A PLEASURE TEIP UP THE SARAWAK, 485 



along one side. My journal for that day pantingly declares, "It 

 was hot work to climb such a steep mountain over such a terrible 

 jumble of slippery stones." 



Near the top we came to Peninjau, a typical village of the Hill 

 Dyaks. Besides the pangah, or head-house, there were fifteen 

 other houses, each of which contained from three to six rooms and 

 accommodated a total j)opulation of about five hundred persons, 

 when the returns were all in. The houses stand just wherever 

 they can find standing-room, with no order or regularity whatever, 

 not a sign of anything like a street nor even a good path anywhere. 

 They were of course built along the side of the mountain, usually 

 with the open side up hill, and all were elevated on posts which 

 were from six to eight feet high on the upper side, where they 

 were the shortest. The rank grass growing all through the 

 village and the uncommon stillness which prevailed, gave the vil- 

 lage quite a deserted air, and, sure enough, we found only a few 

 girls and old women in the place, all the rest being away at work 

 on their farms. 



As we passed through the village, two young women came out 

 to look at us, who were in their turn inspected with equal curiosity. 

 Their brass waist ornaments were of an entirely different style 

 from any I had before seen, the thick wire being worn up and 

 down from hips to armpits instead of in rings around the waist. 



These curious corsets were models of rigidity, and closeness of 

 fit, and being brightly polished, gave the young ladies quite a sub- 

 stantial au\ What a magnificent protection they must be against 

 the embraces of a too-powerful lover ! 



We entered the head-house, which I have already described in 

 a previous chapter. 



The heads, or rather skulls, hung in a semi-circle around one 

 side of the room, and there were forty-two of them in all, not 

 counting the skull of a young orang-utan, which probably some 

 entei'prising young Dyak, in haste to marry, had, in times past, 

 palmed off upon his unsuspecting lady-love and his brethren, as the 

 head of a fierce young Seribas Dyak. 



The collection as a whole was in very good condition, the speci- 

 mens being moderatelv clean and not at all smoked. Some had 

 been very carelessly taken, I regret to say, as was shown by the 

 way they had been split open or slashed across with parongs ; and 

 from some, large pieces had been hacked out. One I noticed had a 

 deep slash diagonally across the bridge of the nose, which evi- 



