“Your forefathers, perhaps, not mine,” was the angry rejoinder of the Walloon. “And,” continued Johannes calmly, “if you only examine the end of your spinal column you will find that the last vertebra feels as if it had been broken off. Some savants might attempt to prove that that is only the result of our habit of sitting down, by which the original tail became worn off. This peculiarity they pretend has been since continued from generation to generation. Is not that the case, Wienersdorf?” “Quite so: Adams, Schlegel, and later on, Darwin——” “Stop, stop,” cried La Cueille, “we don’t know any of those gentlemen!” “And yet it is really a positive fact,” continued Johannes, “which many savants have accepted, that here in Borneo tribes do exist rejoicing in the luxury of a tail. According to them this tail is nothing but a small motionless elongation of the spinal column. The bearers of this appendage always carry with them small pierced boards about six or eight inches long, upon which they sit in order that the excrescence may not interfere with their comfort. As for these Olo Otts, they are looked upon as the aborigines of Borneo, gradually driven back into the wilderness by other tribes. They are extremely shy, very treacherous, and head-hunters, and by no means averse to a titbit of human flesh with or without salt and lombok. They have no kampongs, neither are they of a social disposition. They live together in families, which are however sufficiently large to form bands of from twelve to fifteen males. Whenever the alarm is sounded on the hollow trees of these forests they speedily assemble from all directions until they muster a couple of hundred valiant men. Houses in our sense of the term they have not. They make a kind of nest in a large tree and live in it. For the rest they move about on the tops of the trees of these woods, with an amount of ease of which we can form no idea. They are only surpassed by the kahios, boehies and other monkey tribes. You may, however, rest assured that from the moment we entered their neighborhood we were not unobserved for a single moment. Even now, though we do not see them, they are nevertheless close around us.” “The deuce they are,” muttered La Cueille, “we had better move on a little faster and get out of their way.” They rowed on steadily and the rangkan descended the stream quickly and peacefully. CHAPTER XVIII. TRAVELLING APPOINTMENTS—THE DIAMOND OF THE SULTAN OF MATAM—DIAMOND FIELDS—GEORGE MULLER’S DIARY AND SKULL—MARRIAGE CEREMONIES—AGAIN ON THE ROAD—A NOVEL BURIAL-PLACE—ON THE EQUATOR—AN INKY LAKE—THE ASCENT OF BATANG LOEPAR.