About a year and a half before my first visit to Borneo, a Chinese trader, in the upper Tinjar River, had been killed solely for the sake of his head. Killing is by no means uncommon in Borneo; but this was a murder so cold-blooded, and the victim, moreover, a Chinaman, so unprepared for the game of head-hunting, that an unusual effort was made to find and punish the murderer. Although the head, just after it was cut off, had been hung up in the veranda of a house, and although the river-bank in front had been enlivened with a ‘Death-post,’ whereto portions of the victim had been attached, by way of public notice that a head had just been taken, the perpetrator of the deed showed, however, a guilty reluctance in claiming any glory, or even in making himself known; furthermore, not a member of that household, nor of any household on the Tinjar River, would give the slightest clue to the identity of the murderer. All the Chiefs, hitherto trusted, told endless lies about the crime, and with such success that they believed that they had at last baffled and befooled the ‘Prenta,’ the Government.

One day, about two years after the murder, a Malay trader, who had been up among the Tinjar people for many months, and was perhaps feeling a little sore over his poor bargains, let fall to Dr. Hose, the English Resident of the Baram district, some hints that again set in motion the wheels of justice and soon fastened the guilt of that murder on Tinggi, a dweller in the house of Tama Talip. The culprit was at once summoned to appear for trial at the Baram Fort, but his people hid him and resolutely defied the Government; consequently, a reward was offered for his capture alive, or for his head, if dead. Nevertheless, the Tinjar people continued to conceal and protect Tinggi, even after an influential Chief had been deposed by the Government for his duplicity in the matter, and, possibly, for the transparent quality of the lies he manufactured. There remained, therefore, nothing to be done but to appoint an entire stranger, a native from another river, to lead an expedition against the Lerons, the tribe that was protecting Tinggi. The man thus appointed was Tama Bulan, a Kenyah, and the most influential Chief in the Baram district, who accepted the appointment and gathered a force to ascend the Tinjar. Among his followers was Juman, a Kayan Chief and the lucky and sole possessor of a gun. Tama Bulan had been strictly commanded to take Tinggi, and no one else but Tinggi; on no account was he to suffer his Kayan or Kenyah followers to kill innocent people. Juman, with a small party ascended the Tinjar, to a point opposite the house of the Lerons. Tinggi, the murderer, emerged unattended from the house, entered a light canoe, and was crossing the river, apparently to surrender himself, when, at the last moment, he seemed to change his mind, and resolved to attempt an escape. In an instant, taking advantage of the swift current, he was dashing past Juman’s camp. The details of his death I had, as follows, from Juman himself: ‘Tinggi came down the river, Tuan, lying flat in his canoe until he was just opposite to me and my men; then he stood up, straight, brandishing his spear and his parang, and shouting defiance to us all. But,’ continued Juman, his eyes glowing with excitement, ‘I was all ready, Tuan; I raised this “snappang”[8] of mine, that the Government gave me; it was loaded full of nails; and I shot that insect, Tinggi, right here,—through the breast. Over he fell backward in his boat; he kept on waving his arms; I paddled fast after him in a canoe; I got along side of him; I caught hold of his head; I pulled it over to the edge of the boat; with two chops of my parang, like that and like that, off it came.’

This head was the first Juman had ever taken, and measureless was his pride in displaying the tattooing, to which he was thereby entitled, on the back of one of his hands; the other hand was to be similarly decorated as soon as the harvesting was over. Tinggi’s head he was allowed to hang from the roof of his veranda, opposite his door, in his house at Bowang Takun. Although this slaying of Tinggi was retributive justice, yet according to Borneo sentiment, it was a causa belli, and when I arrived at the Baram River, on a second visit to Borneo, about three months after these events, there were already reports of retaliating expeditions led by Tinggi’s brother, Kilup, in which the Tinjar people generally joined, against the peaceful dwellers on the Baram; women had been frightened from the rice-clearings by the traces of recent camp-fires, and of fresh footprints in the adjacent jungle, and doubtless would have been attacked, and killed, and decapitated, had not their husbands mounted guard each day, clad in war-coat and war-cap, and fully armed with spear, parang, and shield. Reports of new disturbances and threatened outrage came by every canoe from up the river that halted at the Baram Bazaar, until finally Dr. Hose determined to crush out this portentous feud betimes before it reached greater and, possibly, unmanageable proportions.

The whole Kayan population of the river was, moreover, somewhat in a commotion, owing to the accidental death of Oyang Luhat, one of its influential Chiefs. The control of three or four hundred people had thus fallen to his eldest son, Abun, and the large household were beginning to fret under the tedious restraints of the prolonged mourning; these restraints could be removed only by adding to the household collection a beneficent fresh head or two; consequently, under a new and vigorous young leader there was imminent danger of an extensive and formidable raid upon all the Tinjar people. Furthermore, it happened to be just at the beginning of the rainy season, when there was nothing to be done but to wait for the rice, already planted, to sprout and grow. Even in highly civilized communities, Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do, so, too, in Borneo what can be more natural than that days of idleness should prompt a mischievous use of spear and parang?

His Excellency, Rajah Brooke, (this wise and beneficent ruler,) has, of course, made every possible effort to eradicate the custom of head-hunting in Sarawak, but in a country without roads, and where news travels no faster than the river’s sluggish current, swift retribution for any outrage is impossible; and, with the small force of Englishmen who act as his Residents, it is almost inconceivably difficult, in districts isolated by well-nigh impenetrable jungle, to follow up and arrest any offender, much more a head-hunter, whom the natives themselves, holding head-hunting to be a most praiseworthy virtue, screen to the best of their ability.

Where the decapitated victim has relatives or near and dear friends, there the Rajah’s officers may possibly obtain some aid; but even under these favorable conditions, the information is reluctantly given, unless the hope is held out of a participation in the punishment or the retaliation.

In such circumstances, it is remarkable and redounds greatly to the efficiency of the Sarawak government, that exceedingly few murderers escape detection and punishment, even should it take years to trace them. The punishment is not always a death sentence; it may be a heavy fine. The veneration with which the practice of head-hunting is regarded by the tribes of the central high-lands, and the fact that they have been taught by their fathers and grandfathers that it is a religious duty, cannot but influence the Rajah and his Residents to incline to leniency in their judicial sentences on these people whenever there has been provocation, albeit slight, for the commission of the deed. Where a whole household of more than a hundred men has made an unprovoked raid upon an unsuspecting neighbor, the Rajah, on several occasions, has wisely allowed the injured tribe to make, as a kind of ‘wild justice,’ a retaliating raid upon the aggressors; but the expedition has been always under the direction of one of his Residents, who makes sure that only the guilty are attacked,—if unrestrained, the natives would be driven by excitement to kill all who cross their path, whether friend or foe.

To resume the story of the troublous times on the Baram. It was decided by the Government to quiet the disturbances at the very outset by administering a severe lesson to those turbulent natives on the Tinjar who still resented the legal slaying of the murderer, Tinggi; accordingly, a war expedition was planned, which should be the means of intimidating the seditious tribe, without, it was ardently hoped, the shedding of any blood, and, withal, of such an imposing character that the mere demonstration might, of itself, lead even to a lasting peace.

Dr. Hose decided, first of all, to investigate the truth of the rumours concerning the marauding Lerons. With this end in view, he decided to set out at once for the house of the young Chief, Abun, just mentioned, about one hundred and twenty miles up the Baram, where, if the rumours proved correct, his forces could be mustered.

We arrived after dark at Long Lama (‘Long’ meaning the mouth of a river, and ‘Lama’ being the name of a stream at whose junction with the Baram Abun’s house is situated). The river’s bank, sloping gradually in low, irregular terraces of sandy mud up to the house, about a hundred and fifty yards from the shore, was dotted in all directions with little fires, whereon the natives were cooking venison. A deer had been killed in the clearings, and, although the flesh is one of the greatest of delicacies, it must never be cooked in the house; the timidity of the deer will be infused into the household. By inhaling its spirit, liberated by fire, young men assimilate its timidity and become cowards in battle,—therefore the flesh is cooked in the open air, and the timid spirit at once makes its way again to the jungle. Several of the natives, when they recognized us, deserted their flesh-pots and came down to meet us, carrying fire-brands, which they waved vigorously to keep them blazing and give us light. Of course, all knew that a visit from the Resident meant something of importance, but, according to Kayan etiquette, the purpose must not be broached until we were settled in the veranda. Escorted by these torch-bearers we picked our way past the fires up the soggy, muddy bank, walked warily on the pathway of slippery logs, and so to the notched log whereby the veranda is gained.

The immense long-house, looking on its high, multitudinous piles like a gigantic centipede, stretched far away to the right and to the left into the darkness under rustling cocoanut palms; mongrel dogs barked and yapped round our heels, and from beneath the house snorting pigs rushed hither and thither in all directions. The house seemed deserted; the restrictions of mourning had banished all mirth, music, and song; the only signs of life along its whole length were three or four dim fires flickering on the clay hearths; hardly a sound was to be heard in it. With as much dignity as can be assumed when crawling on all fours up an almost perpendicular, and slippery, and notched pole, we gained the veranda, where the young Chief greeted us cordially, and ceremoniously conducted us to the clay hearth, the place of honor, in front of his own door. Fresh wood to replenish the fire was brought, and several small tin kerosene lamps, made by Chinese at the Bazaar, and without glass chimneys, were placed here and there, on the floor, and on the beams. It was not advisable, even had it been etiquette, to divulge at once the purpose of our visit, or even to allude to the Tinjar people; so dropping cross-legged about the fire, we accepted the proffered bead-work box of coarse Kayan tobacco and banana-leaf wrappers, and joined the encircling and rapidly increasing group, in a social cigarette. The talk drifted up-river and down-river, discussing crops of rice and the promise of the abundance of rattan, or of gutta, or of camphor yet to be gathered in the jungle. Occasional puffs of hot air were wafted in under the eaves, bringing with them the combined scent of the fires on the bank, of mud, and of damp chips from the logs which beneath the house were being fashioned into canoes. The brief twilight of the tropics was gone, the night was already as black as ink, although it was barely a half hour after sunset, and the insects had not yet begun the incessant din of their nocturnal medley.

Gradually, Dr. Hose led up the conversation to the killing of Tinggi and to the retaliation of the Lerons. At once eyes flashed, and every man was eager to set forth his account of the outrages; some asserted that women and children working in the rice-fields had been murdered; others maintained that certain rattan-cutters had caught sight of a large force of Tinjar people, in the jungle close by Long Lama; again, others said that the Tinjar marauders numbered hundreds, while others contended that there were, at most, but a dozen or so. Finally, it turned out that no one present had actually seen a single enemy, and the substance of the stories was so flimsy that the purpose of the expedition threatened to come to naught, when suddenly our ears caught the rhythmical and rapid thump of paddles, followed by the grating sound of the beaching of canoes. Flickering torches struggled up the bank toward the house, and, as though by telepathy, it flashed upon every one that Juman himself was at hand.

Presently, sure enough, in came the hero of the hour, with fifteen or twenty followers. All took their places amid the squatting group, as unconcernedly as if their minds were as free of care, as their bodies of clothes. Juman seated himself beside us on the low platform. Again, we had to comply with the inviolable rules of Bornean propriety, and converse on any subject under heaven, save on the sole object of the visit; but this time it did not take so long to beat about the bush. After a few decorous minutes, Juman, jumping to his feet, poured forth to the assembly a harrowing account of the horrid dangers to which his household was exposed every hour of the day and night from this crowd of skulking, murderous Lerons! He spoke in Kayan, a language of soft, lingual, and prolonged vowel sounds, abruptly interspersed with short gutturals pronounced far back in the throat; and while relating his wrongs he stamped with his bare feet, turning first to this side, then to that, wildly waving his arms, snapping his fingers, and emphasising the close of each sentence by shouting ‘Bahh! bahh!’—a convenient exclamation to gain time for ideas; I fear it corresponded to the cough which afflicts our own after-dinner speakers. The telling point of the speech was that the camp of the enemy had been actually discovered close to Juman’s own fields, and, from the way that the jungle had been trodden down, the war-party must be in large numbers; much of the rice had been uprooted just as it was beginning to sprout, and many of their banana trees had been wantonly slashed to pieces. There were men here with Juman,—he called them forth and bade them tell their stories,—who had actually seen the encampment of the enemy, and the hundreds of footprints on the bank of the stream where they had rested. Juman was clearly an orator, and swayed at will the emotions of the assembly; volleys of grunts marked approval of his eager words; cigarettes burned quick and fast under excited puffing.

When Juman dropped on his haunches, there followed an ominous silence,—the hush before a storm. Dr. Hose at once perceived that the native blood was deeply stirred, and that these reports about the Lerons, who had no right to be in this part of the country at all, were probably correct, and would infallibly lead to an indiscriminate war. The thirst of the people for vengeance must not be absolutely thwarted, but judiciously controlled. Accordingly, he at once addressed them very earnestly, approving of their just indignation, and fearlessly telling them that the reason why their expeditions so often failed was because they lost so much time in consulting Omen Birds, that the enemy had time to prepare themselves or to decamp. Now was the hour when the lives of their wives and children depended upon instant action, and he impressively concluded by saying:—

‘This time do not ask advice from birds, get ready to-night at once, and we’ll all start at dawn to-morrow and chase these thieves and cowards back to their river! or else many fresh heads will hang in the houses on the Baram! But remember, that though the Government is with you in this fight, it makes war on the guilty, and on no one but the guilty. Go, therefore! Send messengers without delay, up-river and down, to summon all Kayan fighters to arms! And to be ready to join us to-morrow before the birds wake up!’

For several seconds every man sat motionless with dilated eyes and open mouth, hardly realising the joyful news. Then with one wild shout all bounded to their feet, and the whole house from end to end was staring wide awake and fairly quivering with life! Canoes were hastily launched in the darkness and dispatched up and down the black river, to bear the swift news to friendly houses miles away. The slamming of doors was incessant, dusty and long unused spears, shields, war-coats, caps, were eagerly brought from sleeping-rooms into the veranda, for inspection, or for repairs, or for fresh decorations. Clay lamps with damar-gum sizzling, sputtering, and smoking, were lit everywhere. Crouched about one lamp was a group of young men warming fresh ‘Ipoh’ (arrow poison), and smearing it on the tips of the darts for their blow-pipes. Around another, was gathered a group busily cutting new darts and shaping the pith butts to fit tightly in the bore of the blow-pipe. Others sharpened their spears and parangs, rearranging the dangling charms, which they smeared with the blood of chickens, while murmuring exhortations to them to protect the bearer from all harm and help the parang to deal death at a single blow. All the women, too, and the girls, joined in the hurry-scurry, and stitched, on the backs of war-coats, horn-bill feathers, or big butterflies embroidered in black and yellow beads. Many a love-knot was tied, that night, and fastened on parang, war-coat, and shield, and I am quite sure that some young hearts beat high with hopes of presenting, as the fairest of bridal gifts, what no female Kayan heart could possibly resist,—a lovely, fresh, human head. But, perhaps, I was too sentimental, and imputed romantic aspirations to those dusky breasts which entertained no such lodgers. For as I sat there passively watching this strange scene, so dramatic and unreal to me, and so earnest and real to the actors, I saw a girl with serious mien furtively thrust into a young warrior’s hand a strip of bead-work of her own making, wherewith to ornament the scabbard of his parang. I am sorry to say that, so far from responding to any tender sentiment, the young fellow looked decidedly sheepish, and not a little puzzled by the gift, and, alas! I could not detect that he even thanked her for it. Half an hour later I saw him wandering about, dangling the precious love-token aimlessly in his hand. I concluded that she had better throw him over; such ardour as his, never leads to where glory waits.

Hearing vigorous stamping and loud shouting in the room of the young Chief, Abun, I entered unbidden. In the middle of the room, which was unusually large, stood an old warrior decked out in war-coat and cap, and brandishing a spear in one hand and a shield in the other; around him in a circle sat eight or ten young men watching breathlessly his every movement.

It was difficult to repress a smile at his antics; but the intense earnestness and wrapt attention of his pupils were absolute; he was instructing the novices how to lunge, guard, and parry with spear and shield. With a shrill shout and a lofty caper he dashed at an imaginary foe, warded off the attack with his shield, and, crouching low behind it, gave imaginary crippling jabs with his spear, emitting loud grunts the while, and hopping from right to left at each thrust; these thrusts were evidently fatal to the phantom foe, for, dropping his spear, the hoary instructor drew his parang, and with one chop, followed by sawing, severed an imaginary head from its body. His final explosive grunt, expressed as plain as words: ‘There it is! off at last! simple as kiss your hand!’ Again, he backed and sidled to show the motions when an enemy attacks in the rear; or, again, he showed how to creep stealthily, and at the same time to keep the body thoroughly covered by the shield, which, considering that this protecting article is four feet long by eighteen inches wide, cannot be called a difficult problem. Of course, the enemy was always stupid and completely deceived by the baldest feints, and inevitably fell an easy prey. But the open-eyed and open-mouthed youngsters drank in the instruction in gulps. Their instructor could not be called a handsome old man, his nose was a flattened aquiline, his lips thin and pushed far forward like a frog’s; his hands were, of course, tattooed, for his knowledge of warfare had been gained in many a battle, and his contribution to the household collection of heads was large; his hair was cropped short, (probably out of respect for the late Chief,) and stood up in gray bristles all over his head; his muscular development, however, was fine for a man of his years, and his litheness and agility were remarkable.

The alcove where I sat, watching this military drill, was the sleeping platform of the old widowed mother of the Chief; her mats had been already spread for the night, before this war excitement had begun. She sat beside me, speaking earnestly and bravely to her three sons, Abun, Madong, and Batu, squatting in front of her, each busily engaged, while listening to her, in selecting from their store the best darts for their blow-pipes, and replacing with new butts any old ones which were dry or cracked. ‘Be brave, sons of mine,’ she said, in earnest tones, ‘and remember your father, Oyang Luhat, the bravest of the brave, the friend of the Rajah, and one who obeyed every command of the Government. Bring back, I implore you, an enemy’s head, that your fearless father’s grave may be honoured with a fragment of it. Obey the orders of the Tuan Resident; if he forbids you to kill, then come back empty handed rather than disobey the Prenta. If you are killed, of course I shall wail and lament for you; but I am old, and shall meet you soon again with your father in Long Julán, where all brave warriors go who die in battle or by accident. And you, Batu, [the youngest, about eighteen years old,] be not headstrong, but follow your brothers and take their advice in everything.’

Her words were so simple and direct, and, withal, uttered in that soft, flowing language which I had learned to like so well, that, I confess, it never entered my mind at the time that her personal appearance was far from prepossessing. I saw in her only a modern instance of the Spartan mother, and quite forgot her few and blackened teeth, and her slit ear-lobes, enormously elongated by her mourning ear-rings of heavy wood. She sat on the floor half leaning back against the wall, with only a strip of blue cotton cloth (not immaculate) around her waist, and covering as far as the knee her thin, wrinkled, and tattooed legs, while she was addressing her three boys, of whom she was very proud. Her eyes, dimmed from age and from the daily glare of the sun, rested first on one, then on another, but most frequently on the youngest, Batu, whose marriage was to take place as soon as the tattooing on the legs of his bride was finished. Evidently her mother’s heart feared lest this high prize of his enamoured hopes, coupled with his youth, might spur him on to hazard more danger than his brothers. The ardour of the hour was contagious, and I saw (honesty bids me acknowledge) nothing unnatural or unmotherly in these prayers to her sons to bring home a freshly severed head, to hang in consecrated repose above the domestic hearth or on an honoured father’s grave.

In the veranda, all the bustle and excitement were continued; fresh recruits kept constantly arriving from neighbouring houses, and from rice-clearings, where men often pass the night in small huts. Outside, in front of the house, in the granaries for rice, there was also much commotion, the commissariat department must not be overlooked; a good store of rice had to be packed in baskets and bags of a size convenient for handling. In this work, the youngsters could help, and the sturdy little chaps, infected with the excitement of their elders, forgot sleep, and shouted and laughed as they darted here and there, and stumbled in the dark, carrying the baskets down to the canoes at the river’s edge.

Long before the excited stir and confusion had subsided, we were stretched out on our mats upon the floor to snatch a few hours of sleep before dawn; whether or not the natives slept at all is doubtful; when we awoke at the first streaks of gray in the east, the bustle of embarking was at its height.

Just as the first red beams of level light came gleaming down the long stretch of the river, five of the most energetic canoes swung out from the shore, and a mighty shout went up from their sixty or seventy paddlers; the foam and spray dashed and sparkled and glittered from the paddles; the thwarts creaked in their rattan bindings as the canoes fairly bent and quivered under the powerful strokes. Away they darted up-stream racing for the lead, the snow-white feathers in the warriors’ caps and on the war-coats, glittered like burnished silver as they fluttered and caught the glancing sunlight.

Every few minutes, canoes from down-stream, filled with warriors in panoply, came into view, just touched at the landing, asked a few breathless, excited questions, swerved off, and dashed after the leaders. The women, in a long line, leaned over the railing of the veranda, and, let us hope, ‘rained influence;’ certain it is that between the puffs of their cigarettes they broadly smiled encouragement to their lovers and husbands, who (it pains me to add) paid absolutely no attention to them. When ten or twelve canoes had started off, we followed in our big canoe, manned by Ibans from the Baram Fort, who, though of a different tribe, love fighting as passionately as do the Kayans. Not to be outdone, we started off with as brave a splash and as vigorous a shout as the best of them, and very soon had caught up with the main body of canoes that were just behind those that were the first to break the placid water and catch the full beams of the rising sun.

Indeed, it was a thrilling scene! It was war, savage war, and a war of savages. However it might end, be it bloody or bloodless, now at the outset fierce eagerness lit up all faces, and a frenzy for blood had mounted to every brain.

As we rounded a turn of the river we came to a sudden pause. The advance guard of five canoes had hauled up to the shore. On a narrow sandy bank an excited crowd of warriors were kindling a fire and putting up poles and arches of sticks cut along their whole length into curled shavings,—a bird of good omen had been seen on the right side! An exhilarating proof that, although the usual rites had been neglected, the blessed birds were, after all, propitious. The fire, an unfailing messenger from man to the omniscient Omen-givers, now announced to the birds that their favour was greatly appreciated. All the maturer men, pre-eminent among them our old friend, the whilom instructor in the warlike use of shield and spear, evidently also a pronounced and respectable conservative, were overjoyed, and danced, and shouted, round the fire before returning to their boats. Although no such spur was needed, yet unquestionably this favourable omen imparted a fierce exultant joy to all, and we started off with redoubled zeal.

The canoes kept fairly close together all day, but as the sun mounted higher and higher, and was at last directly overhead, the paddling became somewhat less vigorous; cumbersome war-coats and caps were placed in a heap in the centre of each boat. Three or four times we all halted and cooled ourselves off by a plunge in the stream, which, now that we had passed the lowlands, ran beautifully clear. Whenever we approached friendly houses, the paddling became furious, the shoutings and cries from all throats were renewed; to which, as a response, several canoes full of eager warriors would unfailingly push out from shore to join us. Then again was the air filled with a wild din of savage whoops and halloos, and thrills of excitement ran from boat to boat.

Late in the afternoon, under the westering sun, we reached Juman’s house at Bowang Takun; the house is a large one standing at some little distance back from the river and almost hidden under a luxuriant grove of cocoanut palms. Why the spot should be called Onion Lake, seeing that there are neither onions nor lakes there, is as inexplicable as some of the Bornean conventional tattoo designs. There is a slimy pond, to be sure, near the house, which as it is water might suggest a lake, and its exceedingly bad odor might supply a reminder of the vegetable.

As the day’s journey closed at Juman’s house, Juman very naturally claimed the privilege of acting as host to this large party. Furthermore, was he not the indirect,—but most happy cause, of this delightful war? Was not its joyous pretext to avenge his wrongs? Surely it was his pleasant duty then to feed the warriors royally. (And let me say in parenthesis that to supply, at a few hours’ notice, food and lodging for four or five hundred men might well task any hospitality save that of a Bornean.) Accordingly, his boats had pushed on ahead at the double quick, and reached his house several hours before us. When the forty or fifty canoes (with an average of at least ten men to a canoe) drew up to Juman’s beach, the slaughtering of pigs and fowls was still going on, and great troughs full of boiled rice were in preparation. In order not to be in the way, the whole army filled in the spare time by bathing in the river, and by washing their chawats, (waist-cloths,) which were spread out on the pebbly beach, and, until they were dried, the owners remained in the water. Before dark, all were summoned to the supper, which was spread in the veranda for the common folk, and in Juman’s own room for the select few. In two rows on the floor down the centre of the whole length of Juman’s room, where we dined, were squares of banana leaf, each one piled high with boiled rice, and beside each cover stood a little bowl of wood or of coarse china, filled with cubes of boiled pork and chicken. Between the rows, about every three feet, were large wooden bowls heaped with pulverised salted fish; these bowls were in common, all hands might dive into them for a savory pinch. As soon as all were squatted, some began to fall to at once; whereupon Juman shouted the obligatory welcome, ‘Kuman plahei plahei,’ which, as I have said, means eat slowly. He had no shade of fear that his guests would not eat heartily,—the duration of the meal must be long,—‘the linked sweetness long drawn out.’ Mrs. Juman and little Miss Juman (I failed to catch their names when I was presented), and several little Jumans were ubiquitous in their zeal that all should be helped, that every one should have plenty; when this was assured, they sat on one side and helped themselves. It was a remarkably quiet feast, all attention was absorbed in disposing of the food with neatness, and, in spite of the injunction of Kuman plahei plahei, with dispatch. Considering that all the eating was performed without knife, fork, spoon, or even chop-sticks, the cleanliness with which they all ate, brought a blush to our cheeks when we contemplated the quantity of rice scattered about our places when we had finished.

Darkness closed in soon after supper; the men all gathered in groups in the veranda. Again and again the stories about the hiding-place of the enemy were rehearsed, and those who had been among the fortunate discoverers of this hiding-place never lacked an interested party of listeners, who accepted implicitly every embellishment which each repetition brought forth. The plans for the expedition to the clearings on the following day were discussed, and, in a sort of Council of War, it was finally decided that the whole band should preserve as closed ranks as possible, and sedulously use every expedient in the jungle to indicate to the foe their formidable numbers. In case the enemy had scattered only to reassemble, its scouts would become aware of the perfectly equipped and enormous force with which it had to deal. (I mention these details to show that this expedition was not a mere armed mob, but that the leaders had some inkling of the rudiments of genuine tactics.) Every one was keen for the fight; a protracted peace on the Baram had made the people restless; the heads hanging from the rafters in the houses were becoming exceedingly dusty, and their beneficent virtue was, possibly, evaporating.

By the time, however, that all the excited rumors of the number of the foe, and of its movements, had been thoroughly sifted, I think I could detect indications that several of the older and cooler headed Chiefs began to waver in their belief that there would be after all any desperate conflict; possibly even, that this fierce show, with all the paraphernalia of war, would in itself prove all-sufficient, and that the enemy would be so intimidated that it would make no stand.

As the evening wore on and the damar lamps burned low with fitful sputters, I deserted the Council of War, and joined a group where care had been cast to the winds, and, by tacit consent, the evening before the battle was to be as gay and festive as possible. A youth was playing on the kaluri, and a sharp-featured man of middle age was the bard; he had a deep bass voice and seemed to be widely recognized as the possessor of an endless repertoire of songs,—every song that was called for, be it war-like, be it pastoral, be it of love, or be it of the nursery, he was familiar with, and at once launched into the solo, while the rest joined in the refrain.

I could not follow word for word these Kayan songs, which are often, no doubt, quite ancient. The unwritten languages of all the Polynesian races are subject to remarkably rapid modifications; wherefore the songs and legends which preserve their original form are very difficult for modern and foreign ears to understand. Juman sat cross-legged next to me, and interpreted to me in Malay, from time to time, fragments of the songs; one, I remember, had a very catchy rhythm with a constant refrain ‘Tama Poyong kapei paha, Ara wi wi ará.’ According to Juman, it was a woful ballad rehearsing the lament of a young girl to her mother because she had been commanded to marry ‘Tama Poyong, with the twisted leg;’ her plaintive objections to Tama Poyong as a husband, on various grounds, sent Juman and all the rest of the group into such fits of laughter that they could hardly join in the chorus, and, of course, I laughed in sympathy. Another song was of the workers in the fields, and then followed a minute account of the harvest-festival, when women dress like men in nothing but a chawat, and parade about the house in a long procession carrying shield, parang, and spear. The solo singer sat in the centre of the group, and with a smile glanced here and there about him in a half-embarrassed way, keeping time to his song by twirling the free end of his chawat round and round in front of him, and at times, for emphasis, whacking it down on his knee. Whenever women were represented as speaking, he broke into a high falsetto.

So the evening wore on till one by one the singers crept away, and soon, wrapped in their long, white cotton coverings, were stretched along the veranda like a row of corpses in shrouds.

The next morning the excitement in getting off in the boats that there had been at Long Lama was repeated. Eight or ten more canoes from up-river joined us just as we set out, making the total number of the fleet at least sixty, carrying about six hundred,—truly a very formidable army of keen, savage warriors. After ascending the river a short distance, the canoes fell into single file and turned into a narrow tributary stream, leading up to the rice-clearings.

On both sides, trees arched over the stream in a dense canopy; thick with orchids, ferns, and vines, which sent their blossoms, roots, and tendrils down, in heavy masses, almost sweeping our heads; gorgeous butterflies flickered and fluttered in their uncertain flight just above the surface of the water or gathered, like flaming jewels, on patches of mud on the banks; hordes of monkeys, aroused by the unusual bustle and turmoil on the river, peered, and chattered, and jeered at us from a safe distance above; while the harsh and deep-toned calls of the horn-bills boomed and echoed from the depths of the jungle.

For several hours we zigzagged up the stream, following the deeper courses where the current ran less swift, under shady, far-reaching boughs, whose tips dabbled in the rippling water; gradually the stream narrowed and ran between rocks and pebbled islands. Paddles were ineffectual against the swift current, and the men halted to cut poles. One by one, the long line of canoes again moved off, the men grunting in chorus at each shove of the poles, whose successive movements travelled along the line like the rippling legs of a centipede; the man in the bow raises his pole and sweeps it ahead for a fresh hold, then the next man behind, on the opposite side of the boat, does likewise with the same motion, and so down the whole line, each waiting till the man in front has his pole firmly fixed. Then all the twenty together, with a profound and mighty grunt, give a shove that sends the boat ahead for fifteen or twenty feet.

By this time, we had approached so near to the lurking-place of the enemy that it was deemed advisable to have scouts sent ahead, especially to see that there were no trees on the banks which had been partially chopped through and were kept in position only by the vines binding them to adjoining trees; a fatal trap for enemies often used by the Borneans. When the trees are half cut through, it needs but a single blow with a parang to sever the vines that hold it and then down it goes crashing on the boats of an enemy, and while the occupants flounder in the water and are entangled among broken branches, nothing is easier than to reap an abundant and soothing harvest of human heads.

Thus we slowly toiled up the shallow water in the crawling canoes, while scouts kept abreast in the jungle, cutting a path for themselves in the dense tangle of thorny palms and rattans. Foremost among them were Abun, the Chief, and his youthful and ardent brother, Batu. They were as alert as hawks, peering everywhere for indications of the earnestly desired foe. Every now and then my eyes were dazzled by flashes from a diamond-shaped decoration on Abun’s war-cap. When we disembarked at noon I found that this glittering jewel was a tin trade-mark stamped in familiar letters: ‘Devoe’s Brilliant Kerosene Oil.’

For some inexplicable reason, the Borneans never breakfast before starting on any expedition; but, once started, they always seem to choose the most inopportune time for their first meal; just when they have fallen fairly into the swing of paddling or poling, they must needs land and build fires for cooking rice. Even war permits no exception to this exasperating custom; so at noon the whole fleet pulled up on a ‘karangan,’ or pebbly island, where, in fulfillment of the strategy planned the night before, fully a hundred fires were kindled under as many earthen pots, and over a widely extended area. While the rice was boiling, some energetic workers constructed a shelter with boughs and large palm leaves to protect the Chiefs and the ‘Kalunan putih,’ (white men,) from the vertical rays of the sun, which beat down pitilessly in this wide expanse of the stream, where a tributary, almost equal in size, joined its broad waters. The smoke drifted hazily and lazily into the thick, ever-dripping jungle, and the water swirled over the smooth hidden rocks and broke into ‘unnumbered smiles’ in the flecks of sunshine. War-caps and coats were laid aside, and for an hour there was rest for warriors, filled with peace and rice. It is to be feared that under this soothing influence the pristine enthusiasm which marked the start was slightly ebbing; ‘weary seemed the oar, and weary the wandering fields of barren foam;’ there is no knowing how much longer that hour would have lasted. Juman was keeping himself a little in the background, now that his alarming reports were so soon to be tested. Of a sudden the note of instant war was struck by Ma Obat, (Father of Medicine,) of most fierce aspect, but a braggart and at heart a coward; one of his eye-sockets was empty and in the other rolled a bloodshot orb, whose red lids, from which the lashes had been plucked, were everted. He started up, and, with a shout to his men to be quick, or they would never reach the enemy, bustled down to his boat, slipping his head through his war-coat and girding on his parang, as he went.

This sudden call broke the spell, and in a moment all were scurrying to the boats, but not before every peg whereon the pots had rested was with scrupulous care pulled up, and the embers scattered;—nothing brings worse luck to a war-party than the omission of this last duty in breaking camp. One by one the canoes started off again up-stream; sometimes making their way with difficulty between boulders, then again gliding swiftly over placid pools, the poles rattling and splashing on the pebbly bottom. Before long, we reached the head of navigation, and here at last were the rice-clearings,—the very ground whereon the foe had lately trod. For half a mile or more on the left bank of the river, the jungle had been cleared and the surface burnt, leaving only tall charred stumps of trees. Here and there were scattered thatched huts on high poles, where the guardians of the fields sleep at night; and all the undulating ground about the scraggy charred tree stems, was clothed thick with the lush, translucent green of sprouting rice.