Abstract
NEWS has been received of Herr Carl Boch, on his return to the coast after his travels in the centre of Borneo. He has been up the Klintjouw River as far as Longwai, and thirty miles beyond where no European has yet penetrated. There is, however, but little to see, and the dead silence of an almost uninhabited forest prevails beyond Longwai. The birds of this district, with five or six exceptions, are the same as those found in the highlands of Sumatra. Herr Boch has made some very interesting observations on the inhabitants of those districts, of which he is preparing an account. The Dyaks of the interior are far more wild and savage than those of the coast, and are not, as a rule, partial to seeing strangers, but appear to offer them no harm in times of peace. They are, however, veritable “head hunters,” and talk about it in a very free and easy manner. The Rajah, with whom Herr Boch had dealings, had a collection of six, taken from Dyaks of another tribe, not in open fight, but by treachery when they were asleep. A more interesting race, also head hunters, however, and still further removed from civilisation, are the Orang Poonan, or forest people. With these strange border-beings, who construct no houses, but live in the open forest, Herr Boch seems to have made himself quite friends, and regards them as good and honest people—always excepting the little eccentricity in the matter of heads. They are not dark, but fair, and of a yellowish complexion, and as they have allowed Herr Boch to take sketches of both sexes, these will doubtless afford much further interesting information. He proposes now to cross the island from east to west, coming out at Band-jermassing.
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Geographical Notes . Nature 21, 241–242 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021241b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021241b0