COLLECTING AROUND SIMUJAN. 379 



were unable to hit it with their weapons, and no wonder. They 

 were all old flint-lock muskets, and while the Malays aspired to 

 leaden bullets, the poor Dyaks used chunks of ii*on, made by cut- 

 ting round iron rods or bolts into pieces an inch long. I now 

 understood why the Dyaks had never asked me for percussion caps. 



I got there just in time to see the orang build a large nest for 

 himself. He took up a position in a fork which was well screened 

 by the foliage, and began to break off small branches and pile them 

 loosely in the crotch. There was no attempt at weaving, nor even 

 regularity in anything. He reached out his long, hairy arm, snapjDed 

 off the leafy branches with a practised hand, and laid them down 

 with the broken ends sticking out. He presently got on the pile 

 with his feet, and standing there to weight it down he turned 

 slowly, breaking branches all the while, and laying them across the 

 pile in front of him, until he had built quite a large nest. When 

 he had finished, he laid down upon it, and was so effectually screened 

 from us that I could not dislodge him, and after two or three shots 

 I told the natives they would have to cut the tree. 



Three or four Dyaks were provided with biliongs, and after 

 hastily lashing together a few poles, to serve as a platform to enable 

 them to get at the trunk above the spur roots, they mounted it and 

 began chopping. 



The rapidity with which those insignificant little axes ate into 

 the tree was wonderful. In an incredibly short time — less than 

 half an hour — the tree fell, the orang revealed himself and was 

 promptly killed. After we got home I devoted the remainder of the 

 day to sketching the larger of the two orangs, a fine mias chappin, 

 in different positions. With considerable difiiculty we hauled him 

 into the top of a tree that stood near the house, put him in a life- 

 like attitude, with his hands and feet grasping the branches and 

 lashed him there, after which I made a careful sketch of him from 

 the ground. 



My native hunters brought me many fine specimens of mammals, 

 a few large birds, many reptiles and a few fishes. The most suc- 

 cessful of all my collectors was a fine Dyak named Dundang, already 

 spoken of, who shot four orangs, several rhinoceros hombills, two 

 or three proboscis monkeys, a wild hog, and quite a number of 

 small mammals. One of the orangs he brought me had the hair 

 on its back quite blackened and singed, as if it had been killed at 

 close range. Upon being questioned, he said he wounded the mias, 

 but could not bring it down, and having fired all his charges but 



