160 A NATUBALI8T IN CELEBES ch. vii 



tried to get a glimpse of those on deck. Nobody seemed 

 to take any notice of them, and they seemed to take no 

 notice of anybody ; they asked no questions, made no com- 

 plaints, uttered only a few whispered words to one another, 

 and, ill fact, seemed to me as if their purpose in coming 

 aboard was to be seen rather than to see. The quiet, in- 

 offensive, phlegmatic character of the Malay seemed 

 exemplified in these poor miserable inhabitants of the 

 remote islands. They must be fatalists to the backbone 

 to show so little curiosity in a fine modern steamship, 

 which had nominally come to save them from sickness and 

 starvation. Early the next morning I went ashore with the 

 Eesident and other officials to inspect the village. It is only 

 a few paces from the shore, but is completely hidden by a 

 grove of dense forest trees, amongst which I noticed some fine 

 specimens of the famous war ingin {Urostigma benjaviineum), 

 with its long pendulous aerial roots. 



There were eight large houses built to enclose a consider- 

 able oblong quadrangle, and the whole was surrounded by 

 a low concrete wall. Each house accommodated several 

 families, and I was told that in some cases as many as five 

 hundred individuals were crowded into one of these dwellings. 

 They were built upon wooden piles, many of them seven 

 feet above the level of the ground, and the refuse of the 

 kitchen and all manner of filth had accumulated for years 

 beneath each house so as to diffuse a stench which is beyond 

 my powers of description. Had the village been visited 

 by a sanitary inspector with the necessary powers instead 

 of by a Eesident without, there can be no doubt of the first 

 step he would have taken to restore the village to a fairly 

 sanitary condition. It is useless to recommend such people 

 to remove their rubbish ; their spirit of conservatism is so 

 strong that they look upon their refuse accumulations as 

 they would upon any other relics of a departed generation, 



