298 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



steps that led up almost perpendicularly. Great was my 

 surprise to find myself facing an attractive little pasang- 

 grahan, lying on grassy, level ground at almost the same 

 height as the tops of the cocoanut and pinang palms on 

 the other side of the river. It was a lovely place and 

 charmingly fresh and green. The house, neatly built of 

 palm-leaves, contained two rooms and a small kitchen, 

 with floors of bamboo. In the outer room was a table 

 covered with a red cloth and a lamp hung above it, for the 

 Malays love the accessories of civilisation. The kapala 

 and the vaccinateur were there to receive us, and we were 

 treated as if we were officials, two men sleeping in the 

 house as guard. I was told there are no diseases here ex- 

 cept mild cases of demum (malaria) and an itching dis- 

 order of the skin between the fingers. 



On the fourth day from Martapura we arrived at the 

 first Dayak habitation, Angkipi, where Bukits have a 

 few small bamboo shanties consisting of one room each, 

 which were the only indications of a kampong. The most 

 prominent feature of the place was a house of worship, the 

 so-called balei, a square bamboo structure, the roomy 

 interior of which had in the centre a rectangular dancing- 

 floor of bamboo sticks. A floor similarly constructed, 

 but raised some twenty-five centimetres higher, covered 

 about all the remaining space, and serves as temporary 

 habitations for the people, many small stalls having been 

 erected for the purpose. Our friend the vaccinateur was 

 already busy inside the building, vaccinating some fifty 

 Dayaks from the neighbouring hills and mountains who 

 had responded to his call. When I entered, they showed 



