HUNTING IN THE INTEKIOR OF SELANGORE. 319 



are lost in the flavor pecvdiar to the fruit itself, indescribable both 

 in delicacy and richness. If there are no durians in heaven it will 

 be the fault of the husk, not the kernel. 



The Malays had built a lofty platform of poles to which they 

 could retreat from wild beasts, and also sleep upon at night, and as 

 fast as the durians fell they gathered them. They sold them on 

 the ground, seventeen for a dollar, at which price I invested a dol- 

 lar forthwith. No Anglo-Indian is haK as fond of " brandy-and- 

 soda " as I am of finiit, and I am sui'e the number of durians ex- 

 ported that week must have fallen off considerably. 



While hunting through the forest in search of wild cattle or 

 rhinoceros spoor we came upon the strangest human habitation I 

 ever beheld. It was a Jacoon house, if we may dignify such a 

 structure by that name, and the family was at home. The site had 

 been selected with reference to four small trees, which grew so as 

 to form the four comers of a square about nine feet each way. 

 Twelve feet from the ground four stout saphngs had been lashed 

 to the trees to form the foundation of the house, and upon them 

 was lashed the flooring of small green poles. Six feet above it was 

 a roof of gi'een thatch, sloping shed-hke from front to back. There 

 were no walls whatever to this remarkable dwelling, which was 

 reached by means of a rude ladder. Upon this platform we found 

 three men, two women, a nursing baby, a miserable little dog, two 

 or three old parongs, some sumpitans and poisoned arrows, and a 

 fire smouldering on a bed of earth at one cornei*. There were no 

 mats of any kind, and the people slept on the bare poles. The men 

 were naked, with the exception of a du-ty loin-cloth, but the women 

 were satisfactorily covered with mantles of dingy cotton cloth. 



In physique, physiognomy and habits the Jacoons so closely re- 

 semble the forest people (Dyaks) of Borneo as to lead one to 

 beheve they have descended, and that, too, by no very long line 

 of ancestry, from some of the numerous sub-tribes now flourish- 

 ing in that great island. Judging from Mr. Bock's admira- 

 ble portraits and description of the Poonans, the Jacoons are as 

 much like them as it is possible for two separated tribes to be like 

 each other. The Poonans, like all the Dyaks, have progi-essed 

 through Borneo from south to north, and it is more likely that the 

 Jacoons are accidental, perhaps involuntary, emigrants from Bor- 

 neo than that the reverse has been the case. 



The Jacoons are a very peaceable, almost timid, people, very 

 ignorant, and wholly averse to linng in villages, however small. 



