AN EXPEDITION INTO THE JUNGLE--FIRST IMPRESSIONS--RAPID CHANGE IN THE
DENSENESS OF VEGETATION--ANIMAL LIFE--A STUBBORN FIGHT
About the middle of January, I began an expedition into the utan, as the
Malays call the great jungles of Borneo, first going up the river half a
day and from there striking inland toward the north. If circumstances
proved favourable, I intended to travel as far as Bengara, about twelve
days' trip for a Dayak with a light burden to carry. In case of
unfavourable weather and too much delay in getting fresh provisions, I
felt that I should be satisfied in penetrating well into a region not
before visited by whites, where I might succeed in coming into contact
with the shy nomads, called Punans, known to roam there in limited
numbers. To this end I had taken along one of the Sultan's petty
officials, a so-called raja, who exercised more or less control over the
Punans. This man, evidently half Malay and half Dayak, and as nude as the
rest, demanded to be waited upon by the other natives, who even had to put
up his hair. He was lazy; he would not be a raja if he were not. If he
were on the move one day, he would sleep most of the next.
Among my twenty-two Kayans was an efficient and reliable man called
Banglan, the sub-chief of Kaburau, who was alert and intelligent. He had
only one hand, the result of a valorous fight with a crocodile, by which
his prahu (native boat) had been attacked one day at dawn in a small
tributary of the river. The animal actually upset the prahu and killed his
two companions, in trying to save whom with no weapon but his bare hands,
he lost one in the struggle. In their contact with the crocodiles the
Dayaks show a fortitude almost beyond belief. A Dutch doctor once treated
a man who had been dragged under water, but had the presence of mind to
press a thumb into each eye of the reptile. He was badly mangled, but
recovered.
As long as we remained at a low altitude camping out was not an unalloyed
pleasure, because the tormenting gnats were exasperating, and at night the
humidity was great, making the bed and everything else damp. The
atmosphere was heavy and filled with the odor of decaying vegetable matter
never before disturbed. In the morning at five o'clock, my hour for
rising, there was considerable chill in the air. It was difficult to see a
star here and there through the tall trees and dense undergrowth that
surrounded us as closely as the walls of a cave.
The stagnant atmosphere and dark environment, which the sun's rays vainly
attempted to penetrate, began to have a depressing effect on my spirits.
After a couple of nights spent thus, a longing for sunshine came over me
and I decided to stay one day, make a clearing, dry our belongings, and
put up a shelter in which to leave some of our baggage; all of which could
not be carried up the hills.
I told the raja and Banglan that I wanted the sun to shine into the camp,
and the men immediately set to work with cheerful alacrity. The Dayaks
have no rivals in their ability to make a tree fall in the desired
direction. First, by carefully sighting the trunk, they ascertain the most
feasible way for the tree to fall, then they chop at the base with native
axes, sometimes four men working, two and two in unison. In a remarkably
brief time it begins to weaken, the top making slight forward movements
which are followed by a final sharp report announcing the end of their
labour.
Quickly noting that they were masters in their craft, I permitted them to
fell forest giants in close proximity to our tents, some of which landed
but half a metre distant. Immense specimens in their fall brought down
thickets of creepers and smaller growths which produced big openings, so
we succeeded in making quite a sunny camp in the dark jungle.
Since that experience I have made it an invariable rule in my travels to
cut a small clearing before putting up my tent in the jungle. Sometimes
the felling of one or two trees will ameliorate the situation
immeasurably, admitting fresh air and sunlight, and there is little
difficulty about it when one is accompanied by such able and willing men
as the Dayaks. For their own use when travelling they make simple shelters
as night approaches, because they dislike to get wet. The material is
always close at hand. Slender straight poles are quickly cut and brought
in to make frame-work for a shed, the floor of which is about half a metre
above ground. The roof is made of big leaves, and in less than an hour
they are comfortably at home in one or more sheds, grouped around fires on
the flimsy floor.
It is a curious fact that one can always manage to make a fire in these
damp woods; a petroleum burner is not essential. The natives always know
where to go to find something dry that will burn; as for the white man's
cook, he usually improves upon the situation by soaking the wood in
petroleum, which is one of the valuable articles of equipment. Often in
the jungle, when slightly preparing the ground for erecting the tent,
phosphorescent lights from decayed vegetable matter shone in innumerable
spots, as if a powerful lamp were throwing its light through a grating.
In ascending the hills it was surprising how soon the aspect of the
vegetation changed. The camp we were just leaving was only about a metre
above the Kayan River, so we probably were not more than twenty-odd metres
above sea-level. Twenty metres more, and the jungle vegetation was thinner
even at that short distance. Trees, some of them magnificent specimens of
hard wood, began to assert themselves. Above 100 metres elevation it was
not at all difficult to make one's way through the jungle, even if we had
not had a slight Punan path to follow. It is easier than to ascend the
coast range of northeast Queensland under 18° S.L., where the lawyer palms
are very troublesome. Making a light clearing one evening we opened the
view to a couple of tall trees called in Malay, palapak, raising their
crowns high above the rest; this is one of the trees from which the
natives make their boats. The trunk is very tall and much thicker near the
ground.
Reaching a height of 500 metres, the ground began to be slippery with
yellow mud, but the jungle impeded one less than the thickets around
Lenox, Massachusetts, in the United States. Toward the south of our camp
here, the hill had an incline of 45 degrees or less, and one hardwood tree
that we felled travelled downward for a distance of 150 metres. A pleasant
soft breeze blew for about ten minutes, for the first time on our journey,
and the afternoon was wonderfully cool.
A Kayan messenger here arrived from the kampong, bringing a package which
contained my mail, obligingly sent me by the controleur. The package made
a profound impression on the Dayaks as well as on the Chinese interpreter,
all of whom crowded around my tent to observe what would follow. I went
elsewhere for a little while, but it was of no avail. They were waiting to
see the contents, so I took my chair outside, opened and read my mail,
closely watched all the time by a wondering crowd.
None of our attendant natives had been in this part of the country before
except a Punan, now adopted into the Kayan tribe, who knew it long ago and
his memory at times seemed dimmed. Fresh tracks of rhinoceros and bear
were seen and tapirs are known to exist among these beautiful wooded
hills. Chonggat succeeded in shooting an exceedingly rare squirrel with a
large bushy tail. We finally made camp on top of a hill 674 metres in
height which we called kampong Gunong.
The Dayaks helped me to construct a small shed with a fireplace inside
where I could dry my wet clothing, towels, etc. Of their own initiative
they also put up around the tent some peculiar Dayak ornamentations in the
shape of long spirals of wood shavings hung on to the end of poles or
trees which they planted in the ground. The same kind of decorations are
used at the great festivals, and when a gentle wind set them in motion
they had quite a cheerful, almost festive appearance.
Every morning, almost punctually at five o'clock, the gibbons or
long-armed, man-like apes, began their loud chatter in the tree-tops, more
suggestive of the calls of birds than of animals. They are shy, but become
very tame in confinement and show much affection. A wah-wah, as the animal
is called in this part of the world, will throw his arms around the neck
of his master, and is even more human in his behaviour than the orang-utan,
from which he differs in temperament, being more vivacious and inclined to
mischief. In a kampong I once saw a young gibbon repeatedly descend into a
narrow inclosure to tease a large pig confined there. The latter, although
three or four times as large, seemed entirely at his mercy and was
submissive and frightened, even when his ears were pulled by the wah-wah.
During my travels in the jungle of Borneo, few were the days in which I was
not summoned to rise by the call of the wah-wah, well-nigh as reliable as
an alarm clock.
My stay here was protracted much longer than I expected on account of rain
and fog, which rendered photographing difficult; one or the other
prevailed almost continuously. Frequently sunlight seemed approaching, but
before I could procure and arrange my camera it had vanished, and light
splashes of rain sounded on my tent. This was trying, but one cannot
expect every advantage in the tropics, which are so beautiful most of the
year that I, for one, gladly put up with the discomforts of a wet season.
Rain-storms came from the north and northeast; from our high point of
view, one could see them approaching and hear the noise of the rain on the
top of the jungle many minutes before they arrived. A few times,
especially at night, we had storms that lasted for hours, reaching
sometimes a velocity of eighty kilometres an hour. The trees of the jungle
are naturally not exposed to the force of the wind, standing all together,
so those surrounding our clearing seemed helpless, deprived of their usual
support. Some smaller ones, apparently of soft wood, which had been left
on the clearing, were broken, and the green leaves went flying about. On
one occasion at dusk Banglan stood a long time watching for any
suspicious-looking tree that might threaten to fall over the camp.
Torrents of rain fell during the night and we could barely keep dry within
our tents. The rain was more persistent here in the vicinity of the lower
Kayan than in any other part of Borneo during my two years of travel
through that country.
White-tailed, wattled pheasants (_lobiophasis_), rare in the museums, were
very numerous here. This beautiful bird has a snow-white tail and its head
is adorned with four cobalt-blue appendages, two above and two underneath
the head. The Dayaks caught this and other birds alive in snares, which
they are expert in constructing. I kept one alive for many days, and it
soon became tame. It was a handsome, brave bird, and I was sorry one day
to find it dead from want of proper nourishment, the Dayaks having been
unable to find sufficient rain-worms for it.
The beautiful small deer, kidyang, was secured several times. Its meat is
the best of all game in Borneo, although the Kayans look upon it with
disfavour. When making new fields for rice-planting, if such an animal
should appear, the ground is immediately abandoned.
Scarcely fifty metres below the top of the hill was our water supply,
consisting of a scanty amount of running water, which stopped now and then
to form tiny pools, and to my astonishment the Dayaks one day brought from
these some very small fish which I preserved in alcohol. Naturally the
water swells much in time of rain, but still it seems odd that such small
fish could reach so high a point.
Many insects were about at night. Longicornes scratched underneath my bed,
and moths hovered about my American hurricane lamp hanging outside the
tent-door. Leeches also entered the tent and seemed to have a predilection
for the tin cans in which my provisions and other things were stored. In
the dim lamplight I could sometimes see the uncanny shadows of their
bodies on the canvas, raised and stretched to an incredible height, moving
their upper parts quickly to all sides before proceeding on their "forward
march." To some people, myself included, their bite is poisonous, and on
the lower part of the legs produces wounds that may take weeks to cure.
One day native honey was brought in, which had been found in a hollow
tree. It was sweet, but thin, and had no pronounced flavour. A few minutes
after the honey had been left on a plate in my tent there arrived a number
of large yellow hornets, quite harmless apparently, but persevering in
their eagerness to feast upon the honey. During the foggy afternoon they
gathered in increased numbers and were driven off with difficulty. The
temporary removal of the plate failed to diminish their persistence until
finally, at dusk, they disappeared, only to return again in the morning,
bringing others much larger in size and more vicious in aspect, and the
remaining sweet was consumed with incredible rapidity; in less than two
hours a considerable quantity of the honey in the comb as well as liquid
was finished by no great number of hornets.
Later several species of ants found their way into my provision boxes. A
large one, dark-gray, almost black, in colour, more than a centimetre
long, was very fond of sweet things. According to the Malays, if irritated
it is able to sting painfully, but in spite of its formidable appearance
it is timid and easily turned away, so for a long time I put up with its
activities, though gradually these ants got to be a nuisance by walking
into my cup, which they sometimes filled, or into my drinking-water.
Another species, much smaller, which also was fond of sugar, pretended to
be dead when discovered. One day at ten o'clock in the morning, I observed
two of the big ants, which I had come to look upon as peaceful, in violent
combat outside my tent. A large number of very tiny ones were busily
attaching themselves to legs and antennae of both fighters, who did not,
however, greatly mind the small fellows, which were repeatedly shaken off
as the pair moved along in deadly grip.
One of the combatants clasped his nippers firmly around one leg of the
other, which for several hours struggled in vain to get free. A small ant
was hanging on to one of the victor's antennae, but disappeared after a
couple of hours. Under a magnifying-glass I could see that each fighter
had lost a leg. I placed the end of a stick against the legs of the one
that was kept in this merciless vice, and he immediately attached himself
to it. As I lifted the stick up he held on by one leg, supporting in this
way both his own weight and that of his antagonist. Finally, they ceased
to move about, but did not separate in spite of two heavy showers in the
afternoon, and at four o'clock they were still maintaining their relative
positions; but next morning they and the other ants had disappeared.