XIX.] 
VISIT TO MALAY VILLAGES. 
411 
that we sank to the knees, and could make our way through the 
wood only by walking on an intermediate layer of palm leaves 
and fallen branches. The search for evertebrates did not yield 
very much. A half-score mollusca, among them a very re¬ 
markable naked leech of quite the same colour-marking and 
raggedness as the bark of tree on which it lived, was all that 
we could find here. It struck me as very peculiar not to find 
a single insect group represented. The remarkable poverty in 
animals must be ascribed, I believe, to the complete absence 
of herbs and underwood. Animal life was as poor as vegetation 
was luxuriant and various in different places. Over the landscape 
a peculiar quietness and stillness rested. 
“ During our return we visited one of the two Malay villages 
mentioned above. It consisted of ten different houses, which 
were built on tall and stout poles out in the water at the mouth 
of the river, about six to ten metres from the shore. All the 
houses were built on a common large platform of thick bamboo, 
which was about a man’s height above the water. At right 
angles to the beach there floated long beams, one end being 
connected with the land, while the other was anchored close to 
the platform. From this anchored end a plank rose at a steep 
angle to the platform. Communication with land was kept up in 
this way. The houses were nearly all quadrangular, and contained 
a single room, had raised, not flat roofs, and were provided at 
one of the shorter sides, near one corner, with a high rectangular 
door opening, vdiich certainly was not intended to be closed, and 
on one of the long sides with a square window-opening. The 
building material was bamboo, from eight to eleven centimetres 
in thickness, mostly Avhole, but sometimes cleft. The roof had 
a thin layer of palm leaves upon it to keep out the rain. The 
house in its entirety resembled a cage of spills to which the 
least puff of wind had always free entrance. The floor bent 
and yielded much, and at the same time was so weak that one 
could not walk upon it without being afraid of falling through. 
One half, right opposite the door opening, was overlaid with a 
thin mat of some plant; it was evidently the sleeping place of 
the family. Some pieces of cloth was all the clothing we could 
discover. Of household articles there was scarcely any trace. 
Nor were there any weapons, arrows, or bows. The fireplace 
was in one corner of the room; it consisted of an immense ash- 
heap on some low stones. Beside it stood a rather dirty iron 
pot. All refuse from meals, bones and mollusc-shells, had been 
thrown into the water under the floor; there lay now a regular 
culture-layer, a couple of feet higher than the surrounding 
