xxi] FLOWERS ON ROOTS 



where our overland journey was to commence. My Dyaks appeared 

 very much pleased, not because their labour was at an end, for 

 owing to the transport of the baggage the land journey was far more 

 fatiguing than that on the water, but for the change which is always 

 welcome to these people. We lighted a fire to cook the rice for 

 our supper, whilst some of my men went into the woods in search 

 of young shoots of bamboo, of ginger, edible fern (Asplenium 

 esculentum), leaves of trees, or other sayor, as the Malays call 

 such kinds of vegetable condiments. Others went along the 

 river and managed to catch some fish. These Dyaks are so 

 well acquainted with all kinds of useful forest produce, that they 

 do not require to take a quantity of provisions when on their journeys, 

 I was also struck with the fact that they never appear to be tired, 

 even after paddling from sunrise to sunset, with less than an hour's 

 rest at noon. That night, naked as they were, they preferred to 

 sleep ashore on the pebbles of the riverside to lying in the boat. 

 But during the night it began to rain, and the water of the swollen 

 torrent reached their sleeping place, and obliged them to seek 

 shelter under the matting covering the boat. 



Under heavy rain we next day commenced our march overland 

 from the basin of the Baloi to that of the Batang Lupar. It is a 

 most tiresome journey, the road for the greater part of the way 

 being the actual bed of the Kammaliei torrent. Half that day we 

 marched through the water on slippery pebbles covered with 

 algse. At intervals we left the bed of the torrent and went up and 

 down small hills, in order to make short cuts or to avoid places where 

 the water was too deep for wading. The forest was very fine, 

 and would, no doubt, have yielded grand botanical novelties if I had 

 only had time to stop and collect. Amongst the notable plants I 

 found was a singular Anonaceous shrub (Unona flagellaris , Becc.),. 

 whose flowers are neither on the branches nor on the trunk, but on 

 underground offshoots. These flowers are about two inches in 

 length, of a conspicuously bright liver-red, and highly perfumed. 

 It is most strange to see them emerging isolated from the ground a foot 

 or more away from the base of the plant to which they belong. In 

 one place a little streamlet formed a waterfall, and I found the rocks 

 wetted by its spray covered by a diminutive Aracea. The entire 

 plant hardly attains the height of three-quarters of an inch. I have 

 named it Microcosia pygmcea, for it is the smallest member of the 

 family, which has some gigantic species, such as the Amovpho- 

 phallus titanum, which I discovered later in Sumatra. 



From the Kammaliei we got into the Attoi, another torrent, 

 and thence into the Blangun, which is quite a streamlet where we 

 struck it. After a short rest for dinner, we started once more, 

 climbing a hill of about 1,000 feet to begin with. Such a path it was, 

 too ! It took us through land which had once been cultivated, but 



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