It was built close to the water's edge, on palm posts six feet above
the ground. This was for protection from the tiger, from thieves, from
the water, and for sanitary reasons. Within the house we could just
stand upright. The floor was of split bamboo, and was elastic to the
foot, causing a sensation which at first made us step carefully. The
open places left by the crossing of the bamboo slats were a great
convenience to the punghulo's wives, as they could sweep all the refuse
of the house through them; they might also be a great accommodation to
the punghulo's enemies, if he had any, for they could easily ascertain
the exact mat on which he slept, and stab him with their keen krises
from beneath.

In one corner of the room was the hand-loom on which the punghulo's
old wife was weaving the universal article of dress, the sarong.

The weaving of a sarong represents the labor of twenty days, and
when we gave the dried-up old worker two dollars and a half for one,
her syrah-stained gums broke forth from between her bright-red lips
in a ghastly grin of pleasure.

There must have been the representatives of at least four generations
under the punghulo's hospitable roof. Men and women, alike, were
dressed in the skirt-like sarong which fell from the waist down; above
that some of the older women wore another garment called a kabaya. The
married women were easily distinguishable by their swollen gums and
filed teeth.

The roof and sides of the house were of attap. This is made from
the long, arrow-like leaves of the nipah palm. Unlike its brother
palms--the cocoa, the sago, the gamooty, and the areca--the nipah is
short, and more like a giant cactus in growth. Its leaves are stripped
off by the natives, then bent over a bamboo rod and sewed together with
fibres of the same palm. When dry they become glazed and waterproof.

The tall, slender areca palm, which stands about every kampong,
supplies the natives with their great luxury--an acorn, known as the
betel-nut, which, when crushed and mixed with lime leaves, takes the
place of our chewing tobacco. In fact, the bright-red juice seen oozing
from the corners of a Malay's mouth is as much a part of himself as
is his sarong or kris. Betel-nut chewing holds its own against the
opium of the Chinese and the tobacco of the European.

As soon as we shook hands ceremoniously with the punghulo's oldest
wife, and tabeked to the rest of his big family, the old man scrambled