428 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



At noon we came to tlie famous suspension 

 bridge of rattan, of whicli I had been bearing the 

 most frigbtful accounts for the last hundred miles. 

 At once I took off my shoes to avoid slipping, and 

 hastened down the aiiy, oscillating way, without al- 

 lowing myself to look down and become giddy at 

 the fearful depth beneath me. At the middle it 

 rests on the tops of tall trees, which grow u]^ from a 

 small island in the torrent far below. It has been 

 constructed by first stretching across three large rat- 

 tans. On them narrow strips of boards are placed 

 transversely, and fastened at each end by strips of 

 common rattan. Other rattans, starting fi'om the 

 gTound at a little distance back of the bank, pass 

 above the branches of high camphor-trees that grow 

 on the edge of the chasm in which the torrent flows. 

 Descending from these branches in a sharp curve, 

 they rise again steeply at the farther end of the 

 bridge. From these rattans vertical lines are fas- 

 tened to the rattans below them, exactly as in our 

 suspension bridges, and thus all parts are made to 

 aid in supporting the weight. At each bank the 

 bridge is some eight feet wide, but it narrows tow- 

 ard the middle until it is only two feet, where it 

 vibrates the most. I had been directed to go over, 

 if possible, at a hurried walk, and thus break up the 

 oscillating motion, and particularly cautioned against 

 seizing the side of the bridge, lest it might swing to 

 the opposite side and throw me off into the abyss 

 beneath. When I had gone half-way across the first 

 span I foimd that one of the cross-boards, on which I 

 was just in the act of placing my foot, had become 



