deal of fright, I managed to reach the verandah of the house. [Illustration: SEA DYAK WOMAN WEAVING A COTTON PETTICOAT] An extraordinary thing happened on this visit. In every Dyak house of note--and this was the residence of a great Dyak chief, called Banting--a portion of the building is assigned entirely to the women of the tribe. On this occasion, the women were anxious that I should visit them in their room, which I did. The room was a large one and was simply crammed. A little stool covered with yellow calico and a fine Dyak mat were prepared for me, and the women and children squatted all round me on the floor. They took hold of my hands and pushed up my sleeves to see if my arms were white all the way up. I had with me one of the Mission people, who acted as interpreter. He told me that the women wanted me to give them medicine to make their noses stand out from their faces as mine did; they also wanted medicine to make their skin white. Babies were brought to me to touch, and I promised to send them pills for their various ailments from Kuching. The women gave me a basket they had made for me, and then showed me their mats which they make so cleverly, their hats, and their paddles--much in the same way English women would show their collection of fans. The conversation went on merrily, when suddenly we heard some ominous cracks underneath our feet, and before I knew where I was, the flooring had given way and the women and children, the interpreter, and I, were plunged about four feet through the floor. We hung in bags, as it were, for the mats covering the floor were secured to the sides of the walls, and these prevented us from dropping to the ground below. The Dyak warriors sprang forward and helped me into safety. The women screamed, and I never heard such a noise in all my life. The Rajah, in the distance, sat imperturbably on, as though nothing out of the way was happening. I think he could see there was no great danger and that the mats would support us. When the dignity of the situation allowed him to do so, he came to where the accident had taken place and said to me, “It is all right, the room was overcrowded. You had better come into the verandah and then everything will be quite safe.” He was pleased with the manner in which I had taken this catastrophe, and the Dyak chiefs told him it was evident that I knew how to behave in emergencies. We then returned to our boats. To make a long story short, I found the return down the notched pole even more difficult than the going up, but it is wonderful how soon one gets accustomed to anything out of the ordinary run of things, and I went away from Banting very much delighted with my experience in the first Dyak house I had visited. We rejoined the _Heartsease_ at Lingga and steamed to Kuching, which we reached the next morning. FOOTNOTES: [7] Nowadays Punans, Bukitans, and most of the Ukits live in houses and do some farming.