198 DUTIES AND LABOURS OF 



return of such as have been carried into slavery. Mr. 

 Brooke lias been the means of restoring many of those 

 objects of their solicitude by his negociations with the 

 Sakarran and Sarebas Dyaks, although this has not 

 been accomplished without a large pecuniary sacrifice : 

 the gratitude they show for the happiness he has 

 conferred upon them has amply repaid him for his 

 liberality. The girls are equally the objects of the 

 tender care of their parents with the boys; and 

 though, in their prayers, the Dyaks always ask 

 for male children, the females, who are nearly 

 equally useful to them, are not treated with less kind- 

 ness, and are never neglected. Amongst the sea 

 Dyaks are no houses erected, as of the hill tribes, 

 to be hereafter described, for the reception of the 

 unmarried men ; but though they are supposed gene- 

 rally to sleep in the verandah of the village, the 

 interior of the houses is not denied to them. 



The duties of the women are various and nume- 

 rous; though the whole care of the house devolves 

 upon them, they are not exempted from participation 

 in the labours of the field. They always rise before 

 day-break, and, if it be the season, accompany their 

 husbands to the farm, carrying with them their 

 breakfast of rice which has been previously cooked ; 

 but as they generally have a hut at the farm, they 

 often cook their rice there. Their labours of hus- 

 bandry consist in clearing away the brushwood, while 

 the men fell the larger trees, in sowing their padi 



