I Soon Became Convinced That There Was Little Here For Me To Learn.

The Dayaks have been too long exposed to Malay and European influences, though still able to make splendid mats,

For which this place is well known. Malay ascendancy is strong on the lower courses of the two great rivers that meet here, on the Kapuas as far as Djangkang, on the Kahayan as far as Pahandut. I carried away mud for future zoological examination from the bottom of a pool, ten minutes walk from the shore. There are always small fish in it, and three or four times a year it is flooded. In dry seasons, although not every year, the water of the sea reaches as far as Mandumei.

In Bandjermasin my attention was drawn to an interesting breed of stump-tailed dogs which belonged to Mr. B. Brouers. The mother is a white terrier which has but half a tail, as if cut off. When she had pups, two had stump tails, two had long ones, and one had none; her sister has no tail. Though the fathers are the ordinary yellowish Dayak dogs with long tails, the breed apparently has taken nothing or next to nothing from them. They are all white, sometimes with hardly noticeable spots of yellow.

Nobody who has travelled in Borneo can have failed to notice the great number of short-tailed cats. In Bandjermasin those with long tails are very rare, and among Malays and Dayaks I do not remember ever having seen them.

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