Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
dens near, and to the well, where some good insects were occasionally to be found; and the
rest of the day to wait quietly at home, and receive what beetles and shells my little corps of
collectors brought me daily. I imputed my illness chiefly to the water, which was procured
from shallow wells, around which there was almost always a stagnant puddle in which the
buffaloes wallowed. Close to my house was an inclosed mudhole where three buffaloes
were shut up every night, and the effluvia from which freely entered through the open bam-
boo floor. My Malay boy Ali was affected with the same illness, and as he was my chief
bird-skinner I got on but slowly with my collections.
The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed but little from those of all other
Malay races. The time of the women was almost wholly occupied in pounding and cleaning
rice for daily use, in bringing home firewood and water, and in cleaning, dyeing, spinning,
and weaving the native cotton into sarongs. The weaving is done in the simplest kind of
frame stretched on the floor, and is a very slow and tedious process. To form the checked
pattern in common use, each patch of coloured threads has to be pulled up separately by
hand and the shuttle passed between them; so that about an inch a day is the usual progress
in stuff a yard and a half wide. The men cultivate a little sirih (the pungent pepper leaf used
for chewing with betel-nut) and a few vegetables; and once a year rudely plough a small
patch of ground with their buffaloes and plant rice, which then requires little attention till
harvest time. Now and then they have to see to the repairs of their houses, and make mats,
baskets, or other domestic utensils, but a large part of their time is passed in idleness.
Not a single person in the village could speak more than a few words of Malay, and
hardly any of the people appeared to have seen a European before. One most disagreeable
result of this was, that I excited terror alike in man and beast. Wherever I went, dogs barked,
children screamed, women ran away, and men stared as though I were some strange and ter-
rible cannibal monster. Even the pack-horses on the roads and paths would start aside when
I appeared and rush into the jungle; and as to those horrid, ugly brutes, the buffaloes, they
could never be approached by me; not for fear of my own but of others' safety. They would
first stick out their necks and stare at me, and then on a nearer view break loose from their
halters or tethers, and rush away helter-skelter as if a demon were after them, without any
regard for what might be in their way. Whenever I met buffaloes carrying packs along a
pathway, or being driven home to the village, I had to turn aside into the jungle and hide
myself till they had passed, to avoid a catastrophe which would increase the dislike with
which I was already regarded. Every day about noon the buffaloes were brought into the vil-
lage and were tethered in the shade around the houses; and then I had to creep about like a
thief by back ways, for no one could tell what mischief they might do to children and houses
