BOTANICAL EXPLORATION IN BORNEO. 



51 



and shape, but are ivory-white in colour, blotched with soft 

 rose, the urns being thin and translucent like egg-shell por- 

 celain. 



Higher up grows a Dendrobium with black-haired bulbs, 

 5 to 7 feet in height, and flowers larger than those of D. formo- 

 sum giganteum. 



Then, as one might expect in such a fairy-like bit of cloud- 

 land, always saturated with the moisture of dew or nightly rains, 

 the Ferns are really wonderful in their luxuriance and beauty. 



According to Mr. Baker, of Kew, I am credited with having 

 added over fifty species to the Fern flora of the island, and a 

 list of them, as also of those from the Sulu Archipelago, is 

 given in my " Gardens of the Sun." 



All Ferns are beautiful as seen at their best in their native 

 haunts, but I shall never forget the exquisite groves of Tree 

 Ferns, the Gleichenias and Davallias, the Lindsreas with steel-blue 

 fronds, the noble groups of Diptcris Ilorsficldii and D. biformis 

 clustering on rocks, and, above all, the crisp Todea-like fronds of 

 TricJiomanes pluma draping wet rocks and dangling in feathery 

 masses from the stems and branches of low trees. 



The people who inhabit the lower ranges of Kina Balu are 

 called " Piasauldan, or, literally, " Cocoa-nut villagers," and they 

 are a sharp and sprightly set of pagans, their main beliefs appa- 

 rently being in omens good or bad according to their own con- 

 venience. They, however, do possess at least a glimmer of some 

 future state, for they say their ancestors live on Kina Balu along 

 with their ghostly buffaloes, and they begged of me not to wander 

 upon certain sites sacred to their manes. They cultivate Kice, 

 Tobacco, Caladium esculentum, and a few other culinary herbs 

 and fruits, such as Cocoa-nuts, Betel-nuts, and Oranges and 

 Limes. They use the primitive * hand-loom of sticks (still in use 

 for the weaving of saddle-girths in Brittany), and prefer their 

 own strong cloth of the native " Lamba " fibre (Gitrculigo lati- 

 folia) to the cheap and heavily loaded cotton goods of Europe. 

 The old order reigneth, the men doing the talking and fighting, 

 and the women most of the work. The name Kina Balu means 

 " Chinese widow," and is supposed to be an etymological 

 remainder of a Chinese colony formerly existing in this locality. 



* There is a specimen of my collecting in the Economic Museum at 

 Kew, with native cloth and the native fibre. — F. W. B. 



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