254 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



is used as a guest-house, and I spent two days there 

 once [see pp. 286-90] ; but at Sennah we were not per- 

 mitted to go inside it, but took up our quarters in the 

 chief's house a long building looking on to the river, 

 and occupied not only by the chief and his family 

 but by other families as well. 



A European when he enters a Land-Dayak house 

 must give up all idea of privacy ; he is an object of 

 intense interest to the inhabitants. His clothes and the 

 way in which he puts them off and on, his food and 

 his manner of eating, his method of lighting a cigar- 

 ette or pipe, of striking a match, his every trivial action, 

 affords cause for interest and food for comment ; the 

 entire population of the village, old and young, male 

 and female, congregate around him and gaze in a 

 bovine manner at him for hours together. After a 

 time this becomes very irksome, but as our stay at 

 Sennah was short, we submitted with as good a grace 

 as possible to the ordeal of being the cynosure of 

 every eye. 



With the chief we discussed again our plan of cam- 

 paign, and he promised to collect the necessary carriers 

 for us before nightfall. The men certainly did turn 

 up, but after sitting in solemn conclave in the outer 

 verandah, they sent in word to us that they could, not 

 carry our goods to the mountain as their farms required 

 all their labour and attention. The success of our 

 expedition trembled in the balance, but Cox proved 

 equal to the occasion ; he went out to the verandah 

 and addressed the men for a good quarter of an hour 

 by my watch. He spoke to them of the past, recalling 

 to their minds the days when no white Rajah ruled in 

 Sarawak, the days when no Land-Dayak could regard 



