And all those
imaginings are heightened by the difficulty of penetrating far inland,
especially on the north-east coast, where the Malays and the river tribes
of Dyaks or Head-hunters are eternally quarrelling. It is true enough
that some gold reaches the coast in the hands of those Dyaks when, during
short periods of truce in the desultory warfare, they visit the coast
settlements of Malays. And so the wildest exaggerations are built up and
added to on the slight basis of that fact.
Almayer in his quality of white man--as Lingard before him--had somewhat
better relations with the up-river tribes. Yet even his excursions were
not without danger, and his returns were eagerly looked for by the
impatient Lakamba. But every time the Rajah was disappointed. Vain were
the conferences by the rice-pot of his factotum Babalatchi with the white
man's wife. The white man himself was impenetrable--impenetrable to
persuasion, coaxing, abuse; to soft words and shrill revilings; to
desperate beseechings or murderous threats; for Mrs. Almayer, in her
extreme desire to persuade her husband into an alliance with Lakamba,
played upon the whole gamut of passion. With her soiled robe wound
tightly under the armpits across her lean bosom, her scant grayish hair
tumbled in disorder over her projecting cheek-bones, in suppliant
attitude, she depicted with shrill volubility the advantages of close
union with a man so good and so fair dealing.
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