122 BORNEO. [chap. v. 



supplied so well by another material without a vast 

 amount of labour, palms and other substitutes requiring 

 much cutting and smoothing, and not being equally good 

 when finished. When, however, a flat, close floor is 

 required, excellent boards are made by splitting open large 

 Bamboos on one side only, and flattening them out so as 

 to form slabs eighteen inches wide and six feet long, with 

 which some Dyaks floor their houses. These with con- 

 stant rubbing of the feet and the smoke of years become 

 dark and polished, like walnut or old oak, so that their 

 real material can hardly be recognised. What labour is 

 here saved to. a savage whose only tools are an axe and a 

 knife, and who, if he wants boards, must hew them out of 

 the solid trunk of a tree, and must give days and weeks of 

 labour to obtain a surface as smooth and beautiful as the 

 Bamboo thus treated affords him. Again, if a temporary 

 house is wanted, either by the native in his plantation or 

 by the traveller in the forest, nothing is so convenient as 

 the Bamboo, with which a house can be constructed with 

 a quarter of the labour and time than if other materials 

 are used. 



As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the 

 interior of Sarawak make paths for long distances from 

 village to village and to their cultivated grounds, in the 

 course of which they have to cross many gullies and 

 ravines, and even rivers ; or sometimes, to avoid a long 



