BOKNEO 
257 
deep water. In what may be termed the main street, 
the larger vessels lie at anchor, while innumerable canoes 
dart about in every direction, from the Pangerangs’ 
barges propelled by twenty paddles to the little flat 
“ dug-out ” with a bare inch of freeboard, manned by a 
solitary naked native. The market is, perhaps, one of 
the most extraordinary sights the East has to show. 
Each stall is a canoe, and it would puzzle the spectator 
to form any estimate of their number, for the water is 
covered with craft of all sizes in incessant motion. At 
one moment there is a dense pack around some China¬ 
man or other trader, and each vociferates the prices of 
the produce on sale. At another there is a rush in the 
opposite direction, and the former buyer is deserted. A 
continuous onward movement is at the same time taking 
place, so that in the course of an hour or two the market 
has floated through a considerable part of the town. As 
in other countries, the vendors are almost without excep¬ 
tion women, each of whom wears a palm-leaf hat of 
enormous size, which serves the purpose of an umbrella 
also, for it is large enough to protect the whole body 
from either sun or rain. Several other towns in the 
Malay Archipelago resemble Brunei in being almost 
entirely aquatic ; as, for example, Palembang, but they 
are in nearly every case built close to a river bank, and 
hence the appearance presented is quite different. The 
population is estimated at from 12,000 to 15,000. 
The trade of Brunei is of no importance. What exists 
is in the hands of a few prosperous Chinese. The gold¬ 
smiths and brass workers are renowned, and the krisses and 
gold-embroidered sarongs are of beautiful workmanship. 
Fishing and the cultivation of the sago-palm and rice are 
the chief occupations of the peasants, who have groaned 
beneath the burden of an intolerable taxation, and still 
s 
