On Entering The
House To Which I Was Invited, A Crowd Of Sixty Or Seventy Men,
Women, And Children Gathered Around Me, And I Sat For Half An Hour
Like Some Strange Animal Submitted For The First Time To The Gaze
Of An Inquiring Public.
Brass rings were here in the greatest
profusion, many of the women having their arms completely covered
with them,
As well as their legs from the ankle to the knee.
Round the waist they wear a dozen or more coils of fine rattan
stained red, to which the petticoat is attached. Below this are
generally a number of coils of brass wire, a girdle of small
silver coins, and sometimes a broad belt of brass ring armour. On
their heads they wear a conical hat without a crown, formed of
variously coloured beads, kept in shape by rings of rattan, and
forming a fantastic but not unpicturesque headdress.
Walking out to a small hill near the village, cultivated as a
rice-field, I had a fine view of the country, which was becoming
quite hilly, and towards the south, mountainous. I took bearings
and sketches of all that was visible, an operation which caused
much astonishment to the Dyaks who accompanied me, and produced
a request to exhibit the compass when I returned. I was then
surrounded by a larger crowd than before, and when I took my
evening meal in the midst of a circle of about a hundred
spectators anxiously observing every movement and criticising
every mouthful, my thoughts involuntarily recurred to the lion
at feeding time.
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