een them except
by boats, varying in size from house or shop boats to tiny canoes
almost invisible beneath the widespreading hats of their occupants.
The flooring of the houses is all open, and all refuse-matter falls or
is thrown into the water beneath.

We anchored a little above the 'Packnam,' and sent a messenger to the
Sultan to enquire when it would be convenient to him to receive us,
for which purpose he appointed two o'clock. In the interval we went
for a row, in quite the intensest heat I ever felt, to see something
of the town and the market. The women's hats were enormous--from three
to four feet in diameter. Anything more curious than the appearance of
a boat-load of these ladies can scarcely be imagined. It looked just
like a bunch of gigantic mushrooms which had somehow got adrift and
was floating down the stream. The marketing is, of course, all done in
boats; and it was interesting and amusing to watch the primitive
system of exchange and barter. Very little money passed, though some
of the hideous old women had little heaps of Chinese cash in front of
them. All the young women are kept shut up in the houses, and those
let out to buy and sell are indeed frightful specimens of the human
race. A couple of durians seemed to buy a hat. I could not arrive at
any idea of the price of other articles. The fish is brought up here
from the sea, just as at Kuching, by large boats to a certain point
and thence in prahus. Both fresh fish and stale fish--_very_ stale and
offensive it seemed to us--appeared to be the leading article of
commerce.

Besides the small canoes and prahus there were a good many large house
and shop boats, with quite a goodly supply of stores, all owned by
Chinese.

[Illustration: Brunei Hats]

Borneo produces about half the sago used by the civilised world. On
our way among the houses we had many opportunities of observing the
primary process of preparing sago for the market. It is not very
inviting, and is productive of a most sickening smell. The large logs
of the sago-tree are brought down from the jungle by river and moored
in the dirty water against the piles underneath the houses, the
consoling feature of this arrangement being that the water is running.
One log is selected at a time for treatment. A man stands over it, and
with an instrument, something between a hatchet and a hoe, extracts
all the pith of the tree, which is the sago. This he pitches on to a
mat suspended between