In the plantation we saw a small raised hut, which we thought would do well for us to breakfast in, so I entered, and found inside a young woman with an infant.

She handed me a jug of water, but looked very much frightened.

However, I sat down on the doorstep, and asked for the provisions.

In handing them up, Baderoon saw the infant, and started back as if he had seen a serpent.

It then immediately struck me that this was a hut in which, as among the Dyaks of Borneo and many other savage tribes, the women are secluded for some time after the birth of their child, and that we did very wrong to enter it; so we walked off and asked permission to eat our breakfast in the family mansion close at hand, which was of course granted.