290 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



my presence in the Penglima's house was requested, 

 and, on going down, I found the verandah packed with 

 people and lit by smoky lamps and flaming torches ; 

 many of the people had come from a good distance, and 

 some young men who were celebrated as songsters, from 

 the village of Slabi ; during the intervals of dancing 

 these men droned at their lugubrious " pantuns," as 

 they call their songs. The Penglima circulated amongst 

 the crowd doling out infinitesimally small doses of 

 arrack and pinches of tobacco, so that my limited supply 

 of these commodities sufficed for the lot. At 10.30 

 I retired for the night to the Head-House and most of 

 the people went off home, but the gayer spirits kept 

 up the pantun-singing and gong-beating till dawn, so 

 that I got little sleep. 



2$>th. As soon as I could collect enough coolies, I 

 started back for Tabekang and arrived there at n a.m. 

 Found that Jiloom, my Sea-Dayak collector, had returned 

 from Piching, where I had sent him, and that he had 

 brought back a number of Land-Dayak things. Amongst 

 others he had brought a " Ton-Ton," or zither, cut-out of 

 bamboo ; the body of the instrument is one joint of 

 bamboo and the strings are strips of bamboo cut out of 

 the joint, left attached at their ends, and bridged up with 

 strips of wood. 1 The performer sits cross-legged, rests 

 the zither against one leg, beats the strings with a short 



1 This method of making stringed instruments, by raising and 

 bridging up strips or fibres of the bamboo or reed of which the 

 instrument is made, has a very wide geographical distribution, the 

 range extending from India through Burma and the Malayan 

 Archipelago eastwards to the Philippines and New Guinea. It also 

 occurs in Madagascar, Egypt, West Africa, and parts of South 

 America. H. B, 



