Prahus And A Sufficient Number Of Men Were Secured, And In The Middle Of July We Started.

On the Mahakam there never was any difficulty about getting men who were eager to gain their one rupia a day.

The difficulty was rather the other way, and this morning the prahus were found to contain more paddlers than had been agreed upon, and seven surplus men had to be put ashore. On the river-banks at this time were noticeable trees bearing small fruit of a yellowish-red colour, and which were so numerous as to impart their hue to the whole tree. Violent movements in the branches as we passed drew our attention to monkeys, which had been gorging themselves with fruit and scampered away on our approach. Birds, naturally, like the fruit, and, strange to say, it is a great favourite with fish, many kinds of which, chiefly large ones such as the djelavat and salap, gather underneath the trees in the season. On the Mahakam and the Katingan this is an occasion for the Dayaks to catch much fish with casting-net, spears, or hooks. The tree, which in Malay is called crevaia, is not cut, and there is no other known to the natives the fruit of which the fish like to eat. Though not sweet, it is also appreciated by the Dayaks.

Another singular observation made on the Mahakam was the effect of dry weather on the jungle. At one place, where it covered hills rising from the river, the jungle, including many big trees, looked dead. From what I later learned about the burning of the peat in Sarawak, where unusually dry weather may start fires which burn for months, this was undoubtedly also the case here, but it seems strange that in a country so humid as Borneo the weather, although admittedly of little stability, may become dry enough to destroy the woods in this manner.

I had decided to pay another short visit to Long Pahangei, where we arrived in the afternoon, and again we were among Oma-Sulings. Some good specimens were added to my ethnographic collections, among them wearing apparel for both sexes said to be over a hundred years old and which I bought from the Raja Besar, who was visiting here. He possessed a number of old implements and weapons of considerable interest. The raja of a near-by kampong arrived on his way to Long Iram, and the largest of his seven prahus was of unusual dimensions, measuring, at its greatest width, 1.34 metres over all. Although the board, four centimetres thick, stands out a little more than the extreme width of the dugout, which is the main part of a prahu, still the tree which furnished the material must have been of very respectable size.

The Raja Besar showed great desire to accompany me on an excursion up the Merasi River, a northern affluent within the domain of the same tribe. My preference was for Lidju, my constant assistant, but on the morning of our start the great man actually forced himself into service, while the former, who had been told to come, was not to be seen.

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