like the men, and almost all of
them had siwars or small daggers at their sides. They were not shut up or
concealed from us, but mixed with our party, on the contrary, with much
frankness.

BUILDINGS.

The people dwell in hordes, many families being crowded together in one
long building. That in which I lived gave shelter to twenty-five
families. The front was one long undivided verandah, where the unmarried
men slept; the back part was partitioned into small cabins, each of which
had a round hole with a door to fit it, and through this the female
inmates crept backwards and forwards in the most awkward manner and
ridiculous posture. This house was in length two hundred and thirty feet,
and elevated from the ground. Those belonging to the chiefs were smaller,
well constructed of timber and plank, and covered with shingles or thin
plates of board bound on with rattans, about the size and having much the
appearance of our slates.

DRESSES.

The dresses of the young women of rank were pretty enough. A large blue
turband, woven with silver chains, which, meeting behind and crossing,
were fastened to the earrings in festoons, decorated their heads. In this
was placed a large plume of cock's feathers, bending forward over the
face. The jacket was blue, of a silky texture, their own work, and
bordered with small gold chain. The body-dress, likewise of their own
weaving, was of cotton mingled with silk, richly striped and mixed with
gold thread; but they wear it no lower than the knees. The youths of
fashion were in a kind of harlequin habit, the forepart of the trousers
white, the back-part blue; their jacket after the same fashion. They
delighted much in an instrument made from some part of the iju palm-tree,
which resembled and produced a sound like the jews-harp.

COOKERY.

Their domestic economy (I speak of the houses of the chiefs) seemed
better regulated than it generally is in these countries; they seemed
tolerably advanced in the art of cookery, and had much variety of food;
such as the flesh of deer, which they take in rattan snares, wild ducks,
abounding on the lake; green pigeons, quails innumerable; and a variety
of fish beside the summah already mentioned, and the ikan gadis, a
species of carp which attains to a greater size here than in the rivers.

ESCULENT VEGETABLES.

The potato, which was introduced there many years ago, is now a common
article of food, and cultivated with some attention. Their plan