632 GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES IN MALAYSIA AND ASIA, 



frontal bone, and for their prognathism which reaches 69. The 

 facial angle does not go beyond 84°, and frequently does not reach 

 that. The cheek bones are not so widely separated as those of the 

 Javanese, and this, combined with the low facial angle, inclines 

 some ethnologists to establish analogies between the Moros and the 

 aborigines of Sumatra. A study of the crania utterly destroys 

 the hypothesis of an Arabian origin, which certain authors have 

 ascribed to this race. The skulls of this people are widely dis- 

 tinguished from the handsome type of the Arab races. 



The government of Sulu is an absolute despotism under a sultan, 

 who now no longer refuses to call himself a vassal of the Spanish 

 crown. Subordinate to the sultan the Moors are divided into a 

 great number of tribes governed immediately by chiefs called 

 datus. Slavery in its most objectionable form exists among the 

 people. The children of slaves are slaves. Prisoners taken in 

 war, and debtors who are not solvent, are slaves as well. The 

 women are much given to steal each other's children and to sell 

 them in other islands. In many other respects the law which 

 obtains amongst them is the law of the strongest. 



Agriculture is not much fostered. Some maize is grown, a little 

 rice, sugar-cane and a number of roots such as sweet potatoes, 

 yams, &c. Cocoa-nuts are abundant, with plantains, juanis, 

 which is a mango of strong odour, mangosteens and many other 

 fruits. Buffaloes and dairy cattle are used in tillage and as beasts 

 of burden, but they have a splendid breed of ponies in the island. 

 They have also many goats and Indian sheep. They are great 

 bird catchers amongst the white cockatoos, pigeons and other 

 birds. But their principal industry, besides piracy and robbery, 

 is the pearl fishery, which is conducted by divers on the edges of 

 coral I'eefs and on certain beds of the pearl-oyster which abound 

 round Sulu. The people also are clever in making weapons and 

 giving a tine temper to steel weapons. They manufactui-e their 

 own krises, swords, lances, &c., and they cast their own cannon 

 in bronze. 



Most writers have called attention to the singular influence 

 which Sulu has obtained over the other islands. Not only its 



