148 
BORNEO. 
they arc not easily distinguished. The men taken 
in these excursions are invariably killed, the women com- 
monly spared, if young. It is somewhat remarkable that 
the childi'en of these wild Byaks cannot be suflSciently 
tamed to be entmgted with their liberty. Selgie (the 
Dyak chief of Coti) told me he never recollected an in- 
stance when they did not escape to the jungle the very 
first opportunity, notwithstanding many of them had been 
treated kindly for years,"* 
It must be remembered that this accoimt, as well as 
the extract from Valentyn respecting the mid tribes of 
Ceram, is derived from the information of natives who 
avowedly made parties for the express purpose of hunting 
them, and who are therefore interested in making them 
appear as mnch aa possible in the light of wild beasts. 
Neither of these accounts alludes to the wild tribes as 
being woolly-headed, but this is a point, on which no 
native is ILkely to give information, unless the question is 
expressly put to him. "V^Tien on the coast of Borneo in 
1834, we had a Papuan sailor on board the vessel, who 
formed one of my boat's crew, and the peculiarity of his 
appearance was almost invariably a topic of conversation 
wherever we went, and if any of the natives we came in 
contact with had ever seen or heard of a people pos- 
sessing similar peculiarities, the circumstance was nearly 
certain to be noticed. 
It is probable that information connected with the 
existence of this race in Borneo, which ia of considerable 
ethnographical interest, may be found in Holland, among 
* Daltoa, " Koticca," &o., p. 49 
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