466 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



ency however, wlien the wild warriors of the jungle gathered by 

 thousands to support the Eajah dui'ing the Chinese insuirection in 

 1857, he gave them permission to cut off the head of eveiy man found 

 wearing a queue. Since that time the heads taken in Sarawak 

 have been few and far between, and the takers have, in nearly eveiy 

 case, been treated as ordinary murderers. 



The dwellings of the Sea Dyaks are all constinicted on precisely 

 the same plan as the one described in a previous chapter (page 

 355), except that, where a village is very large, a number of smaller 

 long houses are built instead of a single continuous structure of 

 enoi'mous length. I have never seen a house longer than that al- 

 ready described, which was one hundred and ninety feet, but one 

 of the Sibuyau long-houses on the Lundu River is six hundred feet 

 in length and contains rooms for as many as fifty families. 



Another house of the same tribe situated on a httle creek below 

 Simujan was described by Sir James Brooke as being 257 yards, or 

 771 feet in length ! 



Most of the Sibuyau village-houses are raised about eight feet 

 above the ground ; but some are twelve ; and others again only 

 four or five. Externally, they are all weather-beaten, gray, and 

 wholly unpictui'esque-looking structui-es, but sometimes are very 

 prettily surrounded by banana and cocoanut trees. 



Within, they are clean enough, because all the dirt and litter 

 falls of itseK through the slatted floor ; but the ground underneath 

 is usually covered with litter, pei-petually wet and movddy from the 

 water thrown down through the floor above and, being the favorite 

 resort of the pigs of the village, often smells horribly. Sometimes 

 the pigs are kept in a sty underneath the long-house. As a mat- 

 ter of course, the old villages are the most foul smelling, and the 

 European traveller should quarter in a new house whenever pos- 

 sible. 



The house in which I spent a fortnight at Padang Lake con- 

 tained four rooms, and was built in about four weeks by Hakka 

 and another Dyak. All the materials came from the adjoining 

 jungle, except the three hundred and fifty attaps composing the 

 roof, which were made on the Sebangan River, below Simujan, and 

 cost 72 cts. per hundred. The entire house was valued at $40. 



I believe the Sea Dyaks are the only people in the world whose 

 villages consist of a single structure under one immense roof, the 

 gi'eater portion of which is owned in common. No greater proof 

 of their peaceful domestic and social habits could be desired than 



