152 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



djvdjur and remove his wife to a home of his own. If a man 

 have a larger family of daughters than of sons, it is very- 

 customary for the eldest son to bring a wife to his father's 

 house, but for the rest of the sons to go to the houses of their 

 mothers-in-law, and for the daughters either to bring their 

 husbands to their mother's house also, in order that her 

 parents may reap the benefit of their labour, or to migrate 

 to their husbands' homes. Where a man's only child is a 

 daughter, marriage is almost always by "ambil anak." 



With the richer members of the community it is a matter of 

 pride to pay djudjur for their wives. When no agreement 

 can be come to about the djudjur between the youth and the 

 parents of the girl, the two often elope together to the man's 

 village (if they belong to different villages, or to another 

 village if they be of the same village), in which she is placed 

 in the house of his father, but, if she is of higher rank than 

 himself, in the house of the head of the village. The father of 

 the girl pursues with an armed following, and, being met at 

 the entrance of the village by a like force, a fight (nowadays 

 a sham fight) takes place in front of the Balai, in which the 

 father of the maiden allows himself to be overcome, whereupon 

 an adjournment is made within the building, and matters 

 are amicably settled, the day ending with football, dancing, 

 cock-fighting, and festivities. Their marriage ceremony fol- 

 lows the Mahomedan rites. 



From Tiohmomon I continued my way to Penanggungun. 

 I was greatly surprised to see, even in the smallest villages, 

 the universal use of two articles of western civilisation — 

 petroleum oil and paraffin matches. There was scarcely a 

 dwelling in a village of even eight to ten houses in this 

 out-of-the-way corner of the world in which this oil was 

 not the illuminating medium ; if there was not in the 

 house another article of western origin, there was a lamp, 

 often of a most elegant and costly pattern, of gilt brass, and 

 complete with wheel and pulley apparatus. I daily saw 

 packhorses laden with De Voe's well-known boxes passing 

 through the villages to more distant places. Nearly every 

 native, too, produces from a fold of his cotton kilt, or his head- 

 cloth, when he wants " fire," one of the little yellow-papered 

 chip boxes, with "Patent paraffinerade sakerhets tandstikor 



