It Was Always A Pleasure To Meet The Unsophisticated Dayaks, And On Leaving Them I Invariably Felt A Desire To Return Some Day.

What the future has in store for them is not difficult to predict, as the type is less persistent than the other with which it has to compete in this great island domain.

Ultimately these natives, who on the whole are attractive, will be absorbed by the Malays; the latter, being naturally of roving disposition, travel much among the Dayaks, marry their women, and acquire their lands. The Malay trader takes his prahus incredibly far up the rivers. No place is so remote that beads, mirrors, cotton cloth, bright bandannas, sarongs for women, "made in Germany," etc., do not reach the aborigines, often giving them a Malay exterior, however primitive they may be in reality. The trader often remains away a year, marries a woman whom he brings back, and the children become Malays. In its assumed superiority the encroaching race is not unlike the common run of Mexicans who insidiously use the confiding Indians to advance their own interests. As Mohammedans, the aggressors feel contempt for the pork-eating natives, many of whom gradually give up this habit to attain what they consider a higher social status, at the same time adopting a new way of living, and eventually disappear.

In this manner a change is slowly but surely being wrought in the Dayaks, who regard the Malays as superior and are influenced accordingly; but the influence is not beneficial.

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