Under a group of these trees a large company of Kadyans were encamped, and busily engaged making “Pratchan.” This is a reddish product made of prawns. Some of the men were out in canoes just beyond the shallow reefs catching the tiny fish, while others and the women and girls were preparing them on shore. The fish are jammed up in troughs formed of hollow trunks of trees by beating wooden pestles, and when finished resembles a stiff red paste, which is afterwards packed in circular palm-leaf bags or baskets for the Chinese markets. Some of the fish were being dried by being spread out in the sun on mats. They were bright as burnished silver, and in flavour reminded one of whitebait. The price of the red paste, or prepared “Pratchan,” is about three dollars per picul, and the dried article fetches ten or twelve cents per gantang. Their encampment of yellow palm-leaf mats and bamboo poles formed a pretty rural scene beneath the tall trees which overhung the yellow sands, and the dusky limbs and faces, and the bright-coloured “sarongs” worn by the women of the party, added much to the picturesque view as seen beneath a blue and cloudless sky. I and Mr. A. Cook visited the oil springs, which are situated in a shady glade in the forest two or three miles from the coal-mines. All the evidence of the old borings we saw was an old door and a rude trough, into which the oil-surfaced water rises as it wells up slowly from the rocks below. No use is now made of this oil, except by the Kadyans and other natives, who utilise it now and then in the manufacture of torches. The odour of the oil is distinctly perceptible near the spring, and the oil itself covers the surface of the little stream as it flows seawards. Before the spring was reached we passed through an open clearing of a hundred of acres or more covered with grass, on which a few milch cattle belonging to some of the Kling residents were grazing. We were surprised in one place to come across an old garden, of several acres in extent, containing mango, banana, and other fruit trees, with here and there native huts, houses, and rice-barns all going to decay. A Kadyan, who overtook us just before we entered the forest, told us it was an old village belonging to his tribe, adding that they had abandoned it after their headman had died there. It is by no means unusual to find localities abandoned in this way in Borneo owing to the death of the principal man in the village, and when the rotten old palm-thatched houses have been eaten up by the luxuriant jungle which springs up around, the fruit-trees prosper and serve to mark the localities of former villages long after they themselves have vanished for ever.
MASON WASP.
Here, as elsewhere in warm climates, the mosquito is of all animals the smallest and most troublesome to the weary traveller. Large moths flutter about the ceilings, especially on cold wet nights, and insect life of many kinds is attracted to the lamplight. In every house there is a colony of lively little drab-coloured lizards. They run very nimbly up the sides of the room and on the ceiling, keeping a sharp look-out the while for their supper of moths and flies. The Malays have a proverb, “That even a lizard gives the fly time to pray.” This has been derived from the peculiar manner in which this tiny Saurian “goes for” its quarry. On seeing a fly it darts at it swiftly, but when within an inch or two of it suddenly stops itself and pauses several seconds ere the fatal spring is made and the fly seized. Now and then the lizards lose their hold of the ceiling and come on the table with a “flop,” but this is a rare occurrence. One of the most common and interesting of the domestic insects is the “mason wasp,” a large yellow species which constructs a series of mud cells or a gallery of earth against the woodwork of the verandah or roof. In each cell, as completed, an egg is deposited, and ere closing up the cavity it is stuffed full of green caterpillars, which are then sealed up alive to serve as food for her larva when hatched out. The big black carpenter bees are also often seen examining the woodwork of the house or verandah, and on finding a piece in suitable condition they bore a clean hole into it in which to deposit their eggs. These two insects are highly interesting—a mason and a carpenter—and both do “worke moste excellently well.” Native houses and gardens are dotted pretty freely about the island, and there are some interesting walks. I was enabled to explore the island pretty well, in which work the Hon. Dr. Leys very kindly assisted me by the loan of his favourite horse “Joseph.” This animal was the most gentle and tractable creature imaginable, and admirably accustomed to jungle travelling, since he would go anywhere among trees or bushes, and might be trusted to stand quietly if tied; or he would follow one like a dog if loose. He was of Australian breed, and had his faults too. At the “whisk” of a whip or stick he was inclined to bolt, and once threw me pretty heavily when frightened in that way. Another trick he had was to stop suddenly at any place where he had turned off the road, or had been tied before, and as he would stop short or turn off thus suddenly when at full gallop, the consequences which sometimes resulted from such freaks may be readily imagined. With all his vagaries, however, he was a sleek and loveable creature; and I once saw the little daughter of the Doctor’s Malay syce or groom lift up one of his hind legs when in the stable, at the same time telling her little group of dusky playfellows how very vicious he was (eine kudah jahat—jahat banyiak skali, etu lah!). “Joseph” was the swiftest animal in the island, and rigorously excluded from competing at the races held on the plain by the shore every New Year’s Day. These annual races and sports are much appreciated both by Europeans and natives, and they afford the only general holiday in which both natives and Europeans mingle during the year.
SECTION OF ITS NEST.
The native canoe races in the harbour are a speciality, the Malays and Brunei men being here seen in their native element. The “tug of war” between Malays and Chinese is also an amusing feature, while all are interested in the performance of the ponies and in the European athletic sports. A palm-thatched erection beneath the casuarina trees, near Ramsay Point, does duty as a grand stand and refreshment bar, and from the slight elevation, it affords an excellent view of the dusky but smiling faces and parti-coloured costumes of the natives and Chinese. All the native beauties are present, and glimpses of bright expressive eyes, coal-black hair secured with silver pins, and brilliant sarongs beneath neat cool-looking sacques meet one at every turn. Here and there the sparkle of jewellery and the glitter of bangles meet the eye, and on all sides the lavish display of pearly teeth and the ripple of merry laughter is seen and heard. A dinner at Government House, to which almost all the Europeans in the island, or from the gunboat which may happen to be in harbour, are invited, winds up this gala day of the opening year.
There is a neat little wooden church here on the hill behind Government House, and there is a service once or twice every third year, when the Lord Bishop of Sarawak visits this part of his diocese. From some of the elevated portions of the island beautiful views are obtainable, with the blue mountains of Borneo towering skywards in the distance; and from the verandah of the manager’s house at the coal-mines at the northern end of the island, Kina Balu may be seen quite plainly at sunrise and sunset during clear weather; and although more than a hundred miles away, its topmost crags stand out clear and sharp, and are tinged with the most beautiful tints of purple and gold by the rising or the setting sun.
It was from Labuan that my visits to the Bornean coast and to Sulu were made. Some of these adventurous wanderings were pleasant, others the reverse. The following is a short account of a boat journey made by myself and Mr. Peter Veitch, its object being to obtain pitcher plants (Nepenthes bicalcarata), Burbidgea nitida, Pinanga Veitchii, Cypripedium Lawrenceanum, and other beautiful fine-foliaged plants and orchids:—
“Towards the noon of a hot day in January 1878—a day hot even for the tropics—two Veitchian travellers in North-western Borneo, with their native contingent of guides, boatmen, and carriers, were descending one of the most lovely of all the rivers in the island. The water was clear and smooth—so clear and so smooth that the great nipa leaves, which arched gracefully out from the banks and laved their ends in the stream, were reflected in the water as clearly as if in a mirror. The boatmen were in good spirits, for there was but little work for their paddles, so they chewed their betel-nut and limed pepper leaves contentedly, or rolled up a little tobacco, cigarette-like, in wrappers made of the young leaves of Nipa fruticans, and smoked in a silence only broken by low laughter and sentences murmured in the most musical of tongues. The river banks were clothed with forest trees, as also was the rising ground behind, and where the river was shallow mangrove trees, thickly interlaced, took the place of the big fruited nipa. On the lower trees near the fringe of the forest cœlogynes, dendrobes, bolbophyllums, and other orchids—not often beautiful as that word is too often understood—clothed the branches; the tiny Davallia parvula, D. heterophylla, and D. pedata—all modest little species of ferns—were also seen on tree trunks or on rocks, and on the outer branches far overhead Platycerium biforme made itself a home, its fertile fronds drooping four or five feet below the cluster of barren ones. For company, but never at so great a height, varieties of Neottopteris nidus avis, or an allied species, were seen forming nests of glossy broadly strap-shaped fronds often of great length. Of palms the ‘Nebong’ (Oncosperma filamentosum) and the unique red-stemmed ‘Malawarin’ (which long defied Eastern collectors who wished to introduce it to Europe) were most beautiful. The former produces an excellent ‘cabbage,’ as good as seakale when well cooked, and its old stems are generally employed as piles by the Malays, who almost always erect their palm-thatched ‘atap’ houses over the water of river or sea.