An artifice of these pirates, and they never attempted by force what could be acquired by stratagem, was this: some of the party remained behind and assumed the clothes of their victims, and the umbrella-shaped hats of palm leaf commonly used by those harvesting in the sun, which would completely conceal their features; thus disguised they paddled down stream, and called in Malay to the women to issue from their hiding-places, as they had come to convey them to a place of safety. The poor creatures, supposing that these were of their own tribe, ran down with their children in their arms only to be speared and their heads hacked off by these wolves in sheep's clothing.[159] On the last day of February, a numerous and industrious population was gathering in the harvest, and on March the 1st every house was plundered, and scattered about the fields were the mangled bodies of the reapers, and in the villages lay the headless trunks of men, aged women, and children too young for captivity. Not a day passed without news reaching Kuching of some village burned or of some trading vessel captured. After the attack on Sadong, while the Saribas hovered along the coast, crowds of refugees arrived in Kuching. From all parts they came; from the river of Matu alone twenty prahus full of men, women, and children, and from Kalaka many hundreds. They said that they could endure life no longer in their own country, continually engaged in resisting these murderous attacks, and losing numbers of their people at the hands of the Sekrangs and Saribas. "No news except of Dayaks, and rumours of Dayaks. Dayaks here, Dayaks there, and Dayaks everywhere," so wrote the Rajah. The Kalaka river had also been laid waste. Hunt in 1812 described Kalaka as being one of the principal ports of trade on the north-west coast,[160] and the country as producing large quantities of grain. But this was before the Sea-Dayaks had become pirates. In 1849, the river had been so devastated by piratical attacks that all cultivation had been abandoned, and its once flourishing town and villages deserted, with the exception of two that were small. "Never before had I been so struck with the irreparable mischief done by the piratical tribes, as when I saw this lovely country so completely deserted," so wrote Mr. S. St. John in 1849. The ravages of these murderous Dayaks had been peculiarly destructive in the delta of the Rejang, once well populated by the quiet and industrious Melanaus, the producers of the Bornean sago brought to the market of Singapore. The pirates not only destroyed the villages and plantations, but captured many richly laden prahus, freighted with the produce of this district on their way to dispose of their lading in the British Settlement of Singapore, and in Sambas and Pontianak. Like the Malays of Kalaka, nearly all the inhabitants had fled, most to Sarawak, some to other places.