chap, fiii.] MALAY HOUSES. 197 



in some scrupulously so ; and this peculiar and nasty 

 custom, which is almost universal, arises, I have little 

 doubt, from their having been originally a maritime and 

 water-loving people, who built their houses on posts in the 

 water, and only migrated gradually inland, first up the 

 rivers and streams, and then into the dry interior. Habits 

 which were at once so convenient and so cleanly, and 

 which had been so long practised as to become a portion 

 of the domestic life of the nation, were of course continued 

 when the first settlers built their houses inland ; and with- 

 out a regular system of drainage, the arrangement of the 

 villages is - such, that any other system would be very 

 inconvenient. 



In all these Sumatran villages I found considerable 

 difficulty in getting anything to eat. It was not the 

 season for vegetables, and when, after much trouble, 1 

 managed to procure some yams of a curious variety, 1 

 found them hard and scarcely eatable. Fowls were very 

 scarce ; and fruit was reduced to one of the poorest kinds 

 of banana. The natives (during the wet season at least) 

 live exclusively on rice, as the poorer Irish do on potatoes. 

 A pot of rice cooked very dry and eaten with salt and 

 red peppers, twice a day, forms their entire food during a 

 large part of the year. This is no sign of poverty, but is 

 simply custom ; for their wives and children are loaded 

 with silver armlets from wrist to elbow, and carry dozens 



