Note 2 — Chapter XI · THE SULTAN’S ISTANA AND THE “HILL OF TEARS.”

It is really a very pretty sight to see the market people coming to market from the hills, men and women alike, mounted on ponies or cattle with their baskets, bags, and bundles of produce flung across the saddle before and behind. The men, especially, mounted on their high wooden saddles, armed with the national spear, and clad in chain armour tunic, forcibly reminded one of the illustrations of Don Quixote, a resemblance considerably heightened by the gaunt leanness of their steeds. A plurality of wives is general with the Datus, and others who have means to keep up an establishment, and these women are for the most part purchased from their parents, although formerly they were not unfrequently captured during piratical excursions. St. John2 mentions an instance where a pirate chief from Tawi-Tawi captured a Spanish schooner in 1859, and finding the captain’s daughter on board, he made her his principal wife and treated her with every attention; she subsequently bore him a child, the Spanish authorities having failed in their attempts to recover her.