DOINGS IN THE ORANG-UTAN COUNTRY. 373 



pieces that its skin was almost worthless. But I sent them on to 

 Simujan, where I had left Perara to receive and take care of what- 

 ever specimens might arrive in my absence. 



The Dyaks said that when the tree fell, a limb struck one of 

 their companions and dislocated his hip, and they begged us to stop 

 at the village and give him " obat" (medicine). An hour later we 

 came to the village where our enterprising Dyaks lived, and, taking 

 my box of medicines, I went ashore to see what I could do. 



The house was of good size, containing about fifteen doors, and 

 we were conducted to a room at the farther end where the injured 

 man lay. He was not half so badly off as had been reported — a 

 native rarely is for that matter. He lay on the floor with his in- 

 jured leg lying in a s'\\'ing, bared to the hip, and smeared all over 

 with turmeric, which gave the Hmb an appearance of ghastly morti- 

 fication. 



I soon found that the hip had not been dislocated, and that the 

 injury was only a very painful bruise, I bathed the limb with ar- 

 nica and bound on a cloth saturated with the same, not so much 

 for the effect it would have upon the injured hmb as upon the 

 mind of the sufferer. 



Of course the inhabitants of the village crowded into the room 

 and around the door to see what was going on — and such a crowd 1 

 Some had that repulsive skin disease called ichthyosis, which causes 

 the epidermis to crack and loosen somewhat, and roll up in thou- 

 sands of minute rolls, gi^'ing the otherwise dark brown body a gray- 

 ish appearance, Others had large ulcerous sores on their aiTus and 

 legs, which had been smeared over with tui-meric and betel juice. 

 Some had sore eyes, others had tetter and ringworm, and I think 

 that of all the women who surrounded us in that room, about four 

 out of every five were afflicted with visible ailments. It was the 

 most unwholesome and afflicted crowd of Dyaks I ever saw, very 

 different indeed from neaiiy all those I had seen elsewhei-e and saw 

 subsequently. 



Those who were not afflicted with cutaneous diseases were mostly 

 old women and men, toothless and gray, with the skin hanging on 

 their bare bodies in countless folds and WTinkles. Add to the 

 above, tangled masses of jet-black hair, general nakedness, plenty of 

 dirt, a little colored rattan and plenty of brass wire ornaments, and 

 you have the most prominent features of the crowd Avhich sur- 

 rounded us. The house stood rather low on its posts, and the 

 ground underneath was in a terribly filthy state, which, in a great 



