Half-way down the slope the two parties came face to face. The head-hunters were a wild, uncouth-looking company, armed to the teeth. They all carried guns, spears, and knives and some had also bows and arrows slung over their backs. Their faces were hideously tattooed in a regular pattern, while they wore no more clothes than were necessary. A sort of sack of coarse linen with holes in the sides for their arms, served as the chief garment, and generally the only one. Every one wore a broad belt of woven rattan in which was stuck his crooked pointed knife. Some of the younger men had their coats ornamented with bright red and blue threads woven into the texture. They had brass rings on their arms and legs too, and even sported big earrings. These were ugly looking things made of bamboo sticks. The head-hunters were all barefooted, but most of them wore caps--queer-looking things, made of rattan. From many of them hung bits of skin of the boar or other wild animals they had killed. They stood staring suspiciously at the two strangers. Never before had they seen a white man, and the appearance of the naval officer and the missionary, so different from themselves, and yet so different from their hated enemies, the Chinese, filled them with amazement and a good deal of suspicion. After a little talk with the guides, however, the visitors were allowed to pass on. As soon as they began to move, the savages fell into line behind them and followed closely. The two white men, walking calmly onward, could not help thinking how easy it would be for one of those fierce-looking tattooed braves to win applause by springing upon both of them and carrying their heads in triumph to the next village. As they came down farther into the valley, they passed the place where the savages had their camp. Here naked children and tattooed women crept out of the dense woods to stare at the queer-looking Chinamen who had white faces and wore no cue. The march through this valley, even without the head-hunters at their heels, would not have been easy. The visitors clambered over huge trunks blown across the path, and tore their clothes and hands scrambling through the thorny bushes. The sun was still shining on the mountain-peaks far above them, but away down here in the valley it was rapidly growing dark and very cold. They had almost decided to stop and wait for morning when a light ahead encouraged them to go on. They soon came upon a big camp-fire and round it were squatted several hundred savages. The firelight gleaming upon the dark, fierce faces of the head-hunters and on their spears and knives, made a startling picture. They were round the visitors immediately, staring at the two white men in amazement. The party of savages who had escorted them seemed to be making some explanation of their appearance, for they all subsided at last and once more sat round their fire.