We owe to her enterprise an interesting account of the character and usages of the Dyaks. Their ferocity of disposition is proverbial in the East. It is said that when a Dyak has promised a head--a human head--to the woman he loves, he will obtain it at any cost. Whether he strikes down friend or foe he cares not, so long as he secures the ghastly gift; and his eye being as sure as that of the tiger, his arrow never misses its aim. When we remember that these savages are cannibals, that they had never before seen among them an European woman, and that Ida Pfeiffer went without guard or guide, we begin to realize the full extent of her daring. But boldness is always the best policy: this plain-featured, middle-aged woman commanded the respect and admiration of her hosts, and went from encampment to encampment in entire security. After visiting the island of Celebes she repaired to Sumatra, which is inhabited by a race of men even more sanguinary than the Dyaks, namely, the Battahs, who slake their thirst in human blood, and make of anthropophagism a "fine art!" It is said that some of the tribes purchase slaves on purpose to devour them, while, as a matter of course, prisoners taken in battle and shipwrecked seamen fall victims to their cannibal appetites. Many voyagers agree in asserting that they also deal in the same hideous fashion with their old men, who, when they cease to be of any service to the tribe, are deemed unworthy of longer life; the sons themselves become the executioners of their fathers, coolly fastening them to a tree and hacking them to pieces, without showing the slightest emotion at the spectacle of their agony.