Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

198 HABITATIONS part n
groves, collecting their food from the shores and
forests as they proceeded, exhausting one spot and
then searching for another. To one accustomed to
the comforts and wants of civilisation, their life ap-
peared to be one of extreme hardship. Huddled up
in a small boat hardly measuring 20 ft. (6 m.) in
length, they yet found in it all the domestic comfort
they were in want of; at one end was the fire-
place, in the middle the few utensils of which they
might be in possession, and at the other end beneath
a network awning (or " kajang "), not exceeding six
feet in length, was the sleeping apartment of a
family numbering as many as five or six, together
with a cat and dog ;
under
this awning they took
shelter from the dews and rains of the night, and from
the heat of the day. Even the Malays in pointing
out these confined quarters exclaimed "how miserable,"
though of any misery the objects of their commisera-
tion were not aware. In these same quarters they
found all their wants supplied ; their children would
sport on the shore at low water in search of shell-fish ;
and during high water they might be seen climbing
the mangrove branches, and dashing from thence into
the water, with all the life and energy of children of a
colder clime, at once affording a proof that even they
were not without their joys.'
Orang" Laiit, Sabimba.—The Sabimba tribe (of the
Orang Laut) erected in the forest rude temporary huts,
the floors of which were on the level of the ground,
and never remained long in the same spot."
Orang" Laut, Muka Kuning*.—The tribe consisted of
about fifty families, who lived scattered in small huts
beneath the trees of the forest. Their huts were
^ /. I. A. vol. i. pp. 344*, 345*. ^ Logan in/ /. A. vol. i. p. 297.