Note 1 — Chapter XXI
Reading edition
On reaching the top of Tinglayan Hill, which we did shortly after leaving the poor people just [156] mentioned, we saw a man coming towards us accompanied by thirty or forty boys not more than ten or eleven years of age, all gee-stringed, and eight of them carrying head-axes on their hips. When the man got up, he handed Mr. Worcester a bamboo about a yard long. Mr. Worcester drank and then passed it on back to us, the best stuff, it seemed to us that hot morning, we had ever tasted. We were now in the basi country; this being a sort of fermented sugar-cane juice, judiciously diluted with water.1 The boys now formed a sort of column with the ax-bearers immediately in front of Mr. Worcester as a guard of honor, and we got a good look at them, well-built, erect, of a light brown, with black flowing hair. They were as healthy-looking as possible, and, what is more, intelligent of countenance—by all odds the brightest, most cheerful lot of youngsters we had yet seen. As we moved off they set up a chant, clear and wild, beginning with a high note and concluding with as deep a one as their young voices could compass. The thing was as beautiful as it was wild, and astonishing from the number and range of notes used. [157]