Mothers carry the children not on the arm, as our nurses do, but straddling on the hip, and usually supported by a cloth which ties in a knot on the opposite shoulder.  This practice I have been told is common in some parts of Wales.  It is much safer than the other method, less tiresome to the nurse, and the child has the advantage of sitting in a less constrained posture:  but the defensive armour of stays, and offensive weapons called pins, might be some objection to the general introduction of the fashion in England.  The children are nursed but little, not confined by any swathing or bandages, and, being suffered to roll about the floor, soon learn to walk and shift for themselves.  When cradles are used they are swung suspended from the ceiling of the rooms.

AGE OF THE PEOPLE.

The country people can very seldom give an account of their age, being entirely without any species of chronology.  Among those country people who profess themselves Mahometans to very few is the date of the Hejra known; and even of those who in their writings make use of it not one in ten can pronounce in what year of it he was born.  After a few taun padi (harvests) are elapsed they are bewildered in regard to the date of an event, and only guess at it from some contemporary circumstance of notoriety, as the appointment of a particular dupati, the incursion of a certain enemy, or the like.  As far as can be judged from observation it would seem that not a great proportion of the men attain to the age of fifty, and sixty years is accounted a long life.

NAMES.

The children among the Rejangs have generally a name given to them by their parents soon after their birth, which is called namo daging.  The galar (cognomen), another species of name, or title, as we improperly translate it, is bestowed at a subsequent, but not at any determinate, period:  sometimes as the lads rise to manhood, at an entertainment given by the parent, on some particular occasion; and often at their marriage.  It is generally conferred by the old men of the neighbouring villages, when assembled; but instances occur of its being irregularly assumed by the persons themselves; and some never obtain any galar.  It is also not unusual, at a convention held on business of importance, to change the galar of one or two of the principal personages to others of superior estimation; though it is not easy to discover in what this pre-eminence consists, the appellations being entirely arbitrary, at the fancy of those who confer them:  perhaps in the loftier sound, or more pompous allusion in the sense, which latter is sometimes carried to an extraordinary pitch of bombast, as in the instance of Pengunchang bumi, or Shaker of the World, the title of a pangeran of Manna.  But a climax is not always perceptible in the change.

FATHER NAMED FROM HIS CHILD.