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.