XXI] THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 345 



remarkable strength of its little fingers and toes, which catch 

 hold of anything with the firmness of a vice. About a week 

 ago I bought a little monkey with a long tail, and as the 

 baby was very lonely while we were out in the daytime, I 

 put the little monkey into the cradle to keep it warm. Per- 

 haps you will say that this was not proper. * How could you 

 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 succeed 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- 

 sions 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 communi- 

 cative and more cheerful than the American Indians, and it 

 is therefore more agreeable to live with them. In moral cha- 

 racter they are far superior to either the Malays or the 

 Chinese, for though head-taking was long a custom among 



