not understand, so that
their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it
would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their
hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni
man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had
visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the
interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful,
with light hair. The men dress like Dyaks, but the women wear a long
black robe, tight at the waist, and puffed out on the shoulders. The
tradition of their origin, he said, was as follows: A long, long time
ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at
its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil
spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke
by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling
with voices over his head. The music came nearer and nearer to the
place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and,
looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, and seven beautiful
females bathing. They were all of different sizes, like the fingers on a
man's hand, and they sung as they sported in the water. The old man
watched them for some time, and thought how much he should like one of
them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending
among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it
gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She
cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he
caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes
on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the
gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. He took
the child home, and she was brought up by his wife, until she was old
enough to marry their son. She was very good and sweet-tempered, and
everybody loved her. In course of time she had a son, as white as
herself. One day her husband was in a violent rage and beat her. She
implored him not to make her cry, or she should be taken away from him
and her child. But he did not heed, and at last pulled her jacket off to
beat her. Immediately another jacket was dropped with a great noise from
the sky, upon the house. She put it on, and vanished upwards, leaving
her son, who was the ancestor of the prese