The Isle of Vanishing men

The presentation of skulls is but the prelude to a great entertainment. It has been planned for our especial benefit. As a sort of opening chorus and introductory number, we are entertained with the Kia Kia song of welcome as the circle of witnesses to the skull-presentation ceremony breaks up. The medicine man—who, by the way, is supposed to hold communion with the spirits that every native believes inhabit the jungle—leads in the opening number, which is an ensemble of all the adult males of the kampong. He is attended by two others, who circle around him with heads bowed, rattling castanets made of the great pincers of the crayfish with which the coast abounds. These have a sound which reminds one of the never-to-be forgotten but hard-to-describe warning of the diamond-back crotalus or rattlesnake of America.