Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



husband and wife. The women are naturally chaste, and 

 it was not till the advent of the rubber collectors that 

 they began to lose this primitive virtue so generally met 

 with among people not yet in contact with white men " 



(P- 154). 



[N.B. These were some of the people so villainously 

 tortured men, women and children for the collection 

 of rubber, by commercial scoundrels, whose atrocities were 

 exposed by Roger Casement and others. E.G.] 



Fine Figures and Features of the Dyaks 



Quotations from Beccar's In the Forests of Borneo , pp. 

 325 and 329. (Constable 1904.) 



" On the morning of October 19, as previously arranged, 

 Ladja, with eight other Dyaks, came to the fort duly 

 equipped for the journey. Ladja was a handsome young 

 man, tall like most of his companions, slender, and beauti- 

 fully made. His profile was nearly regular, the nose 

 perfectly straight, but the cheek bones rather too prominent 

 and the chin rather pointed. His complexion was very 

 light." ..." Our Arno boatmen in Florence always 

 pole where the river is shallow, and use their poles exactly 

 as the Dyaks do theirs, only they certainly cannot compare 

 with the latter in the length of the journeys thus performed 

 with their light canoes. Ours literally flew over the water 

 handled with incomparable dexterity by my six young 

 savages. There is to my mind no lighter and more 

 pleasant mode of progression, and certainly no kind of 

 work displays so well the elegant movements and perfect 

 proportions of these young Dyaks, who, practically un- 

 encumbered with clothing, are truly splendid specimens 

 of humanity." 



290 



