Most Europeans being gifted by nature with a luxuriant growth of hair upon their faces, think it disfigures them, and keep up a continual struggle against her by mowing down every morning the crop which has sprouted up flaring the preceding twenty-four hours. Now the men of Mongolian race are, naturally, just as many of us want to he. They mostly pass their lives with faces as smooth and beardless as an infant's. But shaving seems an instinct of the human race; for many of these people, having no hair to take off their faces, shave their heads. Others, however, set resolutely to work to force nature to give them a beard. One of the chief cock-fighters at Dobbo was a Javanese, a sort of master of the ceremonies of the ring, who tied on the spars and acted as backer-up to one of the combatants. This man had succeeded, by assiduous cultivation, in raising a pair of moustaches which were a triumph of art, for they each contained about a dozen hairs more than three inches long, and which, being well greased and twisted, were distinctly visible (when not too far off) as a black thread hanging down on each side of his mouth. But the beard to match was the difficulty, for nature had cruelly refused to give him a rudiment of hair on his chin, and the most talented gardener could not do much if he had nothing to cultivate. But true genius triumphs over difficulties. Although there was no hair proper on the chin; there happened to be, rather on one side of it, a small mole or freckle which contained (as such things frequently do) a few stray hairs. These had been made the most of. They had reached four or five inches in length, and formed another black thread dangling from the left angle of the chin. The owner carried this as if it were something remarkable (as it certainly was); he often felt it affectionately, passed it between his fingers, and was evidently extremely proud of his moustaches and beard!
One of the most surprising things connected with Aru was the excessive cheapness of all articles of European or native manufacture. We were here two thousand miles beyond Singapore and Batavia, which are themselves emporiums of the "far east," in a place unvisited by, and almost unknown to, European traders;everything reached us through at least two or three hands, often many more; yet English calicoes and American cotton cloths could be bought for 8s. the piece, muskets for 15s., common scissors and German knives at three-halfpence each, and other cutlery, cotton goods, and earthenware in the same proportion. The natives of this out-of-the-way country can, in fact, buy all these things at about the same money price as our workmen at home, but in reality very much cheaper, for the produce of a few hours' labour enables the savage to purchase in abundance what are to him luxuries, while to the European they are necessaries of life. The barbarian is no happier and no better off for this cheapness. On the contrary, it has a most injurious effect on him. He wants the stimulus of necessity to force him to labour; and if iron were as dear as silver, and calico as costly as satin, the effect would be beneficial to him. As it is, he has more idle hours, gets a more constant supply of tobacco, and can intoxicate himself with arrack more frequently and more thoroughly; for your Aru man scorns to get half drunk-a tumbler full of arrack is but a slight stimulus, and nothing less than half a gallon of spirit will make him tipsy to his own satisfaction.
It is not agreeable to reflect on this state of things. At least half of the vast multitudes of uncivilized peoples, on whom our gigantic manufacturing system, enormous capital, and intense competition force the produce of our looms and workshops, would be not a whit worse off physically, and would certainly be improved morally, if all the articles with which w e supply them were double or treble their present prices. If at the same time the difference of cost, or a large portion of it, could find its way into the pockets of the manufacturing workmen, thousands would be raised from want to comfort, from starvation to health, and would be removed from one of the chief incentives to crime.