136 AUSTEAI.ASIA. 



people in the whole of Indonesia. Nearly all are perfectly frank and honest. 

 They scrupulously respect the fruits of their neighbours' labour, and in the tribe 

 itself muider is unknown. For a period of twelve years under the rule of Rajah 

 Brooke only one case of homicide occurred in the principality of Sarawak, and in 

 this case the criminal was a stranger adopted by the Dayaks. The natives also 

 contrast favourably with the Malay, Chinese, or European immigrants for their 

 temperance and forbearance. Although cheated and plundered on all sides, they 

 preserve their good temper and cheerful disposition, indulge freely in merry- 

 making, and display mi^ch ingenuity in inventing all kinds of games. 



Born artists, they not only raise their dwellings on piles high above the 

 periodical floods and beyond the reach of nightly marauders, but also dispose the 

 bamboo frames and gables in forms pleasing to the eye. Thej^ are eager collectors 

 of porcelain and " old china," and to certain choice pieces are attributed divine 

 properties. The tombs of their chiefs, and in some districts those of their dogs, 

 are solidly constructed of iron-wood and embellished with carvings representing 

 heads, birds, dragons' mouths, rivalling those of Burmah and Siam in delicacy of 

 detail and instinctive harmony. 



In the centre of most villages stands the halai, or " chief house," a round or 

 elongated building, erected, like all the others, on piles, but containing a vast 

 apartment where the unmarried young men and all strangers pass the night, and 

 which serves as an exchange, foriim, and council chamber. Some of these Dayak 

 palaces, occasionally treated as citadels, have a circuit of no less than 1,000 feet. 

 Keppel saw one on the banks of the Lundu which was over 600 feet long, and 

 which accommodated a whole tribe of four hundred souls. The natives also give 

 proof of their engineering skill by throwing cleverly constructed bamboo bridges 

 across rivulets, and sometimes even across rivers considerably over 300 feet 

 broad. But the}^ never lay down roads, and rarely even paths, almost their only 

 highways being the water-courses. Their best tracks are made of the stems of 

 trees placed endwise, over which they run rather than walk. At the least alarm 

 the trees leading to their village are scattered and the track destroyed. 



The Sarawak Dayaks are good husbandmen, raising on the reclaimed land two 

 crops in rotation, first rice, then sugar-cane, maize or vegetables. Then the ground 

 lies fallow for eight or ten years, during which it is again invaded by scrub and 

 even forest growths. The granaries are a kind of basket fixed on high trees and 

 approached by ladders or inclined planes of bamboo. The inland Dayaks are 

 chiefly occupied in collecting the natural products of the forest, ratan and gutta- 

 percha for the European market, swallows' nests and bezoar stones for the Chinese. 

 When absent from their homes in search of these objects, the women send little 

 lamps of cocoanut shell adrift on the stream, as is also practised on the banks of 

 the Ganges. These floating lights, burning in honour of the spirits of air and 

 water, intercede with them for the absent toilers in the forests. 



Notwithstanding the almost inexhaustible natural ' resources of their fertile 

 domain, even those half-civilised Dayaks who have given up the practice of 

 head-hunting do not appear to increase in numbers. Their abundant crops 



