Dyea

“ In about an hour the slave came back, and I returned to the apartment of Theodora. I was indeed struck by the blaze of beauty she exhibited when dressed after our fashion, her coal-black hair, beautifully parted over her noble ivory forehead, peeping out from beneath her headdress. "My God," I cried, "how is it possible the chief eunuch of the Dey could have passed over charms such as you possess?" The name of the Dey brought the recollection of him to her, and she dropped on a couch overcome by her feelings. She entreated me with tears not to name the Dey again to her. ”

“ Dia was the Greek preposition, meaning through or from, which appears in a multitude of English words. In medicine it always implies a compound, and in old English it is occasionally found alone as in the instance quoted from “Piers Plowman.” Another given in the Historical English Dictionary is from Lydgate (1430) “Drug nor dya was none in Bury towne.” [5] In combination a few survivals remain in the language [287] as Diachylon, Diapente, and Diacodion, but in the old medical formularies its use is very frequent. Generally it meant an electuary or confection. ”

“ The woman whom I took to be Dy-lee's mate was a slim, high-breasted she, whose hair was sleeker and finer than his, and on whose face the shag was lighter and not of so matted a nature. It was on this shy creature that I first perceived the color of the cave folk's skin; when I was told her name (which was Zheena) , she put back the long hair of her forehead with a very feminine gesture, and I saw that just around her eyes, less deepsunk than the males', there was no fur at all. The skin was white, like a winter's baby before it is tanned by the sun, and seemed smooth and firm. ”

“ Every man had a woman or a child held tightly in his arms—held in front of him as a buckler—and it was from these poor devils that those awful screams were coming. I jumped in front of the Dyaks and yelled to them in Malay to hold their fire; but O'Hara thrust me aside, and shooed the Dyaks on with shouts and curses and peals of laughter, slapping his palm on his gunstock, and capering with delight and excitement. The Dyaks took no sort of heed of me, and the volleys met the Muruts like a wall of lead. ”

“ From a Dye Book of 1705.—"Black may be compared to Night and Death, not only because all other colours are deepened and buried in the Black Dye, but that as Death puts an end to all Evils of Life, tis necessary that the Black Dye should remedy the faults of other colours, which have been occasioned by the deficiency of the Dyer or the Dye, or the change of Fashion according to the times and caprice of man." ”

“ When a Dyak lover attempts to pass a tender arm round his sweetheart’s waist, instead of the soft flesh, he finds himself clasping a cuirass of solid metal. Nor is this all; for fashion ordains that the Dyak heiress shall invest her available means in the purchase of long gauntlets of twisted brass wire, reaching from the knuckles to the elbow; and if, in her turn, she encircles her lover’s neck with a responsive arm, the wretched man finds himself clasped by a horrible fetter, which draws a little bit of his flesh between each of its links, and pinches him fearfully. ”

“ The Dyaks were constantly at war, tribe against tribe, and no Dyak village was safe from sudden attack. Many human lives were sacrificed because the Dyaks wished, not only to obtain booty, but to satisfy their lust for blood, and indulge in their favourite pursuit of head-hunting, and gain glory for themselves by bringing home human heads to decorate their houses with. ”

“ Now, my Lord, when the number of those that dye groweth fewest, the number of those that goe abrode with sores is greatest, the violence of the disease to kill being abated. And therfore while any plage is, though the number reported of them that dye be small, the number infectious is so great that playes are not to be permitted. ”

“ Left alone, she feels lonely withal, and more than ever afraid. Instead of sitting down to her needle, or making to remove the tea-things, she goes to the door, and there stays, standing on its threshold and peering into the darkness—for it is a pitch dark night—she sees, or fancies, a light moving across the meadows, as if it came from Farmer Morgan's house, and going in the direction of Rugg's Ferry. While she continues gazing, it twice crosses the Wye, by reason of the river's bend. ”

“ The years they have passed in oppression may account for this, as also the continual state of poverty and sickness in which they exist, their villages being seldom entirely free from dysentery or small-pox, while nearly all are more or less afflicted with korrip, a loathsome skin disease peculiar to the Dyak. The religion of the land Dyaks consists solely in superstitious observances, and they are given up to the fear of ghosts. ”

“ What is there to fear, girl? A sword? I have had a sword in my heart eight years, and made no sound. Let the son pierce what the father pierced before. I am a lover, saying not to my beloved, "Stroke my heart, dearest lord"; but instead, "Stab if thou wilt, my King, and let me bleed for thee." So I have bled, sweet Lord Jesus, and so shall bleed again!' She stooped and kissed his head, saying, 'Amen. Let the poor bleed if the King ask.' The Queen went on praying; but Richard opened his eyes without start or quiver, looked at Jehane leaning over him, and smiled. ”

“ They believe in two separate abodes for departed spirits, the sky, and the sea, and that the abodes of souls are to be approached only down the face of a steep precipice—Cape Maria Van Dieman.
The Dyaks have great difficulty in distinguishing sleep from death. They believe that the soul during sleep goes on an expedition of its own, and 180 sees, hears, and talks. ”

“ Camba urged softly. "'Why would any man—'"
He tried to find a way of explaining which would not seem to have any relationship to John Delgados. "It has been recently discovered"—but he did not say how recently—"that the disease of Syndrome Plague was not a disease. It is an improvement." He had spoken clumsily.
"An improvement on life?" Camba laughed and nodded, but there were bitterness and anger burning behind the small man's smile. "People can be improved to death by the millions. Yes, yes, go on, Senor. You fascinate me."
"We are stronger," Alcala told him. "We are changed chemically. ”

“ The Dyaks are great observers of omens (see Chapter XII.) , and among their omens the cries of certain birds are most important.
Singalang Burong is also the god of war, and the guardian spirit of brave men. He delights in fighting, and head-taking is his glory. When Dyaks have obtained a human head, they make a great feast to the honour of this god and invoke his presence. He is the only god ever represented by the Dyaks in a material form—a carved, highly-coloured bird of grotesque shape. ”

“ The face is pleasing in expression, despite of the artificial means whereby the women do their best to make themselves hideous. The eyes are black, clear, and expressive, and the lashes singularly long. The nose is rather disposed to turn upward than downward, and the mouth is terribly disfigured with the continual chewing of betel and the mode in which the teeth are filed and blackened.
The chief point in a Dyak woman’s beauty is her hair, which is black, wonderfully thick, and shining, and so long that when allowed to flow over the back it nearly touches the ground. ”

“ There are, therefore, in regard to vegetables in particular, some things, the nature and properties of which it is absolutely necessary that the dyer should understand: for want of a knowledge of one of them, it is a fact that losses are very often sustained to a serious amount. It may seem surprising, but the author has not seen in any writer on dyeing or chemistry, a proper method of working the pastil or woad vat ”

“ Underneath them the feet of Dhoya beat up the ground, but the feet of the other as he rushed hither and thither, matching his agility with the mortal’s mighty strength, made neither shadow nor footstep on the sands. Dhoya was wounded, and growing weary a little, when the other leaped away, and, crouching down by the water, began—“You have carried away by some spell unknown the most beautiful of our bands—you who have neither laughter nor singing. ”

“ Every blood-drop in their lips, every cloud in the sky, every leaf in the world changed a little, while they brushed back their hair and kissed. All things change save only the fear of change. And yet for his hour Dhoya was happy and as full of dreams as an old man or an infant—for dreams wander nearest to the grave and the cradle. ”

“ Below, the Wye, winding through a partially wood-covered plain, like some grand constrictor snake; its sinuosities only here and there visible through the trees, resembling a chain of detached lakes—till sweeping past the Cuckoo’s Glen, it runs on in straight reach towards Llangorren.
Eye of man never looked upon lovelier landscape; mind of man could not contemplate one more suggestive of all that is, or ought to be, interesting in life. Peaceful smokes ascending out of far-off chimneys ”

“ Restore her, Dhoya, and go free.’ Dhoya answered him no word, and the other rose and again thrust at him with the spear. They fought to and fro upon the sands until the dawn touched with olive the distant sky, and then his anger-fit, long absent, fell on Dhoya, and he closed with his enemy and threw him, and put his knee on his chest and his hands on his throat, and would have crushed all life out of him, when lo! he held beneath his knee no more than a bundle of reeds. ”

“ And who is that sweet-faced girl in the pew just in front of the pulpit? She is beautiful. She looks like Nydia, the blind girl in 'The Last Days of Pompeii,' but she can't be Nydia, for Nydia lived and died hundreds of years ago. But she listens to the music just as Nydia might do if she were here now. It is not so sad to be blind in a world of music. And yet—how would I know where they were sitting if I were blind, too? ”

“ Tighter and tighter grew his body, like a screw that is gradually increasing in pressure, till something breaks.
Then suddenly he relaxed, full of wonder and misgiving. Dawes had been yielding. Morel felt his body flame with pain, as he realized what he was doing; he was all bewildered. Dawes’s struggles suddenly renewed themselves in a furious spasm. Paul’s hands were wrenched, torn out of the scarf in which they were knotted, and he was flung away, helpless. ”

“ Comparatively slight and feeble as the Dyaks look by the side of the stalwart and muscular European, their strength is really wonderful, and enables them to perform tasks which the powerful white man could not by any possibility achieve. On a journey, when an European has fallen from sheer fatigue, a Dyak has taken the burden with which the fallen man was laden, and added it to his own, without seeming to display any particular sense of having increased his own labor ”

“ What beloved friends, lost and missed in the gloom, might they not bear to safety and to shelter!
In the silence of the general sleep, Nydia rose gently. She bent over the face of Glaucus—she inhaled the deep breath of his heavy slumber—timidly and sadly she kissed his brow—his lips; she felt for his hand—it was locked in that of Ione; she sighed deeply, and her face darkened. Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night. 'May the gods bless you, Athenian!' she murmured: 'may you be happy with your beloved one!—may you sometimes remember Nydia! Alas! ”

“ Every passer-by contributes to it, and at the same time curses the man in memory of whom it is. The Dyaks consider the adding to any tugong bula they may pass a sacred duty, the omission of which will meet with supernatural punishment, and so, however pressed for time a Dyak may be, he stops to throw on the pile some small branch or twig. ”

“ Thus, when an epidemic is raging among them, the Dyaks of the Katoengouw River set up wooden images at their doors in the hope that the demons of the plague may be deluded into carrying off the effigies instead of the people. ”

“ Yaé, with her distorted little soul, was thinking that it must be worth the years of slavery and the humiliation of disease to have that one day of complete triumph, to be the representative of Beauty upon earth, to feel the admiration and the desire of that vast concourse of men rising round one's body like a warm flood. ”

“ But notwithstanding these general rules may be given for dye-tests, yet so many are the niceties in this art, that, after all, nothing but long practice combined with scientific knowledge, will enable the dyer to become in this respect, a complete and successful artist. ”

“ The greater the number of heads he can present, the more willing the damsel becomes to receive his advances. Notwithstanding such a peculiar custom, the Dyaks possess many excellent qualities. They are said to be truthful and honest, generally intelligent, kind tempered and mild, and tolerably industrious; superior indeed in many respects to the Malays and Chinese, who cheat and plunder them.
“While we are opening up Africa, it seems to me that we should make an effort to civilise and carry the blessings of Christianity to the numberless inhabitants of Borneo beyond the province of Sarawak.” ”

“ If I were old enough to get married, I should not look for a wife among the Dyak girls," said Louis, laughing and shaking his head.
"The Dyak women are generally well treated; but they have to work very hard, and much that you would think the men ought to do is done by them. The lords of creation here are inclined to be lazy, while their wives and daughters are engaged in the rice-fields, though their husbands and brothers are driven to labor. ”