CH. VII.] Pile Dwellings. 145 



Brunei is kept up by taxes imposed on the few Cliinese 

 merchants, and on the native Borneans -who live inland 

 beside the rivers on the north-west coast from the Baram 

 to Kimanis. A yearly payment is also made to the Sultan 

 by the Eajah of Sarawak. Many of the Malays are 

 traders. The poorer classes are sailors, fishermen, or 

 efigaged in simple domestic industries. 



The true bred Malay has a penchant for building his 

 pile dwelling over the shallow water near the mouth of 

 or beside a river wherever such a site is procurable. The 

 Borneans, on the other hand, prefer a clearing near the 

 streams, and some tribes, especially the Dusan, build 

 their huts high up in the hills. 



Intermarriages with native women have helped to 

 identify the Malays with the Borneans, and especially 

 with the Kadyans, a tribe who live near the capital, and 

 who long ago embraced the faith of Mahomet. The 

 language of the Malays is soft and pleasing in sound — 

 the " Italian of the East "—and very expressive. It is 

 readily acquired by strangers, and forms the medium of 

 commercial communication throughout the Straits Settle- 

 ments and Malay Archipelago. Like our own tongue, 

 Malay seems to be a conventional blending of several 

 other languages, Ai-abic, Sanscrit, and the languages of 

 the aboriginals with whom the Malays were first thrown 

 into contact. At the present day many Enghsh and 

 Portuguese words find their way into it but little dis- 

 guised by pronunciation. Malay is the Court language 

 at Brunei, but the inhabitants generally use a dialect 

 similar to that of the aboriginals who live near the 



capital. 



The clothing of the Malays of high rank is often very 

 lavish and showy, consisting of fancy head-cloths and 

 short jackets, often highly embroidered with gold buttons 



