266 The Gardens of the Sun. [ch. :air. 



carry siuiff-boxes in their ears. Everywhere here inland 

 we find the native cloth is made from the "lamba" 

 fibre dyed a deep blue-black with native indigo. I pro- 

 cured specimens of this fibre-weaving apparatus, and 

 prepared cloth, and these may now be , seen in the large 

 Economic Museum at Kew. After dinner " Kurow," our 

 old guide, and "Boloung," the headman of this village, 

 came in with the avowed purpose of having a chat. 

 They were particularly anxious to hear about the white 

 man who had come to live on the Tampassuk river (Mr. 

 Pretyman), who they had been told intended to make 

 them all pay tribute, which was evidently unpleasant 

 news to them. They also wanted to know where I had 

 been since I left their village, and were very much inte- 

 rested in all I told them about the Sultan of Sulu. The 

 house was full of people of all ages, who had come to see 

 us, and among them were a party from a village three 

 days' journey inland. These were on their way to the 

 coast villages to trade. The produce they had with them 

 was tobacco, bees-wax, india-rubber, and a little "lamba" 

 cloth and raw cotton. These people had never seen a 

 white man before, and seemed rather interested in aU 

 we did; and in the accounts their Dusun neighbours 

 gave them of us and our doings, the gist of which was 

 that we came from a large prahu, or ship, to dig up gi'ass 

 and shoot birds, that we ate and drank all sorts of curious 

 things, but singularly enough, as they thought, would not 

 eat rats or tiger-cats, these being esteemed great delicacies 

 here by the native trappers. Here, at Kiau, as at all the 

 Dusun villages along our way, we noticed large quantities 

 of tame or domesticated bees. These are kept in cylin- 

 drical hives formed of a hollow tree trunk, and are placed 

 on a shelf fixed under the overhanging eaves of the 

 houses. In several instances the hives were on shelves 



