88 Borneo. 



mat over them an excellent bed, the elasticity of the bamboo 

 and its rounded surface being far superior to a more rigid 

 and a flatter floor. Here we at once find a use for bamboo 

 which can not be supplied so well by another material with- 

 out a vast amount of labor, palms and other substitutes re- 

 quiring much cutting and smoothing, and not being equally 

 good when finished. When, however, a flat, close floor is re- 

 quired, excellent boards are made by splitting open large 

 bamboos on one side only, and flattening them out so as to 

 form slabs eighteen inches wide and six feet long, with which 

 some Dyaks floor their houses. These with constant rubbing 

 of the feet and the smoke of years become dark and polished, 

 like walnut or old oak, so that their real material can hardly 

 be recognized. What labor is hei-e saved to a savage whose 

 only tools ai"e an axe and a knife, and who, if he wants boards, 

 must hew them out of the solid trunk of a ti-ee, and must give 

 days and weeks of labor to obtain a surface as smooth and 

 beautiful as the bamboo thus treated aflbrds him. Again, if 

 a temporary house is wanted, either by the native in his plan- 

 tation or by the traveller in the forest, nothing is so conven- 

 ient as the bamboo, with which a house can be constructed 

 with a quarter of the labor and time than if other materials 

 are used. 



As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the interi- 

 or of Sarawak make paths for long distances from village to 

 village and to their cultivated grounds, in the course of which 

 they have to cross many guUeys and ravines, and even rivers, 

 or sometimes, to avoid a long circuit, to carry the path along 

 the face of a precipice. In all these cases the bridges they 

 construct are of bamboo, and so admirably adapted is the 

 material for this purpose that it seems doubtful whether they 

 ever would have attempted such works if they had not pos- 

 sessed it. The Dyak bridge is simple but well designed. It 

 consists merely of stout bamboos crossing each other at the 

 roadway like the letter X, and rising a few feet above it. At 

 the crossing they are firmly bound together, and to a large 

 bamboo which lays upon them and forms the only pathway, 

 with a slender and often very shaky one to serve as a hand- 

 rail. When a river is to be crossed, an overhanging tree is 

 chosen, from which the bridge is partly susj^ended and part- 



