PROGRESS IN THE USEFUL ARTS. 209 



that of climbing up a large pole, the being able to 

 do which is also a necessary qualification of a pan- 

 glima, or lighting chief,) previously greased to 

 render the achievement difficult of performance, 

 and to the top of which a piece of pork is at- 

 tached. This meat is the reward of the person whose 

 agility renders him the first to attain this eminence, 

 and the frequent failures in the attempts call forth 

 from the gazing crowd bursts of laughter, as loud and 

 long continued as from those who gaze at the similar 

 spectacle at an English country fair. 



In the useful arts, excepting such as their habits 

 render absolutely necessary, the Dyaks have made but 

 little progress, though more than many of the similarly 

 situated neighbouring tribes. It has been before re- 

 marked that they make the ' chawats,' jackets, and 

 ' bedangs ' in general use amongst their own and the 

 more western tribes ; but as this manufacture is carried 

 on only by the Dyaks of Sakarran and Sarebas, I have 

 no means of describing the method of its workman- 

 ship. Iron being necessary in the formation of their 

 weapons of war, they have studied, and brought to 

 greater perfection its workmanship than others of the 

 mechanical arts. It is probable that before the intro- 

 duction of European bar-iron into the country, the 

 natives fused and wrought the ore of the island, as 

 many of the Kyan and other tribes, who have little in- 

 tercourse with the coast, do to the present day. The 

 blacksmith, with the exception of the 'manang,' or 



p 



