Wanderings among South Sea Savages and in Borneo and the Philippines

by H. Wilfrid Walker

We at length came to the entrance of a long chain of eaves, through which we passed, going down a very steep grade, and our guides had to carry lights. After a climb down some steep rocks in semi-darkness, we at length found ourselves in the largest cave of all, supposed to be about five hundred and sixty feet in height.[1] It, too, had two or three natural windows, through which the light penetrated. One of them was on the top, in the very centre of the cave, and from down below it looked like a distant star. This opening was on the very summit of the Gomanton rock. This cave greatly resembled the smaller one I have already described, except that it was of much grander dimensions. As in the first cave, one could hear the roar of an underground torrent, and the swallows seemed even more numerous. On the rocky walls I noticed plenty of large spiders and a curious insect, with a long body and long, thin legs, which ran very fast, and whose bite we were told was very poisonous.

On the way back, when passing through some very low caves, the Hadji got some of his men to knock down for me a few of the white nests from the sides of the cave with long poles, and in another cave they got me some black nests. The difference between these white and black nests is this: they are made by two different kinds of swallows. The white nest is made by a very small bird, but the bird that builds the black nest is twice the size of the other. The white nest looks something like pure white gelatine, and is very clean, and has no feathers in it. The black nest, on the contrary, is plentifully coated with feathers, and it is, in consequence, not worth nearly as much as the white nest. The nests are made from the saliva of the birds. Both are very plain coloured birds; an ordinary swallow is brilliant in comparison. This is unusual in a country so full of brilliant-plumaged birds as Borneo is; but, as they spend most of their lives in the depths of these sombre caves, I suppose it is only natural that their plumage should be obscure and plain. These birds’-nest caves are found all over Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, and also in Java and other parts of the Malay archipelago, but these are by far the largest. The revenue from these caves alone brings the Government a very large sum. By far the greatest number of these nests are sent to China, where birds’-nest soup is an expensive luxury. The natives of Borneo do not eat them. For myself, I found the soup rather tasteless.

We were told that if they missed one season’s nest collecting, most of the birds would forsake these caves, possibly because there would be so little room for them to build again. I learned that they build and lay four times a year, but I think that they meant that both the black and the white-nest birds lay twice each. The white kind build their first nests about March, and the black kind in May, and, as these nests are all collected before they have time to hatch their eggs, there are no young birds till later in the year, when the nests are not disturbed, but the old nests are collected with the new ones the following year. If the guano could be easily transported to the coast it would be a paying proposition, but the Government fears that it might frighten the birds away.

About dusk that evening after we had returned to our hut, I heard a noise like the whistling of the wind, and, going outside, I saw a truly wonderful sight, in fact a sight that filled me with amazement. The millions of small bats which share these caves with the birds were issuing forth for the night from the small hole I spoke about on the very top of the rock leading into the large cave, but what a sight it was! As far as the eye could see they stretched in one even unbroken column across the sky. They issued from the cave in a compact mass and preserved the same even formation till they disappeared in the far distance. As far as I could see there were no stragglers. They rather resembled a thick line of smoke coming out of the funnel of a steamer, with this exception that they kept the same thick line till they went out of sight. The most curious thing about it was that the thick line twisted and wriggled across the sky for all the world like a giant snake, as if it were blown about by gusts of wind, of which, however, there was none. Even with these strange manœuvres the bats kept the same unbroken solid formation. They were still coming forth in the same manner till darkness set in, and then I could only hear the beating of myriads of wings like the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops.

They return in early morning in much the same fashion. I heard that the swallows usually did the same thing, only the other way about; when the bats came out, the swallows entered the eaves, and when the bats went in, the swallows came out, but it being now their nesting season, they went in and out of the eaves irregularly all day, but I was quite satisfied to see the bats go through the performance, as it was one of the most wonderful sights I have ever seen.

We had been told that it would be three or four more days before the collecting would take place, and also that they had to wait for a good omen in the shape of a good dream coming to one of the chief owners of the caves. Our pleasure was great, therefore, when the Hadji and some of his followers paid us a visit that night and told us that work should start in the largest cave the next morning for our benefit. That was good news, indeed, as Richardson could not wait more than another day. It was another good move for the Hadji and his Panglima-ship, and I told Richardson he ought to give it him forthwith.

The next morning we climbed to the top of the rock. It was hard work climbing over the brittle rocks and up perpendicular and shaky ladders. On reaching the summit we got a splendid view of the surrounding country, and could plainly see the distant sea; but all else was thick, billowy forest, dotted at long intervals with limestone ridges, also covered with forest. Here we found the hole on the top of the large cave, and stretching across it were two long, thick “bilian” logs, to which the natives were now fastening their long rattan ladders before descending them to collect the nests. We crept along the logs and listened to the everlasting twittering far below; but, although we could see nothing but pitchy darkness, the thought of what was below made me soon crawl back with a very shaky feeling in my legs.

We then descended again till we came to the mouth of a curious cave, which was practically a dark chasm at our feet. We climbed down into the depths on a straight, swaying ladder, which required a good grip, and then, after a climb over slanting, slippery rocks, we found ourselves in the large cave, on a sort of ledge, within perhaps sixty feet of the roof. We were told that we were the first Europeans who had ever descended on to this ledge. From here we watched the natives collecting the nests. In a short account of this description it is impossible for me to detail all the wonderful methods the natives had for collecting the nests, but the chief method was by descending rattan ladders, which were let down through the hole on the top of the cave. It made one quite giddy even to watch the men descending these frail swaying ladders with over five hundred feet of space below them. The man on the nearest ladder had a long rattan rope attached low down to his ladder, with a kind of wooden anchor at the end of it. At the second attempt he succeeded with a wonderful throw in getting the anchor to stick in the soft guano on the edge of the slanting ledge where we were. It was then seized by several men waiting there; by these it was hauled up until they were enabled to catch hold of the end of the ladder, which they dragged higher and higher up the steep, slanting rocks we had come down by. This in time brought the flexible ladder, at least the part on which the man was, level with the roof, and he, lying on his back on the thin ladder, pulled the nests off the rocky roof, putting them into a large rattan basket fastened about his body.

We saw many other methods they have of collecting these nests by the aid of long bamboo poles and rattan ropes, up which they climbed to dizzy heights.

These eaves, we were told, were full of very large harmless snakes, but we did not come across them. If I had had a good head and plenty of skill and pluck as a climber, I might have come away a wealthy man, as the Hadji told us that in a sort of side cave high up in the large cave were the coffins of the men that first discovered these caves, and with them were large jars of gold and jewels, but no one dared touch them, as they said it would be certain death to the man who did so. A man once did take some, but a few days later was taken violently ill and so had them put back and thus recovered. It was not for any scruples of this kind that I declined the Hadji’s offer to help myself when he pointed out to me the spot where they were, but I think he must have guessed that I would not have trusted myself on one of those frail swaying ladders with over five hundred feet of space beneath me.