hments are very barbarous and cruel: I have seen a
woman with both her hands half-severed at the wrists, and a man with
both his ears cut off.

The religious ideas of the Dyaks resemble those of the North American
Indians: they acknowledge a Supreme Being, or "Great Spirit;" they have
also some conception of an hereafter. Many of the tribes imagine that
the great mountain Keney Balloo is a place of punishment for guilty
departed souls. They are very scrupulous regarding their cemeteries,
paying the greatest respect to the graves of their ancestors. When a
tribe quits one place to reside at another, they exhume the bones of
their relations, and take them with them.

I could not discover if they had any marriage ceremony, but they are
very jealous of their wives, and visit with great severity any
indiscretion on their parts.

The Dyaks live principally upon rice, fish, and fruit, and they are very
moderate in their living. They extract shamshoo from the palm, but
seldom drink it Their principal luxury consists in the chewing the
betel-nut and chunam; a habit in which, like all the other inhabitants
of these regions, from Arracan down to the island of New Guinea, they
indulge to excess. This habit is any thing but becoming, as it renders
the teeth quite black, and the lips of a high vermilion, neither of
which alterations is any improvement to a copper-coloured face.

They both chew and smoke tobacco, but they do not use pipes for smoking;
they roll up the tobacco in a strip of dried leaf, take three or four
whiffs, emitting the smoke through their nostrils, and then they
extinguish it. They are fond of placing a small roll of tobacco between
the upper lip and gums, and allow it to remain there for hours. Opium is
never used by them, and I doubt if they are acquainted with its
properties.

They seldom cultivate more land than is requisite for the rice, yams,
and sago for their own consumption, their time being chiefly employed in
hunting and fishing. They appear to me to be far from an industrious
race of people, and I have often observed hundreds of fine-looking
fellows lolling and sauntering about, seeming to have no cares beyond
the present. Some tribes that I visited preferred obtaining their rice
in exchange from others, to the labour of planting it themselves. They
are, in fact, not agriculturally inclined, but always ready for barter.

They are middle-sized, averaging five feet five inches, but very
strong-bu