STORY OF COELOGYNE SPECIOSA 139 



a variety of plants, some of which we do not recognise from 

 the description. But among those he brought to Singapore 

 was Coelogyne speciosa. 



Meantime sickness attacked the crew, whilst Williams' 

 servants escaped it. The Nakodah hurried his sales, but 

 when he was ready to start, it became necessary to engage 

 some of the latter, with their master's consent, for navi- 

 gating the vessel ; but for this mischance there would have 

 been no need to ask the white man's co-operation in a little 

 stroke of business. 



At each of the festivities Williams had remarked a very 

 pretty girl always in attendance on the chief Kum Palan. 

 Charming faces are common among those people, and grace- 

 ful figures a matter of course. Kayan maidens do not pull 

 out their eyebrows, nor blacken their teeth, nor shave the 

 top of the head, nor, in fact, practise any of the disfigure- 

 ments which spoil Dyak beauty ; for their tattooing, though 

 elaborate, is all below the waist. Most of them even do not 

 chew betel before marriage, and you hardly find one of these 

 whose teeth are not a faultless row of pearls. Cool scrutiny 

 reveals that their noses are too flat and their mouths un- 

 sym metrical. But the girl would have a mane of lustrous 

 hair decked with flowers, restrained by a snowy fillet over 

 the brow, streaming loose down her back. Her skin would 

 be pale golden bronze and her eyes worthy of the tenderest 

 epithets. Even a chief's daughter wears little clothing beyond 

 armlets and waist-belt of gold, white shell, and antique beads, 

 as mysterious and as costly in proportion as the Dyak jars. 

 Only a silken kerchief, clasping one thigh in studied folds, 

 gathered and tucked in over the other, would represent what 

 we call dress ; but the tattooing from waist to knee is so close 

 that feminine limbs seem to be enveloped in black tights. 



Williams learned that this beauty was daughter to Kum 

 Palan. Parent and child must be warmly attached, he 



