rooked pins that I had
thrown away, and ask as a great favour whether they might have them.
Crimes of violence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for
in twelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been only one
case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a stranger
who had been adopted into the tribe. In several other matters of
morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above many civilized
nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the gross sensuality
of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them. They have the usual
fault of all people in a half-savage state--apathy and dilatoriness,
but, however annoying this may be to Europeans who come in contact
with them, it cannot be considered a very grave offence, or be held to
outweigh their many excellent qualities.

During my residence among the Hill Dyaks, I was much struck by the
apparent absence of those causes which are generally supposed to check
the increase of population, although there were plain indications
of stationary or but slowly increasing numbers. The conditions most
favourable to a rapid increase of population are: an abundance of food,
a healthy climate, and early marriages. Here these conditions all exist.
The people produce far more food than they consume, and exchange the
surplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient jars, and gold and silver
ornaments, which constitute their wealth. On the whole, they appear very
free from disease, marriages take place early (but not too early),
and old bachelors and old maids are alike unknown. Why, then, we must
inquire, has not a greater population been produced? Why are the Dyak
villages so small and so widely scattered, while nine-tenths of the
country is still covered with forest?

Of all the checks to population among savage nations mentioned by
Malthus--starvation, disease, war, infanticide, immorality, and
infertility of the women--the last is that which he seems to think least
important, and of doubtful efficacy; and yet it is the only one that
seems to me capable of accounting for the state of the population among
the Sarawak Dyaks. The population of Great Britain increases so as to
double itself in about fifty years. To do this it is evident that each
married couple must average three children who live to be married at the
age of about twenty-five. Add to these those who die in infancy, those
who never marry, or those who marry late in life and hav