e
stored up useful information for future conduct. Great morality and the
practice of many virtues distinguished the tribes he encountered,
although degraded as low as oppression and utter ignorance could bring
them. The men, he found, married but one wife, and concubinage was
unknown in their societies; cases of seduction and adultery were very
rare, and the chastity of the Dyak women was proverbial even amongst
their Malay rulers. Miserable as was the lot of these people, Mr Brooke
gathered from their morality and simplicity, hopes of their future
elevation. They have no forms of worship, no idea of future
responsibility; but they are likewise free from prejudice of every kind,
and therefore open, under skilful hands and tender applications, to the
conviction of truth, and to religious impressions. One tribe, the
Sibnowans, particularly struck Mr Brooke by their gentleness and
sweetness of disposition. But,

"Like the rest of the Dyaks," he informs us, "the Sibnowans _adorn_
their houses with the heads of their enemies; yet with them this custom
exists in a modified form. Some thirty skulls," he adds, "were hanging
from the roof of one apartment; and I was informed that they had many
more in their possession; all however, the heads of enemies, chiefly of
the tribe of Sazebus. On enquiring, I was told that it is indispensably
necessary a young man should procure a skull before he gets married. On
my urging that the custom would be more honoured in the breach than in
the observance, they replied, that it was established from time
immemorial, and could not be dispensed with. Subsequently, however,
Sejugali allowed that heads were very difficult to obtain now, and a
young man might sometimes get married by giving presents to his
ladye-love's parents; at all times they denied warmly ever obtaining any
heads but those of their enemies; adding, they were bad people, and
deserved to die.

"I asked a young unmarried man whether he would be obliged to get a head
before he could obtain a wife. He replied, 'Yes.' 'When would he get
one?' 'Soon.' 'Where would he go to get one?' 'To the Sazebus river.' I
mention these particulars in detail, as I think, had their practice
extended to taking the head of any defenceless traveller, or any Malay
surprised in his dwelling or boat, I should have wormed the secret out
of them."

The Dyaks, generally, are celebrated for the manufacture of iron. Their
forge is the simplest possible, and