The Land Dayaks point to the highest mountains in sight as the abode of their departed friends. The spirits they divide into two classes--“Umot,” spirits by nature, and “Mino,” ghosts of departed men. The former are said to live amid the forests that cap the hills. They delight in war and bloodshed, and always come down to be present at the Dayak “head-feast.” They are described as of a fierce and wild appearance, and covered with hair like an ourang-outang. The Umot spirits are divided into classes. There is the “Umot Sisi,” a harmless kind of spirit which follows the Dayak to look for the fragments of food which have fallen through the open flooring of their houses, and who is heard at night munching away below; “Umot Perubak,” who causes scarcity among the Dayaks by coming invisibly and eating the rice from the pot at meal time; and “Umot Perusong,” who comes slily and devours the rice which is stored within a receptacle made of the bark of some gigantic tree, and is in the form of a vat. It is kept in the garrets of the houses, and a large one will contain a hundred and fifty bushels, and the family live in constant fear that these voracious spirits will visit their store and entirely consume it. [Illustration: Spectre of Headless Dog and Dayak.] “Mino Buau” are the ghosts of those who have been killed in war. These are very vicious and inimical to the living; they live in the jungle, and have the power of assuming the form of headless beasts and men. A Quop Dayak once met with one. He was walking through the jungle and saw what he thought was a squirrel sitting on the large roots of a tree which overhung a small stream. He had a spear in his hand. This he threw at the squirrel, and thought he had struck it: he ran towards the spot where it had apparently fallen, when, to his horror, it faced him, rose up, and was transformed into a dog. The dog walked on a few paces, and then turning into a human shape, sat down on the trunk of a tree--head there was none. The spectre body was parti-coloured, and at the top drawn up to a point. The Dayak was smitten with great fear and away he rushed home and fell into a violent fever; the priest was called, and he pronounced that the patient’s soul had been summoned away from its corporeal abiding-place by the spirit, so he went to seek it, armed with his magic charms. Midway between the village and the place where the Buau had appeared, the fugitive soul was overtaken, and induced to pause, and, having been captured by the priest, was brought back to its body and poked into its place through an invisible hole in the head. The next day the fever was gone.