All Day There Were Brought For Sale Objects Of Ethnography, Also Beetles, Animals, And Birds. Two Attractive Young Girls Sold Me Their Primitive Necklaces, Consisting Of Small Pieces Of The Stalks Of Different Plants, Some Of Them Odoriferous, Threaded On A String.

One girl insisted that I put hers on and wear it, the idea that it might serve any purpose other than to adorn the neck never occurring to them.

Two men arrived from Nohacilat, a neighbouring kampong, to sell two pieces of aboriginal wearing apparel, a tunic and a skirt. Such articles are very plentiful down there, they said, and offered them at an astonishingly reasonable price.

Malay is not spoken here, and we got on as best we could - nevertheless the want of an interpreter was seriously felt. The chief himself spoke some and might have served fairly well, but he studiously remained away from me, and even took most of the men from the kampong to make prahus at another place. I was told that he was afraid of me, and certainly his behaviour was puzzling. Three months later I was enlightened on this point by the information that he had been arrested on account of the murder by spear of a woman and two men, a most unusual occurrence among Dayaks, who, as a rule, never kill any one in their own tribe. With the kampong well-nigh deserted, it soon became evident that nothing was to be gained by remaining and that I would better change the scene of my activities to Long Kai, another Penihing kampong further down the river.

A small garrison had been established there, and by sending a message we secured prahus and men, which enabled us to depart from our present encampment. There were some rapids to pass in which our collector of animals and birds nearly had his prahu swamped, and although it was filled with water, owing to his pluck nothing was lost. At Long Kai the lieutenant and Mr. Loing put up a long shed of tent material, while I placed my tent near friendly trees, at the end of a broad piece of road on the river bank, far enough from the kampong to avoid its noises and near enough to the river to enjoy its pleasant murmur.

When going to their ladangs in the morning the Dayaks passed my tent, thence following the tiny affluent, Kai, from which the kampong received its name. Under the trees I often had interviews with the Penihings, and also with the nomadic Bukats and Punans who had formed settlements in the neighbouring country. Some of them came of their own accord, others were called by Tingang, the kapala of Long Kai, who did good service as interpreter, speaking Malay fairly well. From my tent I had a beautiful view of the river flowing between wooded hills, and the air was often laden with the same delicious fragrance from the bloom of a species of trees which I had observed on the Kasao River.

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