. The Malay Archipelago : the land of the oranguatan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature. Natural history; Ethnology. 136 SUMATEA. originally a maritime and water - loving people, who built their houses on posts in the water, and only migrated gradu- ally inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into the dry interior. Habits which were at once so convenient and so cleanly, and which had been so long practiced as to become a portion of the domestic life of the nation, were of course continued when the first settlers built their houses inland
. The Malay Archipelago : the land of the oranguatan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature. Natural history; Ethnology. 136 SUMATEA. originally a maritime and water - loving people, who built their houses on posts in the water, and only migrated gradu- ally inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into the dry interior. Habits which were at once so convenient and so cleanly, and which had been so long practiced as to become a portion of the domestic life of the nation, were of course continued when the first settlers built their houses inland; and without a regular system of drainage, the arrangement. chief's house and eice-shed in a sumatran village. of the villages is such that any other system would be very inconvenient. In all these Sumatran villages I found considerable difficul- ty in getting any thing to eat. It was not the season for veg- etables, and when, after much trouble, I managed to procure some yams of a curious yariety, I found them hard and scarce- ly eatable. Fowls were very scarce, and fruit was reduced to one of the poorest kinds of banana. The natives (during the wet season at least) live exclusively on rice, as the poorer Irish do on potatoes. A pot of rice cooked very dry and eaten with salt and red peppers, twice a day, forms their en- tire food during a large part of the year. This is no sign of poverty, but is simply custom ; for their wives and children are loaded with silver armlets from wrist to elbow, and carry. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823-1913. New York : Harper
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, booksubjectethnology, booksubjectnaturalhistory
