268 THE TAWARAN AND PUTATAN RIVERS. 



sun that the earth is round like an orange, and not only 

 revolves on its own axis, but round the sun also. Our mer- 

 riment was, how r ever, interrupted by the ravings o£ the fever- 

 stricken patient, who had become delirious. Thereupon the 

 entire company rose and adjourned to the long and broad 

 verandah, when a most curious " function " was performed. 

 Damar torches were lighted, and all the men squatted 

 down in a circle outside the door of the patient's room. In 

 the centre sat her brother, back to back with another relation. 

 A tremendous din was then struck up by the beating of 

 numerous gongs, hanging along the walls, in a kind of mea- 

 sured cadence, varied at intervals by a loud shout raised by 

 all the men present. A youngish woman then commenced 

 to dance with a slow measured step and swaying to and fro 

 of her body, round the inside of the circle. In her left hand 

 she held a stick, furnished at one extremity with a curious 

 arrangement of black feathers. In her right she held a 

 naked sword. "With this latter she continually made passes, 

 bringing the blade down edgeways between the heads of the 

 two sitting men. and then striking the feathered stick with it. 

 This continued for some time. She then touched the heads 

 of all present with her " fetish " rod, which was then dis- 

 carded and a surcng taken up in its place. "With this she 

 danced slowly round and round, holdit g it out extended in 

 front of her. All this time the shouts were being vigorously 

 given forth at intervals, while the clanging of gongs was 

 deafening. The woman then made up the sarong into a tur- 

 ban which she slowly brought down over the head of the sick 

 woman's brother, letting it rest there for a few seconds. She 

 then removed it and laid it gently down behind her, and the 

 ceremony was over. A torch-light procession of travelling 

 natives, passing the verandah just at this juncture, lent an 

 additionally weiid effect to the conclusion of this curious 

 ceremony, whose strange rites and obscure origin may per- 

 haps be admitted to warrant my description of it. Doubt- 

 less the idea is the casting of the evil spirit out of the sick 

 person, and the good effects of thp pills administered to the 

 patient were probably set down to the credit of the ceremony. 

 A remarkable thing in this district is the neatness and 



