A SPIRITED BATTLE WITH ORANG-OUTANGS
The civilized people of Simujan were not stirring when the party came
from their chambers. Felipe had steam up at half-past five, for the
captain intended to begin the ascent of the river; but he did not care
to leave without bidding adieu to the kindly agent. But they got under
way at his order, and ran up the river for a morning airing. The boat
had not gone more than a mile when the young men discovered a sampan
containing two Malays paddling with all their might for the shore.
They had no guns, and could not shoot their game, whatever it was; but
each of them had a _biliong_. This was the implement Achang had bought
in Sarawak. It looked something like a pickaxe with only one arm, the
end of which was fashioned like a mortising chisel, and was used as an
axe.
The edge of the chisel portion was parallel to the handle; but Achang
explained that the Dyaks had another kind of biliong, with the cutting
part at right angles with the handle, and this was used as an adze.
While Lane, the carpenter, was ridiculing the tool, the Malays on shore
moved to a tree in sight of the steamer, which had stopped her screw
close to the sampan.
"They are going to cut down a tree with the biliongs," said Achang.
"Sometimes do that to get the game."
"They couldn't cut down a tree a foot through with those things in a
week!" exclaimed Lane.
"So quick as you could cut it down," insisted the Bornean stoutly.
"Dry up, now, and let us see the Malays work with the thing," interposed
the captain.
"Lane, you shall have a trial with a Dyak or a Malay, and I will give a
prize of three dollars to the one that fells the tree first," said
Louis.
"I should like to try that with any Dyak or Malay," replied Lane
good-naturedly; and he was a stout Down-Easter, who had been a logger in
the woods before he was a carpenter or a seaman.
"There are two animals in that tree where they are at work," cried
Morris, as he pointed to the scene of operations. "One of them is a big
one, and the other is a little one," he added, when he obtained a better
view of the game the Malays were trying to obtain. "What are they,
Achang?"
"Mias! Mias!" exclaimed the native, as a movement of the boat ahead gave
him a full view of the creatures. "One is a big one, and the other is
her baby."
"But what are the Malays doing now?" asked Louis.
"Make a stage to stand on," replied Achang.
"What do they want of a stage?" demanded Lane contemptuously.
"You will see if you wait," added the captain.
They were picking up poles where they could find them, and cutting
saplings, which they dropped with a single blow of the biliong. In a few
minutes they had constructed a rude framework on crotched sticks, driven
into the soft ground, with a platform of poles on the top. On this one
of the two men mounted with his biliong, with which he began his work
with a blow at the tree about four feet above the level of the ground.
The other Malay brought from the sampan a couple of spears, a parong
latok, and a bundle of ropes and rattans.
"Do they use the sumpitan in Borneo now, Achang?" asked Louis.
"Not Dyaks, Mr. Belgrave; Kyans use it; shoot poison arrows; sure death;
very bad."
The sumpitan is a kind of blow-gun, like the "bean-blower" formerly used
by American boys, which was a tin pipe, or the "pea-shooter," an English
plaything. It was used, it is said, by the Dyaks in former times; but
recent travellers do not mention it as used by them. It is about eight
feet long, and less than an inch in diameter, made of very hard wood,
skilfully and accurately bored, and smoothed inside.
The parong latok, already described, is a heavy sword. It has a head,
sometimes carved as an ornament, so that it cannot slip from the hand.
At about one-third of its length from this head, it bends at an abrupt
angle of about thirty-five degrees, and it makes a very ugly-looking
weapon.
"I suppose you all know that a mias is an orang-outang," said Louis. "No
doubt the weapons carried up to the tree are to be used in killing the
game when the tree comes down. We could easily bring down both; but we
won't fire at them, for I think we are all curious to see how the Malays
will manage the affair. The chopper has already made a big cut in the
tree, and I doubt if Lane could have done the work any quicker."
The carpenter did not say anything, but no doubt he was greatly
surprised at the rapid progress the native made with the biliong. He had
cut the tree more than half-way through the trunk; and it was evident
that he intended it should fall towards the river, for the second Malay
was clearing away the ground on that side so that they might have a fair
field for the fight that was to ensue. The chopper attacked the other
side of the tree, and seemed to deal his blows with even more vigor than
before.
The old orang kept up a constant growling. She had a nest just above the
limb where she sat, which was quite green, indicating that it had been
recently built. It was composed of the branches of the tree small enough
to be easily broken off by the "jungle man." They were simply placed in
a heap on the limb, with no particular shaping of the resting-place.
"She makes a new nest when the branches of the old one get dry; she like
a soft bed," said Achang. "But the tree will come down now; big fight,
they kill her."
He had hardly spoken these words before the tree suddenly toppled over,
and fell upon the ground with a heavy crash. The orangs seemed to have
no idea of what was going on at the foot of the tree, and they were
pitched out. The chopper seized one of the spears, and rushed after the
old one. The tree prevented the party on board the yacht from seeing the
expected battle; and with their rifles in their hands, the "Big Four"
sprang ashore, and secured a favorable position. The crew followed them,
though the engineer remained at his post.
The first Malay, who had done the chopping, had confronted the orang,
and they stood facing each other. Suddenly the animal made a spring
towards her enemy, and was received on the point of his spear. The orang
was wounded, but this only increased her wrath, and she made a furious
onslaught upon the man; but the spear was too much for her, and she was
wounded again.
The orang opened her mouth, and showed a terrible double row of teeth
flanked by four long tusks. They were enough to intimidate one
unaccustomed to the creature's appearance. She made repeated attempts to
reach her enemy; but the spear, very adroitly handled, foiled her every
time, and gave her a new wound. This sparring, as it were, was kept up
for some time, and the Americans wondered that the Malay did not drive
his weapon to the heart of the infuriated animal. Doubtless he would
have done so if he could; but the orang had hands as well as feet, and
she grasped the spear every time it punctured her skin, and seemed to
prevent it from inflicting a fatal wound.
It was a mystery to the observers how the Malay contrived to detach his
weapon from the grasp of the orang, though he did so every time. But at
last the brute seemed to change her tactics, or she got a better hold of
the spear; for she suddenly snapped the weapon into two pieces as though
it had been a pipe-stem. Deprived of his arm, the Malay ran a few rods.
The orang is very clumsy on its feet, and she could not catch him. The
man only went a few rods to the place where the parong latok had been
placed, and with this weapon he returned to the attack.
The skirmishing with this weapon continued for some time longer, and the
beast was wounded every time she attempted to get hold of her opponent.
In the meantime the other Malay had not been idle. He used no deadly
weapons, but substituted for them a long cord he had brought from the
sampan. He made a slip-noose in one end of it, and was trying to catch
the young one. It might have run away if it had been so disposed, but it
seemed to be determined to stay by its mother.
"He wants you, or needs your skill with the lasso, Captain Scott," said
Morris, recalling the feats with the lasso of the commander.
"He is doing very well, and he handles the line well," replied Scott.
"Now he has him!" he exclaimed, as the Malay passed the cord over the
head of the young orang, and hauled it taut around his neck.
With the line he dragged the orang to a sapling near the fallen tree,
and, with other lines he had left there, tied his hands and feet
together, and fastened him to the small tree.
He had hardly secured his victim before a yell from the first hunter
startled him, and he ran with his lasso and a spear to his assistance.
The old one, badly wounded by the sharp weapon of her enemy, had
suddenly dropped upon all fours, and crawled to the man; seizing him by
his legs, she set her villanous teeth into the calf of one of them. It
looked as though the human was to be the victim of the brute.
The Malay, howling with the sharp pain, slashed away with all his might
at the hind quarters of the orang; but she did not relax her grip on his
leg. His companion arrived at the scene of the conflict. He dropped his
lasso then, and began to use his parong latok. After he saw that blows
with the weapon accomplished nothing, he plunged the blade into the body
of the brute several times in quick succession. These stabs ended the
battle. The orang rolled over, and then did not move again.
Both of the human combatants then walked down to the Blanchita, one of
them limping badly. They showed their wounds, and through Achang asked
to be "doctored." Pitts had some skill as a leach, and the
medicine-chest was in his care. He laid out the patient with the wounded
leg, washed the wound, and then applied some sticking-plaster to the
lacerated member, after he had restored the parts to their natural
position. Then he bandaged the leg quite skilfully, so as to keep all
the parts in place. The hands of the other were covered with
sticking-plaster and bandaged.
With the assistance of the seamen, the carcass of the old orang was
dragged down to the river, and put in the sampan of the Malays. The
young one was as ugly as sin itself, and tried to get at the men to bite
them. Finally Clingman stuffed a piece of rope into his mouth, and tied
it around his head so tight that he could not shut his mouth. He was
mad, but he could not bite. He was put into the sampan, and made fast
there.
The yacht got under way again, and with the Malay sampan in tow, headed
down the river. The tide was running out at a mill-stream pace, for the
water in the stream had risen far beyond its usual level. Achang shook
his head as he looked at the rapid outward flow of the water; but the
steamer went at railroad speed, and the boys enjoyed it hugely.
"What is the matter, Achang?" asked the captain, as he observed the
uneasy movements of the Bornean as the yacht approached the junction
with the Sadong.
"Have bore soon; better go no farther," replied the native. "Upset all
boats and sampans."
Captain Scott ordered the helmsman to go to the shore, and there the
painter of the Malay sampan was cast off, and her men got to the land.
"There it goes up the Sadong!" cried Achang, as he pointed to the broad
stream.
A wave, estimated to be about ten feet high, fringing, curling, and
lashed into foam, and roaring in its wrath, rolled up the river. It
struck two small sampans, upset them, and spilled the men in them into
the angry, boiling waters. With less fury it rolled up the Simujan, and
Scott rushed to the wheel himself. He "faced the music," and headed the
yacht into the wave. She rose some feet in the air at the bow, and
passed over it. She was too far from the banks to be thrown ashore, and
no harm was done.
These bores are not uncommon on the Sadong; and they were not a new
thing to those on board of the Blanchita, for they had seen one in the
Hoogly at Calcutta; but even Scott, who was a bold navigator, would not
have cared to be in the river when a wave ten feet high swept on his
craft.