ures if they had only
been cleaner. I made the discovery that some of my Dayak friends were
addicted to the horrible habit of eating clay, and actually found
a regular little digging in the side of a hill where they worked
to get these lumps of reddish grey clay, and soon caught some of
the old men eating it. They declared that they enjoyed it. All my
empty tins (from tinned meats, etc.) were in great demand, and so
to save jealousy I actually demoralized the Dayaks to the extent of
introducing the raffling system among them. Great was the excitement
every evening when I raffled old tins and bottles. Dubi would hand
the bits of paper and they would be a long time making up their minds
which to take. One night Dubi overheard my Chinese cook telling some
of the Dayaks that "the white tuan had no use for these tins himself,
that is why he gives them to you."

This cook, whom I used to call Cookie, was a great nuisance to me,
but he was the most amusing character I ever came across, and he
was the source of endless delight to the Dayaks, who enjoyed teasing
him and jokingly threatened to cut off his head, until he was almost
paralyzed with fright and came and begged me to leave, as we should
all have our heads cut off. After a week or two his courage returned
and I learned that when I was out of the house he would stand on his
head for the amusement of the women and children, though he was by
no means a young man. He soon became quite popular with the women,
who found him highly amusing, and who were always in fits of laughter
whenever he talked. In the evenings he sometimes joined a group of
Dayak youths and would start to air his opinions. Then it was not long
before they were all jeering and mimicking him, and poor old Cookie
would look very foolish and a sickly smile would spread over his yellow
features. Finally he would go off and sulk, and when I asked him what
the matter was, he would reply, "Damn Dayak no wantee." Whenever I
called out for Cookie, the whole house would resound with jeering
Dayak cries of "Cookie, Cookie." He and Dubi were always quarrelling,
and Cookie would work himself up into such a state of excitement that
the place would be full of Dayak laughter, though the Dayak understood
not a word of what they were talking about. In my later wanderings
in Borneo the quarrel between my two servants, Dayak and Chinaman,
grew to such an extent that I feared it would end in murder.

The foregoing account, s