MR. BALFOUR

SURGIT AMARI ALIQUID

THE great Lord Chesterfield wrote in August 1766, "The joke here is that Mr. Pitt has had a fall upstairs. Everybody is puzzled how to account for it. To go into that Hospital of Incurables, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable that nothing but proof positive would make me believe it, but there it is." Maltzahn, the Prussian Ambassador, reported: "On n'entend que des plaintes, et des lamentations de ce que ce grand homme a préféré le titre de Comte et Pair au glorieux épithète, Great Commoner, qu'il portait par excellence et qui le rendait si cher à la nation."

In 1874 Mr. Balfour entered the House of Commons as Member for the borough of Hertford; save for an interval of a few weeks, his life since then has been consecrated to service in that assembly. His long parliamentary ascendancy may perplex posterity, as his speeches have often perplexed his party, but that he won a supreme position by his talents, and maintained it by his character and his courage, is the history of the present generation. In success Mr. Balfour has never been betrayed into exultation. Under stormy stars he has shown a and lofty temperament, never taking reverses on a tragic note-that fatal defect in public affairs. He has always touched the humanity of the House of Commons by his bearing as a gentleman, and by his inflexible standard of fairness and self-control. Without the special gifts of administration he has invariably shone in the dexterous management of legislative measures, and in the dialectical mastery of debate. Called to the post of First Minister of the Crown, now twenty years ago, he bore on his shoulders the main burden of his Ministry. In the Lobby he had the legacy of an ample majority, but in later days his colleagues were at a distance from himself in parliamentary authority, influence and position, which was alike wide and decisive. He found official appointment a bore, and promotions a

plague. He was the despair of his Whip, and a riddle to his party manager. In truth he was not a party man, for he could never learn the patois of the Patronage Secretary, nor understand the intricacies of intrigue. He shuddered when the dates came round for gratifying with honours the appetites of his supporters, and was surprised that they had to be fed regularly like the caged denizens of a menagerie. When he tendered his resignation to the late King, after sixteen years of Cabinet service, he was, of course, offered the highest distinctions in the gift of the Sovereign; but content with the modest privilege of the Windsor uniform, he claimed the enjoyment of an unaltered name.

Until a few weeks ago he was Mr. Balfour. For nearly fifty years he has been known at home and abroad by this simple appellation, and, adorning it with rare qualities of mind and character, he has possessed the hearts of his countrymen. They thought of him as they thought of the august simplicity of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning and Mr. Gladstone. Then for a brief spell the acceptance of the Garter changed it all, the new prefix of Sir Arthur lamentably suggesting the title of the ambitious Alderman, or the first step of the party hack. And now the splendour of a coronet with its puissant dignity, which once he regarded with a puzzled scorn when it was his to listen to the appeal of some aspiring magnate anxious for the enlargement of his social opportunities, transforms the long-familiar name.

Into his motives for accepting ennoblement and a riband it would be an impertinence to look. It is enough that he has richly earned the good wishes of the nation. But the passing of Mr. Balfour, the effacement of the honoured and distinguished designation, and the exchange of the sober broadcloth of the House of Commons for the scarlet robe of a gartered Earl, will long be to the minds of those who have admired him most a disappointment and regret.

CIVIS

TRADITIONS OF THE DYAK TRIBES

You have all heard of James Brooke, have you not? The boy who was born in a suburb of Benares, and became the Rajah of an area of about 7,000 miles square; the dashing pioneer, explorer, adventurer, call him what you will, who on a certain day entered the mouth of the Sarawak river, —a river, mind you, that had not then been marked upon the chart-and found a country in which the Malays had broken out into revolt. With little else but his cutlass and an old, muzzle-loading gun, he put down the rebellion, and the people turned to him with one accord and asked him to be their king. But all of this was many, many years ago, when there were pirates who raided along the coast, harassing merchant vessels and carrying on their slave trade. And the young Englishman who had entered this country on an adventure only, set himself out to suppress these people and rid them of their scourge. At the head of the rebels were two men, one a Sukarran chief, called Matahari, or "Sun," and the other by name Bulan, or "Moon." James Brooke described them as "fine young men as the eye could wish to rest upon; straight, elegant, yet strongly made, with the chests and necks and heads that might serve for an Apollo.

Thirteen years after he became Rajah, he, with some men-of-war under the control of Admiral Keppel, gave these raiders a lesson they were not likely to forget. It was the end of pirating in Sarawak, but not by any means the end of head-hunting. The Dyaks still remained-those people of tradition and strange jungle laws, the charming, lighthearted tribe who live on legends and dreams and superstitions. Up until only a few years ago they were still giving trouble, still having their tribal disputes that were so sure to end with the taking of each other's head.

What is it that lies at the root of all accomplishment and ambition-is it not woman? Does she not lie at the root of good and evil, and is it not she who guides men's deeds for better or for worse? Without her men's animal instincts would surely die, and the world would be peopled by a soulless race-Arcadian, but useless.

When an Englishman is in love, what is it that he seeks as a talisman to prove it? Does he not go forth with his money in his pocket to buy a diamond or a string of pearls? So does a Dyak set forth with a sword in his hand to seek a

human head. And the daughters of Eve-are they not equally satisfied-the one with her jewellery and the other with her blackened and charred skull ?

The Dyaks in Sarawak have in their time been a most menacing and head-hunting tribe. They took heads as easily and frequently as young boys will creep into an orchard and steal apples. They liked the little element of danger, the boasting of it afterwards, and, above all, the shrill praises of their women. If a young Dyak courted a girl and had no heads to his account, it brought great shame upon the girl and upon her family, and was as serious an offence as a young Englishman offering marriage to a girl, with no money in his bank. Whereas, if her lover met her swinging a head in either of his hands, the girl was entirely satisfied, and the marriage was arranged. No inquiry was made as to where these heads had been obtained, and I regret to say they were more often female than male. The Dyaks are not by any means a courageous race, but just a charming, unreliable, humorous tribe. I have known them to take the heads of women and children whilst the men were away working on their farms.

I will tell you of an incident I know that gives a little insight into the strange workings of their minds, and shows how difficult it has been to stamp out this head-hunting tradition by punishment and laws.

There was once a young Dyak whose total score of heads was one, and this one did not hang, as was the custom, from beneath his roof, but lay buried in the jungle soil, and this was the reason why. His ancient and doddering old father, of whom he was very fond, was about to set forth upon an expedition to visit a friendly tribe. The son helped him to pack his few belongings, talking cheerfully to him the while. Then, quite suddenly, whilst the old man was stooping down to tie up his bundles, the young man drew his sword and with one blow cut off his father's head. His explanation of the crime was this: "My father he is very old and frail; his head would have been taken anyhow. Better that one of us, who are of his own blood, should take it, than that he should be shamed by falling into the hands of our enemies."

You see by this mixture of loyalty and cruelty how hard it must be to judge a pride of race so immeasurable that a man can take his own father's head sooner than bring shame upon his house!

I remember the first time I ever saw one of these heads. It was up at a place called Kapit, a little lonely out-station

up river, where one of our Government officers lived alone, two days away from English habitation. There was a small white fort on the side of the river, like a stone that had been hurled and caught up in the mud. A garden had been planted, with grass slopes and a path bordered by hedges of gardenia. A few cows wandered round and about the fort with bells upon their necks, and a tame deer, a honey bear and a mongoose came down the slopes to meet us. It was pretty, but oh, it was infinitely lonely; just one European amongst those hundred Dyaks!

I saw the heads in a room below the fort, a little dingy dungeon of a room with a rusty door that creaked upon its hinges. From out of the room there came a musty smell, not strong, but vaguely nauseating, and round and about the walls in bundles there hung the heads. They lay upon the floor in grotesque heaps, looking in that dim light like a stacking of huge chestnuts. The smooth skulls dipped suddenly into blackened eye sockets. In one or two cases bits of singed flesh still hung on to the lower jaws that were bound in rattan. The Dyaks, whose memories are amazing, began to recount whom it was who had taken each individual head. They knew the names of each man and woman whose grinning skull hung on the dungeon walls, in spite of the fact that this had happened many, many years ago.

Now this was the manner of their custom of headhunting. They took a head, say, in battle or on an expedition; then, wrapping it in leaves, they ran to the nearest place of concealment, and throughout the night they kept a fire burning and smoked the head, after binding the jaws round in rattan. They then bore it in triumph to their house, where a great feast was prepared, and in the midst of the feast they placed the head, and fed it with rice, even going so far as to place a lighted cigarette into the gaping mouth. The Dyaks do this in a spirit of intoxicated mischief. The Kayans mean more by it, and talk to the head whilst they feed it, patting the skull gently with their hands and asking it to bring luck upon their crops, and success to their tribes. The Dyaks hang these heads up in their living rooms; the Kayans more often break them up and divide the pieces of skull amongst their warriors and their sons.

The Dyaks are almost ruled by superstition. They are closely in touch with spirits or Antus," as they call them. All the good and evil that comes to them in their lives they lay at the door of these spirits. If they are sick