348 CELEBES. [chap. xv. 



to stroll quietly each day for an hour about the gardens 

 near, and to the well, where some good insects were occa- 

 sionally to be found ; and the rest of the day to wait 

 quietly at home, and receive what beetles and shells my 

 little corps of collectors brought me daily. I imputed my 

 illness chiefly to the water, which was procured from 

 shallow wells, around which there was almost always a 

 stagnant puddle in which the buffaloes wallowed. Close 

 to my house was an inclosed mu dhole where three buf- 

 faloes were shut up every night, and the effluvia from 

 which freely entered through the open bamboo floor. My 

 Malay boy Ali was affected with the same illness, and as 

 he was my chief bird-skinner I got on but slowly with 

 my collections. 



The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed 

 but little from those of all other Malay races. The time 

 of the women was almost wholly occupied in pounding 

 and cleaning rice for daily use, in bringing home firewood 

 and water, and in cleaning, dyeing, spinning, and weaving 

 the native cotton into sarongs. The weaving is done in 

 the simplest kind of frame stretched on the floor, and is a 

 very slow and tedious process. To form the checked 

 pattern in common use, each patch of coloured threads has 

 to be pulled up separately by hand and the shuttle passed 

 between them ; so that about an inch a day is the usual 

 progress in stuff a yard and a half wide. The men culti- 



