Fruit-trees are owned by the people who plant them. The different families in a Dyak house plant fruit-trees near their part of the house. When they leave the spot and build a new habitation elsewhere, they each still claim ownership of the trees they planted. The rule with regard to fruit-trees is that anyone may take the ripe fruit that has fallen, but only the owner or someone deputed by him may climb the tree. Banting Hill, where I lived for some years, was covered with fruit-trees (_durian_), and at night during the fruit season crowds of men and boys would watch for the falling of the ripe fruit. They would each have a torch made of the bark of some tree, and they would sit and wait with the torch smouldering by their side. As soon as a ripe _durian_ fruit was heard to fall, they would wave their torches in the air to make them flare up into a flame, and they would rush to the spot, and the person who found the fruit would take possession of it. Slavery exists among the Dyaks, but not to any great extent. There are two classes of slaves—captives in war, and slaves for debt. The Sea Dyaks when on the warpath spare neither man, women, nor children, but it occasionally happens that when they are able to do so, they carry little children back with them as captives. There are not many slaves to be met with among the Sea Dyaks, and these do not seem to be hardly treated. The slaves are not distinguishable from their masters and mistresses, and they live all together and fare precisely the same, very often eating the same food at the same time from the same dish. In many cases children who have been taken captive become so endeared to their masters that they are adopted, and intermarry with the sons and daughters of the other inhabitants of the village. The ceremony of adoption is usually performed at a great feast, so that the matter may be made as public as possible. The owner of the slave announces to the assembled guests that he has freed him and adopted him as his brother. He then presents to him a spear, with which he is told to slay the man who dares in future to call him a slave. The old Dyak law concerning debts was that if a man borrowed paddy or rice from another, he must pay double that amount at the next harvest. If therefore a debtor had a succession of bad harvests, his debt would become so great that he could not ever hope to pay it off. If he paid part of his debt, then the following year he would be expected to pay double the amount still due. In process of time his debt would become so great that he and his family would have to become slaves in payment of it. According to old Dyak laws people who were careless enough to set a house on fire rendered themselves liable to become the slaves of those who were burnt out. The damage done by their carelessness would be too great for them to compensate, so they would become slaves for debt.