standing up and exerting all their force. It was a brilliant day, and
the cheerful exertions of the men, the rushing of the sparkling waters,
with the bright and varied foliage, which from either bank stretched
over our heads, produced an exhilarating sensation which recalled my
canoe voyages on the grander waters of South America.
Early in the afternoon we reached the village of Borotoi, and, though it
would have been easy to reach the next one before night, I was obliged
to stay, as my men wanted to return and others could not possibly go on
with me without the preliminary talking. Besides, a white man was too
great a rarity to be allowed to escape them, and their wives would never
have forgiven them if, when they returned from the fields, they found
that such a curiosity had not been kept for them to see. On entering the
house to which I was invited, a crowd of sixty or seventy men, women,
and children gathered around me, and I sat for half an hour like some
strange animal submitted for the first time to the gaze of an inquiring
public. Brass rings were here in the greatest profusion, many of the
women having their arms completely covered with them, as well as their
legs from the ankle to the knee. Round the waist they wear a dozen
or more coils of fine rattan stained red, to which the petticoat is
attached. Below this are generally a number of coils of brass wire, a
girdle of small silver coins, and sometimes a broad belt of brass ring
armour. On their heads they wear a conical hat without a crown, formed
of variously coloured beads, kept in shape by rings of rattan, and
forming a fantastic but not unpicturesque headdress.
Walking out to a small hill near the village, cultivated as a
rice-field, I had a fine view of the country, which was becoming quite
hilly, and towards the south, mountainous. I took bearings and sketches
of all that was visible, an operation which caused much astonishment
to the Dyaks who accompanied me, and produced a request to exhibit the
compass when I returned. I was then surrounded by a larger crowd than
before, and when I took my evening meal in the midst of a circle of
about a hundred spectators anxiously observing every movement and
criticising every mouthful, my thoughts involuntarily recurred to the
lion at feeding time. Like those noble animals, I too was used to it,
and it did not affect my appetite. The children here were more shy than
at Tabokan, and I could not persuade them to play. I therefore turned
showman myself, and exhibited the shadow of a dog's head eating, which
pleased them so much that all the village in succession came out to
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