224 A CHIEF'S SUPERSTITION. 



dance ; but these generally grow on the river's banks, 

 and in open places where the fear of the enemy pre- 

 vents the fugitive Dyak from searching for them : on 

 those occasions he has recourse to the bark and leaves 

 of trees ; and sometimes, to still the cravings of hunger, 

 an oily earth, which is found in some places, is eaten. 

 On one occasion the men from a fleet of Sakarran 

 Dyaks having been driven ashore, they were twelve 

 days in reaching their homes, having lost five persons 

 by famine, and many by their unrelenting enemies. 

 The difficulties they had to encounter in walking 

 through forests belonging to the enemy, and which 

 were unknown to them, in crossing rivers, and eluding 

 pursuit, were innumerable. Two poor fellows of this 

 party were discovered crossing, on a log of wood, one 

 of the numerous creeks ; and another party, which had 

 taken possession of a deserted house, were found in 

 it by their enemies, who had no pity upon their miser- 

 able condition. 



About this time (1845) Gila Beranhi, one of the 

 chiefs of Sakarran who had been one of the most 

 relentless pirates before his death, which occurred 

 after only two days illness, is reported to have 

 called his tribe about him, and exhorted them to 

 leave off piracy, as the failure of the expedition just 

 recorded, and his own approaching death, were all 

 brought about by the supernatural power of the Rajah 

 of Sarawak, whom he said it was impossible to with- 

 stand ; so that we see the first slight check to the 

 conquests of these hitherto invincible tribes, leads 



