e soles of the feet, the flesh of
the head, and the heart and liver, are reckoned peculiar delicacies, and
the flesh in general is roasted and eaten with salt. The regents assured
me, with a certain air of relish, that it was very good food, and that
they had not the least objection to eat it. The women are not allowed to
take part in these grand public dinners. A kind of medicinal virtue is
ascribed to trees to which prisoners have been tied when they have been
put to death, and the stem is usually cut into sticks five or six feet
long, carved into figures or arabesques, and decorated with human hair;
and these sticks are taken in hand by people who go to visit the sick,
or when any medicine is to be given.

[Despite this gruesome warning, the daring woman continued her
journey, and prosecuted it until the 13th of August, when she
found herself in the most imminent peril.]

More than eighty armed men stood in the pathway and barred our passage,
and before we were aware of it, their spearmen had formed a circle
around me and shut me in, looking the while indescribably terrible and
savage. They were tall robust men, fully six feet high; their features
showed the most violent agitation, and their huge mouths and projecting
teeth had really more resemblance to the jaws of a wild beast than to
anything human. They yelled and made a dreadful noise about me, and had
I not been in some measure familiar with such scenes, I should have felt
sure that my last hour was at hand.

I was really uneasy, however: the scene was too frightful; but I never
lost my presence of mind. At first I sat down on a stone that lay near,
endeavoring to look as composed and confident as I could; but some
rajahs then came up to me with very threatening looks and gestures, and
gave me clearly to understand that if I did not turn back they would
kill and eat me. Their words, indeed, I did not comprehend, but their
action left no manner of doubt, for they pointed with their knives to my
throat, and gnashed their teeth at my arm, moving their jaws then as if
they already had them full of my flesh.

Of course, when I thought of coming among the wild Battakers, I had
anticipated something of this sort, and I had therefore studied a little
speech in their language for such an occasion. I knew if I could say
anything that would amuse them, and perhaps make them laugh, I would
have a great advantage over them, for savages are quite like child