MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, &C. 
Vil 
In the dry season, its banks rising from 5 to 10 feet above it: in the 
season of rains, it is often a rushing torrent that floods its level vici¬ 
nity. On two beautiful knolls that swell gently up from the stream, 
and but few rods from it, is the site that nature has given for the 
bark-built dwellings of the white man, and the forest that originally 
covered the spot has retreated but a simple stone’s tlirow on any 
side of us. Our three homes, which are sufficiently spacious, may 
have cost five hundred dollars, and price or rent for ground there is 
none. 
The Government of Netherland India is, under God, our protec¬ 
tion in this wild-woods seclusion, the rioting ground of indolence, 
famine and mendacity. As a rule, our neighbours, even in planting 
or preserving their grain from the beasts, work when they must , and 
a consequence has been, in 1847, that rice has been sold, dribbling- 
ly, at the rate of nearly five dollars per picul, which is a famine price 
in a region where, at the end of a good harvest, the same amount of 
money will buy 350 Landak gantangs of padi, or from ten to eleven 
piculs of clean, merchantable rice ! Ordinarily, at the end of 8 months 
from the annual harvest, few of those nearest us have rice of their 
own, but buy, or become indebted for it, little by little, at the rate 
of % 2 per picul This year, it has been quite necessary for me 
to order rice from Pontianak, and the people have depended, chiefly, 
upon Sago from the ever productive forest, accompanying the con¬ 
sumption, however, with complainings loud and deep, as to its qua¬ 
lity, when within earshot of Tuan. Should our Dyaks have a toler¬ 
able harvest in January and February now at hand, the threshing 
scene will be a joyous ball , in explanation of which term I should say 
that the operation is performed by the feet of men and women vho 
form aline, and clasping, with both hands over their heads, a tense¬ 
ly-drawn rattan strung horizontally above them, execute a most vi¬ 
gorous, dancing wriggle. Knowing their style of dress (tne men in 
a simple bark chawat for the loins, and their partners wearing a close- 
fitting apron of 15 to 18 inches) you will form a tolerable idea of 
the scene,-but it must be witnessed if one would know the effect of 
the odd and ever varying “ tableaux vivants.” As you may suppose 
