Besides The Meat Or Fish, Or Whatever Is Used As The Foundation, It Contains Eight Ingredients And Condiments, All Indigenous Except Red Pepper And Onions.

In the ladangs is cultivated the maize plant, which just then was in condition to provide us with the coveted green corn, and carried my thoughts to America, whence the plant came.

Maize is raised on a very limited scale, and, strange to say, higher up the river the season was already over. At Poru we tried in vain to secure a kind of gibbon that we heard almost daily on the other side of the river, emitting a loud cry but different from that of the ordinary wah-wah. Rajimin described it as being white about the head and having a pronounced kind of topknot.

As far as we had advanced up the Barito River, Malay influence was found to be supreme. The majority of the kampongs are peopled by Malays, Dayaks at times living in a separate section. This relation may continue at the lower courses of the tributaries, yielding to a Dayak population at the upper portions. In the kampongs, from our present camp, Poru, up to the Busang tributary, the population continues to be subject to strong Malay influence, the native tribes gradually relinquishing their customs, beliefs, and vernacular. But back from the river on either side the Dayak still easily holds his own.

The old kapala of Poru had an attractive eight-year-old granddaughter, of a singularly active and enterprising disposition, who always accompanied him. He called my attention to the fact that she wore a solid-looking gold bracelet around each wrist, a product of the country. In the dry season when the river is low two or three hundred Dayaks and Malays gather here to wash gold, coming even as far as from Muara Tewe. The gold mixed with silver is made into bracelets, wristlets, or breastplates by these natives.

The lieutenant had been unable to secure more than sixteen men, all Malays, which was insufficient for the six prahus we had bought. Therefore it became necessary to travel in relays, the lieutenant waiting in Poru until our men and prahus should return from Telok Djulo, for which kampong the rest of us started in late December.

After considerable rain the river was high but navigable, and two days' travel brought us to a rather attractive kampong situated on a ridge. Rajimin accompanied by Longko, the principal one of our Malays, went out in the evening to hunt deer, employing the approved Bornean method. With a lamp in the bow the prahu is paddled noiselessly along the river near the bank. Rusa, as a large species of deer are called, come to the water, and instead of being frightened are attracted by the light. Rajimin, who was of an emotional and nervous temperament, missed two plandoks and one rusa, Longko reported, and when he actually killed a rusa he became so excited that he upset the prahu.

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