en in sufficient quantities. To this diet may be
attributed the prevalence of skin diseases, and ulcers on the legs and
joints. The scurfy skin disease so common among savages has a close
connexion with the poorness and irregularity of their living. The
Malays, who are never without their daily rice, are generally free from
it; the hill-Dyaks of Borneo, who grow rice and live well, are clean
skinned while the less industrious and less cleanly tribes, who live for
a portion of the year on fruits and vegetables only, are very subject to
this malady. It seems clear that in this, as in other respects, man
is not able to make a beast of himself with impunity, feeding like the
cattle on the herbs and fruits of the earth, and taking no thought of
the morrow. To maintain his health and beauty he must labour to prepare
some farinaceous product capable of being stored and accumulated, so as
to give him a regular supply of wholesome food. When this is obtained,
he may add vegetables, fruits, and meat with advantage.

The chief luxury of the Aru people, besides betel and tobacco, is arrack
(Java rum), which the traders bring in great quantities and sell very
cheap. A day's fishing or rattan cutting will purchase at least a
half-gallon bottle; and when the tripang or birds' nests collected
during a season are sold, they get whole boxes, each containing fifteen
such bottles, which the inmates of a house will sit round day and night
till they have finished. They themselves tell me that at such bouts they
often tear to pieces the house they are in, break and destroy everything
they can lay their hands on, and make such an infernal riot as is
alarming to behold.

The houses and furniture are on a par with the food. A rude shed,
supported on rough and slender sticks rather than posts, no walls,
but the floor raised to within a foot of the eaves, is the style of
architecture they usually adopt. Inside there are partition walls of
thatch, forming little boxes or sleeping places, to accommodate the
two or three separate families that usually live together. A few mats,
baskets, and cooking vessels, with plates and basins purchased from the
Macassar traders, constitute their whole furniture; spears and bows
are their weapons; a sarong or mat forms the clothing of the women, a
waistcloth of the men. For hours or even for days they sit idle in their
houses, the women bringing in the vegetables or sago which form their
food. Sometimes they hunt