154 THE TROTTING RHINO 



Such are the sole materials of which most Malay 

 houses are inexpensively and durably constructed. 

 One kind of attap lasts only three or four years, 

 but there is another good for ten, and a kind of 

 palm is frequently used which has a stalk of two 

 or three feet in height and a leaf from six to ten 

 feet in length, and three to four feet wide at its 

 broadest. All of it is to be had everywhere for the 

 cutting. Often I have seen native huts made 

 almost entirely of three or four of these leaves, 

 and they are very largely used by the Sakais and 

 the Semangs, who, living on the south and north 

 of the Perak River, respectively, are all that re- 

 main of the aborigines of the Malay Peninsula. 

 One tree in the jungle of unfailing interest to me 

 had its but standing high above the ground, some- 

 times as much as six feet, more frequently half 

 that, supported by its roots, which formed a kind 

 of fantastic pedestal before touching the earth, 

 where they stretched in all directions over and into 

 the surrounding soil. It was as though a giant 

 hand had pulled up the tree and stood it upon its 

 roots; at times the roots near the tree base grew 

 into great flat buttresses. A very doleful sound 

 in this hill country was the monotonous cry of a 

 bird, called, at Singapore, the night jar, which 

 began at dusk and lasted almost without cessation 

 until dawn, when the insect buzz opened. The 



