THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 345 



do such a thing?' But, I assure you, the baby likes it ex- 

 ceedingly, and they are excellent friends. When the monkey 

 wants to run away, as he often does, the baby clutches him 

 by the tail or ears and drags him back ; and if the monkey 

 does succeeding in escaping, screams violently till he is brought 

 back again. Of course, baby cannot walk yet, but I let it 

 crawl about on the floor to exercise its limbs ; but it is the 

 most wonderful baby I ever saw, and has such strength in its 

 arms that it will catch hold of my trousers as I sit at work, and 

 hang under my legs for a quarter of an hour at a time with- 

 out being the least tired, all the time trying to suck, thinking, 

 no doubt, it has got hold of its poor dear mother. When it 

 finds no milk is to be had, there comes another scream, and 

 I have to put it back in its cradle and give it ' Toby ' — the 

 little monkey — to hug, which quiets it immediately. From 

 this short account you will see that my baby is no common 

 baby, and I can safely say, what so many have said before 

 with much less truth, ' There never was such a baby as my 

 baby,' and I am sure nobody ever had such a dear little duck 

 of a darling of a little brown hairy baby before." 



In a letter dated Christmas Day, 1855, I gave my impres- 

 sion of the Dyaks, and of Sir James Brooke, as follows : 



" I have now lived a month in a Dyak's house, and spent 

 a day or two in several others, and I have been very much 

 pleased with them. They are a very kind, simple, hospitable 

 people, and I do not wonder at the great interest Sir James 

 Brooke takes in them. They are more communicative and 

 more cheerful than the American Indians, and it is therefore 

 more agreeable to live with them. In moral character they 

 are far superior to either the Malays or the Chinese, for 

 though head-taking was long a custom among them, it was 

 only as a trophy of war. In their own villages crimes are 

 very rare. Ever since Sir James Brooke has been rajah, more 

 than twelve years, there has only been one case of murder in 

 a Dyak tribe, and that was committed by a stranger who had 

 been adopted into the tribe. One wet day I produced a piece 

 of string to show them how to play ' cat's cradle ' and was 



