CHAPTER XXXYI. 



A MONTH WITH THE BY AKS— Concluded. 



Leeches. — Model Making. — Poor Shooting-Boots. — Bad Ammunition. — A Big 

 Buttress. — Wild Honey. — Human-like Emotions of the Baby Orang. — My 

 Guides go on a Strike. — Flying Gibbons. — Boils and Butterflies. —Bear and 

 Muntjac. — Delicious Venison. — Le Tiac's Omen Bird.— Dyak Shiftle.ssness 

 in Trade. — Gathering Gutta. — Le Tiac Climbs a Tapong Tree. — A Perilous 

 Feat. — Ah Kee gets Lost — A Torch-light Search in the Swamp. — Another 

 Bear. — Return to the Sadong. — The Last Orang. — The Nipa Palm. — A 

 dangerous Squall. — Nesting Habits of the Crocodile. — Farewell to the Sa- 

 dong. 



"November 13th. — Long before daybreak, we heard wali-wahs 

 wbistling off in the jungle in two directions. They are evidently 

 early risers. We went for one company of them as soon as it was 

 light, but, although we expected to find them within two hun- 

 dred yards of the house, they were more than a mile away, in the 

 swamp. Had three fair shots, failed to bring down anything, and 

 returned crestfallen. Started a civet cat and fired at it — also with- 

 out resvilt. After coffee at the house, we went out again, but got 

 nothing except about twenty leech-bites. Leeches swarmed where 

 we went to-day, and we were badly bitten. There are two kinds — 

 one being the common, short, lead-colored species ; and the other 

 twice as long, with a narrow, yellow stripe along each side of its 

 body. The bite of the latter is most painful. 



" Perara shot a yellow-necked hombill and two other birds, one 

 of which proved to be the celebrated Dyak omen bird {Rarpactes 

 rutilus, Vieill), a sub-genus of the trogons, not at all rare on 

 the Sibuyau. The Dyaks at the house noticed it at once, and ex- 

 pressed a desire that we would not kill any more of them, a request 

 to which we readily acceded. 



" To-day I selected and bought a number of ethnological speci- 

 mens of the Dyaks, including spears, parongs, bihongs (axes), bark 

 cloth and sundry smaller articles. After considerable encourage- 

 ment and advice I got Gumbong to work making me a model of a 



