People who are so bent on killing, as these Dyaks are, must have many enemies. The Dyaks are always in fear of being attacked by their enemies. They are afraid of living in lonely cottages; they think it a better plan for a great many to live together, that they may be able to defend themselves, if surprised in the night. Four hundred Dyaks will live together in one house. The house is very large. To make it more safe, it is built upon very high posts, and there are ladders to get up by. The posts are sometimes forty feet high; so that when you are in the house, you find yourself as high as the tall trees. There is one very large room, where all the men and women sit, and talk, and do their work in the day. The women pound the rice, and weave the mats, while the men make weapons of war, and the little children play about. There is always much noise and confusion in this room. There are a great many doors along one side of the long room; and each of these doors leads into a small room where a family lives! the parents, the babies, and the girls sleep there, while the boys of the family sleep in the large room, that has just been described.
The Hill Dyaks do not live in houses quite so large. Yet several families inhabit the same house. In the midst of their villages, there is always one house where the boys sleep. In this house all the heads of the village are kept. The house is round, and built on posts, and the entrance is underneath, through the floor. As this is the best house in the village, travellers are always brought to this house to sleep. Think how dreadful it must be, when you wake in the night to see thirty or forty horrible heads, dangling from the ceiling! The wind, too, which comes in through little doors in the roof, blows the heads about; so that they knock against each other, and seem almost as if they were still alive. This is the Dead-house. Such are the men whom the Rajah Brooke subdued!
SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE.
The wild white cattle, a few of which are still to be found in Chatelherault Park, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, in Lanarkshire, are great objects of curiosity, inasmuch as they are identical with the primitive source of all our domestic cattle.
The following description of their habits is abridged from an article by the Rev. W. Patrick, in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture:—
"I am inclined to believe that the Hamilton breed of cattle is the oldest in Scotland, or perhaps in Britain. Although Lord Tankerville has said they have 'no wild habits,' I am convinced, from personal observation, that this is one of their peculiar features. In browsing their extensive pasture, they always keep close together, never scattering or straggling over it, a peculiarity which does not belong to the Kyloe, or any other breed, from the wildest or most inhospitable regions of the Highlands. The white cows are also remarkable for their systematic manner of feeding. At different periods of the year their tactics are different, but by those acquainted with their habits they are always found about the same part of the forest at the same hour of the day. In the height of summer, they always bivouac for the night towards the northern extremity of the forest; from this point they start in the morning, and browse to the southern extremity, and return at sunset to their old rendezvous; and during these perambulations they always feed en masse.
"The bulls are seldom ill-natured, but when they are so they display a disposition more than ordinarily savage, cunning, pertinacious, and revengeful. A poor bird-catcher, when exercising his vocation among the 'Old Oaks,' as the park is familiarly called, chanced to be attacked by a savage bull. By great exertion he gained a tree before his assailant made up to him. Here he had occasion to observe the habits of the animal. It did not roar or bellow, but merely grunted, the whole body quivered with passion and savage rage, and he frequently attacked the tree with his head and hoofs. Finding all to no purpose, he left off the vain attempt, began to browse, and removed to some distance from the tree. The bird-catcher tried to descend, but this watchful Cerberus was again instantly at his post, and it was not till after six hours' imprisonment, and various bouts at 'bo-peep' as above, that the unfortunate man was relieved by some shepherds with their dogs. A writer's apprentice, who had been at the village of Quarter on business, and who returned by the 'Oaks' as a 'near-hand cut,' was also attacked by one of these savage brutes, near the northern extremity of the forest. He was fortunate, however, in getting up a tree, but was watched by the bull, and kept there during the whole of the night, and till near two o'clock the next day.
"These animals are never taken and killed like other cattle, but are always shot in the field. I once went to see a bull and some cows destroyed in this manner—not by any means for the sake of the sight, but to observe the manner and habits of the animal under peculiar circumstances. When the shooters approached, they, as usual, scampered off in a body, then stood still, tossed their heads on high, and seemed to snuff the wind; the manœuvre was often repeated, till they got so hard pressed (and seemingly having a sort of half-idea of the tragedy which was to be performed), that they at length ran furiously in a mass, always preferring the sides of the fence and sheltered situations, and dexterously taking advantage of any inequality in the ground, or other circumstances, to conceal themselves from the assailing foe. In their flight, the bulls, or stronger of the flock, always took the lead! a smoke ascended from them which could be seen at a great distance; and they were often so close together, like sheep, that a carpet would have covered them. The cows which had young, on the first 'tug of war,' all retreated to the thickets where their calves were concealed; from prudential motives, they are never, if possible, molested. These and other wild habits I can testify to be inherent in the race, and are well known to all who have an opportunity of acquainting themselves with them."
BELLS OF THE ANCIENTS.
Bells were known in the earliest ages of which we have any certain account. But the bells of the ancients were very small in comparison with those of modern times, since, according to Polydore Virgil, the invention of such as are hung in the towers, or steeples of Christian churches, did not occur till the latter end of the fourth, or beginning of the fifth century; when they were introduced by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola. The Jews certainly employed bells, since they are spoken of in Scriptures; and the mention of them by Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus, Suidas, Aristophanes, and other ancient writers, proves that they were used in Greece; while Plautus, Ovid, Tibullus, Statius, and a variety of Latin authors, speak of bells as in use among the Romans. But these bells of the ancients were all made for the hand; or were of a size to be affixed to other musical instruments, like those which were occasionally appended to the drum. Whether, when detached from other instruments, they were used on other occasions, or only in particular ceremonies, or as signals, is not known; nor have we any clue by which to guess whether they were tuned in concordance with any scale, or whether they were unisons to each other, or not formed to any particular pitch, but merely used as sonorous auxiliaries to other instruments, without any regard to their agreement of tone, either with one another, or with the instruments they accompanied.