70 The Gardens of the Sun. [ch. iv. 



and, with the assistance of his friends, a good roomy 

 house will spring up, if not quite mushroom-like in a 

 night, at the least in a week or ten days. A. dollar or 

 two, or the jungle produce he could collect in less than a 

 month, will enahle him to ohtain the few articles of fur- 

 niture, cooking utensils, &c., which he requires, toge- 

 ther with a new " sarong " or two for himself and his 

 hride. And she, the dusky heauty, will have made a few 

 neatly worked palm-leaf sleeping mats and other needful 

 trifles, and doubtless looks forward to her wedding with 

 as much pleasure as her fairer sister of the West. The 

 actual ceremony of marriage is here very simple. A pay- 

 ment has to he made by the bridegroom to his father-in- 

 law, and this varies in proportion to the charms or other 

 good marketable qualities of the girl — an ordinary girl 

 being worth as much as a good buffalo, or say, £4 ; as 

 much as £20, however, is sometimes demanded for the 

 "belle of the vUlage," but in addition to the first cost 

 such beauties are apt to give their husbands a good deal 

 of trouble afterwards, unless, indeed, they be of Cato-like 

 temperament. Marriages may be dissolved for the 

 merest trifles by either party, but if by the woman herself, 

 part of the money or goods paid to her parents is re- 

 funded. In the case of the Mahomedans, a woman 

 retains all her real and personal property after divorce- 

 ment. A native, in whose house T stayed several weeks, 

 told me that his wife had been married to another Kadyan 

 before he married her. "And did her husband die?" I 

 enquired. " Oh, no," he answered. " Then why did 

 she leave him ? " " She did not hke him," was the re- 

 joinder. And such cases of mutual separation are far 

 from uncommon. 



These people, unlike the Muruts of the Limbang, had 

 plenty of rice and other food, the produce of their padi 



