August 25th.—We finished rigging up our boat this morning, and stowed all our plants and stores on board before breakfast. Four of my men, including “Suong,” who had been very useful to me, agreed to stay at this place as policemen under Mr. Pretyman. To oblige him I allowed them to do this. About 1 p.m. we stalled down the river, a much easier thing than pulling the other way. We reached the mouth in about an hour, but could not get over the bar, as there was not a foot of water on the bar; indeed we saw two native fishermen carry their little canoes over. We had to wait until 10 o’clock at night, when we got over and out to sea with a favourable breeze, but we did not reach Labuan until August 30th, since we had contrary winds, and altogether a very rough passage.
Thus ended our journey for the second time to “Kina Balu,” which occupied in all thirty-one days from Labuan, of which thirteen were occupied in the sea voyage from Labuan to the Tampassuk and back; from Tampassuk to Kiau and back thirteen; and from Kiau to the mountain and back five days. Our last journey, viz., the Tawaran from Gaya and Menkabong, occupied in all twenty-three days, but as we happened to start just at the commencement of the dry season, we avoided the dangers and difficulties of fording rapid streams. In the dry season the Tampassuk route could be accomplished in five days, and the ground is much more level than that along the Tawaran route, which is both hilly and fatiguing, the track being almost impassable for buffaloes. The difference in the time occupied by the two routes is in part accounted for in this way. Thus when I and Mr. Veitch went by the Tawaran we saved four or five days in going by chartering a passage for ourselves by a trading steamer which landed us at Gaya Bay the next morning after leaving Labuan. On our reaching Labuan, poor Smith, who had been ill in the boat for two or three days, had to go to the hospital with a very bad attack of fever, doubtless contracted during our walk from Ghinambaur to the Tampassuk. He fortunately recovered in a week’s time, but evidently had felt the effects of a difficult mountain journey. All our friends in Labuan were glad to see us back again, and the mails from home which had arrived during my absence were of the most cheering kind. Notwithstanding our rough passage I found my plants and seeds in good condition, and I am glad to know that the practical results of this journey were more encouraging than I had expected, and many of the plants and seeds obtained ultimately reached Chelsea alive. Having at this time been over a year in Borneo, I had learned a good deal of the language, and had also found much to admire in the Malays and aboriginals, so that I felt in a way loath to leave a land which had been fraught with so many novelties and adventures to me.
CHAPTER XV.
TROPICAL FRUITS.
Tropical fruits: culture of—Natural fruit orchards—The Durian—A macédoine of fruits—The Mangosteen—“Prada Prada”—Mango—The Rambutan or “hairy fruit”—Bread fruit—Jack-fruit, or “Nangka”—“Champada”—Jintawan, or Manoongan fruits (Willughbeia spp.)—Tampoe fruit—Red “Bilimbing”—“Mandaroit”—“Rambeneer”—“Mambangan”—“Luing”—“Langsat” or “Duku”—“Rambi”—“Mangalin”—“Jambosa,” or “Rose-apples”—Melons—Oranges—Pomoloes—Custard apples—Cocoanut—Wild onion fruit—Banana, or “Pisang” fruit.
The forests and gardens of Borneo are remarkably rich in native and naturalised kinds of edible fruits, and the forests especially may be considered as the home of the mangosteen, durian, tarippe or trap-fruit, langsat, rambutan, and jintawan, all excellent, indeed unapproachable, in their way, but if one would enjoy them a journey to the East is unfortunately necessary. They are somewhat like our own luscious jargonelle pears or green gage plums, and must in a sense be “eaten off the tree.” The mango, one of the finest and most variable of Eastern fruits, has been successfully cultivated in the West Indian Islands, St. Michael’s, and Madeira, and has fruited out-of-doors at Lisbon, but those we have named above have hitherto resisted culture outside their own restricted habitats, if we except the solitary instance in which the mangosteen fruited in one of the hothouses at Sion House some years ago, and the trees introduced to the island of Ceylon, which have succeeded fairly well. Another extremely useful and variable fruit, the banana, is quite commonly ripened in our gardens, and with the pine-apple these may be accounted the only tropical fruits which lend themselves to anything approaching a regular system of successful culture in our hothouses at home. Our ordinary cultivated fruits are naturally found in temperate or inter-tropical countries—Europe or the cooler parts of Asia principally; and of all those cultivated in the open air of Southern Europe, such as the vine, fig, and orange, the latter is the only one which can be induced to prosper in the tropical lowlands of the far East, where its evergreen character enables it to hold its own while its deciduous neighbours seem to fail through over-excitement, the loss of their customary winter’s sleep.
On the other hand the pine-apple of South America, the mango of India, and the delicious little Chinese or mandarin orange, here luxuriate in the open air, the mango yielding two crops in twelve months, while fruit of the others may be obtained all the year round. In some favoured districts in Malaya the forests almost become orchards on a large scale, so plentifully are they stocked with durian, baloona, mambangan, varieties of tampoe, luing, and other native fruits, in addition to those already named; and in many places the pine-apple is so abundantly naturalised as an escape from cultivation that one might almost be led to imagine it indigenous did we not know that, together with the white guava, the papaw, and cashew-nut—a trio forming the “weeds” among tropical fruits—it is a native of the western tropics. So abundant are the crops in some seasons that one cannot help regretting their perishable nature, by reason of which their shipment to Europe in a fresh state is prevented; and as to their preservation in the form of candied confections or “jam” no one seems to have taken up the matter. Fancy a conserve of snowy mangosteen pulp, preserved mangoes, candied rambutan, or banana marmalade. The late Dr. Lindley once said, in his usual incisive way, that “most tropical fruits were edible,” but that “very few were worth eating;” but then the probability is he had never tasted a mango or a mangosteen, a tarippe fruit, or the deliciously rich apricot-like pulp which surrounds the seeds of the caoutchouc-yielding willughbeias, and certainly not a durian.
The mangoes, oranges, bananas, pomoloes, and pine-apples are all cultivated fruits in the East, just as are our best gooseberries, strawberries, apples, pears, and grapes at home; but on the other hand we have no wild fruits which can in any way be compared with the durian, jintawan, langsat, trap, tampoe, mangosteen, and rambutan, all of which are more truly wild in the Malay islands than are the so-called wild cherries, gooseberries, currants, and raspberries of our woods. It is to the tropics one must go for a drink of fresh cocoanut milk—a taste of the fascinating durian, for a luscious mango, or the delicious mangosteen; and while in the matter of flowers our cultivators at home certainly have the advantage, in the case of fruits this much can scarcely be said.
The regal durian (Durio zibethinus), like the finest of nectarines or melting pears, must be eaten fresh and just at one particular point of ripeness, and then it is, as many think, a fruit fit for a king. So highly is this vegetable-custard valued that as much as a dollar each is not unfrequently paid for fine specimens of the first fruits of the durian crop brought into the Eastern markets. It is a universal favourite both with Malays and Chinese, but the opinions of Europeans vary as to the merits of this “delectable epitome of all that is perfect in fruit food.” It is a paradox, “the best of fruits with the worst of characters,” and, as the Malays say, you may enjoy the durian, but you should never speak of it outside your own dwelling. Its odour—one scarcely feels justified in using the word “perfume”—is so potent, so vague, but withal so insinuating, that it can scarcely be tolerated inside the house. Indeed Nature here seems to have gone a little aside to disgust us with a fruit which is perhaps of all others the most fascinating to the palate, when once one has “broken the ice,” as represented by the foul odour at first presented to that most critical of all organs of sense, the nose. As a matter of course, it is never brought to table in the usual way, and yet the chances are that whoever is lucky enough to taste a good fruit of it to begin with, soon develops into a surreptitious durian eater; just as a jungle tiger becomes a “man-eater” after its first taste of human blood.