Their houses are generally spacious, and built upon pillars, six or more feet from the ground, resembling those of the Malays, but round, not square, like the latter. The inhabitants ascend by a ladder, which they can draw up after them. The house has only one room, but generally contains more than one family. Parents and children, guests, young and old of every description, pig here together, lying naked on the floor, with nothing but a _hetfat_, the leaf of a species of palm, under them, in lieu of a mattrass, and very few have any covering. The furniture of such a house consists in a few pots, made by the women, some highly polished cocoa-nut dishes, to hold water, some hatchets, a sabre or two, a few sailor's knives, and a good many spears. A family generally possesses two or three palongs, or boats. Their chief food is melory bread, made of the fruit of a kind of palm-tree[5], which is very palatable; yams, several other good roots, and great plenty of fruit from various trees and shrubs; all which grow in great abundance. Of pigs and common fowls they have a vast profusion. These are fed with cocoa-nuts, and their flesh is remarkably good. The sea furnishes them with various kinds of fishes, and an abundance of crabs and other shell-fish, so that they may easily enough serve their god, which is their belly. [5] A species of Pandanus. See Asiatic Researches, Vol. III. p. 292. The clothing of the men consists of a narrow piece of cloth, about three yards long. This they wrap twice round their waist, then passing it between their legs, and through the girth behind, leave the end of it to drag after them[6]. The women wear a piece of cloth, commonly of a blue colour, about a foot wide, fastened round their waist, so as to hang down like an apron, reaching not quite to their knees. They pride themselves upon their fine skin, which indeed they keep very clean, and do not in general use any paint. Both sexes live from their infancy without any restraint, and commit every kind of abomination, often to the utter ruin of their health and constitutions, in very early life. In general they do not live regularly in the married state, till they are past their prime; though I have known some who had married early, remain faithful to each other, and keep their families in good order. [6] Hence the fabulous stories of men with tails, related by Kloping, a Swedish navigator.