IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



my notes and drew the more interesting plants which I from time 

 to time discovered. 



With some big bamboos, which I found in the neighbourhood, 

 I made an aqueduct, by means of which cool and limpid water was 

 conveyed to the house. This I tapped sufficiently far up stream 

 to enable me to stand upright beneath what I may call the supply- 

 pipe at the house, and there twice a day I took a delicious and 

 invigorating shower-bath. Nothing could be better for the health 

 under the circumstances, and such a bath after the tiring work of 

 collecting in the forest was not only most invigorating and 

 enjoyable, but it gave me besides an excellent appetite. The 

 kitchen was on the ground beneath the house, and just over its 

 fireplace I had a small room made, which I used for drying my 

 botanical specimens, an operation which I should hardly have 

 been able to perform otherwise, on account of the great and con- 

 stant dampness of the atmosphere and the enormous number of 

 specimens which I collected and prepared each day. This happy 

 contrivance was suggested by my remembering the system adopted 

 by our Tuscan mountaineers in drying chestnuts. In the small 

 room I am speaking of a simple lante mat acted as a grating above 

 the hearth, and was sufficiently high to prevent too much heat 

 reaching the plants. These latter dried so quickly and thoroughly 

 that I was able to change them twice a day, and the specimens thus 

 obtained were excellent. 



The temperature on Mattang was mild, and pretty nearly equal 

 night and day. The maximum never rose above 82 Fahr. in the 

 afternoon, and the minimum at sunrise was on the average 73 . In 

 such climatic conditions it is not necessary to wear much clothing. 

 My dress was simple enough, consisting only of trousers, a light 

 linen jacket, and a Chinese bamboo hat. I usually went bare- 

 footed, having begun to do so at Kuching, on account of the badly 

 healing sores caused by leeches, but I wore cloth shoes, generally 

 without socks, on undertaking long excursions. 



My servants at " Vallombrosa " were a Chinese cook and four 

 Malays. One of these, a native of Java, was an extraordinary 

 hand at climbing trees ; the others were good wood-cutters, and 

 felled the trees I wanted which could not be climbed. 



The forest trees of Borneo are usually provided with great 

 laminar expansions at the base of their trunks, known as banner in 

 Sarawak, 1 a species of stay or buttress, whose use is to augment the 

 stability of the tree. Now in such cases, if a tree were to be cut 

 through close to the ground, the labour of felling would be enor- 

 mous. To get over this difficulty, a sort of scaffolding, called 



1 Gaudichaud writes that in the French colonies these laminar expansions 

 are termed " accabas." 



88 



