INHABITING THE MALAYAN PENINSULA, 37 



nor of that ol" their childien ; such obser- 

 vations or remarks appear to them mere 

 super Duities as being not required in their 

 way othvinif. An ignorance otsncti matters 

 amongst savajjes ifi not suiprising when 1 

 mention tliat the Malays themselves who 

 live in the interior of tlie Peninsula are not 

 aware of all these things, and that on these 

 subjects many of them are no better in- 

 formed tfiaji Jakuiis. A thing in which the 

 Jakuns (only tiiosc ol tlie Meiiangkabaw 

 states) are truly skilled is the art of using 

 the sunipitan and poisoned arrows, as \ 

 will have occasion to mention when speak- 

 ing of tlieir w eapons. They have no know- 

 ledge of writing ijor do they make use of 

 any symbolical signs. The language spoken 

 by the three classes of Jakuns 1 describe is 

 not entirely the same, but the difTcrence 

 is not considerable, and I think that it con- 

 sists in the intonalion and tlie pronuncia- 

 tion, but chielly iu the inllection upon the 



