CH. vn TO SANGIB AND TALAUT 161 



and would as soon remove the bones of their ancestors as 

 the debris they left behind them. 



Our entrance into the village caused no little interest 

 and excitement, and we were followed about wherever we 

 went by a crowd of half-naked men and boys. The women, 

 of whom we saw very little, wore only a sarong folded round 

 the waist — no bracelets, necklaces, or hairpins of any 

 description. Their long dirty black hair was simply tied 

 in a knot on the top of the head. They aU ran into the 



Fig. 18. — ^Large house in Earaton. 



houses as we approached the village, and all we could see of 

 them afterwards was a row of their uncomely heads watch- 

 ing us over the balustrades, or peeping at us through the 

 chinks in the walls. 



After some Kttle delay we were invited into the house 

 of a miserable shrivelled-up old man, clad in a long cloak of 

 the native koffo cloth of the simplest ' cut,' who, I beUeve, 

 was the chief of the village. 



The house was dirty, dark, and of evil odour, and the 

 crowd of men and boys who followed us in made it rather 



HI 



