THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



159 



being about one- 

 quarter of an inch in 

 diameter. The hole is 

 drilled with a long 

 iron rod and polished 

 with a rough leaf — a 

 sort of natural sand- 

 paper. 



The slender darts 

 are made from the 

 hard, straight fiber 

 of the nibong palm, 

 sharpened at one end, 

 with a tiny groove cut 

 around the dart below 

 the point, for the pur- 

 pose of carrying into 

 the wound some of the 

 poison in which the 

 end of the dart is 

 dipped. 



This poison, made 

 from the sap of the 

 upas-tree, is so power- 

 ful as to cause the 

 death of a man in two 

 or three hours. A 

 piece of pith on the 

 lower end of the dart 

 acts as a piston by 

 which the dart is 

 blown through the 

 tube. 



The blowgun that 

 I brought home with 

 me proved of so much 

 interest that my sup- 

 ply of ammunition 

 was speedily e x- 

 hausted, so that I had 

 to use small steel 

 darts with a cork piston, but of the same 

 weight and length as the native missiles. 

 These are stiffer, but not much sharper 

 than the native darts, and will penetrate 

 a soft pine board fully one-quarter of an 

 inch when blown without special effort 

 from a distance of 40 to 50 feet. 



The Punans live in the simplest form 

 of houses — mere leaf shelters — moving 

 from place to place as they exhaust their 

 supply of food. 



They are the real jungle people, fol- 

 lowing for days any other man without 

 his in the least suspecting their pres- 

 ence. In this way they killed a Dayak 



the Freakish growth of a jungle vine: Sarawak 



Both the fauna and flora of the Sarawak jungles are protected by 

 law. A collector is allowed to take only two specimens of any one 

 kind, whether the specimen be bird, beast, butterfly, or orchid. 



not long ago who four years before had 

 done them an injury, shooting him with 

 a poisoned dart from a blowgun. 



It was for the purpose of preventing, 

 if possible, an outbreak between the 

 Punan and Dayak tribes, as a result of the 

 murder of their women and children, 

 that, shortly after the arrival of the news 

 of the murder, the Assistant Resident 

 was dispatched up river to collect the 

 survivors of the victims and to bring 

 them down river, where they were to re- 

 ceive the heavy fine imposed on the 

 households of the guilty Dayaks and the 

 assurance of the Rajah that summary 



