_Head-hunting._--This practice has no doubt obtained among the Dayaks from the earliest times, and when carried on by the interior tribes very few lives were lost; but it much retarded the progress of the country, as it rendered life and property insecure. The Sakarang and Seribas, within the memory of living men, were a quiet, inoffensive people, paying taxes to their Malay chiefs, and suffering much from their oppressive practices,--even their children being seized and sold into slavery. When the Malay communities quarrelled they summoned their Dayak followers around them, and led them on expeditions against each other. This accustomed the aborigines to the sea; and being found hard-working and willing men, the Malays and Lanun pirates took them out in their marauding expeditions, dividing the plunder--the heads of the killed for the Dayaks, the goods and captives for themselves. Gradually they began to feel their own strength and superiority of numbers. In their later expeditions the Malays have followed rather than led. The longing these Dayaks have acquired for head-hunting is surprising. They say, “The white men read books, we hunt for heads instead.” Until the Sarawak Government curbed their proceedings they were known to coast down as far as Pontianak, and occasionally they had been met forty miles out at sea in their rattan-tied boats, some of them seventy feet in length. In rough weather most of the crew jump overboard and hold on to the sides while the rest bale the boat out. They say, when this occurs in places suspected to be frequented by sharks, they each tie a bundle of the tuba plant round their ancles to drive the devouring fish away. The juice of the tuba is the one used to intoxicate fish. About thirteen years ago, I heard the Natuna people give an account of a horrible transaction that took place in one of their islands. A party of Seribas Dayaks were cruising about among the little isles near, and had destroyed several women and many fishermen, when they were observed, towards evening, creeping into a deep and narrow inlet to remain during the night. The islanders quietly assembled and surprised their enemies, killing all but seven, who were taken prisoners--six men and one lad. The former they roasted over a slow fire, and they declared that the bold fellows died without uttering a cry of pain, but defying them to the last; the lad, who stood trembling by, uncertain of his fate, was sent back to the coast with a message to his countrymen, that if they ever came there again, they would be all treated in the same way. This fearful warning was sufficient to deter their seeking heads again in that direction.