CHAPTER XXXI

One morning Bertram and I, accompanied by Mr. Frank Maxwell, Mr. Awdry, and Dr. Langmore, started from Kuching in a steam launch on an expedition to Munggo Babi, a Land Dyak settlement. Up the Sadong River we passed Malay villages with palm-leaf houses erected on poles and standing in the mud. A few ragged flags of red, white, blue, and yellow, on long thin sticks, fluttered along the banks near Chinese houses, where women and children set fire to bunches of crackers, for they had somehow got wind of our journey. On the banks grew great, sweet-smelling, white lilies, called by the natives “bungga bakong,” but by European scientists Crinum Northianum, because they were first made known to European botanists by Miss North’s pictures. They looked like crowns of great white stars resting on green and glossy lance-like leaves.

We slept in a Malay house at a village called Gading. The house was made of palm leaves, and the poles supporting it stood on the mud: the whole construction was lashed together by rattans, as no nail or peg is ever used by the poorer Malays in building such humble dwellings. Clean mats were laid upon the floor, and I noticed that one portion of the roof was used as a storeroom, whilst scattered about the floor were large water-jars and cooking-pans. At night, as I lay on a mattress stretched on the floor, I heard the incoming tide gurgling, as it were, under my pillow. Frogs, insects, nightbirds, and all sorts of creatures, grotesque or beautiful, hooted, whistled, and coughed, sounding like the shrill and rough jabbering of drunken men; and there were hummings, moanings, murmurings—​the cogitations, so to speak, of spirits of the darkness and evil, all heard as distinctly by me as if I were resting outside in the mud right amongst them. I thought of crocodiles moving through the slime, until I felt terrified, and almost welcomed the homely sensation of being bitten by a flea. Then morning dawned, the sun came out, and with its joyous advent I felt that sense of security we none of us can account for at the dawn of day.

But to return to our journey. We embarked on the launch early. The river soon narrowed, and the banks were full of that beautiful shrub with its enormous deeply-indented leaves, pale yellow flowers as large as soup-plates, its clustered, bullet-shaped, carmine-coloured buds, and its open pods revealing seeds of a ravishing coral colour. I am not quite certain, but I think the plant must be a species of Wormia. Then there were screw pines growing near the mud, from which strong fibre can be obtained, their beautiful red fruits nestling in their roots, reminding one of gigantic strawberries. I saw dark green small-leaved shrubs starred over with waxy sweet-smelling blossoms, rather like stephanotis, and mauve, yellow, and pink convolvuli throttled great trees in the entanglement of their embrace. A large grey bird flew from out the lilies, alighted on a piece of driftwood, and was borne down the stream. We passed a place called Tana Mera (red earth) where at a little distance from the bank is the grave of an exceedingly righteous Malay gentleman whom the people called Datu Sumbang Kring. He lived many years ago, but the influence of his holy life still endures, and the people in the neighbourhood are never tired of relating how he taught every one to be kind and good, and how he spread abroad the precepts of that holy book, the Koran. I could not make out how long ago this righteous life was lived, but, according to the people, it was many years before the first Rajah Brooke came to Sarawak.

After passing Tana Mera, snags stuck up in all directions in the bed of the river. Some Land Dyaks from Munggo Babi came to meet us, bringing with them canoes in which we were to accomplish the last stages of our journey. I noticed how different these Land Dyaks were to Kayans, Malays, or Sea Dyaks. They were tall and slender with well-shaped noses, arched eyebrows, more pronounced chins, and their faces were oval and longer than were the faces of the other inhabitants of Sarawak. Their colour, however, was the same, but instead of the bright, laughing, bustling habits of the other people, they wore an expression of profound melancholy.

A Malay Haji had come with them to meet us and to direct proceedings. Our canoes had to be pushed through labyrinths of snags and other impediments barring our progress. At one part of the journey the men in our canoe had to cut down a snag before we could proceed further. When this was accomplished, they began to yell at their success, but the Haji remonstrated with them, and pointing to a tall Tapang tree towering over the jungle near the banks told them that the swarm of bees clinging to its branches would be angry at the noise, so that if the crew did not stop yelling, he feared the insects might attack us. He added, however, that the day being showery, we did not run the same risks as though the day were fine.

Tapang trees rise to a height of over one hundred feet without a branch. Their trunks are smooth and round, and swarms of bees often hang in their branches. Dyaks climb them at night to obtain the wax. The ascent is made by means of bamboo pegs driven into the trunk above the climber’s head, so that the ascent is slow, and takes several hours to accomplish. The bees are scared from their nests with a lighted torch, after which the wax is taken with impunity. The wax is sold at Kuching and forms one of the exports of the country. A great hindrance to the Dyaks who go in search of

this commodity is the little honey bear that roams about the forests of Sarawak, for it is very fond of stealing and eating the honey from these hives. Two or three specimens of this animal are to be seen in the London Zoological Gardens.

Munggo Babi lies at the foot of a mountain two thousand feet high. In order to reach the village we had to leave our canoes at the landing-place and proceed up a path for three miles or so. We found a crowd of young Dyaks drawn up on the banks to meet us, the elders having arranged to receive us at the entrance of their village. These young men wore waist-cloths of bright colours. The women and girls were dressed in short petticoats with rows of silver dollars and silver chains for waistbelts, and round their necks were rows of black, yellow, and red beads. These women do not know how to weave their petticoat stuffs, as do the Sea Dyak women, but buy them from wandering Chinese traders, or obtain them on their visits to the capital. Most of the young girls wore wire rings round the upper part of their arms and also round their legs. These rings all being, apparently, of the same size, impede the circulation and sometimes cause acute suffering, owing to the way the wire sinks into the growing limb. Four Dyaks carried me in a cane chair slung on poles nearly all the way, excepting where the path grew steep, or the way became difficult, when I preferred to trust to my own feet. I might have been a thing of feathers so easily did my four carriers skip along, although my weight was a respectable one. The road led through glades carpeted with various kinds of ferns, some having a bright blue bloom on them as they grew in the shade. We passed three or four round houses neatly thatched with pointed roofs, standing on high ironwood posts round which were placed circular slabs of wood, very large in diameter, as a protection against the rats, these being the barns in which the paddy of the tribe was stored. These granaries were surrounded by groves of bread-fruit, lancat, durians, mangosteens, mangoes, and various other fruit trees. We crossed a stream by walking over large sandstone boulders scattered in its bed, round which the water rushed and foamed.

The elders met us at this spot. One of them was dressed in an old military coat, which had belonged to the South Lancashire regiment. His legs and thighs were bare, and a large piece of turkey twill was twisted round his waist and fell in folds front and back. He held a long slender twig from which floated a diminutive Sarawak flag looking like the petals of a drooping flower. His black beard was well tended and he seemed very proud of it. His hair, long enough to reach below his waist, was tucked up in a chignon under a fillet made of calico bound round his forehead like a crown. The other old men wore long flowing robes of brightly coloured red or blue chintz, patterned over with flowers and birds. One of them wore a large turban, although he was not a Malay; another wore a red-and-yellow head-handkerchief, and two very old, almost toothless, men wore jaunty smoking-caps stuck at the side of their bald heads. These old men stood in a row behind the leader in the military jacket, each holding long thin sticks with a flag at the end, which they agitated gently when we appeared. The oldest chief took hold of my hand and led me over a series of notched poles and narrow trunks of trees, and across a deep muddy ditch leading to the village. The village lay in a green basin, scooped out of the side of a hill. Down a ravine on one side of the village, a little torrent, fed by daily rain, made a refreshing and gurgling sound day and night. Bamboo shoots led up the mountain-side to the uppermost houses on the hill, whence the people obtained water for household purposes, and where they also bathed many times a day.

When we arrived at the houses prepared for us, we climbed up slippery poles with no rails to steady our ascent and where the notches were extremely insignificant. These poles were some twenty feet high, leading to verandahs of planks. My residence turned out to be the head-house of the village and the building of ceremony. It consisted of one large, round room, in which I had to bathe, dress, eat, and sleep, whilst one part was portioned off for our Chinese cook to prepare our food. Another house was prepared for the men of our party; this house was called the “Bachelor House” because none but men were supposed to use it. But to return to my quarters. Seen from outside, the house looked like a large pigeon-cot, propped on high poles, and lashed together with the fibre of the Gemuti palm.[15] It rocked and creaked at the slightest provocation like a ship in a heavy sea. The walls were made of planks, and small apertures served for windows. Screens of dried palm leaves were placed in different parts of the room; one of these recesses was my bedroom and another my bathroom, where a large tub of water always stood ready for my use. The place screened off for my reception-room had a wooden divan of thin planks all round it, finished off with a wooden valance. Our hosts had spared no trouble to make the place habitable, and had even stretched gold brocade across the top of the room, thus forming an improvised ceiling, whilst the posts were wreathed round with smilax and the fronds of betel-nut palms. Just over my bed hung the trophies of the tribe. These were nothing more or less than a large bundle of dried skulls. The Dyaks imagined that the brocade had hidden these trophies from my searching gaze, but I am sorry to say I could see through an aperture some of the skulls which the tribe had taken in their battles of long ago, when they rose up against the tyranny of the Brunei princes, or on the occasion of the Chinese insurrection, which took place in the late Rajah Brooke’s reign, when a good many Chinese heads were captured. I noticed that one of the round objects was larger than the rest, and I asked questions about it. “Oh,” said the chief contemptuously, “that one is only the head of a Chinaman, for they always have larger heads than we people of the country!”

At the commencement of our stay one or two little hitches were experienced, but these were soon put right. Our Chinese cook gave himself airs, and informed Mr. Awdry that he could not possibly cook decent food in such a wilderness of discomfort. After a good deal of talk between our kind hosts and the cook, a small outhouse was rigged up for him and his saucepans.

From the window of my head-house I could see all the way down the village. I noticed the houses were built in blocks, placed here and there, some ten or twelve in a row, in the inequalities of the soil by the side of the stream. The houses were, of course, propped up by poles of different heights, and there were platforms made of split bamboos lashed together by rattans running down the fronts of these houses, behind which were covered verandahs. I was told that there was a fireplace in each house, with shelves above it, where water, oil, salt fish, jars, potted durians, etc., were stored. A raised platform was invariably erected at the end of each room, used as a place to sit on when receiving one’s friends, also as a sleeping-place when strangers came to the village. The women looked picturesque with their white shell armlets, brass rings, and silver girdles shining against the dark background of the houses. I noticed that most of them parted their hair, and that the children’s heads were not shaved. At sunset in the wooden verandahs the girls of the village prepared food for their pigs, made of paddy husks mixed with water. A special brew was poured into smaller basins and kept for little pigs, which the girls caught from under the houses and threw here and there on to the verandahs. The girls then pushed the little pigs’ snouts into the food, whilst with long poles they beat off the cocks and hens anxious to join in the feast. In the evening the elders of the tribe rested under the shade of a banyan tree conversing with one another, whilst pigs grunted under the houses, cocks and hens strutted about the roofs, and dogs ran in and out of doorways—​a tiny speck of human and animal life surrounded by gigantic backgrounds of mysterious and unexplored forests and mountains.

These Land Dyaks are very hospitable, and, barring the time of my afternoon siestas or when I retired for the night, my room in the head-house was filled at all times of the day with the élite of the Dyak tribe. Whenever the elders were seated on the wooden divan in front of me, I was struck anew with the unlikeness of these people to the rest of our Sarawak tribes. I could not help thinking they resembled the Cingalese, for they had the same dreamy, soft, and effeminate look.

The chief of the tribe, Mito, was anxious that I should bless his house during my visit, so he gave a feast, to which he invited all the inhabitants of Munggo Babi, as well as those of a neighbouring village. The women came to fetch me from my airy abode, helping me down the notched logs with the greatest care. Their movements were greatly restricted by the tightness of the wire rings round their legs, which prevented them from bending their knees comfortably. As we entered the house, I saw the bones of pigs’ jaws hanging in festoons over the doors leading into the inner room as trophies of the chase. The long gallery was decorated with yellow and red cloths, and all the people of the village were squatting in rows down each side. A seat covered with yellow cloth was prepared for me, and the rest of our English party were given raised chairs to sit on. Just in front of me, on the floor, were round brass dishes filled with uncooked rice, and two eggs were laid on the top of each dish. Between the dishes, about twenty in number, were bamboos filled with cooked rice, tasting something like the rice puddings of our childhood. The chief came to me with a small basin, filled with water, into which he asked me to place one of my gold rings, so that its goodness might enter into the water; he then gave me a bead necklace to dip into the basin, after which I had to go up and down the whole length of the gallery, holding the necklace on high, and say, “I wish this house cold and plenty. I wish that the paddy may be fruitful; that the wives of this village may have many sons; that sickness may never enter it, and that its people may live in peace and prosperity.” A basin of yellow rice was then handed to me, when I had to go through the same ceremony and repeat the same blessing. The contents of the brass dishes were then emptied into baskets and given to me, together with a large box of eggs, which had been left in front of my seat during the proceedings. The party now began in earnest. We ate the rice out of the bamboos, partook of the many cakes and fruits provided for us, and drank tumblers of cocoa-nut milk.

Then came the dances, the gongs and instruments being hung in readiness against the wall. The musicians, their arms over the top of the wooden frames, held the gongs, and drummed at them with their fingers with a will. Two women, with their arms completely hidden under masses of brass rings and white shell armlets, crept forward and touched the tips of my fingers. Then drooping their heads and extending their arms they began to move about slowly. They put their feet close together and shuffled and slid from one side of the room to the other, keeping time to the gongs whilst the little bells tied to their ankles tinkled. We were told that this was called the Hornbill’s dance. The women were very small, slim, and well-made, with pretty expressive eyes, and rather thinner lips than those of the other women of Sarawak, but theirs were so stained with betel-nut juice that in the dim light their mouths looked like large red wounds across their faces.

After the women had danced, two men wound in and out of the people squatting on the floor, and stood before us. Under the folds of their sarongs they wore a circle of plaited rattans, making them stand out like crinolines. Their long hair was twisted up Cingalese fashion, and stood out from the handkerchiefs wound round their heads. They commenced the performance by flapping their arms and gliding about without lifting their feet from the floor. They then advanced and nearly touched one another, when they swiftly retreated, wheeled round one another, their arms describing circles in the air. The sarongs over their crinolines billowed and swayed with their every movement, and the dance gave one the impression of sweeping lines and of space. It was supposed to represent the flight of great hawks through the air, and I thought it beautiful. The dancers were handsome men, with sleek and gentle faces, and very arched eyebrows. All their movements were much more languid than those of the Sea Dyaks.

When the dances were over we sat talking to the people, and I asked a chief what he thought of our language. He said that English people talking was like the song of birds, but the Chinese language was like the hooting of antus. He then told us of a superstition about bamboos. When people die, he said, their flesh goes into the bamboo and their souls enter the bodies of unborn children, when they are born again into the world.

The next morning we were all ready to start on our way back at 7.30, but the people who were to carry our luggage down to the landing-place wanted a good deal of rousing after their dissipation of the night before. However, after severe reprimands from their chief and from the village authorities, they came to assist us with our luggage. An enormous crowd was required for the purpose, one man taking a saucepan, another two plates, a third two bottles of beer, a fourth a handbag, which he carried with both hands, until our luggage was divided among one hundred people or so, walking in Indian file, and forming a procession about half a mile long. A chair had been provided for me, but as the road was slippery (it had been raining the night before) I preferred walking the whole way back to the landing-place.

Before reaching the place where our canoes were awaiting us, one of the chiefs, who had been an entertaining talker and had told us about the bamboo superstition, suddenly darted into the forest on the edge of the path, whence he reappeared with a branch of bamboo he had cut with his parang. He showed me the red sap within the cane. “See there,” he said; “this is the burying-place of some human being.”

I said good-bye to the chiefs and all the carriers, after which we got into the boat. I carried the bit of bamboo home, and still preserve it amongst my treasures from Sarawak.

We reached Kuching after twenty-four hours’ journey, and two days after we embarked on the Rajah Brooke for England.

It was a sad day for Bertram and I when we said good-bye to our Malay friends at Kuching. Datu Isa and all her family, accompanied by nearly all the Malay women of the town, came to the Astana to say good-bye. As I stood watching them from the deck of the steamer, congregated as they were near our landing-place, I felt a tightening at my heart, and wondered how many years would elapse before I should see them again. Bertram was really as much touched as I was at leaving them. The Rajah Brooke moved away, and slowly rounded the reach which hid the dear people from sight. Many years have gone by since that day, and yet I may say with truth that absence from my people has only increased my love and affection for them, and should my hopes be realized of one day returning to Sarawak, I am sure of finding there the very kindest welcome from the best friends I have in the world.