In little Lake Mohrya, located near the upper Lualaba River, a southern headstream of the Congo, Cameron found numerous pile dwellings, whose owners moved about in dug-out canoes and cultivated fields on land,[586] as did their Swiss confrères of twenty centuries ago. Livingstone, in descending from Lake Nyassa by the Shire River, found in the lakelet of Pamalombe, into which the stream widened, similar water huts inhabited by a number of Manganja families, who had been driven from their homes by slave raiders. The slender reeds of the papyrus thicket, lining the shore in a broad band, served as piles, number compensating for the lack of strength; the reeds, bent downward and fastened together into a mat, did indeed support their light dwellings, but heaved like thin ice when the savages moved from hut to hut. The dense forest of papyrus left standing between village and shore effectually screened their retreat, and the abundant fish in the lake provided them with food.[587]
Malayan pile dwellings.
In the vast island world of Indonesia, where constant contact with the sea has bred the amphibian Malay race, we are not surprised to find that the typical Malay house is built on piles above the water; and that when the coast Malay is driven inland by new-comers of his own stock and forced to abandon his favorite occupations of trade, piracy and fishing, he takes to agriculture but still retains his sea-born architecture and raises his hut on poles above the ground, beyond the reach of an enemy's spear-thrust. The Moro Samal Laut of the southern Sulu Archipelago avoid the large volcanic islands of the group, and place their big villages over the sea on low coral reefs. The sandy beaches of the shore hold their coco-palms, whose nuts by their milk eke out the scanty supply of drinking water, and whose fronds shade the tombs of the dead.[588] The sea-faring Malays of the Sunda Islands, in thickly populated points of the coast, often dwell in permanently inhabited rafts moored near the pile dwellings. Palembang on the lower swampy course of the River Musi has a floating suburb of this sort. It is called the "Venice of Sumatra," just as Banjarmasin, a vast complex of pile and raft dwellings, is called the "Venice of Borneo," and Brunei to the north is the "Venice of the East."[589] Both these towns are the chief commercial centers of their respective islands. The little town of Kilwaru, situated on a sandbank off the eastern end of Ceram, seems to float on the sea, so completely has it surrounded and enveloped with pile-built houses the few acres of dry land which form its nucleus. It is a place of busy traffic, the emporium for commerce between the Malay Archipelago and New Guinea.[590]
In Melanesia.
Farther east in Melanesia, whose coast regions are more or less permeated by Malayan stock and influences, pile dwellings, both over water and on land form a characteristic feature of the scenery. The village of Sowek in Geelvink Bay, on the northern coast of Dutch New Guinea, consists of thirty houses raised on piles above the water, connected with each other by tree trunks but having only boat connection with the shore. Similar villages are found hovering over the lapping waves of Humboldt Bay, all of them recalling with surprising fidelity the prehistoric lake-dwellings of Switzerland.[591] The Papuan part of Port Moresby, on the southern coast of British New Guinea, covers the whole water-front of the town with pile dwellings. In the vicinity are similar native pile villages, such as Tanobada, Hanuabada, Elevara and Hula, the latter consisting of pile dwellings scattered about over the water in a circuit of several miles and containing about a thousand inhabitants. Here, too, the motive is protection against the attacks of inland mountain tribes, with whom the coast people are in constant war.[592]
The Malay fisherman, trader and pirate, with the love of the sea in his blood, by these pile dwellings combines security from his foe and proximity to his familiar field of activity. The same objects are achieved by white traders on the west coast of Africa by setting up their dwellings and warehouses on the old hulks of dismasted vessels, which are anchored for this purpose in the river mouths. They afford some protection against both fever and hostile native, and at the same time occupy the natural focus of local trade seeking foreign exchanges.
River dwellers in populous lands.