460 TWO YEARS IN" THE JUNGLE. 



medium stature, the tallest Sibujau man that I saw being barely 

 five feet four and a half inches while the majority were under five 

 feet three. The men are well j)roportioned but sparely built, and 

 not, as a rule, what would be called muscular. Their form denotes 

 activity, speed, and endurance, rather than great strength ; precisely 

 the qualities most required by a denizen of the jungle. "While this 

 is true of the men in general, it is by no means uncommon to meet 

 thick-set and muscular indi^iduals ; almost the first Dyak I saw, 

 Dundang, was a fleshy native Hercules. Their movements are 

 easy and gi*aceful, their carnage always erect ; and in manner 

 they are independent and dignified, though naturally polite and 

 resi^ectful. They have neither the insolence of the African, the 

 fawning obsequiousness of the Hindoo nor the hypocritical foi-- 

 mality of the Anglo-Saxon. The Dj-ak, in spite of his occasional 

 dirt, is my beau ideal of a man in more respects than one, but 

 nothing commends him to me more strongly than his simple hon- 

 esty and manly independence. 



The color of a typical Sea Dyak is dai-k-brown with a strong 

 tinge of yellow ; his hair is jet-black and falls in graceful, flowing 

 locks upon his shoulders instead of being perfectly straight and 

 chai'pcterless like that of the Malays. His costume consists of the 

 chawat, a piece of cotton or bark-cloth about five feet long wound 

 tightly around the waist and drawn between the legs with one end 

 hanging down apron-wise in front and the other behind. He also 

 wears a sort of turban of red cotton cloth, or perhaps a bandanna 

 or bark-cloth, or he may wear nothing at all on his head. As has 

 already been mentioned, some of the Sibuyaus wear a small coffin- 

 shaped mat depending behind from the chawat, and reaching from 

 the smaU of the back half way down the thigh, evidently to be 

 used as a seat. I have been told that many of the Sea Dyak men 

 wear sleeveless jackets of red cotton cloth padded with cotton, when 

 going to war, but the few I saw worn in the piping times of peace 

 were very common-looking garments of dingy white, or coarse 

 browTQ cloth, the latter of native manufacture. 



The Sea Dyak women, or at least those of the Sibuyau tribe, are 

 much lighter in color than the men, the yellow tint predominating. 

 As a mle they are not handsome, but I saw among them a few who 

 were decidedly good-looking, if not even pretty. I particularly 

 remember two girls that I saw in Dundang's village, near Simujan, 

 one of whom was his sister. Both were exceedingly comely girls, 

 whose good features, and plump, well-moulded figui*es would do 



