Close to my house was an enclosed mudhole where three buffaloes were shut up every night, and the effluvia from which freely entered through the open bamboo floor.

My Malay boy Ali was affected with the same illness, and as he was my chief bird-skinner I got on but slowly with my collections.
The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed but little from those of all other Malay races.

The time of the women was almost wholly occupied in pounding and cleaning rice for daily use, in bringing home firewood and water, and in cleaning, dyeing, spinning, and weaving the native cotton into sarongs.

The weaving is done in the simplest kind of frame stretched on the floor; and is a very slow and tedious process.
To form the checked pattern in common use, each patch of coloured threads has to be pulled up separately by hand and the shuttle passed between them; so that about an inch a day is the usual progress in stuff a yard and a half wide.

The men cultivate a little sirih (the pungent pepper leaf used for chewing with betel-nut) and a few vegetables; and once a year rudely plough a small patch of ground with their buffaloes and plant rice, which then requires little attention until harvest time.
Now and then they have to see to the repairs of their houses, and make mats, baskets, or other domestic utensils, but a large part of their time is passed in idleness.
Not a single person in the village could speak more than a few words of Malay, and hardly any of the people appeared to have seen a European before.