Costume of Dyak Women. 79 



a rarity to be allowed to escape them, and their wives would 

 never have forgiven them if, when they returned from the 

 fields, they found that such a curiosity had not been kept for 

 them to see. On entering the house to which I was invited, 

 a crowd of sixty or seventy men, women, and children gath- 

 ei'ed round me, and I sat for half an hour like some strange 

 animal submitted for the first time to the gaze of an inquir- 

 ing public. Brass nngs were here in the greatest profusion, 

 many of the women having their arms completely covered 

 with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee. 

 Round the waist they wear a dozen or more coils of fine rat- 

 tan stained red, to which the petticoat is attached. Below 

 this are generally a number of coils of brass wire, a girdle of 

 small silver coins, and sometimes a broad belt of brass-ring 

 armor. On their heads they wear a conical hat without a 

 crown, formed of variously-colored beads, kept in shape by 

 rings of rattan, and forming a fantastic but not uupicturesque 

 head-dress. 



Walking out to a small hill near the village, cultivated as 

 a rice-field, I had a fine view of the country, which was be- 

 coming quite hilly, and toward the south mountainous. I 

 took bearings and sketches of all that was visible, an opera- 

 tion which caused much astonishment to the Dyaks who ac- 

 companied me, and produced a request to exhibit the compass 

 when I returned. I was then surrounded by a larger crowd 

 than before, and when I took my evening meal in the midst 

 of a circle of about a hundred spectators anxiously observing 

 every movement and criticising every mouthful, my thoughts 

 involuntarily recurred to the lions at feeding-time. Like 

 those noble animals, I too was used to it, and it did not affect 

 my appetite. The children here were more shy than at Tabo- 

 kan, and I could not persuade them to play. I therefore 

 turned showman myself, and exhibited the shadow of a dog's 

 head eating, which pleased them so much that all the village 

 in succession came out to see it. The " rabbit on the wall " 

 does not do in Borneo, as there is no animal it resembles. 

 The boys had tops shaped something like whipping-tops, but 

 spun with a string. 



The next morning we proceeded as before, but the river 

 had become so rapid and shallow and the boats were all so 



