chap, v.] COSTUME OF DVAK WOMEN. 107 



Early in the afternoon we reached the village of 

 Borotoi, and, though it would have been easy to reach the 

 next one before night, I was obliged to stay, as rny men 

 wanted to return and others could not possibly go on with 

 me without the preliminary talking. Besides, a white man 

 was too great a rarity to be allowed to escape them, and 

 their wives would never have forgiven them if, when they 

 returned from the fields, they found that such a curiosity 

 had not been kept for them to see. On entering the hoiise 

 to which I was invited, a crowd of sixty or seventy men, 

 women, and children gathered round me, and I sat for half 

 an hour like some strange animal submitted for the first 

 time to the gaze of an inquiring public. Brass rings were 

 here in the greatest profusion, many of the women having 

 their arms completely covered with them, as well as their 

 legs from the ankle to the knee. Bound the waist they 

 wear a dozen or more coils of fine rattan stained red, to 

 which the petticoat is attached. Below this are generally 

 a number of coils of brass wire, a girdle of small silver 

 coins, and sometimes a broad belt of brass ring armour. 

 < )n their heads they wear a conical hat without a crown, 

 formed of Variously coloured beads, kept in shape by rings 

 of rattan, and forming a fantastic but not unpicturesque 

 head-dress. 



Walking out to a small hill near the village, cultivated 

 as a rice-field, I had a fine view of the country, which was 



