COLLECTING AT PADANG LAKE. 333 



party with arnica and court plaster, which pleased all the Dyaks 

 very much and placed us all on confidential terms. 



The natives sat by and looked on with great curiosity while I 

 ate my supper. Afterward they examined my shoes with great 

 interest, and one man succeeded in putting one of them on. They 

 also inspected my feet closely, and a comparison of theirs with mine 

 was the cause of much merriment, 



I took advantage of theu* good humor to ask them about the 

 little metallic plates on some of theii* front teeth, which looked like 

 gold. I found that each upper incisor and canine tooth was capped 

 by a smooth plate of copper, held in place by a pin driven into a 

 hole in the tooth. The Dyaks showed me how the hole is drilled 

 (with a bow), and one imitated the agony they endure during the 

 operation. He was a good actor, and his facial and bodily contor- 

 tions and writhings excited roars of laughter. 



The next day, while again climbing up the mountain after wah- 

 wahs, my Dyak companion discovered an old female orang-utan 

 seated quietly on a branch not more than thirty feet distant. I 

 fired at her, and my bullet killed both her and the baby which she 

 was holding in her arms. Although she was very small, only 3 

 feet 6 inches in height, she was so old her teeth were worn down 

 to mere stumps, and several had entirely disappeared. Her hair 

 was rather short, on account of which the Dyaks declared her to be 

 a " mias kassar," and therefore different from the other varieties, 

 " rombi " and " chappin." 



On the morning of the third day, I took one Dyak and Dobah, 

 and set ofif in my boat to visit the southern end of the lake. It 

 was dehghtful weather. There was not a ripple on the surface of 

 the lake, which lay like a polished miiTor, reflecting the blue sky 

 and its fleecy clouds, the dark-green mountain and the fringe of forest 

 trees along the banks. Scarcely a bird's song broke the stillness. 

 It was like a landscape in a dream — sunny, silent, balmy and clear. 

 One day in such a spot is worth the toil of haK a year to gain it. 



Half way down the lake we discovered a fine old orang, lazily 

 finishing his morning nap. His nest, which was nearly three feet 

 across, was not more than fifteen feet above the water, and he lay 

 sprawled out upon it, flat on his back, with the sun at the back of 

 his head, sound asleep. His hairy arms and legs were thrust out- 

 ward and upward, and his hands (an orang has hands on his legs, 

 if you please) were firmly but mechanically grasping the largest 

 branches while he slept. The back of his head was toward us, and, 



