At this juncture, a strongly built and very brown old gentleman left his seat and moved towards me with ponderous dignity. A handkerchief was twisted round his head, and he wore a cotton scarf held tightly across his bony shoulders. We had already greeted one another in the general “shake-hands” earlier in the evening, but it all had to be gone over again. “Long I have not seen you,” he said, as his hand shaped itself into the customary claw in which I dipped my fingers. He fairly beamed on me; his smile was patronizing and friendly, and although I knew his face I could not remember his name. I turned to Mingo, who was standing at my elbow, and a whisper from him soon put matters straight between us. I was glad to see that Rawieng, who only the year before had kept the district in a state of terror owing to the head-hunting propensities of his tribe, had mended his ways; his presence at the party being an irrefutable proof of the purity of his future intentions. It was interesting to notice how friendly were the relations existing between Rawieng and Mr. Bampfylde. Only two or three years previously, owing to an atrocious murder committed on the main river by some of Rawieng’s followers whom the old chief refused to give up to justice, Mr. Bampfylde (then Governor of the Rejang) was compelled to lead a fleet of boats into Rawieng’s country, attack his village, and burn his paddy. Nor was this result obtained without a good deal of risk and difficulty to the attacking party, for owing to Rawieng’s conservative ideas he had pitched his house on a precipitous hill, only to be reached after scaling innumerable rapids and marching a considerable way inland. Rawieng was a rich old man, and was heavily fined for the atrocious murders his tribe had committed. The long line of jars ranged along the walls of his house (the chief glory of the village, as they were supposed to have been made by spirits and given by them to Rawieng’s ancestors) were taken by Mr. Bampfylde and stored in the Fort as pledges and hostages for Rawieng’s future good behaviour.