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Updated: May 8, 2025
It is late in the afternoon. I have loaded the nagah, and disposed of my baggage; I have bid a hundred people farewell, shaking them by the hands. We are surrounded with the whole male population of the city, and half-caste women. Rais is galloping about to see the people off.
These bones scattered at the camel's feet made the march of to-day still more melancholy. No herbage for camels or wood for fire. Gave our nagah barley and dates. This obliges us to carry it from places where it abounds, as also a little herbage for the camels. Pitched our camp amidst the sandy waste late at night.
I have only with me my negro servant Said. My large trunk and tent are conveyed by another camel; the nagah carries me, the provisions, and the rest of the baggage, going extremely well. Said walks with the servants, slaves, and camel-drivers. Two-thirds of the people are on foot. Started in tolerably good health and spirits, and increase my appetite every mile I ride.
Our camels are come up from the grazing districts; my nagah looks much better. Jabour called this morning to bid me farewell, before departing to his country house. The Sheikh leaves this evening.
The kapala owned a herd of forty water-buffaloes, which forage for themselves but are given salt when they come to the kampong. When driven to Long Iram, they fetch eighty florins each. The gables of the kapala's house were provided with the usual ornaments representing nagah, but without the dog's mouth.
While malevolent spirits do not associate with good ones, some which usually are beneficent at times may do harm, and among these is one, the nagah, that dominates the imagination of many Dayak tribes. It appears to be about the size of a rusa, and in form is a combination of the body of that animal and a serpent, the horned head having a disproportionately large dog's mouth.
As if to prepare it betimes for the rough buffeting of the world, the nagah never licks or caresses its young, but spreads its legs to lower the teat to the eager lips, and stares at the horizon, or continues to browse. Our people clubbed together and bought a goat for a mahboub.
The end of the trough here had actually been carved into a semblance of the head of "an animal which lives in the ground," probably representing a supernatural being usually called nagah. The owner himself was beating it with a stick on both sides of the head, and this made more noise than the pounding of the fifty men and women who stood working at the trough.
At other times, you may sleep, eat and drink, read and write, on the back of a camel. But as our days are short and nights long, we require no sleep, and my eyes are too bad for reading. As the she-camel is most valuable for the sustenance of the tribes, the Touaricks sometimes call the whole race of camels nagah. But the nagah is a great favourite with the Mussulmans of all nations.
And how the Touaricks employed themselves?" When the nagah gives milk we return and drink milk and lie down on the road side. This is all which Touaricks do." The Touaricks are determined to feel as little of the primeval curse, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," as any people. The Targhee then gave me spontaneously a bit of knowledge which I had not before heard.
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