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. The raja began giving orders about the prahus and behaved as if he were at home. As I remained passive he finally said that he wanted to know whether he could go; if I preferred Lidju he would remain behind. Not wanting a scene, and as he was so intent on going, I gave the desired permission. Though, like the others, he was nude except for a loin-cloth, Raja Besar was a gentleman at heart, but he did not know how to work, especially in a prahu. On account of his exalted position he had never been accustomed to manual labour, but always to command. He naturally selected a place in my prahu and seated himself at one side, which kept the boat tilted; however, it was out of the question for any of the men to correct him. When the prahu moved away the first thing he did was to wash his feet, next his hands and arms, finally to rinse his mouth, and several times during the trip the performance was repeated. He was of little assistance except through the authority that he exerted as a great raja.

Early in the afternoon we arrived at Lulo Pakko (lulo = river; pakko = edible fern), situated in a beautiful hilly country. The natives very obligingly helped to make camp in the usual way. Raja Besar, who made himself at home in the gallery of the long communal house, told me that he wanted his "children," as he called the men, to remain until the following day, his plan being to obtain double wages for them. With the swift current, however, they could easily return the same day, so I said I had no objection to their staying, but that they would receive no extra pay for the additional time; whereupon they left without argument.

Comfortably established on the cool, spacious gallery of the large house, I received articles they were willing to sell, had decorative designs interpreted for me, and interviewed the more intelligent of these pleasant Oma-Sulings. On the floor lay an admirably finished plank, which was used as a seat; it was about four centimetres thick and nearly two metres broad, the bark remaining on the edges. In Long Pahangei I noticed a similar one of slightly narrower width.

The women, who were genial in their manners, came to my tent constantly to ask for tobacco, which evidently was a great luxury with them, and sometimes they were even troublesome. One afternoon when all was ready for my bath, which I always take at one side of the tent opening, three young women came and seated themselves just outside. While the natives are always welcome and I like them, yet I was not prepared, after a hard day's work, to relinquish my bath in order to receive a visit from even attractive ones of the fair sex. There was simply nothing to do but to disregard their presence. Calmly I began to take off my clothes, as if the ladies were not there. At first my preparations seemed to make no impression whatever, but finally, when I was about to divest myself of the last of my few garments, they smiled and went away.

This was the season for the durian fruit and we much enjoyed this delicacy, of which Mr. A.R. Wallace, fifty years ago, wrote: "To eat durians is a new sensation, worth a voyage to the East to experience." There were some superb trees seventy metres high growing not far from my tent, and many others farther away. The people of the Mahakam do not climb these tall trees to get the fruit, but gather them from the ground after it has fallen. One night I heard one fall with a considerable crash. Roughly speaking, it is of the size of a cocoanut; a large one might kill a man and has been known to cause serious injury. It is most dangerous for children to walk under the trees in the fruit season.

The durian is intensely appreciated by the natives, and tatu marks representing the fruit are strikingly prominent in Central Borneo. It also has its European devotees, though most of them take a dislike to it on account of its strong odour, resembling that of decayed onions. On my arrival in Batavia one of my first trips had been to the market to buy a durian, which I brought to the hotel with anticipation of great enjoyment. My disappointment was great, its taste being to me as offensive as its odour. Nobody knows what a durian is like until he eats one that has been permitted to ripen and fall to the ground. Even in Java this would be difficult, unless one made special arrangements with the natives who bring them to the market-places. It is popularly supposed that the durian is an aphrodisiac, but that is not the case.

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