HINTS ON PROPER PROVISIONS 59 



may prove useful in case others are tempted to undertake 

 journeys of exploration and research in the East Indies. 

 To have the right kind of provisions is as important in the 

 equatorial regions as in the arctic, and civilised humanity 

 would be better off if there were a more general recogni- 

 tion of the fact that suitable food is the best medicine. 



Our Dayaks from Apo Kayan, who had proved very 

 satisfactory, left us at Long Pangian. They had to wait 

 several days before their friends caught up with them, so 

 they could continue their long journey. This party of 

 Dayaks, after spending one month at home in gathering 

 rubber, had travelled in five prahus, covered some distance 

 on land by walking over the watershed, and then made 

 five new prahus in which they had navigated the long dis- 

 tance to Tandjong Selor. Ten men had been able to 

 make one prahu in four days, and these were solid good 

 boats, not made of bark. Already these people had been 

 three months on the road, and from here to their homes 

 they estimated that at least one month would intervene, 

 probably more. 



The rubber which they had brought was sold for 

 f. 2,500 to Hong Seng. They had also sold three rhinoc- 

 eros horns, as well as stones from the gall-bladder and 

 intestines of monkeys and the big porcupine, all valuable 

 in the Chinese pharmacopcea. Each kilogram of rhino 

 horn may fetch f. 140. These articles are dispensed for 

 medical effect by scraping off a little, which is taken in- 

 ternally with water. On their return trip the Dayaks 

 bring salt from the government's monopoly, gaudy cloths 

 for the women, beads, ivory rings for bracelets and 



