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He had once been obliged to spend nearly three months on this trip. We spent one day here, while all our goods were being taken on human backs to a place some distance above the kiham. Four Malays and one Penyahbong wanted remedies for diseases they professed to have. The latter seemed really ill and had to be excused from work.
Two young girls, not yet married, went to fish, each carrying the small oblong basket which the Penyahbong woman is wont to use when fishing, holding it in one hand and passing it through the water. A very young serpent, of the huge kind called penganun, entered a basket and the child caught it and placed it on the bark tray to take it home.
The kampong consists of four small, poorly built communal houses, and of the Malays who have settled here, in houses of their own making, the most important is Bangsul, who married a daughter of Pisha, the Penyahbong chief.
To each side of the head was attached a powerful long spine which stood straight out. The natives called the fish kendokat. At one place where the water ran smoothly, one man from each prahu pulled its rattan rope, the rest poling. I saw the Penyahbong who was dragging my prahu suddenly catch sight of something under the big stones over which he walked, and then he stopped to investigate.
Others came to his assistance and struck at its head with their paddles, but were unable to accomplish their purpose as it was too well entrenched. A splendid primitive picture of the savage in pursuit of his dinner, the Penyahbong stood erect with his back toward me, holding the tail firmly.
During a heavy shower a Penyahbong went into the jungle with his sumpitan and returned with a young rusa, quarters of which he presented to Mr. Loing and myself. Bangsul had travelled here before, and he thought we probably would need two weeks for the journey to Djudjang from where, under good weather conditions, three days' poling should bring us to Tamaloe.
Few natives, if any, have entered that region, which was described as very mountainous, though the mountains cannot be very high. But all who were approached on the subject, whether Penyahbong or Malay, absolutely declined to take part in an expedition to that country, because they would be killed by an animal called nundun, which is very numerous there.
The first attempts, while not wholly successful, were not discouraging, and as time went on the lieutenant turned out satisfactory results. We had a couple of days' visit from the kapala of Sebaoi, a tall and nervous-looking Penyahbong, but friendly, as were the rest of them.
An Ot-Danum once wanted a cure for a few white spots on the finger-nails. In the previous camp a Penyahbong had consulted me for a stomach-ache and I gave him what I had at hand, a small quantity of cholera essence much diluted in a cup of water. All the rest insisted on having a taste of it, smacking their lips with evident relish.
According to the Penihing chief in Long Kai the name Penyahbong was applied formerly not only to the people, but also to the mountain range in which they were living, the Muller mountains, around the headwaters of the Kapuas River in the Western Division. The western sides of the Muller mountains seem to have been their headquarters, and most of them still live west of the mountains.
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