409 
FIVE DAYS IN NAN IN G. 
they had no word I was surprised to find that a consi¬ 
derable proportion of the trees and plants yielded fruits 
or roots which were familiar to the Hesisi, and in many 
cases to the Malays also, as articles of food ; and the jungles 
assumed a new character when, every few steps, I was told, 
this is the kirkulang with the three stripes in its leaves, 
its fruit is eaten; this large tree is the kayu kalidang, 
the large round fruit of which is eaten ; this hanging plant is 
the akar sigrang and its fruit (about the size of an orange) 
is good ; this is the pwa kapus, the root of which we eat ; 
this is the jolojolo which gives us a serviceable gitta &c. 
Instead of a wilderness unfriendly to human beings and 
intended by nature as the exclusive domicile of wild animals, 
their hospitable shades had room for man too, and offered 
him not only shelter but abundance of food. Nay when I 
looked on my guide, so healthy, cheerful and innocent of all 
guile, not shrinking from contact with nature and warding 
her off or training her to his will, and not viewing her merely 
as an object of contemplation, but taking her as she is in all 
her wildness, living familiarly with her, with body and mind 
attuned to all her influences and vicissitudes, and having 
no wants beyond her spontaneous gifts,—-my first thought 
was a doubt whether we did well to estrange ourselves 
from this primeval wildness of nature and destroy it out of 
our way that we may live in comfort, and a conviction that 
the eye of heaven must look more pleased upon these guile¬ 
less and robust men t! an upon many civilized communities. 
My second and more sober reflection was that as to each 
stage of human life, from infancy to age, has been given its 
peculiar advantages and compensations, so Providence 
accompanies each social or ethnic stage with conditions 
adapted to it. Man, a reflex of the infinite, indued at once 
with a boundless energy of mobility and a strong capacity 
of persistence, has been fitted to pass through an infinity of 
stages of existence, and yet in each to be so fitted at all points 
to it, that he may tarry in it for ever, unconscious that his 
nature admits of any other. The Esquimaux would hear of the 
Malay, and the Malay of the Esquimaux, with incredulity or 
with commiseration. The polished man of the European city 
pities the savage of the eastern jungle, and the latter, could 
he comprehend the existence of the former, would pity him. 
Each is at home in his own sphere, and so well adapted to it, 
and content with it, that he would refuse or repent to ex¬ 
change it for any other. YVh ether man finds it enough for 
him to be familiar with nature as she spontaneously presents 
