Now and then they get wild pig or kangaroo, but too rarely to form anything like
a regular part of their diet, which is essentially vegetable; and what is of more
importance, as affecting their health, green, watery vegetables, imperfectly
cooked, and even these in varying and often 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 or fish a
little, or work at their houses or canoes, but they seem to enjoy pure idleness,
and work as little as they can. They have little to vary the monotony of life, little
that can be called pleasure, except idleness and conversation. And they certainly