CHAPTER VI 



Excursion to Mount Mattang — Malay Adzes — Cynogale Bennetti — 

 In Search of a Road to the Summit — Some Methods of Seed 

 Dispersion — Difficulties in getting Botanical Specimens — How 

 a Forest can be Explored — My Reasons for climbing 

 Mattang — The " Umbut " — Dwarf Palms — Thin Rotangs — A 

 Lanko — Sudden Storms — Impressions in the Mattang Forest — 

 Phosphorescence and Fireflies — Insects, Flowers, and Light — 

 Quop — -Flying-Foxes. 



AFTER my first attempt to reach the Mattang mountain by 

 crossing the forest of Kuching, the Tuan Muda had kindly 

 ordered the Singhi Dyaks to cut a path from Siul to the mountain. 

 In October this pathway was completed, and I decided to use it at 

 once and endeavour to reach the summit. It was arranged that 

 Tuan-ku Yassim was to be my companion. 



I left Kuching at eight o'clock on the morning of November 13th, 

 with four men and provisions for a week, consisting principally of rice, 

 which is the basis of daily food for Malays and Dyaks ; the remainder 

 was to be got with our guns in the forest. Each Malay, besides the 

 inseparable parang, had taken a " bilion," with him — the instrument 

 always used by them for cutting down trees. The bilion is an iron 

 adze, made on the principle of the stone one to this day in use among 

 various tribes of New Guinea and Polynesia, and in prehistoric times 

 amongst Europeans. It has a wedge-shaped blade which comes to 

 a point at the butt-end ; this is ingeniously fastened by rotangs to a 

 knee-like handle in such a way that it can be turned at various in- 

 clinations and easily taken out, which enables the implement to be 

 used in different ways, and also like an axe. The handle is named 

 "perda," and is made with a soft but tough wood, " kayu plai." 

 In the hands of a Malay the bilion is far more efficacious than 

 the best European axe, to which he greatly prefers it. 



As I was anxious to travel quickly my personal luggage was 

 reduced to the smallest dimensions, and one man took both his own 

 things and mine in his " tambuk," a light but strong basket made 

 of thin slips of rotang and carried like a knapsack on the back. I 

 took no botanical paper, and restricted myself to a jar filled with 

 spirits for preserving zoological specimens, the indispensable 

 taxidermic instruments, a thermometer, an aneroid, and a few 

 medicines, especially quinine, chlorodyne, and laudanum ; fever and 



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