The Mias District. 69 



the lower part of the Saclong valley it abounds ; but as soon 

 as we ascend above the limits of the tides, where the country, 

 though still flat, is high enough to be dry, it disappears. 

 Now the Sarawak valley has this peculiarity : the lower 

 portion, though swampy, is not covered with continuous 

 lofty forest, but is principally occupied by the Nypa j^alm ; 

 and near the town of Sarawak, Avhere the country becomes 

 dry, it is greatly undulated in many parts, and covered with 

 small patches of virgin forest, and much second-growth jun- 

 gle on ground which has once been cultivated by the Malays 

 or Dyaks. 



Now it seems to me probable that a wide extent of un- 

 broken and equally lofty virgin forests is necessary to the 

 comfortable existence of these animals. Such forests form 

 their open country, where they can roam in every direction 

 with as much facility as the Indian on the pi-airie, or the Arab 

 on the desert ; passing from tree-top to tree-top without ever 

 being obliged to descend upon the earth. The elevated and 

 the drier districts are more frequented by man, more cut up 

 by clearings and low second-growth jungle not adapted to 

 its peculiar modes of progression, and where it would there- 

 fore be more exposed to danger, and more frequently obliged 

 to descend upon the earth. There is probably also a greater 

 variety of fruit in the mias district, the small mountains, 

 which rise like islands out of it, serving as a sort of gardens 

 or plantations, where the trees of the uplands are to be found 

 in the very midst of the swampy plains. 



It is a singular and very interesting sight to watch a mias 

 making his way leisurely through the forest. He walks 

 deliberately along some of the larger branches, in the semi- 

 erect attitude which the great length of his arms and the 

 shortness of his legs cause him naturally to assume ; and the 

 disproportion between these limbs is increased by his walk- 

 ing on his knuckles, not on the palm of the hand, as we should 

 do. He seems always to choose those branches which inter- 

 mingle with an adjoining tree, on approaching which he 

 stretches out his long arms, and, seizing the opposing boughs, 

 grasps them together with both hands, seems to try their 

 strength, and then deliberately swings himself across to the 

 next branch, on which he walks along as before. He never 



