The personal difference between the Malays of the coast and the country inhabitants is not so strongly marked but that it requires some experience to distinguish them. The latter however possess an evident superiority in point of size and strength, and are fairer complexioned, which they probably owe to their situation, where the atmosphere is colder; and it is generally observed that people living near the seashore, and especially when accustomed to navigation, are darker than their inland neighbours. Some attribute the disparity in constitutional vigour to the more frequent use of opium among the Malays, which is supposed to debilitate the frame; but I have noted that the Limun and Batang Asei gold traders, who are a colony of that race settled in the heart of the island, and who cannot exist a day without opium, are remarkably hale and stout; which I have known to be observed with a degree of envy by the opium-smokers of our settlements. The inhabitants of Passummah also are described as being more robust in their persons than the planters of the low country. CLOTHING. The original clothing of the Sumatrans is the same with that found by navigators among the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, and now generally called by the name of Otaheitean cloth. It is still used among the Rejangs for their working dress, and I have one in my possession procured from these people consisting of a jacket, short drawers, and a cap for the head. This is the inner bark of a certain species of tree, beaten out to the degree of fineness required, approaching the more to perfection as it resembles the softer kind of leather, some being nearly equal to the most delicate kid-skin; in which character it somewhat differs from the South Sea cloth, as that bears a resemblance rather to paper, or to the manufacture of the loom. The country people now conform in a great measure to the dress of the Malays, which I shall therefore describe in this place, observing that much more simplicity still prevails among the former, who look upon the others as coxcombs who lay out all their substance on their backs, whilst in their turns they are regarded by the Malays with contempt as unpolished rustics. MAN'S DRESS.