THE HEAD-HUNTERS OF BORNEO.* IT is to be regretted that

the distinguished Dutch traveller and naturalist to whom we owe one of the most interesting works in the now widely-extended literature of travel should have dis- figured its pages, and placed himself at a disadvantage, by his advocacy of the hideous practice of vivisection. In this respect, Mr. Bock contrasts displeasingly with the authors of all the valuable books of exploration and discovery which we have recently had to welcome. No taint of cruelty is to be found in the writings of D'Albertis, of Holub, or of Serpa Pinto; and the feats which they performed, the additions which they have made to the general knowledge of distant lands, are of far greater importance than Mr. Bock's. His complaint that a Scotch Professor has not been allowed to break the law, in order that the exact nature of the arrow-poison used by the Long Wai Dyaks should be ascertained, with a view to discovering an antidote—which, it seems to us, nobody could ever have an opportunity of applying—is put forth with the disingenuousness that, we regret to say, not unfrequently ac- companies representations on the side of the Vivisectionists. " Our seamen," says Mr. Bock, " have already been at close quarters with Dyak pirates, and the occasion may easily arise when they shall be so again ; and there can scarcely be a ques- tion whether the lives of a few rabbits can be placed in the scale against the life of a single sailor who may fall a victim to one of their deadly darts." The childish petulance of talking of the " lives " of a few rabbits, when it is the wanton torture of them, not their lives, that is the real question, will strike every • Tho Head-Hunters of Borneo. By Carl Bock, late Commissioner for the Dutch Government. London : Sampson Low and Co. one ; but it may escape the general reader that Mr. Bock does not bring forward one particle of evidence that the " pirates " of Borneo use poisoned arrows at all, and that they could, there- fore, have a chance of hitting that imaginary British seaman whom, no doubt, the vivisectionists would hail with delight ; and the reader may also not observe that the only positive kuow- ledge he had of the arrow-poison (which, by-the-bye, leaves the flesh of the animals slain fit for food) was on the occasion of his visit to the Wild People of the interior, who live in the forest, and are not pirates. There have been many narratives of Bor- nean piracy, and many writers on Borneo, since Mr. Spencer St. John's charming book told us of the spirit-guarded summit of the great central mountain, and of the wonderful pitcher-plant ; but we do not recall any mention of the use of poisoned weapons, by the Sea Dyaks.

Mr. Bock's book is very interesting, very well written, and admirably illustrated. He is a persevering explorer, and he has the art of recounting his exploits in a vivid and brisk manner, which carries the reader on with unflagging curiosity. In 1878, he went out to the Dutch Indies, to make a collec- tion of the fauna of the western portion of the interior of Sumatra. Of this collection, the second and most valuable portion was lost in the Red Sea. He was sent from Sumatra by the Governor-General of the Dutch Indies on a mission to Borneo. He was first to go to Koetei, " a country enjoying the worst repute among the semi-inde- pendent States, and to furnish the Government with a report upon the native races of the interior, and then to cross the island, if possible,to Pontnianak or Bandjermasin." He success- fully accomplished the latter journey, and the first portion of his book gives the results of his observation of that wild and little-known land, extending over a distance of more than 700 miles, and including several Dyak tribes who are undeniably dangerous and troublesome, though not to the vivisectors' pet,, the British seaman. Of Samarinda, on the Mahakkam, the chief port of Koetei, which is a Mahommedan State on the east coast of Borneo, Mr. Bock gives a dismal picture ; and lie had not found it very easy to reach his muddy goal from Macassar, his starting-point. He had an introduction to Kw6 K6 Mang, a Chinese merchants who turned out to be a very good fellow, but gave him a succinctly bad account of Koetei. " The Malays were a pack of thieves, the Boegis [originally natives of the Celebes, but settled at Koetei in great force for many years] would occasionally enliven the proceedings by running a muck ; as for the interior,. the Dyaks were perfect savages, and inveterate head-hunters.". Samarinda is a wretched town, on a mud flat, where the houses of the living are raised on piles, among the tombs of the dead. There is a large population, who live in huts built on rafts that float on the water, and are anchored by rattan-ropes to the shore. A little rice is grown, but the people depend upon trade for their supplies; and the commerce of this dismal place is very considerable, the greater part of the export trade being in the• hands of the Chinese. The voyage from Samarinda to Tanga- roeng, the capital, a second edition of the chief port, must have been uncomfortable and rather ludicrous. Mr. Bock had to sit perfectly motionless in the overladen prau, as the slightest disturbance of its trim would have " been fatal to the success of the voyage" (the Dutch explorer's sententious equi- valent for Captain Kedgick's terse " spilled 'em in the drink ") but when he arrived, he found the Sultan of Koetei, a Highness with a name like the tail of a kite, " one of the most intelligent rulers in the Malay archipelago." This really interesting personage asked the traveller, with business-like promptitude, " Vat you like to drink ?" and when the modest Dutchman, with the remembrance of the Prophet before him, gave it a name, the name was seltzer-water. The Sultan pledged him in that mild beverage (there was everything, including champagne, on the premises), but he also spat it out into a brazen vessel, and crammed his mouth with betel, which rather embarrassed the conversation. This Sultan Mahommed, &c., &c., has a mania for collecting all kinds of things which he never uses, especially diamonds ; the description of his warehouses reminds us of that (given, we think, by Captain Burton) of the palace store-rooms of the late Khedive of Egypt. The King of Holland is the suzerain of this intelligent prince, so that the Dutch explorer was made welcome, and his Highness even resolved to accompany him on his journey to the interior. There was a great deal of delay, and Mr. Bock soon exhausted the sights of the capital, including the horrid cock-fighting, in which the people, like all Malays,

take the utmost delight. The noise of the birds is a pest only to be exceeded by the mosquitoes to be encountered up the country (from these Mr. Bock seems to have suffered as much as M. du Chaillu in Scandinavia), and the " sport" is loathsome to read of. Sultan Mahommed has political views also. " Me want Koetei make big country ; want plenty people," said he to the traveller. His own little family numbers eighty-four already. The combined expedition worked unequally, the Sultan mostly loitering, while Mr. Bock explored, and occasionally re- joined him. A vivid interest attaches to these excursions, espe- cially after the traveller ascends the Telen to the Dyak territory, Long Wai, and records his observations of the Head-hunters.

He did not, as a matter of fact, see many heads ; the hunters were shy, instead of boastful, about their trophies, but his work contains the fullest and most emphatic account we have of the terrible practice, of which he says :—" This is the keystone, so to speak, in the edifice of Dyak religion and character. Its perpetual practice is, no doubt, one great cause of the rapid extinction of the race ; and it is possible that before the custom can be entirely abolished, the people themselves will be im- proved off the face of the earth."

It is difficult to read this book, without feeling that the ex- tinction of such people is a consummation devoutly to be wished. The head-hunting tribes must possess more than the

customary insouciance of the savage, or they must be the most miserable of wretches, with the ever-present dread of murder

hanging, literally, over every head among them. Let us try to realise a community existing under the following conditions :—

" In all great events of their lives, the Dyaks require that human heads shall be procured. When a Dyak wants to marry, he must show himself a hero, and the more heads be can obtain, the greater the pride and admiration with which he is regarded, not only by his bride, but by the whole tribe. When a Rajah is dead, heads must be secured ; for, according to Dyak belief, the victims serve as slaves to the departed Rajah in heaven. Whenever a child is born to a Rajah (in Long Wai, at least), heads must be got, before it can be named. It is a rule among all the tribes that no youth can regularly wear a mandan, or be married, or associate with the opposite sex, -till he has been on one or more head-hunting expeditions. A mandan is presented to him, probably at his birth, or when he receives a name; but not till he has washed it in the blood of an enemy, can he presume to carry it as part of his every-day equipment."

Nothing more horrible than the preparations for the head- hunting expeditions, the murders, the captures, the cannibal feeds," and the tortures of the " death-feasts," on the return of the victorious parties, can possibly be conceived. The -" death-feasts " last ten days, on ordinary occasions ; but they also take place in celebration of various events, such as the death of a chief, and at them not only the captives of the marauding expeditions are sacrificed, but the richer members of

the community give a number of " slave debtors," to be put to a hideous death. It is painful to know that these monstrous spectacles have ever been beheld by Europeans ; but Dr. Schwanner and Mr. Perelaer were eye-witnesses of a

peculiarly awful one, held in 1863, on the Upper Kahajan River. Mr. Bock did not see any of these frightful sights, nor did he witness the solemnities of Dyak marriage and burial. He collected, however, every sort of information on those sub- jects, and retails it in a remarkably interesting chapter.

The chief points of novelty in this book—which, on its peace- ful and beautiful side, that of the description of the animal world and the physical features of the country, has a charm on which we wish we could dwell as it deserves—are the Tring Dyaks (the cannibal tribe) and the Forest People. Mr. Bock is the only European who has ever seen the women of that extra- ordinary race, the Orang Poonan, or Wild People of the Woods, and he passed only one afternoon in their company ; neverthe- less, he contrived to take portraits of two—a mother, and a maid—simple, rather sorrowful creatures, with much lighter skins than the other natives of Borneo. This comparative fair- ness he imputes to their perfect seclusion in the dark forest, where the sun's rays penetrate scarcely ever, if at all. The men, though not so dark as other Dyaks, are much darker than the women, owing to the fact that they spend much of their time on the rivers, where the sky is open, and that they fre- quently visit Long Wai, where they are exposed to the rays of the sun. An extremely-interesting drawing shows us a group of three young Poonans, sketched as they lay asleep, in their natural, characteristic attitudes, during one of the author's hunting expeditions in their company. They are not ill-look- ing, and they are decidedly fat. Mr. Bock says :—

" There people live day and night in the open air, almost entirely naked, with no more shelter in showery weather than that afforded

by an attap mat, which they then place over instead of under them, when they lie down on the ground to sleep. They always keep a fire

burning at night It is curious that in their long inter- course with the Long-Wai Dyaks, these Orang Poonan do not appear to have adopted any of the customs of the latter."

They eat monkeys, serpents, wild boars, birds, and wild fruit.

The author believes these savages, who live in the central forests of Borneo, almost entirely isolated from all communication with the rest of the world, to be the true aborigines.

Mr. Bock's second journey, up the Mahakkam, to the Barito, and then to Bandjermasin, led him through the great Mahak- kam Forest, where he beheld many wonders of Nature; and into the far interior, where he arrived at an intimate acquaintance with Dyak tribes and their customs. The cannibal Tring Dyaks are a truly terrible race. A priestess and a rajah of that tribe are drawn for us by the author, and more awful portraits and descriptions of creatures in the form of humanity could not be imagined. The chief, Sibau Mohung, who is probably the "champion" cannibal of the world, paid the author a friendly visit (one wonders how Mr. Bock could give this monster food in his presence), and had his portrait taken. " At that very time, he had fresh upon his head the blood of no less than seventy victims—men, women, and children—whom he and his followers had just

slaughtered, and whose hands and brains he had eaten." Siban Mohung gave Mr. Bock a shield, " of soft wood, painted

in grotesque patterns, and ornamented with tufts of human hair, most ingeniously laid on. Such a shield is considered a great treasure, being decorated with hair taken from human victims." The priestess—who was exquisitely tattooed—kindly showed Mr. Bock, on her own person, that the palms and the knee-caps are Tring tit-bits. It is a relief to turn from these horrors to the author's delightful narrative of his journeys, and vivid descriptions of places and scenes, of the chains of lakes and the forests full of monkeys, of the rich growths, the beautiful pitcher-plants, and the wonderful orchids.

The second portion of this remarkable and valuable work deals with natural history in Sumatra, iu a fresh, vigorous, and most interesting manner. The book deserves especial praise for its handsome get-up and the beauty of the illustrations.