chap. iv.] THE MIAS DISTRICT. 91 



of virgin forest, and much second-growth jungle on ground 

 which has once been cultivated by the Malays or Dyaks. 



Now it seems to me probable, that a wide extent of 

 unbroken and equally lofty virgin forest is necessary to 

 the comfortable existence of these animals. Such forests 

 form their open country, where they can roam in every 

 direction with as much facility as the Indian on the 

 prairie, or the Arab on the desert ; passing from tree-top 

 to tree-top without ever being obliged to descend upon 

 the earth. The elevated and the drier districts are more 

 frequented by man, more cut up by clearings and low 

 second-growth jungle not adapted to its peculiar mode of 

 progression, and where it would therefore be more exposed 

 to danger, and more frequently obliged to descend upon 

 the earth. There is probably also a greater variety of 

 fruit in the Mias district, the small mountains which 

 rise like islands out of it serving as a sort of gardens or 

 plantations, where the trees of the uplands are to be found 

 in the very midst of the swampy plains. 



It is a singular and very interesting sight to watch 

 a Mias making his way leisurely through the forest. He 

 walks deliberately along some of the larger branches, in 

 the semi-erect attitude which the great length of his arms 

 and the shortness of his legs cause him naturally to 

 assume ; and the disproportion between these limbs is 

 increased by his walking on his knuckles, not on the palm 



