Wanderings among South Sea Savages and in Borneo and the Philippines

by H. Wilfrid Walker

While here, Richardson and I determined to visit the wonderful Gomanton birds’-nest caves, from which great quantities of edible birds’ nests are annually taken. Very few Europeans had ever visited them, though they are considered among the wonders of the world.

We left Batu Puteh in Richardson’s canoe early one morning, and, although we had a strong stream with us going down, we did not reach Bilit till evening. Bilit is a large village made up of Malays, Orang Sungei, and Sulus. Quite a crowd met us on our arrival, and they seemed not a little excited. It appeared that their late Panglima (chief), who was also a Hadji, had been on a second voyage to Mecca, and they had just heard that he had died on his way back. “That was quite right,” they said; “his time had come, and, besides, it had been foretold that he would die if he tried to go to Mecca again.”

Two men were most anxious to gain favour with Richardson—viz., the dead man’s son and another Hadji, who was the richest man in Bilit, and who had a large share in the Gomanton caves. The reason was that Richardson had the power to appoint whom he liked as the new Panglima, provided, of course, that the man was of some standing and fairly popular. Richardson sent for one of the most influential men in the village to come and talk the matter over, but he lived on the other side of the river, and, it being late, they said he dared not cross in his small “gobang,” as the crocodiles are very bad indeed here, and at night they often help themselves to a man out of his canoe. We went to the late Panglima’s house and had a chat, but nothing was said about the new Panglima. I caught sight of one of the widows swathed in white, going through all sorts of contortions by way of mourning for her late husband. We found that the people were going to the caves in two or three days to collect the black nests. The white nests had been collected earlier in the year, but the influential Hadji “who would be king” offered to go with us on the morrow and start work earlier than he at first intended if his dreams were favourable, and thus we should be able to see them at work collecting the nests. Here was luck both for ourselves and the Hadji: it meant a step in his hopes of the much-desired Panglima-ship by thus gaining favour with the magistrate over his younger rival. He was a tall, haughty-looking man, with an orange-coloured turban, worn only by Hadjis, and the people seemed to stand in great awe of him and addressed him as “Tuan” or “Tuan Hadji,” the word “Tuan” being usually used only when addressing Europeans like ourselves; still, his house in which we spent the night was little better than a pigsty, although he was a very wealthy man.

The next morning we were off before sunrise. After leaving the village we had a walk of about an hour and a half over a very steep hill through luxuriant, tall forest, and on the other side came to a small river, the Menungal, on the banks of which was a shed full of “gobangs” (canoes) which were speedily launched, we both getting into the leading one. We were followed by three others, in one of which was the Hadji. Most of the way was through fine forest, the trees arching overhead to shade us from the hot sun, the only exception being when we passed through a stretch of swamps, with low, tangled growth, when the river broadened out, but in the shady forest it was delightful, gliding along to the music of the even dip of the paddles.

The most striking feature about the forest on this Menungal River was the extraordinary growth of a species of banyan trees (Ficus sp.). I have seen many curious stilted trees of this Ficus family in various tropical countries I have visited, but these I think were more curious than any I had ever seen. One hardly knew where they began and where they ended, for they all seemed joined together, and roots and branches seemed one and the same thing. It was the acme of vegetable confusion. Even the river could not stop their progress, and we were constantly gliding between their roots and branches. The growth of ferns, orchids and parasites on the branches and roots of these trees was luxuriant to a degree and formed veritable hanging gardens.

On these Bornean rivers one is constantly seeing pigs, crocodiles and monkeys, but I noticed on this river an abundance of a monkey which one seldom sees on the large Kinabatangan River. I refer to the very curious proboscis or long-nosed monkey (Nasalis larvatus). These animals often sat still overhead and stared down at us in the most contemptuous and indifferent manner, and they looked so human and yet so comical with their enormous red noses that I found myself laughing aloud, our scullers doing the same, till the monkeys actually grinned with indignation. They axe large monkeys with long tails, and are beautifully marked with various shades of grey and brown, and their large, fleshy, red noses give them an extraordinary appearance.

One of them did a performance that astonished me. We saw a group of them on a branch over the river about forty yards ahead of us, when one of them jumped into the middle of the river and coolly swam to a hanging creeper up which it climbed, none the worse for its voluntary bath. This was the only time that I had ever seen a monkey swim, but the natives assured me that these monkeys are very good swimmers. It struck me as being a very risky performance, as this river was full of crocodiles.

I saw on this river a wonderful orchid growing on large trees. This was a Grammatophyllum with bulbs some times over eight feet in length. The length of the name is certainly suitable for so large an orchid. I saw plenty of water-birds, including white egrets and a long-necked diver which is called the “snake-bird,” owing to its long neck projecting lout of the water and thus greatly resembling a snake. I shot several of each kind of bird, plucking the fine plumes from the backs of the egrets. We ate some of the divers that evening and found them first-class food, tasting much like goose. We later in the day disturbed a whole colony of these water-birds feeding on the carcase of a large stag in the river, and the smell was very strong for some distance. I did not attempt to shoot any more mock geese till we had put a good many miles between ourselves and the dead stag. We passed several canoes slowly wending their way to the eaves, the people taking it easy and camping on the banks and fishing. They dried the fish on the roofs of their thatched canoes. Some of these people had very curious rattan pyramid-shaped hats gaily ornamented with strips of bright-coloured cloth.

Toward evening the river got exceedingly narrow, and fallen trees obstructed our way, so that we had sometimes to lie flat on our backs to pass under them, and at other times we had to get out while our canoe was hauled over the mud at the side.

Just before we reached our destination for the night, we came to a spot where the bank was hung with bits of coloured cloth and calico fastened to sticks, I also noticed some bananas and dried fish tied to the sticks. This signified that there was a native burial ground close by, and all the canoes were stopped, the scullers putting their paddles down, while the Hadji and all his men proceeded to wash their faces in the river. This they did to ensure success in their nest-collecting.