They Had Been Caught Through The Assistance Of Other Punans, And In Prison The Elder One Had Contracted The Dry Form Of Beri-Beri.

He was a pitiful sight, in the last stage of a disease not usually found among his compatriots, no longer able to walk, looking pale and emaciated and having lost the sight of his right eye.

They had rather wild but not unpleasant faces, and were both tatued like the Kenyahs. Their hair had been cut short in the prison. I later took the anthropometric measurements of the young man, who was a fine specimen of the savage, with a splendid figure, beautifully formed hands and feet - his movements were elastic and easy.

As it had been found impossible to secure Dayaks in the Bulungan for my expedition to New Guinea, the resident courteously offered to get eighty men from the Mahakam River. This would take at least two months and gave me opportunity to visit a lake called Sembulo, a considerable distance west of Bandjermasin. It was necessary first to go to Sampit, a small town, two days distant, on a river of the same name, where there is a controleur to whom the resident gave me an introduction, and who would be able to assist in furthering my plans. I could not afford to wait for the monthly steamer which touches at Sampit on its way to Singapore, so I arranged to make the trip on board an old wooden craft which was under repairs in Bandjermasin, and in the afternoon of June 5 we started.

The steamer was small, slow, and heavily laden, so it was not a very pleasant trip. As we sailed down the great Barito River on a dark and cloudy evening, from the deck, which was scarcely a metre above the muddy water, one might observe now and then floating clumps of the plants that thrive so well there. On approaching the mouth of the river the water, with the outgoing tide, became more shallow. The Malay sailor who ascertained the depth of the water by throwing his line and sang out the measures in a melodious air, announced a low figure, which made the captain stop immediately. The anchor was thrown and simultaneously a great noise of escaping steam was heard. Before the engine-room the sailors were seen trying to stop the steam which issued, holding sacks in front of them as a protection against being scalded. Coupled with my observation that there were no life preservers in my little cabin, nor anywhere else, the situation appeared disquieting, but the captain, a small-sized Malay and a good sailor, as all of that race are, reassured me by saying that it was only the glass for controlling the steam-power that was broken. After a while the escape of steam was checked and a new glass was put in.

The old craft kept up its reputation for rolling excessively, and I was glad when finally we entered the smooth waters of the Sampit River. We stopped for a couple of hours at a small kampong, where I made the acquaintance of a Polish engineer in the government's service, who was doing some work here. He told me that thirty years ago, in the inland country west of Kotawaringin, he had seen a young Dayak whose chest, arms, and legs, and most of the face, were covered with hair very similar in colour to that of the orang-utan, though not so thick. The hair on his face was black, as usual. There were no Malays at that head, but many Dayaks. I have heard reports of natives in the Schwaner mountains, who are said to have more hair on the body than Europeans, of a brownish colour, while that on the head is black. Controleur Michielsen, [*] in the report of his journey to the upper Sampit and Katingan in 1880, describes a certain Demang Mangan who had long, thin hair on the head, while on the chest and back it was of the same brown-red colour as that of the orang-utan. His arms were long, his mouth large and forward-stretching, with long upper lip, and his eye glances were shy. Among the Dayaks he was known as mangan (red).

[Footnote *: Controleur W.J. Michielsen, Verslag einer Reis door de boven distrikten der Sampit en Katingan rivieren in Maart en April, 1880.]

About noon we arrived at Sampit, a clean, attractive village situated on slightly higher ground than is generally available on Bornean rivers. The stream is broad here, having almost the appearance of a lake. As is the custom, a small park surrounds the controleur's residence, and in the outskirts of the town is a small, well-kept rubber plantation belonging to a German. Sampit is a Katingan word, the name of an edible root, and according to tradition the Katingans occupied the place in times long gone by.

The weather was remarkably dry, so that the tanks at the corners of the controleur's house, on which he depended for water, were becoming depleted. When the fruits of the utan are ripe, the orang-utan may at times be heard crying out in the neighbourhood, but on account of the dry weather they had retired deeper into the jungle. Chonggat shot only one, which was but half-grown and easily killed by a charge of shot. It is often difficult to discover an orang-utan because he has a knack of hiding himself where the foliage is densest, and if alarmed will proceed along the branches of tall trees and thus disappear from sight.

This intelligent, man-like ape is probably not so common in Dutch Borneo as he is supposed to be. Mr. Harry C. Raven, who collected animals in the northeastern part, told me that in a year he had shot only one. The orang-utans are generally found in Southern Borneo and do not go very far inland; in Central Borneo they are extremely rare, almost unknown.

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