THE SAGHAI. 419 



instep, with various figures, frequently very graceful in 

 their design, and very neatly executed.* The ears of the 

 great majority were wonderfully metamorphosed, and 

 greatly disfigured, by the insertion of tigers' teeth in a 

 hole of the summit of the pinna, and of rings, sometimes 

 single and sometimes as many as four or five, composed 

 of tin and very massive, appended to the lobe, forming 

 cumbrous ear-rings. These enormous metallic pendants, 

 being very heavy, greatly distended the aperture in the 

 lobe, which frequently descended as low as the shoulder. 

 They dress variously in the skins of animals, or in jackets 

 made of the bark of trees ; some, however, were entirely 

 naked, with the exception of a waist-band and perineal 

 appendage. When the jacket or body-garment consists 

 of a lynx or tiger's skin, the hind-paws and tail, or fore- 

 paws and head, hang down behind, which gives the wearer 

 a very wild and picturesque appearance. 



A chief, named Meta, was very anxious that we should 

 visit him in his home among the hills. He seemed to 

 take a very particular liking to the English, and was our 

 constant visitor. On one occasion a follower of his was 

 detected in the act of abstracting a piece of white calico, 

 when he was immediately seized, and severely chastised 

 by the indignant chief. The captain forwarded a letter by 

 this savage to Mr. Brooke, at Sarawak, Meta assuring 

 him that it would arrive at Brunai perfectly safe, as he 

 would transmit it across the country from tribe to tribe, 



* Mr. Earl says, that he has seen tattooed Dayaks, and that the 

 Polynesian custom of tattooing the skin prevails among the Dayak 

 tribes in the interior of Borneo. PRICHAUD'S Phys. Hist, of Man- 

 kind, vol. v, p. 91. 



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