feet in the length of the floor, the prow projecting twenty-two, and the stern eighteen, making the whole length sixty-five feet.  The greatest breadth was five feet, and the depth three feet eight inches.  For navigating in their rivers and the straits of Si Kakap, where the sea is as smooth as glass, they employ canoes, formed with great neatness of a single tree, and the women and young children are extremely expert in the management of the paddle.  They are strangers to the use of coin of any kind, and have little knowledge of metals.  The iron bill or chopping-knife, called parang, is in much esteem among them, it serves as a standard for the value of other commodities, such as articles of provision.

The religion of these people, if it deserves the name, resembles much what has been described of the Battas; but their mode of disposing of their dead is different, and analogous rather to the practice of the South-sea islanders, the corpse, being deposited on a sort of stage in a place appropriated for the purpose, and with a few leaves strewed over it, is left to decay.  Inheritance is by male descent; the house or plantation, the weapons and tools of the father, become the property of the sons.  Their chiefs are but little distinguished from the rest of the community by authority or possessions, their pre-eminence being chiefly displayed at public entertainments, of which they do the honours.  They have not even judicial powers, all disputes being settled, and crimes adjudged, by a meeting of the whole village.  Murder is punishable by retaliation, for which purpose the offender is delivered over to the relations of the deceased, who may put him to death; but the crime is rare.  Theft, when to a considerable amount, is also capital.  In cases of adultery the injured husband has a right to seize the effects of the paramour, and sometimes punishes his wife by cutting off her hair.  When the husband offends the wife has a right to quit him and to return to her parents’ house.  Simple fornication between unmarried persons is neither considered as a crime nor a disgrace.  The state of slavery is unknown among these people, and they do not practise circumcision.

The custom of tattooing, or imprinting figures on the skin, is general among the inhabitants of this group of islands.  They call it in their language teetee or titi.  They begin to form these marks on boys at seven years of age, and fill them up as they advance in years.  Mr. Crisp thinks they were originally intended as marks of military distinction.  The women have a star imprinted on each shoulder, and generally some small marks on the backs of their hands.  These punctures are made with an instrument consisting of a brass wire fixed perpendicularly into a piece of stick about eight inches in length.  The pigment made use of is the smoke collected from dammar, mixed with water (or, according to another account, with the juice of the sugar-cane).  The operator takes a stalk of dried grass, or a fine piece of stick, and, dipping the end in the pigment, traces on the skin the outline of the figure, and then, dipping the brass point in the same preparation, with very quick and light strokes of a long, small stick, drives it into the skin, whereby an indelible mark is produced.  The pattern when completed is in all the individuals nearly the same.