Orangs, but shot a deer and several monkeys. On the fourth day, however,
we found a Mias feeding on a very lofty Durian tree, and succeeded in
killing it, after eight shots. Unfortunately it remained in the tree,
hanging by its hands, and we were obliged to leave it and return home,
as it was several miles off. As I felt pretty sure it would fall during
the night, I returned to the place early the next morning, and found
it on the ground beneath the tree. To my astonishment and pleasure, it
appeared to be a different kind from any I had yet seen; for although a
full-grown male, by its fully developed teeth and very large canines,
it had no sign of the lateral protuberance on the face, and was about
one-tenth smaller in all its dimensions than the other adult males.
The upper incisors, however, appeared to be broader than in the larger
species, a character distinguishing the Simia morio of Professor Owen,
which he had described from the cranium of a female specimen. As it was
too far to carry the animal home, I set to work and skinned the body on
the spot, leaving the head, hands, and feet attached, to be finished at
home. This specimen is now in the British Museum.
At the end of a week, finding no more Orangs, I returned home; and,
taking in a few fresh stores, and this time accompanied by Charles, went
up another branch of the river, very similar in character, to a place
called Menyille, where there were several small Dyak houses and one
large one. Here the landing place was a bridge of rickety poles, over a
considerable distance of water; and I thought it safer to leave my cask
of arrack securely placed in the fork of a tree. To prevent the natives
from drinking it, I let several of them see me put in a number of snakes
and lizards; but I rather think this did not prevent them from tasting
it. We were accommodated here in the verandah of the large house, in
which were several great baskets of dried human heads, the trophies of
past generations of head-hunters. Here also there was a little mountain
covered with fruit-trees, and there were some magnificent Durian trees
close by the house, the fruit of which was ripe; and as the Dyaks looked
upon me as a benefactor in killing the Mias, which destroys a great deal
of their fruit, they let us eat as much as we liked; we revelled in this
emperor of fruits in its greatest perfection.
The very day after my arrival in this place, I was so fortunate as to
shoot another adult male of the small Orang, the Mias-kassir of the
Dyaks. It fell when dead, but caught in a fork of the tree and remained
fixed. As I was very anxious to get it, I tried to persuade two young
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