One Night Dubi Overheard My Chinese Cook Telling Some Of The Dayaks That "The White Tuan Had No Use For These Tins Himself, That Is Why He Gives Them To You."

This cook, whom I used to call Cookie, was a great nuisance to me, but he was the most amusing

Character I ever came across, and he was the source of endless delight to the Dayaks, who enjoyed teasing him and jokingly threatened to cut off his head, until he was almost paralyzed with fright and came and begged me to leave, as we should all have our heads cut off. After a week or two his courage returned and I learned that when I was out of the house he would stand on his head for the amusement of the women and children, though he was by no means a young man. He soon became quite popular with the women, who found him highly amusing, and who were always in fits of laughter whenever he talked. In the evenings he sometimes joined a group of Dayak youths and would start to air his opinions. Then it was not long before they were all jeering and mimicking him, and poor old Cookie would look very foolish and a sickly smile would spread over his yellow features. Finally he would go off and sulk, and when I asked him what the matter was, he would reply, "Damn Dayak no wantee." Whenever I called out for Cookie, the whole house would resound with jeering Dayak cries of "Cookie, Cookie." He and Dubi were always quarrelling, and Cookie would work himself up into such a state of excitement that the place would be full of Dayak laughter, though the Dayak understood not a word of what they were talking about. In my later wanderings in Borneo the quarrel between my two servants, Dayak and Chinaman, grew to such an extent that I feared it would end in murder.

The foregoing account, short as it is, will, I trust, give some idea of what my long stay among head-hunting Dayaks was like. All things must have an ending, however, and having finished my collecting in this neighbourhood I said good-bye to my Dayak friends, with deep regret, and I think the sorrow was mutual. I know well that Dubi and his little Dayak sweetheart were almost heartbroken. The Dayaks begged me to stay longer, but I had already stayed longer than I had at first intended.

Old Usit, the chief, and his crew of Dayaks paddled me all the way to Sibu. There is little to relate about the journey there, except that the canoe leaked very badly and the Dayaks had to keep bailing her out. At night we tied the canoe up to a small wooden platform outside a Malay house on the Rejang River, to await the change of the tide, and one of the Dayaks knocked at the door of the house so that we could cook some food, but the Malays thought that we were head-hunters, and there was great lamentation, and for some time they refused to open.

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