Hiller.] ^^^ [Dec. IS, 



women were then living in temporary houses near their distant fields. 

 Even the king's apartments were vacant, for with the changes war and 

 disease ever bring, no heir is left and another dynasty has ended. In 

 front of his door a great slab from the tapang tree indicates his former 

 dias. Quaint, characteristic, Kayan carvings decorate the empty dwell- 

 ing and the dogs now go in and out without hindrance or molestation. 



Oyang Usa's house was the farthest point reached on the Rejang, per- 

 haps 300 miles from the sea, and in the distance the blue mountains 

 mark the foot hills of the range where the river takes its source. Xo 

 white man has 3'et visited the spot . 



As we descended the river we fell in Avith some of the warriors return- 

 ing, and in course of time elicited some facts concerning the recent ex- 

 pedition ; tales that rivaled the Indian stories of our childhood. They 

 showed us their trophies, their plunder and their fast drying heads, and 

 lastly with a petition for food they produced a two-year-old captive 

 child whose mouth watered as hungry children's do, when we offered it 

 a bit of food. We floated down the river side by side for several hours, 

 and before we left that baby had a generous half of our stores at its 

 command. 



Captives, however, stand second in rank among the spoils of Avar ; a 

 dried and charred head perhaps yielding to no other object, especially 

 when at the feasting and drinking that folloAvs the return of an expedi- 

 tion the women take down the heads from over the fireplace and, danc- 

 ing up and down the A'eranda, hey sing of the courage of the successful 

 and taunt those who from want of skill or valor returned empty- 

 handed. Then too they often get quantities of mats, of old Chinese 

 jars, by which they set great store, of Aveapons of all sorts, and occasion- 

 ally a rare find in the shape of a string of dingy beads 



These curious old glass beads have fictitious A^alues in their eyes, a 

 single small bead called by them a " Lukut Sekali " may cost as much 

 as a slave, or if you ask the price of a necklace it goes beyond their 

 powers of computation, and the person after thinking for a while will 

 usually saj^ it is Avorth more than a long-house. They are supposed to 

 be Venetian beads, brought to the east by Mohammedan traders and sold 

 by the Malays and Chinese to the Kayans. The Chinese have tried in 

 vain to counterfeit these beads as Avell as the old jars, but the Kayan is 

 an antiquarian of no mean skill in the matter of glass and porcelain and 

 the Celestial has not yet succeeded. 



On this same expedition some of the Dyaks found the " safe de- 

 posit " of a friendly chief, but thinking it the hiding place of their 

 enemies they raided it. At the request of the government they returned 

 the property to the owners, and on this occasion we saAv for the first time 

 the "tebuku " or memory knots common to many untaught people. In 

 this instance a bundle of rattan strips tied in knots recording the various 



