The Malay Archipelago, Volume 2 _ The Land - Alfred Russel Wallace

people are, in other matters, utterly wanting in all sense of order, comfort, or
decency. Yet such is the case. They live in the most miserable, crazy, and filthy
hovels, which are utterly destitute of anything that can be called furniture; not a
stool, or bench, or board is seen in them, no brush seems to be known, and the
clothes they wear are often filthy bark, or rags, or sacking. Along the paths
where they daily pass to and from their provision grounds, not an overhanging
bough or straggling briar ever seems to be cut, so that you have to brush through
a rank vegetation, creep under fallen trees and spiny creepers, and wade through
pools of mud and mire, which cannot dry up because the sun is not allowed to
penetrate. Their food is almost wholly roots and vegetables, with fish or game
only as an occasional luxury, and they are consequently very subject to various
skin diseases, the children especially being often miserable-looking objects,
blotched all over with eruptions and sores. If these people are not savages, where
shall we find any? Yet they have all a decided love for the fine arts, and spend
their leisure time in executing works whose good taste and elegance would often
be admired in our schools of design!