o the war, and great excitement prevailed
among the tribe with the prospect of acquiring heads again, for the
Sarawak Government had quite stopped that hunting in the country. Boats
were continually arriving, gay with streamers, and noisy with gongs and
drums beating, with heads of Chinese on board. One day we were invited
to a feast in one of the long houses. I said, "I hope we shall see no
heads," and was told I need not see any; so, taking Mab in my hand, I
went with Mr. Chambers, and we climbed up into the long verandah room
where all the work of the tribe goes on. This long house was surrounded
with fruit-trees, and very comfortable. There were plenty of pigs under
the house, and fowls perching in every direction. About thirty families
lived in the house, the married people having each their little room,
the girls a room to themselves, and the long room I spoke of being used
for cooking, mat-making, paddy-beating, and all the usual occupations of
their lives. We were seated on white mats, and welcomed by the chief
people present. The feast was laid on a raised platform along the side
of the room. There were a good many ornaments of the betel-nut palm,
plaited into ingenious shapes, standing about the table, so that I did
not at first remark anything else. As we English folks could not eat
fowls roasted in their feathers, nor cakes fried in cocoa-nut oil, they
brought us fine joints of bamboo filled with pulut rice, which turns to
a jelly in cooking and is fragrant with the scent of the young cane. I
was just going to eat this delicacy when my eyes fell upon three human
heads standing on a large dish, freshly killed and slightly smoked, with
food and sirih leaves in their mouths. Had I known them when alive I
must have recognized them, for they looked quite natural. I looked with
alarm at Mab, lest she should see them too; then we made our retreat as
soon as possible. But I dared say nothing. These Dyaks had killed our
enemies, and were only following their own customs by rejoicing over
their dead victims. But the fact seemed to part them from us by
centuries of feeling--our disgust, and their complacency. Some of them
told us that afterwards, when they brought home some of the children
belonging to the slain, and treated them very kindly, wishing to adopt
them as their own, they were annoyed at the little ones standing looking
up at their parents' heads hanging from the roof, and crying all day, as
if it were strange