When we arrived at the houses prepared for us, we climbed up slippery poles with no rails to steady our ascent and where the notches were extremely insignificant. These poles were some twenty feet high, leading to verandahs of planks. My residence turned out to be the head-house of the village and the building of ceremony. It consisted of one large, round room, in which I had to bathe, dress, eat, and sleep, whilst one part was portioned off for our Chinese cook to prepare our food. Another house was prepared for the men of our party; this house was called the “Bachelor House” because none but men were supposed to use it. But to return to my quarters. Seen from outside, the house looked like a large pigeon-cot, propped on high poles, and lashed together with the fibre of the Gemuti palm.[15] It rocked and creaked at the slightest provocation like a ship in a heavy sea. The walls were made of planks, and small apertures served for windows. Screens of dried palm leaves were placed in different parts of the room; one of these recesses was my bedroom and another my bathroom, where a large tub of water always stood ready for my use. The place screened off for my reception-room had a wooden divan of thin planks all round it, finished off with a wooden valance. Our hosts had spared no trouble to make the place habitable, and had even stretched gold brocade across the top of the room, thus forming an improvised ceiling, whilst the posts were wreathed round with smilax and the fronds of betel-nut palms. Just over my bed hung the trophies of the tribe. These were nothing more or less than a large bundle of dried skulls. The Dyaks imagined that the brocade had hidden these trophies from my searching gaze, but I am sorry to say I could see through an aperture some of the skulls which the tribe had taken in their battles of long ago, when they rose up against the tyranny of the Brunei princes, or on the occasion of the Chinese insurrection, which took place in the late Rajah Brooke’s reign, when a good many Chinese heads were captured. I noticed that one of the round objects was larger than the rest, and I asked questions about it. “Oh,” said the chief contemptuously, “that one is only the head of a Chinaman, for they always have larger heads than we people of the country!” At the commencement of our stay one or two little hitches were experienced, but these were soon put right. Our Chinese cook gave himself airs, and informed Mr. Awdry that he could not possibly cook decent food in such a wilderness of discomfort. After a good deal of talk between our kind hosts and the cook, a small outhouse was rigged up for him and his saucepans.