AN EXPEDITION TO PENRISEN 257 



Bamboo is the only forest-tree in the tropics which 

 I have observed to grow profusely in a circumscribed 

 area. There is nothing in the tropics to correspond 

 with the oak-, beech-, or pine-forests of more temperate 

 zones. The jungle is a gigantic and bewildering chaos 

 of scores upon scores of different species of trees, most 

 of them swathed in a luxuriant tangle of creepers and 

 parasitic growths all struggling up to the life-giving 

 sunlight ; it is a paradise for the botanist, but I believe 

 that on the whole finer effects of scenery are pro- 

 duced by great numbers of one or two kinds of tree 

 than by an inextricable confusion of varied plant-life. 



The bamboo-forest passed, we came into secondary 

 jungle, and from this entered the primeval forest of 

 the mountain. The slope was very steep, but as it 

 was cool enough now we took things in a more 

 leisurely manner and halted for frequent breathers. 

 Land-Dayaks are inveterate smokers, and at every 

 halt our carriers produced short lengths of bamboo 

 which, with a few strokes of their small, angled knives, 

 were quickly converted into pipes. The bamboo was 

 half filled with water, and a small pinch of tobacco 

 was placed on the top of a slender piece of bamboo 

 inserted at an angle in a hole in the side of the main 

 piece. A man having lighted the tobacco would draw 

 into his lungs a great mouthful of the smoke, and 

 then pass the pipe on to his neighbour who would 

 repeat the process. A pipeful would suffice for no 

 more than three or perhaps four men. The tobacco 

 which these people smoke is of Chinese manufacture, 

 and when burning it has a horrid acrid odour, quite 

 unlike the Javanese tobacco which Malays and Sea- 

 D ayaks smoke ; I tried one whiff of the Chinese stuff 



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