This offers temptation to the bold lover, who comes in the dead of night, and by the signal of a white rag hung through the floor, knows the coast is clear: sometimes the girls get bold, and as they are all in league to deceive the sultan, they can occasionally leave the house without being discovered. The daughters of the late Muda Hassim, in 1859, absented themselves for three weeks and were not found out. Sometimes it causes a tragedy. I will mention one which occurred during my residence in the capital (1858). There were two sisters living in the sultan’s harim, the eldest was his concubine. He one day entered her room and found her absent with her mother, and, on inquiry, he heard that she was in the habit of fetching both her daughters away for the purpose of intrigue, as the sultan allowed them nothing but what I have stated as the usual fare. He determined to make an example: so when she brought back the girls, he told her the pañgeran shabandar wanted to speak to her; she went, and, on entering the room saw on the table the fatal instrument, the garotte; she guessed her fate, but fell on her knees before the pañgeran and begged for her life, offering to confess the names of those who had received her daughters at their houses: upon this, pañgeran Mahomed, a dissipated young man, struck her on the mouth with his slipper, and, the signal being given, the assistants slipped the skein of thread over her head, fixed the board at the back of her neck, and turning a short stick, strangled her, and then delivered the body to her astonished husband. The board used has two holes in it, through which the thick skein of brownish thread is passed, and once the latter is round the neck, it is easy to tighten it by the stick fixed behind. The eldest daughter was expelled the harim, and given in marriage to the sultan’s old favourite, while the younger one was disgraced to slaves’ duties. The pañgeran tumanggong, discovering a woman assisting his concubines from the house, slew her with his own kris, in the presence of his wife. The sultan’s wife and favourite concubines dress well in European silks and satins, and possess an abundance of gold ornaments, but the others are, as I have said, poorly provided for. The women delight in every practice that can deceive their lords, and they have invented a system of speaking to each other in what may be called an inverted language--in Malay, “Bhasa Balik.” It is spoken in different ways: ordinary words have their syllables transposed, or to each syllabic another one is added. For “mari,” to come, they say, “malah-rilah;” they are constantly varying it, and girls often invent a new system, only confided to their intimate acquaintances; if they suspect they are understood by others, they instantly change it.