704 THE VOYAGE OP THE VEGA. [chap. 



the alluvial land on Borneo. Farther up the river there com- 

 menced large stretches of a species of palm, which with its 

 somewhat lighter green and its long sheath-formed leaves was 

 sharply distinguished from the rest of the forest. Sometimes 

 the banks on one side were covered with palms only, on the 

 other with fig-trees only. The palm jungles were not so 

 impenetrable as the fig-tree thickets ; the latter preferred the 

 more swampy hollows, while the palms on the other hand grew 

 on the more sanely and less marshy places. Of herbs and 

 underwood there was nowliere any trace. 



" During the river voyage we saw now and then single green- 

 coloured kingfishers flying about, and a honeysucker or two, but 

 they were not nearly so numerous as might have been expected 

 in this purely tropical zone. We saw some apes leaping in pairs 

 among the trees, and Palander succeeded in shooting a male. 

 Alligators from one to one and a half metre in length, frightened 

 by the noise of the propeller, throw themselves suddenly into the 

 water. Small land lizards with web-feet jumped forward with 

 surprising rapidity on the water near tliie banks. This was all 

 we saw of the higher animals. 



" After a run of two hours, durimg which we examined the 

 banks carefully in order to find a landing place, we lay to at the 

 best possible place for seeing what the lower fauna had to offer. 

 It was no easy matter to get to land. The ground was so muddy 

 that w»8 sank to the knees, and could make our way through the 

 wood only by walking on an intermediate layer of palm leaves 

 and fallen branches. The search for evertebrates did not yield 

 very much. A half-score mollusca, among them a very re- 

 markable naked leech of quite the same colour-marking and 

 raggedness as the bark of tree on which it lived, was all that 

 we could find here. It struck me as very peculiar not to find 

 a single insect group represented. The remarkable poverty in 

 animals must be ascribed, I believe, to the complete absence 

 of herbs and underwood. Animal life was as poor as vegetation 

 was luxuriant and various in different places. Over the landscape 

 a peculiar quietness and stillness rested. 



" During our return we visited one of the two Malay villages 

 mentioned above. It consisted of ten different houses, which 

 were built on tall and stout poles out in the water at the mouth 

 of the river, about six to ten metres from the shore. All the 

 houses were built on a common large platform of thick bamboo, 

 which was about a man's height above the water. At right 

 angles to the beach there floated long beams, one end being 

 connected with the land, while the other was anchored close to 

 the platform. From this anchored end a plank rose at a steep 

 angle to the platform. Communication with land was kept up in 

 this way. The houses were nearly all quadrangular, and contained 



