284 DYAK FORTIFICATIONS. 



in the same manner as the ordinary trees of the 

 jungle. The fruit seasons are, however, very pre- 

 carious, from the inattention with which the owners 

 regard their trees. The brushwood is allowed to grow 

 beneath them, and parasites and Epiphytes, both 

 injurious, but the former particularly so, as they sap 

 the fluids of the tree which supports them, are allowed 

 frequently to cover the branches. 



It is proved in the gardens of Europeans, in the 

 Straits of Malacca, that all the fruits of the Archipelago 

 will produce regularly, with ordinary care and culture, 

 a large and a small crop annually ; but here the trees 

 bear three, and sometimes four crops, in immediate 

 succession and in the greatest profusion, and are then 

 barren for two or three years, appearing to have 

 exhausted themselves in their unnatural efforts, so that 

 were it not for a few trees which are always unproductive 

 when the others bear, and vice versd, the Dyaks 

 would frequently be without fruit for many seasons in 

 succession. 



Near the houses are always planted the cocoa-nut 

 and betel-nut trees of the tribe; but so far inland, 

 and at any considerable elevation, they are long before 

 they come to a fruit-bearing state ; and then their 

 productions are small, and not to be compared to 

 those grown in the vicinity of the sea. They add, 

 however, much to the beautiful appearance of the 

 Dyak villages, over the houses of which they hang 

 above the surrounding fruit-trees, from the branches 

 of which their ripe productions may often be gathered 

 by merely reaching out of the skylight-shaped windows, 



