneath their wrinkled foreheads, their mouths 

 overflowing with betel nut-juice the while, their repulsive 

 black teeth being worn off level with their gums ; their 

 more beautiful sisters are secluded according to the 

 etiquette of Islam ; the nobles and richer Malays have 

 wives and slaves in abundance. A European ladj T who 

 visited the court here and was admitted into the women's 

 apartments, tells me that some are passing fair, with tiny 

 hands and feet, straight noses and liquid eyes, prototypes 

 of those black-eyed damsels who are to attend all true 

 believers of the Prophet in the gardens of Paradise. 



The principal traders are Chinamen, who have floating 

 warehouses singularly like the Noah's arks of early 

 memory. Brunei is the Sheffield of north-west Borneo, 

 the manufacture of knives, parongs and krisses being 



