30 ABOTTT KINTA. 



they have grown to maturity all trace of beaut} 7 is lost ; like all 

 ©astern women they age very fast and become frightful old hags. 



Cleanliness, as well as godliness, are both conspicuous by their 

 absence in this race, the only ablutions they ever perform is when 

 they are caught in the rain, which happens as seldom as they can 

 help ; if the rain comes on they can get a shelter erected in ten 

 minutes, and a fire in about the same time, and then they all sit 

 huddled together as close as they can pack till the rain clears off. 

 They have no conception of a God, nor have they a word in their 

 language either for G-od or devil ; the fact, however, of their burying 

 a cooking vessel, and a knife and other articles of the sort, with their 

 dead, would seem to point to their having some hazy notion of a 

 future state. It would be rash of me to make any statements of the 

 difference of race in different parts of the country, seeing how little 

 I know of these people; but so far it appears to me that the prevail- 

 ing type to the North, that is, the Ulu Kinta, Simgei Eaya and 

 Kampar, is rather darker than the Malay, and perhaps smaller, 

 certainly more spare and wiry, while away to the South and East. 

 about the Slim and Songkei, of which I will speak directly, they 

 appear a better developed and a fairer race. The northern tribes 

 appear to have a long, narrow cast of countenance, with straight lank 

 hair, whereas those to the South have rounder faces, broader noses 

 and lips, and enormous bushes of hair sticking out over their heads, 

 sometimes as much as eighteen inches in diameter all round. 

 Another distinctive feature of the eastern Safceis is a habit they 

 have of piercing the cartilage of the nose in the males and wearing a 

 piece of wood about a quarter of an inch in diameter, and about six 

 inches long, thrust through it. A few who affect to be dandies 

 ornament their nose sticks by different devices cut on them and 

 decorate their faces and chests with stifles of charcoal. The Slim 

 8akeis are certainly physically a remarkably line race of people. 



Wherever I have seen these people, nearly the whole of them, 

 I should say quite ninety per cent., were suffering from an un> 

 pleasant skin disease (Eilrap) ; they are frequently covered with it 

 from head to foot. Their uncleanly habits and irregular feeding are 

 no doubt the cause of this. All races with any pretence to civilisa- 

 tion have stated hours for feeding, but these people eat at any 

 time, or every time, the limit not being when they are satisfied 

 so much as when the food procurable is finished ; in this respect 



