Again, If A Temporary House Is Wanted,
Either By The Native In His Plantation Or By The Traveller In The
Forest, Nothing Is So Convenient As The Bamboo, With Which A
House Can Be Constructed With A Quarter Of The Labour And Time
Than If Other Materials Are Used.
As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the interior of
Sarawak make paths for long distances from
Village to village and
to their cultivated grounds, in the course of which they have to
cross many gullies and ravines, and even rivers; or sometimes, to
avoid a long circuit, to carry the path along the face of a
precipice. In all these cases the bridges they construct are of
Bamboo, and so admirably adapted is the material for this
purpose, that it seems doubtful whether they ever would have
attempted such works if they had not possessed it. The Dyak
bridge is simple but well designed. It consists merely of stout
Bamboos crossing each other at the road-way like the letter X,
and rising a few feet above it. At the crossing they are firmly
bound together, and to a large Bamboo which lays upon them and
forms the only pathway, with a slender and often very shaky one
to serve as a handrail. When a river is to be crossed, an
overhanging tree is chosen from which the bridge is partly
suspended and partly supported by diagonal struts from the banks,
so as to avoid placing posts in the stream itself, which would be
liable to be carried away by floods.
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