Long Pangian is a small settlement where ten native soldiers are kept, under the command of a so-called posthouder, in this case a civilized Dayak from the South, who met us at the landing in an immaculate white suit and new tan shoes. It was warmer here toward the end of March than at Tandjong Selor, because there had not been much rain for a month. The soil was therefore hard, and in the middle of the day so heated that after a shower it remained as dry as before. A few Chinamen and Bugis who live here advance rice and dried fish to the Malays to provision expeditions into the utan which last two to three months, receiving in return rubber and damar. The Malays come from lower down on the river, and a good many of them leave their bones in the jungle, dying from beri-beri; others ill with the same disease are barely able to return to Long Pangian, but in three weeks those who do return usually recover sufficiently to walk about again by adopting a diet of katsjang idju, the famous green peas of the East Indies, which counteract the disease. The Malays mix native vegetables with them and thus make a kind of stew. The rice traded in Borneo is of the ordinary polished variety, almost exclusively from Rangoon, and it is generally supposed that the polishing of the rice is the cause of this illness. The Dutch army in the East seems to have obtained good results by providing the so-called silver-fleeced rice to the soldiers. However, I was told that, in some localities at least, the order had to be rescinded, because the soldiers objected so strongly to that kind of rice. Later, on this same river, I personally experienced a swelling of the ankles, with an acceleration of the heart action, which, on my return to Java, was pronounced by a medical authority to be beri-beri. Without taking any medicine, but simply by the changed habits of life, with a variety of good food, the symptoms soon disappeared. It is undoubtedly true that the use of polished rice is a cause of beri-beri, because the Dayaks, with their primitive methods of husking, never suffer from this disease, although rice is their staple food. Only on occasions when members of these tribes take part in expeditions to New Guinea, or are confined in prisons, and eat the rice offered of civilization, are they afflicted with this malady. In my own case I am inclined to think that my indisposition at the commencement of my travels in Borneo was largely due to the use of oatmeal from which the husks had been removed. Rolled oats is the proper food.