sure it would fall during the night, I returned to the place early the next morning,
and found it on the ground beneath the tree. To my astonishment and pleasure, it
appeared to be a different kind from any I had yet seen; for although a full-
grown male, by its fully developed teeth and very large canines, it had no sign of
the lateral protuberance on the face, and was about one-tenth smaller in all its
dimensions than the other adult males. The upper incisors, however, appeared to
be broader than in the larger species, a character distinguishing the Simia morio
of Professor Owen, which he had described from the cranium of a female
specimen. As it was too far to carry the animal home, I set to work and skinned
the body on the spot, leaving the head, hands, and feet attached, to be finished at
home. This specimen is now in the British Museum.
At the end of a week, finding no more Orangs, I returned home; and, taking in
a few fresh stores, and this time accompanied by Charles, went up another
branch of the river, very similar in character, to a place called Menyille, where
there were several small Dyak houses and one large one. Here the landing place
was a bridge of rickety poles, over a considerable distance of water; and I
thought it safer to leave my cask of arrack securely placed in the fork of a tree.
To prevent the natives from drinking it, I let several of them see me put in a
number of snakes and lizards; but I rather think this did not prevent them from
tasting it. We were accommodated here in the verandah of the large house, in
which were several great baskets of dried human heads, the trophies of past
generations of head-hunters. Here also there was a little mountain covered with
fruit-trees, and there were some magnificent Durian trees close by the house, the
fruit of which was ripe; and as the Dyaks looked upon me as a benefactor in
killing the Mias, which destroys a great deal of their fruit, they let us eat as much
as we liked; we revelled in this emperor of fruits in its greatest perfection.
The very day after my arrival in this place, I was so fortunate as to shoot
another adult male of the small Orang, the Mias-kassir of the Dyaks. It fell when
dead, but caught in a fork of the tree and remained fixed. As I was very anxious
to get it, I tried to persuade two young Dyaks who were with me to cut down the
tree, which was tall, perfectly straight and smooth-barked, and without a branch
for fifty or sixty feet. To my surprise, they said they would prefer climbing up it,
but it would be a good deal of trouble, and, after a little talking together, they
said they would try. They first went to a clump of bamboo that stood near, and
cut down one of the largest stems. From this they chopped off a short piece, and
splitting it, made a couple of stout pegs, about a foot long and sharp at one end.
Then cutting a thick piece of wood for a mallet, they drove one of the pegs into
the tree and hung their weight upon it. It held, and this seemed to satisfy them,