Siñgauding sent on board to request me to become his brother by going through the sacred custom of imbibing each other’s blood. I say imbibing, because it is either mixed with water and drunk, or else it is placed within a native cigar and drawn in with the smoke. I agreed to do so, and the following day was fixed for the ceremony. It is called Berbiang by the Kayans; Bersabibah by the Borneans. I landed with our party of Malays, and after a preliminary talk, to give time for the population to assemble, the affair commenced. We sat in the broad verandah of a long house, surrounded by hundreds of men, women, and children, all looking eagerly at the white stranger who was about to enter their tribe. Stripping my left arm, Kum Lia took a small piece of wood, shaped like a knife-blade, and slightly piercing the skin, brought blood to the surface; this he carefully scraped off: then one of my Malays drew blood in the same way from Siñgauding, and a small cigarette being produced, the blood on the wooden blades was spread on the tobacco. A chief then arose, and walking to an open place, looked forth upon the river and invoked their god and all the spirits of good and evil to be witness of this tie of brotherhood. The cigarette was then lighted, and each of us took several puffs, and the ceremony was concluded. I was glad to find that they had chosen the form of inhaling the blood in smoke, as to have swallowed even a drop would have been unpleasant, though the disgust would only arise from the imagination. They sometimes vary the custom, though the variation may be confined to the Kiniahs, who live farther up the river, and are intermarried with the Kayans. There a pig is brought and placed between the two who are to be joined in brotherhood. A chief offers an invocation to the gods, and marks with a lighted brand the pig’s shoulder. The beast is then killed, and after an exchange of jackets, a sword is thrust into the wound, and the two are marked with the blood of the pig. I hear that I am in very high favour with the Kayans, from my joining their drinking party and now entering their tribe, and binding myself to them by a tie which they look on as sacred. We had a long talk about the advantage which would accrue to trade if the Kayans establish their town nearer the mouth of the river; as at present it takes a Malay boat sixteen days to reach it in the fine season, and thirty in the wet. I found they had tried it once, by removing to the mouth of the Tingjir; but building their houses over the freshly-cleared jungle they lost a great many men by fever. They accounted for this by saying they had accidentally fallen upon a spot that was much frequented by evil spirits, and so had returned to their original site.