r with the various roots and bulbs they find in the
forest, as well as their inseparable blow-pipes and well-filled quivers.

They also resist very well the privations to which they are sometimes
subjected by their own improvidence. All that they bring back with them
they will eat at once, be it animal or vegetable food, and when they
cannot finish it up by themselves they invite people from another
village or tribe to come and help them devour it, laughing at every idea
of domestic economy that I have vainly tried to impress upon their
minds.

But are they wrong, after all? They know for certain that the forest
will not leave them to starve and when there is no more rice, durian,
mangosteen etc., it is never difficult to catch a pheasant, monkey, rat,
serpent or even a wild boar.

Were they acquainted with Italian operas their favourite lines would
certainly be:

Non curiamo l'incerto domani
Se quest' oggi n'e dato goder.[8]

and their choice would be appropriate, for where else could the Borgias
be so well remembered as in a land famous for its poisons?

The Sakais' skin is of a colour between light and burnt ochre, the tint
getting darker as they grow older (in consequence of their long exposure
to the sun), at which period the whole body becomes rough and wrinkled.
The children are of a much lighter colour until they begin their life in
the open air.

[Illustration: Another.

_p._ 113.]

The woman, as a type, differs very little from the man. She is rather
shorter as is the case with all the pure and mixed Mongolian races.

As a girl she has a rounded form and is not without grace. As long as
she is healthy and blooming she may be considered a beauty.... in the
forest, but she soon gets faded because of the fatiguing life she leads
and also because of her early marriage, for she is already a wife when
our girls are at the beginning of their teens.

The boys are generally healthy, sturdy little fellows.

* * * * *

The Sakai's head is regular in form and size like that of the Mongolian
race; the cheek-bones, however, are less prominent than those of the
Tartars and the eyes are wider open and less oblique.

The forehead neither retreats nor protrudes and is high and spacious
enough. The nose is large and slightly flattened at the root. The facial
angle measures pretty much the same as that of the Chinese.

The mouth, well-cut and not too large, with rather thi