274 TRAVELS IK THE EAST IXDIAX ARCniPELAGO. 



and small cakes made of rice were tlien served, and 

 *^ the feast " was ended. Tbe cliild was one year old ; 

 when it becomes eigbt or nine it will have to submit 

 to that abominable custom prevailing among both 

 sexes of all ranks of Mohammedajas, filing the teeth. 

 This, I was informedj was done with a flat stone, or a 

 fragment of slate, and sometimes even with a piece 

 of bamboo. The object is to make the teeth short, 

 and the firont ones concave on the outer side, so as 

 to hold the black dye. The Christians never file 

 theirs, and the Mohammedans always ridicule tlie 

 teeth of such natives by calling them " dogs' teeth," 

 because they are " so white and so long.'^ 



At another time I received an invitation to attend 

 a wedding-feast, but, when I reached the house, it 

 proved to be a feast that the married couple give to 

 their friends a few days after the wedding. As on 

 all such festive occasions, the house and veranda were 

 brilliantly lighted, and on either side from the house 

 out to the street were a nimiber of posts made of the 

 large soft trunks of bananas. On their tops large 

 lumps of gum were buroed. Between them were 

 arches made of young leaves of the cocoa-nut palm, 

 arranged as I had previously seen in Nusalaut. The 

 bride (who, of com'se, is to be spoken of first), to 

 our sm'prise, did not prove to be a young and bloom- 

 ing lass, but already in middle life, yet a suitable 

 helpmeet at least for the bridegi'oom, who was an 

 Arab, and had married this, his second wife, since he 

 came to Burn, only four months ago. The former 

 ^vife he had sent back to her parents, much against 

 her wishes. When a wife desires to leave her hus- 



