Dyak Mode of Climbing. 65 



to cany the animal home, I set to work and skinned the body 

 on the spot, leaving the head, hands, and feet attached, to he 

 finished at home. This specimen is now in the British Mu- 

 seum. 



At the end of a week, finding no more orangs, I returned 

 home ; and, taking in a few fresh stores, and this time ac- 

 companied by Charles, went up another branch of the river 

 very similar in character to a place called Menyille, where 

 there were several small Dyak houses and one large one. 

 Here the landing-place was a bridge of rickety poles over a 

 considerable distance of water, and I thought it safer to leave 

 my cask of arrack securely placed in the fork of a tree. To 

 prevent the natives from drinking it, I let several of them see 

 me put in a number of snakes and lizards ; but I rather think 

 this did not prevent them from tasting it. We were accom- 

 modated here in the veranda of the large house, in which 

 were several great baskets of dried human heads, the tro- 

 phies of past generations of head-hunters. Here also there 

 was a little mountain covered with fruit-trees, and there were 

 some magnificent durion-trees close by the house, the fruit 

 of which was ripe ; and as the Dyaks looked upon me as a 

 benefactor in killing the mias which destroys a great deal of 

 their fruit, they let us eat as much as we liked, and we rev- 

 elled in this emperor of fruits in its greatest jjerfection. 



The very day after my arrival in this place I was so for- 

 tunate as to shoot another adult male of the small orang, the 

 mias-kassir of the Dyaks. It fell when dead, but caught in a 

 fork of the tree and i-emained fixed. As I was very anxious 

 to get it, I tried to persuade two young Dyaks who were 

 with me to cut down the tree, which was tall, perfectly 

 straight and smooth-barked, and without a branch for fifty or 

 sixty feet. To my surprise, they said they would jDrefer 

 climbing up it, but it would be a good deal of trouble, and, 

 after a little talking together, they said they would try. 

 They first went to a clump of bamboo that stood near and 

 cut down one of the largest stems. From this they chopped 

 off a short piece, and splitting it, made a couj^le of stout i^egs 

 about a foot long and sharp at one end. Then cutting a 

 thick piece of wood for a mallet, they drove one of the pegs 

 into the tree and hung their weight upon it. It held, and 



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