Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/199

 ship along; the sailors say that a head-wind would have resulted in as bad a day as is usually seen at sea. The decks are slippery, and those who go out are in constant danger of being soaked with spray. For a wonder, I am not seasick, and spent my time talking with passengers who have visited strange places. One man lived for a time in one of the remote islands of the Malay archipelago, where the natives wear very little clothing, and he says the men have the handsomest figures he has ever seen; that the marble figures in art galleries do not equal living examples in Borneo. The figures of the men are much superior to the figures of the women. Occasionally a very young girl will have a good figure, but never equal to a boy of the same age; men of thirty have splendid figures, whereas women of that age have no figures at all A bird known as the hornbill is found in Borneo. When the female has laid a sufficient number of eggs, the male seals her up in the nest, which is in a hollow tree, and compels her to sit until germination takes place. While the female is a prisoner, the male feeds her faithfully. Another bird deposits its eggs in a pile, covers them over with sand, and leaves hatching to the sun. A half-dozen hens will place their eggs in the same pile. When the eggs are hatched, the young are immediately able to look after themselves In some of the islands of the archipelago there are no judges, courts, or policemen, yet the natives are well behaved, and crime is almost unknown. This, my informant says, is probably the natural state of man; wherever crime is rampant among savages, it has usually been introduced by members of civilized races. In a state of