CO TIMBER TREES IN BORNEO. 



and house-building, being easily worked and very 

 durable. 



' Mencabang pinang ' is one of the trees which produce 

 the vegetable tallow ; it is plentiful in the forests, but 

 would be more profitable for its fruit (which is of the 

 small kind, and produces good oil) than its timber, 

 though for this it is also held in high esteem. The 

 wood is close-grained, hard, of a reddish colour, easily 

 worked, and very durable. This tree differs from the 

 others which produce the vegetable oil, in growing to 

 a much greater height. The timber of the Kapur 

 barus, or true camphor tree, is also highly esteemed : 

 excepting when charged with the valuable drug, it does 

 not emit the camphor smell, as does the timber of the 

 Lauras camphora, of which the Chinese manufacture 

 trunks and boxes, which, from the odour emitted by 

 the wood, preserve whatever is put into them, from the 

 attacks of insects of all kinds, particularly of the small 

 ants, which are so troublesome in hot countries. 



The 'neri' is a very hard wood, growing with the man- 

 grove in salt swamps ; its timber, which has a reddish 

 appearance, is not large but very abundant. The ' jelu- 

 tong ' is a larger growing tree with verticillate leaves, 

 and a bark which, on being wounded, emits plenti- 

 fully a white milk, which is inspissated by boiling, 

 but has not yet been discovered to be of any use. The 

 timber it produces, though large, is not esteemed by 

 the natives, on account of its early decay when exposed 

 to the rain and sun : it is white, and, being very soft, 

 easily worked ; and it is much used by the poorer 

 Malays for the sides of their houses, which are pro- 



