The accounts of their physical appearance is taken from too few individuals to justify any generalization. Two, however, of them had the forehead broader than the cheek-bones, so that the head was pear-shaped. In a third, it was lozenge-shaped. The head was small, and the face flat. The lower jaw projected; but not the upper--so that "when viewed in profile, the features seem to be placed on a straight line, from which the prominent parts rise very slightly."[65] _The Orang Sletar._--The original joint-occupants of Sincapore with the Biduanda Kallang, were the _Orang Sletar_, or _men of the river Sletar_; differing but little from the former. Of the two families they are the shyer, and the more squalid; numbering about two hundred individuals and forty boats. Their dialect is Malay, spoken with a guttural pronunciation, and with a clipping of the words. At the birth of a child they have no ceremonies; at marriage a present of tobacco and rice to the bride's mother confirms the match; at death the deceased is wrapped in his garments and interred. Skin diseases and deformities are common; nevertheless, many of their women are given in marriage to both the Malays and Chinese; but I know of no account of the mixed progeny. A low retreating forehead throws the face of the _Orang Sletar_ forwards, though the jaw is rather perpendicular than projecting.[66] Such are the _Orang Binua_ originally, or at present, in contact with the small and isolated possessions of the British in the Malayan peninsula. Of the proper Malays I have said next to nothing. Excellent works give full accounts of them;[67] whilst it is not through _them_ that the true ethnological problems are to be worked. I believe that when we reach Borneo, the equivalents to the _Orang Binua_, or the original populations in opposition to the Mahometan Malays, become referable to a fresh type, and that instead of being _darker_ than the true Malays they are often _lighter_. At any rate, one thing is certain, _viz._, that, whether the skin be brown, blackish, or fair, the language belongs to the same stock. Again--although in one area the darker tribes may preponderate, it is not to the absolute exclusion of the fairer. The Dyaks of Borneo are, generally speaking, light-complexioned; yet, there is special evidence to the existence of dark tribes in that island. On the other hand there is equal evidence to the existence of families lighter-skinned than the true Malays in the peninsula. Nevertheless, as a general rule, the departure from the type of that population is towards darkness of colour on the continent, and towards lightness in Borneo.