“Very probably,” said Johannes, drily, “and yours will become you well. So send at once for your tailor and order suits of black for three.” [[49]]
CHAPTER IV.
A STRANGE DAYAK—PAINTING A COMPLEXION—SHEIK MOHAMMED AL MANSOER—TOO HANDSOME FOR A DAYAK—IN THE FOREST MARSHES—DASSO AND DOETA—TWO BOTTLES OF DOCTORED GIN—THE BIRDS WINGED.
At day-break the Europeans roused the sleeping Dayaks from their slumber. Johannes took Dalim aside and engaged with him in earnest conversation, while the others prepared to cook some rice and fish for breakfast. After Dalim had finished his conversation he went into the thick forest and in a few moments disappeared from view. Johannes produced the clothes which Baba Poetjieng had provided, selected what he required for his own use and then jumped into the river for his morning bath. Having sufficiently refreshed himself he came out, seized his bundle and retired behind some shrubs. He soon reappeared dressed as a Dayak, mandauw in hand, and throwing himself among the other bathers, frightened them out of their wits. They were speedily re-assured, however, by hearing a well-known voice exclaiming, “Don’t be afraid, Palefaces!” The strange Dayak was Johannes, who, dressed in an ewah or coarse cloth wound around his middle and with a dirty rag around his head, stood before them effectually disguised. Ere they [[50]]had sufficiently looked at and admired the extemporized native, Dalim returned from the woods. He proceeded to take a pan in which he threw some leaves which he had brought from the forest, adding a little water and a few drops of a black pigment from a bottle hanging to his waist. He then placed the pan on the fire and joined the others at breakfast. By the time they had concluded the meal his mixture boiled. He then removed it from the fire and requested Schlickeisen, who sat nearest to him, to hold out his hands. He rubbed them for a little while with a rag steeped in the solution and almost instantaneously imparted to them a deep-brown color. When the hands had been tinted to his satisfaction he seized the Swiss by the neck and proceeded in the same manner to stain his face, arms and shoulders. The operation finished, Schlickeisen was unrecognizable. Johannes thought that the whole of the white men’s bodies should be subjected to the treatment to ensure perfect safety. All concurring in this opinion, Dalim returned to the woods to collect such a supply of leaves as would enable him to dye wholesale. These leaves were taken from the kalampoeit, a tree of the rhododendron tribe, which also supplies the Dayaks with poison for their arrows. In the decoction they were employed only as a mordant to fix the dye, the pigment being supplied from Dalim’s bottle, which contained the juice of the katiting, a tree belonging to the Rhizophora.
An hour afterward all the Europeans were beautifully bronzed and strutting about in their ewahs were fair imitators of natives. Only La Cueille failed to produce the true Dayak type. His sharply-cut features, glittering eyes, handsome whiskers and curly [[51]]hair gave him rather the appearance of an Arab. In consequence, he was unanimously elected Sheik and dignified with the title of Mohammed al Mansoer. This promotion gave him the advantage of wearing a chlamyde, a kind of shirt. Around his head he wore a turban, his feet were sandaled and he was required to carry a rosary, the beads of which went gliding through his fingers in a most familiar manner.
He had great trouble with his sandals and could scarcely manage to shuffle along on the flat soles, secured to his feet by a pin between two toes. However, after diligent practice, the difficulty was overcome and he marched along stately and sanctified, muttering in bad Arabic, “There is no God but Allah,” just as if he had been born in Arabia Petrea.
It was now arranged that in their meetings with natives, only Johannes and the real Dayaks were to speak. The two Swiss were to personate hirelings and to preserve a becoming silence. The Sheik would only have to mutter some Malay lingo, intermixed with an Arabic word or two and an occasional verse from the Koran, which Johannes engaged to teach him. A final operation necessary to be undergone by the other three was the coloring of their teeth. This too was effected by means of Dalim’s bottle, which soon converted their ivory into polished ebony.
“You really are too handsome for Dayaks,” said Dalim; nor was he wrong to think so, for though the Europeans exposed the broad chests and finely-developed arms and shoulders proper to their assumed caste, they lacked the crooked legs to which the inhabitants of Borneo owe their name. Dayak is really an [[52]]abbreviation of dadajak—to totter. With very few exceptions all the natives have bandy legs, which circumstance causes their peculiar tottering gait. This physical deformity is the result of the position they are compelled to assume while sitting in their canoes. But though their natural fondness for the sea thus attenuates and deforms their lower extremities, the upper parts of their bodies become so developed as to make them fit models for the sculptor.
The disguise of the deserters being effected, they tied their military clothes in a bundle, to which they attached a heavy stone and sank it in the deepest part of the river. They then resumed their route and tried to get further up the soengei; but it proved a difficult task to accomplish. The Dahasan is nothing but one of the many side canals of an enormous marsh thickly studded with forests. Large creepers abound everywhere, bridging over the numerous rivulets, climbing the great trees and covering their tops with a dense growth of parasitical plants which forms, as it were, an elevated vegetable plateau.