196 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Borneo Company on the opposite bank, contrasts strongly with the 

 typical Chinese architecture of the rest of the city. 



The population is about equally made up of Chinese and Malays, 

 the latter occupying a special quarter on the outskirts of the town. A 

 small number of Tamils from southern India and an occasional Sikh 

 from the northern Indian provinces add variety to a decidedly varie- 

 gated population. The Chinese women often adopt the gay Malay dress 

 and may easily be mistaken for Malays. The latter are fond of bright 

 colors, and a bevy of native women in their gay sarongs and delicately 

 tinted jackets would be hard to beat as a color study. In Sarawak 

 especially they also affect veils of various bright tints which they drape 

 about their head and shoulders with all the grace of a Spanish woman's 

 mantilla. Indeed, the artist in search of novel and striking color studies 

 could not do better than to pitch his easel in Kuching. 



The steamy hothouse atmosphere of Sarawak is of the true equa- 

 torial type. Kuching, lying within a degree of the equator, has a uni- 

 formly hot and himiid climate, under whose forcing influence the veg- 

 etation attains a luxuriance which few places, even in equatorial lands, 

 can equal. All the commoner forms of tropical vegetation abound. 

 Palms, bamboos, bananas, orchids and the other plants familiar to those 

 who know the tropics grow everywhere, and the gardens in Kuching 

 exhibit a wonderful profusion of rare and beautiful trees and shrubs. 

 Moreover, the stems of the palms and the trunks and branches of the 

 other trees are laden with ferns, orchids and other epiphytes in bewild- 

 ering profusion, while creepers with brilliant flowers of every hue are 

 draped over the fences and clamber up the trees. 



In the immediate vicinity of Kuching the original forest has mostly 

 disappeared ; but in many places the second growth of trees is of good 

 size, and there is a dense undergrowth composed of a great variety of 

 shrubs and herbaceous plants. 



One does not have to go far, however, to see samples of the primitive 

 forest, which is very difficult to explore, as the ground is usually a 

 swamp, or else is covered with an impenetrable thicket. 



Ferns are abundant, both epiphytic and terrestrial species. Among 

 the most characteristic are species of Gleichenia forming dense thickets, 

 and some very beautiful climbing ferns of the genus Lygodium. 



Pitcher plants (Nepenthes) are extremely common, as they seem to 

 be everywhere in Borneo. 



Among the showy flowers noted about Kuching were various Acan- 

 thacese and Melastomacese, and perhaps the most striking plant is 

 Wormia pulcliella, a shrub belonging to the Dilleniacege. It is a common 

 plant of the Malayan region, and its big golden yellow flowers and hand- 

 some foliage make it extremely ornamental. Sometimes a bright scarlet 

 ^scliynanthus was seen, climbing up the trunk of a tree, but this was 

 not very common. 



