168 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



pumice-stoue tufa which, mixed with the black humus from 

 the forests of centuries, has given its great fertility to the 

 soil of this region. 



The village, situated on a high bluff looking down on the 

 river, is one of the oldest in the district, and is certainly one 

 of the finest, cleanest, and most elegantly arranged that I had 

 visited. One of its most noticeable features was its decora- 

 tive art. The massive pillars, as well as the super-imposed 

 beams and framework of the dwellings, were entirely covered 

 with rich, intricate, and really beautiful carvings in an 

 extremely hard black wood, which, after one hundred and fifty 

 years by their data, appeared perfectly fresh and sound. The 

 supporting beams, which rested on the pillars, projected some 

 feet beyond the corners, and were ornamented with carved 

 terminals, somewhat like the figure-head of a ship. A broad 

 stairway of wood, sometimes with rails elaborately carved, 

 led up to the doors. The windows were constructed of solid 

 blocks of wood cut into oval or straight apertures, which 

 could be closed by a correspondingly cut and rotating piece of 

 wood in the inside. The divisions between the apertures were 

 ornamented on the outside with different colours or inlaid 

 with elegant designs in mother-of-pearl. The sides of most of 

 the houses were made of panels of wood let into a grooved 

 framework and accurately fitted, with the aid of very few tools, 

 and often Avithout a single nail. The Balai, always the best 

 lopked-after building in a village, was covered everywhere 

 with rich carvings. 



Finding to my disappointment that Kenali was too far from 

 the Besagi Mountain where I wished specially to collect for 

 a time, to suit as my headquarters, I was reluctantly compelled 

 to remove to another village nearer its foot, some nine or ten 

 miles further on. 



Descending two hundred and fifty feet from the village, we 

 reached the level of the river, and proceeded along its bank 

 on a narrow alluvial flat for several miles by the edge of rice- 

 fields, beautifully cultivated in quadrangular plots rising in 

 gentle terraces, from which the irrigating water of the higher 

 beds was conveyed by a neat contrivance of bamboo pipes 

 passing under the dividing dykes and bent upwards to dis- 

 charge in the lower terraces as low fountains, which had a 



