CEREMONY PERFORMED BY MR. BROOKE. 259 



as they were too bashful to perform before a stranger ; 

 but I have had opportunities of witnessing them on 

 other occasions, and am enabled to say that the 

 performance differs in no respect from that of the 

 men : like them, they dress in all the fine clothes 

 they can find, not in the least caring whether or not 

 they are elegant in appearance. 



In other particulars, though they differ in some 

 trifling matters, the feasts of the other Land tribes 

 precisely resemble this of the Sebongoh people. When 

 Mr. Brooke visits their residences, instead of suppli- 

 cating him, they each bring a portion of the Padi-seed 

 they intend to sow next season, and with the necklaces 

 of the women, which are given to him for that pur- 

 pose, and which, having been dipped into a mixture 

 previously prepared, are by him shaken over the 

 little basins which contain the seed, by which process 

 he is supposed to render them very productive. Other 

 tribes, whom from their distance he cannot visit, send 

 down to him for a small piece of white cloth, and a 

 little gold or silver, which they bury in the earth 

 of their farms, to attain the same result. On his 

 entering a village, the women also wash and bathe 

 his feet, first with water, and then with the milk 

 of a young cocoa-nut, and afterwards with water again : 

 all this water, which has touched his person, is preserved 

 for the purpose of being distributed on their farms, 

 being supposed to render an abundant harvest certain. 



On one occasion, having remarked that the crops of 

 rice of the Samban tribe were thin, the chief imme- 



s 2 



