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of each tooth. Their teeth are generally black from the continual chewing of the betel-nut, and I noticed small children of four or five years of age going in for this dirty habit, and still younger children smoking cigarettes, the covering of which is made out of the dried leaf of the sago-palm. The Dayaks are almost as dirty as the Negritos in the Philippines, and yet they are both certainly the merriest people I have ever met with. The heartiest and most unaffected laughter I have ever heard proceeded from the throats of Dayaks and Negritos. It almost seems as if dirt in some cases constitutes true happiness. The Dayak women seemed to bathe more often than the men, but they never seemed to take off their brass waist-rings when bathing in the river. The women also have their wrists covered with brass bangles, which are all fastened together in one piece. The noise in the house was deafening at times, especially in the evening, when all come home from working in their "padi" fields, where the women are supposed to do most of the work, the men generally going hunting. The continual hum of conversation and loud laughter, with the noise made by the pigs and chickens under the house, the dogs and chickens in the house, and the beating of deep-toned gongs at times nearly drove me frantic, especially when I was writing. They resembled a lot of small children and would beat their gongs simply to amuse themselves. Very often a Dayak, on returning from his work or a hunt in the jungle, would walk straight up to a large gong that was hanging up and hammer on it for a few minutes in a most businesslike way, looking all the time as if it bored him. Then he would walk away in much the same way as a man would leave the telephone (as if he had just got through some business). I suppose it soothed them after their day's work, but it irritated me. The Dayak dogs are fearful and wonderful animals, both as regards shape and colour, and I could get very little sleep on account of the noise they made; yet the Dayaks seemed to sleep through it all. One night I woke up after a particularly noisy fight, and saw what appeared to me to be a dog sitting calmly by my bed with its back turned to me. Lifting my mosquito net, therefore, very quietly, I let drive with my fist at it, putting all my pent-up indignation and anger for sleepless nights into the blow. Alas! it was a very solid dog that I struck against, being nothing more nor less
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