either by a rajah or petty sultan. Their laws are much more
respected than would be supposed in a country where every man is armed,
and is a robber by profession. The dress of the Malay is very uniform,
consisting of a loose jacket, a sash, and trousers: in some parts a
cloth is worn round the head; in others, a hat, made of leaves or
rattan. Their arms are the kris and spear; occasionally they carry the
sum-pi-tan, and poisoned arrows. Their houses are built upon stakes,
probably for the sake of cleanliness; as the flooring consists of a kind
of grating made of rattan, all dirt falls through. The houses are small,
and contain but one family, and, like those of the Dyaks, are built of
the lightest materials. The Malays pretend to Mahomedanism, and there is
generally a large empty building in every town which is dignified with
the name of a mosque: on the outside are hung drums or tom-toms, of huge
dimensions, which are used as gentle reminders of the hours of prayer.

I have already stated that these Malay tribes live almost wholly by
piracy, to carry on which each town possesses several large prahus,
which they man, and send out to intercept any unfortunate junk or other
vessel incapable of much resistance, which fate or the currents may have
driven too near their coast. When the vessels are captured the cargoes
are deposited in their warehouses, the vessels are broken up, and the
crews are retained as slaves, to dig yams or pound paddy. Unless they
are irritated by a desperate resistance, or they attack an inimical
tribe, they do not shed blood, as has generally been supposed;
restrained, however, by no other feeling than that of avarice, for the
slaves are too valuable to be destroyed. In their physiognomy these
Malays are inferior to the Dyaks: they have a strong resemblance to the
monkey in face, with an air of low cunning and rascality most
unprepossessing. In stature they are very low, and generally
bandy-legged. Their hair and eyes are invariably black, but the face is,
in most cases, devoid of hair; when it does grow, it is only at the
extreme point of the chin. The Borneo Malay women are as plain as the
men, although at Sincapore, Mauritius, and the Sooloos, they are well
favoured; and they wind their serang, or robe, so tight round their
bodies, that they walk in a very constrained and ungainly fashion. Many
of these tribes are intermixed with the natives of the Celebes, such as
the inhabitants of Sooloo.

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