194 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
on the ground, disappearing until the Malay has in like 
manner deposited what is considered the equivalent, and 
then returning to carry it away. They appear extra¬ 
ordinarily timid, and have no sense of shame. Mono¬ 
gamy is the rule, but a few have two or more wives. 
Intermarriage with Malays is extremely rare. Yet, with 
all this, it would seem that they are in reality a Malay 
people, which have merely developed their characteristics 
by isolation. Their language, according to Forbes, is “ a 
corrupted Malay with a peculiar accentuation, 5 ’ but they 
are said to have a language of their own, unintelligible 
to their neighbours. The skulls brought to Europe bear 
out the evidence afforded by their language, although a 
slight tendency to frizzling in the hair seems to indicate 
that the race may at some remote period have inter¬ 
mingled with Negritos. 
South of the Palembang district, and occupying the 
terminal point of Sumatra, are the Lampongers, dwelling 
in a country fairly well known to Europeans, and leading 
a settled and agricultural life. They claim to be de¬ 
scended from the Menangkabo Malays, but that there 
has been a considerable admixture of Javanese blood 
there can be no doubt. The spoken language contains a 
very large number of corrupt Malay and Sundanese 
words, but the character employed is not Arabic or 
Javanese, but peculiar, as in the case of other of the 
Sumatran languages of which mention has been made. 
The communal system also exists, and here, as elsewhere 
on the island, the Dutch, in dividing the country for ad¬ 
ministrative purposes, have retained as far as possible the 
boundaries of the old native districts, here called margas. 
The country is not peculiarly favourable to agriculture, 
and the native does not seek to improve it by irrigation, 
so that the sawah or wet rice-fields are rare, and the 
