ARRIVAL AT BAHANDANG--ON THE EQUATOR--A STARTLING ROBBERY--OUR
MOST LABORIOUS JOURNEY--HORN-BILLS--THE SNAKE AND THE INTREPID
PENYAHBONG--ARRIVAL AT TAMALOE
Bahandang, where we arrived early in the second afternoon, is the
headquarters of some Malay rubber and rattan gatherers of the surrounding
utan. A house had been built at the conflux with the river of a small
affluent, and here lived an old Malay who was employed in receiving the
products from the workers in the field. Only his wife was present, he
having gone to Naan on the Djuloi River, but was expected to return soon.
The place is unattractive and looked abandoned. Evidently at a previous
time effort had been made to clear the jungle and to cultivate bananas and
cassavas. Among felled trees and the exuberance of a new growth of
vegetation a few straggling bananas were observable, but all the big
cassava plants had been uprooted and turned over by the wild pigs, tending
to increase the dismal look of the place. A lieutenant in charge of a
patrouille had put up a rough pasang-grahan here, where our lieutenant and
the soldiers took refuge, while I had the ground cleared near one end of
it, and there placed my tent.
Not far off stood a magnificent tree with full, straight stem, towering in
lonely solitude fifty metres above the overgrown clearing. In a straight
line up its tall trunk wooden plugs had been driven in firmly about thirty
centimetres apart. This is the way Dayaks, and Malays who have learned it
from them, climb trees to get the honey and wax of the bees' nests
suspended from the high branches. On the Barito, from the deck of the
_Otto_, I had observed similar contrivances on still taller trees of the
same kind called tapang, which are left standing when the jungle is
cleared to make ladangs.
A few days later the rest of our party arrived and, having picked up six
rubber gatherers, brought the remainder of the luggage from their camp.
Some men were then sent to bring up the goods stored in the utan below,
and on February 3 this was accomplished. An Ot-Danum from the Djuloi
River, with wife and daughter, camped here for a few days, hunting for
gold in the river soil, which is auriferous as in many other rivers of
Borneo. They told me they were glad to make sixty cents a day, and if they
were lucky the result might be two florins.
We found ourselves in the midst of the vast jungles that cover Borneo,
serving to keep the atmosphere cool and prevent air currents from
ascending in these windless tropics. We were almost exactly on the
equator, at an elevation of about 100 metres. In January there had been
little rain and in daytime the weather had been rather muggy, but with no
excessive heat to speak of, provided one's raiment is suited to the
tropics. On the last day of the month, at seven o'clock in the morning,
after a clear and beautiful night, the temperature was 72° F. (22° C.).
During the additional three weeks passed here, showers fell occasionally
and sometimes it rained all night. As a rule the days were bright, warm,
and beautiful; the few which were cloudy seemed actually chilly and made
one desire the return of the sun.
Our first task was to make arrangements for the further journey up the
Busang River to Tamaloe, a remote kampong recently formed by the
Penyahbongs on the upper part of the river. We were about to enter the
great accumulation of kihams which make travel on the Busang peculiarly
difficult. The lieutenant's hope that we might secure more men from among
the rubber gatherers was not fulfilled. The few who were present made
excuses, and as for the others, they were far away in the utan, nobody
knew where. We still had some Malays, and, always scheming for money or
advantage to themselves, they began to invent new difficulties and demand
higher wages. Although I was willing to make allowances, it was impossible
to go beyond a certain limit, because the tribes we should meet later
would demand the same payment as their predecessors had received. The old
Malay resident, who in the meantime had returned from his absence, could
offer no advice.
Finally exorbitant wages were demanded, and all wanted to return except
four. As the lieutenant had expressed his willingness to proceed to
Tamaloe in advance of the party and try to hire the necessary men there,
it was immediately decided that he should start with our four remaining
men and one soldier, while the rest of us waited here with the sergeant
and four soldiers. On February 4 the party was off, as lightly equipped as
possible, and if all went well we expected to have the necessary men
within three weeks.
On the same afternoon Djobing and three companions, who were going up to
another rattan station, Djudjang, on a path through the jungle, proposed
to me to transport some of our luggage in one of my prahus. The offer was
gladly accepted, a liberal price paid, and similar tempting conditions
offered if they and a few men, known to be at the station above, would
unite in taking all our goods up that far. The following morning they
started off.
The Malays of these regions, who are mainly from the upper part of the
Kapuas River in the western division and began to come here ten years
previously, are physically much superior to the Malays we brought, and for
work in the kihams are as fine as Dayaks. They remain here for years,
spending two or three months at a time in the utan. Djobing had been here
four years and had a wife in his native country. There are said to be 150
Malays engaged in gathering rattan, and, no doubt, also rubber, in these
vast, otherwise uninhabited upper Dusun lands.
What with the absence of natives and the scarcity of animals and birds,
the time spent here waiting was not exactly pleasant. Notwithstanding the
combined efforts of the collector, the sergeant, and one other soldier,
few specimens were brought in. Mr. Demmini, the photographer, and Mr.
Loing were afflicted with dysentery, from which they recovered in a week.
As a climax came the startling discovery that one of the two money-boxes
belonging to the expedition, containing f. 3,000 in silver, had been
stolen one night from my tent, a few feet away from the pasang-grahan.
They were both standing at one side covered with a bag, and while it was
possible for two men to carry off such a heavy box if one of them lifted
the tent wall, still the theft implied an amount of audacity and skill
with which hitherto I had not credited the Malays. The rain clattering on
the roof of the tent, and the fact that, contrary to Dutch custom, I
always extinguished my lamp at night, was in their favour. After this
occurrence the lamp at night always hung lighted outside of the tent door.
All evidence pointed to the four men from Tumbang Djuloi who recently left
us. The sergeant had noticed their prahus departing from a point lower
down than convenience would dictate, and, as a matter of fact, nobody else
could have done it. But they were gone, we were in seclusion, and there
was nobody to send anywhere.
In the middle of February we had twenty-nine men here from Tamaloe, twenty
of them Penyahbongs and the remainder Malays. The lieutenant had been
successful, and the men had only used two days in coming down with the
current. They were in charge of a Malay called Bangsul, who formerly had
been in the service of a Dutch official, and whose fortune had brought him
to distant Tamaloe, where he had acquired a dominating position over the
Penyahbongs. I wrote a report of the robbery to the captain in Puruk
Tjahu, and sent Longko to Tumbang Djuloi to deliver it to the kapala, who
was requested to forward it. There the matter ended.
I was determined that the loss, though at the time a hard blow, should not
interfere with the carrying out of my plans. By rigid economy it could, at
least partially, be offset, and besides, I felt sure that if the necessity
arose it would be possible later to secure silver from Dutch officials on
the lower Mahakam River. Bangsul and some Penyahbongs, at my request,
searched in the surrounding jungle growth and found a hole that had been
dug of the same size and shape as the stolen box, where no doubt it had
been deposited until taken on board the prahu.
The day previous to our departure Mr. Demmini again was taken ill, and in
accordance with his own wish it was decided that he should return. I let
him have Longko in command of one of the best prahus, and in time he
arrived safely in Batavia, where he had to undergo further treatment.
Longko, the Malay with the reputation for reliability, never brought back
the men and the prahu; their loss, however, was greater than mine, as
their wages, pending good behaviour, were mostly unpaid.
Shortly after their prahu had disappeared from view, on February 20, we
departed in the opposite direction. Our new crew, of Penyahbongs mostly,
who only lately have become acquainted with prahus, were not quite so
efficient as the former, but much more amiable, laughing and cracking
jokes with each other as they ran along over the rocks, pulling the rattan
ropes of the prahus. No sooner did we ascend one kiham than we arrived at
another, but they were still small. Although the day was unusually warm,
there was a refreshing coolness in the shade under the trees that grow
among the rocks along the river.
Early in the afternoon we camped at the foot of the first of twelve great
kihams which must be passed before arriving at Djudjang, the rattan
gatherers' camp. During a heavy shower a Penyahbong went into the jungle
with his sumpitan and returned with a young rusa, quarters of which he
presented to Mr. Loing and myself. Bangsul had travelled here before, and
he thought we probably would need two weeks for the journey to Djudjang
from where, under good weather conditions, three days' poling should bring
us to Tamaloe. He had once been obliged to spend nearly three months on
this trip.
We spent one day here, while all our goods were being taken on human backs
to a place some distance above the kiham. Four Malays and one Penyahbong
wanted remedies for diseases they professed to have. The latter seemed
really ill and had to be excused from work. The rest said they suffered
from demum (malaria), a word that has become an expression for most cases
of indisposition, and I gave them quinine. The natives crave the remedies
the traveller carries, which they think will do them good whether needed
or not.
Much annoyance is experienced from Malays in out-of-the-way places
presenting their ailments, real or fancied, to the traveller's attention.
The Dayaks, not being forward, are much less annoying, though equally
desirous of the white man's medicine. An Ot-Danum once wanted a cure for a
few white spots on the finger-nails. In the previous camp a Penyahbong had
consulted me for a stomach-ache and I gave him what I had at hand, a small
quantity of cholera essence much diluted in a cup of water. All the rest
insisted on having a taste of it, smacking their lips with evident relish.
Early next morning the prahus were hauled up the rapids and then loaded,
after which the journey was continued through a smiling, slightly
mountainous country, with trees hanging over the river. We actually had a
course of smooth water, and before us, near the horizon, stretched two
long ridges with flat summits falling abruptly down at either side of the
river. At two o'clock in the afternoon we reached the foot of two big
kihams, and Bangsul considered it time to camp. It must be admitted that
the work was hard and progress necessarily slow. Nevertheless, it was so
early in the day that I suggested going a little further. Soon, however,
seeing the futility of trying to bring him to my way of thinking, I began
arrangements for making camp. Better to go slowly than not to travel at
all. Close to my tent, growing on low trees, were a great number of
beautiful yellow and white orchids.
Toward sunset, Bangsul surprised me by bringing all the men to my tent. He
said they wanted to go home because they were afraid I should expect too
much of them, as they all wanted to travel plan-plan (slowly). The
Penyahbongs before me were of a decent sort, and even the Malays were a
little more gentle and honest than usual. Bangsul was "the whole thing,"
and I felt myself equal to the situation. This was his first attempt at a
strike for higher wages and came unexpectedly soon, but was quickly
settled by my offer to raise the wages for the six most useful and
strongest men.
After our baggage had been stored above the head of the kihams, and the
prahus had been taken up to the same place, we followed overland. As we
broke camp two argus pheasants flew over the utan through the mist which
the sun was trying to disperse. We walked along the stony course of the
rapids, and when the jungle now and then allowed a peep at the roaring
waters it seemed incredible that the prahus had been hauled up along the
other side. Half an hour's walk brought us to the head of the kihams where
the men were loading the prahus that were lying peacefully in still
waters. The watchmen who had slept here pointed out a tree where about
twenty argus pheasants had roosted.
Waiting for the prahus to be loaded, I sat down on one of the big stones
of the river bank to enjoy a small landscape that presented itself on the
west side of the stream. When long accustomed to the enclosing walls of
the dark jungle a change is grateful to the eye. Against the sky rose a
bold chalk cliff over 200 metres high with wooded summit, the edge fringed
with sago palms in a very decorative manner. This is one of the two ridges
we had seen at a distance; the other is higher and was passed further up
the river. From the foot of the cliff the jungle sloped steeply down
toward the water. The blue sky, a few drifting white clouds, the beautiful
light of the fresh, glorious morning, afforded moments of delight that
made one forget all the trouble encountered in getting here. It seems as
if the places least visited by men are the most attractive.
Four hornbills were flying about. They settled on the branches of a tall
dead tree that towered high above the jungle and deported themselves in
strange ways, moving busily about on the branch; after a few minutes three
of them flew away, the other remaining quietly behind. There are several
kinds of hornbills; they are peculiar birds in that the male is said to
close with mud the entrance to the nest in the hollow stem of the tree,
thus confining the female while she is sitting on her eggs. Only a small
hole is left through which he feeds her.
The great hornbill (_rhinoflax vigil_) flies high over the jungle in a
straight line and usually is heard before it is seen, so loud is the noise
made by the beating of the wings. Its clamorous call is never to be
forgotten, more startling than the laughter of the laughing jackass of
Australia. The sound inspires the Dayak with courage and fire. When he
takes the young out of the nest, later to serve him as food, the parent
bird darts at the intruder. The hornbill is an embodiment of force that
may be either beneficent or harmful, and has been appropriated by the
Dayaks to serve various purposes. Wooden images of this bird are put up as
guardians, and few designs in textile or basket work are as common as that
of the tingang. The handsome tail feathers of the rhinoceros hornbill,
with transverse bands of alternate white and black, are highly valued; the
warriors attach them to their rattan caps, and from the solid casque with
which the beak of the giant species is provided, are carved the large red
ear ornaments. Aided by the sumpitan the Dayaks and Punans are expert in
bringing down the rather shy birds of the tall trees.
Three hours later we had managed to carry all our goods above the kiham
Duyan, which is only one hundred metres long, but with a fall of at least
four metres; consequently in its lower part it rushes like a disorderly
waterfall. It took the men one and a half hours to pull the empty prahus
up along the irregular bank, and I stood on a low rock which protruded
above the water below the falls, watching the proceedings with much
interest. The day was unusually warm and full of moisture, as, without
hat, in the burning sun I tried for over an hour to get snapshots, while
two kinds of bees, one very small, persistently clung to my hands, face,
and hair.
The journey continued laborious; it consisted mostly in unloading and
reloading the prahus and marching through rough country, now on one side
of the river, now on the other, where the jungle leeches were very active
and the ankles of the men were bleeding. At times the prahus had to be
dragged over the big stones that form the banks of the river. It was easy
to understand what difficulties and delays might be encountered here in
case of much rain. But in spite of a few heavy showers the weather
favoured us, and on the last day of the month we had successfully passed
the rapids. Next morning, after pulling down my tent, the Penyahbongs
placed stray pieces of paper on top of the remaining tent-poles as a sign
of joy that the kihams were left behind. There still remained some that
were obstinate on account of low water, but with our experience and
concerted action those were easily overcome, and early in the afternoon we
arrived at Djudjang, a rough, unattractive, and overgrown camp, where I
decided to stay until next morning. Many Malays die from beri-beri, but
there is little malaria among those who work in the utan of the Busang
River. The half dozen men who were present were certainly a strong and
healthy-looking lot. One of them, with unusually powerful muscles and
short legs, declined to be photographed.
Our next camp was at a pleasant widening of the river with a low-lying,
spacious beach of pebbles. I pitched my tent on higher ground on the edge
of the jungle. Some of the Penyahbongs, always in good humour and enjoying
themselves, went out with sumpitans to hunt pig, and about seven o'clock,
on a beautiful starlit night, a big specimen was brought in, which I went
to look at. While one man opened it by cutting lengthwise across the ribs,
another was engaged taking out the poison-carrying, triangular point. With
his knife the latter deftly cut all around the wound, taking out some
flesh, and after a little while he found part of the point, then the rest.
It looked like glass or flint and had been broken transversely in two;
usually it is made of bamboo or other hard wood.
The bladder was carefully cut out, and a man carried it off and threw it
away in order that the hunters should not be short of breath when walking.
The huge head, about fifty centimetres long, which was bearded and had a
large snout, was cut off with part of the neck and carried to one of the
camps, with a piece of the liver, which is considered the best part. I had
declined it, as the meat of the wild pig is very poor and to my taste
repulsive; this old male being also unusually tough, the soldiers
complained. The following morning I saw the head and jaws almost entirely
untouched, too tough even for the Penyahbongs.
Next day the river ran much narrower and between rocky sides. In the
forenoon the first prahu came upon an otter eating a huge fish which the
strong animal had dragged up on a rock, and of which the men immediately
took possession. It was cut up in bits and distributed among all of them,
the otter thus saving the expedition thirty-two rations of dried fish that
evening and next morning. To each side of the head was attached a powerful
long spine which stood straight out. The natives called the fish kendokat.
At one place where the water ran smoothly, one man from each prahu pulled
its rattan rope, the rest poling. I saw the Penyahbong who was dragging my
prahu suddenly catch sight of something under the big stones over which he
walked, and then he stopped to investigate. From my seat I perceived a
yellowish snake about one and a half metres long swimming under and among
the stones. A man from the prahu following ours came forward quickly and
began to chase it in a most determined manner. With his right hand he
caught hold of the tail and twisted it; then, as the body was underneath
the junction of two stones, with his left hand he tried to seize the head
which emerged on the other side. The snake was lively and bit at his hand
furiously, which he did not mind in the least. Others came to his
assistance and struck at its head with their paddles, but were unable to
accomplish their purpose as it was too well entrenched.
A splendid primitive picture of the savage in pursuit of his dinner, the
Penyahbong stood erect with his back toward me, holding the tail firmly.
After a few moments he bent down again trying in vain to get hold of its
neck, but not being able to pull the snake out he had to let the dainty
morsel go. Later we saw one swimming down the current, which the
Penyahbongs evidently also would have liked a trial at had we not already
passed the place.
The river widened out again, the rocks on the sides disappeared, and deep
pools were passed, though often the water ran very shallow, so the prahus
were dragged along with difficulty. Fish were plentiful, some
astonishingly large. In leaping for something on the surface they made
splashes as if a man had jumped into the water. On the last day, as the
morning mist began to rise, our thirty odd men, eager to get home, poling
the prahus with long sticks, made a picturesque sight. In early March,
after a successful journey, we arrived at Tamaloe, having consumed only
fourteen days from Bahandang because weather conditions had been
favourable, with no overflow of the river and little rain. It was pleasant
to know that the most laborious part of the expedition was over. I put up
my tent under a large durian tree, which was then in bloom.