218 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



pact and picturesque, best described by saying that they are 

 furnished in front with a broad, partly roofed verandah, fenced 

 round by a close bamboo wickerwork, nearly concealing the 

 inmates when standing erect, and protected by a strong door, 

 which is reached by a stair. With their floors on the level of 

 the verandah and their doors opening on to it, are little huts 

 built out beyond the edge of the verandah, for cooking pur- 

 poses, for keeping fowls in, for storing rice and for other con- 

 veniences, altogether forming a most convenient, commodious, 

 and secure dwelling, below which, as usual, their store of 

 chopped wood is kept. 



One morning I was awakened by a vigorous clattering of 

 sticks, accompanied by much laughter. On looking out I 

 perceived that most of the rice-blocks of the village had been 

 hauled together, and that the maidens of the place were 

 beating on them in concert a lively tattoo for some happy 

 occasion. As each block and each stamper produced a 

 different note, the resulting music was by no means inhar- 

 monious. Throughout the forenoon the boys and youths, 

 lounging in groups, indulged at intervals in bursts of cheer- 

 ing very like our own hurrah : " WoocL-wood-wob-da-aa ! " 

 The jubilation was on account of a marriage which was that 

 evening to be solemnised in the village. Next afternoon I 

 was again surprised by peals of "Woo-a's!" proceeding from a 

 crowd collected near the house of the newly married pair, 

 whence shortly, amid vociferous cheering, the- bridegroom 

 appeared, wearing on his head the cap of a Vice-chief of the 

 marga, dressed in a sarong suspended by a gold-buckled belt, 

 his body otherwise bare save for a sash-like cloth across his 

 chest. By his side he wore a gold- handled kriss, and carried 

 in his right hand a be-flagged lance with its tip sheathed — 

 the wedding staff. Over his head one of his young men held a 

 white umbrella, another carried his siri-box, while a drum and 

 several gongs played in advance of the procession. A little 

 behind him came the bride weeping, in a purple silk badjo and 

 a red petticoat worked with thread of gold, attended by all 

 the maidens of the village, some of whom performed for her 

 the same offices as the young men did for her husband. The 

 processions wended their way to the river, where both the bride 

 and the bridegroom were bathed by their respective attendants, 



