As I Felt Pretty Sure It Would Fall During The Night,
I Returned To The Place Early The Next Morning, And Found It On
The Ground Beneath The Tree.
To my astonishment and pleasure, it
appeared to be a different kind from any I had yet seen; for
Although a full-grown male, by its fully developed teeth and very
large canines, it had no sign of the lateral protuberance on the
face, and was about one-tenth smaller in all its dimensions than
the other adult males. The upper incisors, however, appeared to
be broader than in the larger species, a character distinguishing
the Simia morio of Professor Owen, which he had described from
the cranium of a female specimen. As it was too far to carry the
animal home, I set to work and skinned the body on the spot,
leaving the head, hands, and feet attached, to be finished at
home. This specimen is now in the British Museum.
At the end of a week, finding no more Orangs, I returned home;
and, taking in a few fresh stores, and this time accompanied by
Charles, went up another branch of the river, very similar in
character, to a place called Menyille, where there were several
small Dyak houses and one large one. Here the landing place was a
bridge of rickety poles, over a considerable distance of water;
and I thought it safer to leave my cask of arrack securely placed
in the fork of a tree. To prevent the natives from drinking it, I
let several of them see me put in a number of snakes and lizards;
but I rather think this did not prevent them from tasting it. We
were accommodated here in the verandah of the large house, in
which were several great baskets of dried human heads, the
trophies of past generations of head-hunters. Here also there was
a little mountain covered with fruit-trees, and there were some
magnificent Durian trees close by the house, the fruit of which
was ripe; and as the Dyaks looked upon me as a benefactor in
killing the Mias, which destroys a great deal of their fruit,
they let us eat as much as we liked; we revelled in this emperor
of fruits in its greatest perfection.
The very day after my arrival in this place, I was so fortunate
as to shoot another adult male of the small Orang, the Mias-
kassir of the Dyaks. It fell when dead, but caught in a fork of
the tree and remained fixed. As I was very anxious to get it, I
tried to persuade two young Dyaks who were with me to cut down
the tree, which was tall, perfectly straight and smooth-barked,
and without a branch for fifty or sixty feet. To my surprise,
they said they would prefer climbing up it, but it would be a
good deal of trouble, and, after a little talking together, they
said they would try. They first went to a clump of bamboo that
stood near, and cut down one of the largest stems. From this they
chopped off a short piece, and splitting it, made a couple of
stout pegs, about a foot long and sharp at one end. Then cutting
a thick piece of wood for a mallet, they drove one of the pegs
into the tree and hung their weight upon it. It held, and this
seemed to satisfy them, for they immediately began making a
quantity of pegs of the same kind, while I looked on with great
interest, wondering how they could possibly ascend such a lofty
tree by merely driving pegs in it, the failure of any one of
which at a good height would certainly cause their death. When
about two dozen pegs were made, one of them began cutting some
very long and slender bamboo from another clump, and also
prepared some cord from the hark of a small tree. They now drove
in a peg very firmly at about three feet from the ground, and
bringing one of the long bamboos, stood it upright close to the
tree, and bound it firmly to the two first pegs, by means of the
bark cord and small notches near the head of each peg. One of the
Dyaks now stood on the first peg and drove in a third, about
level with his face, to which he tied the bamboo in the same way,
and then mounted another step, standing on one foot, and holding
by the bamboo at the peg immediately above him, while he drove in
the next one. In this manner he ascended about twenty feet; when
the upright bamboo was becoming thin, another was handed up by
his companion, and this was joined by tying both bamboos to three
or four of the pegs. When this was also nearly ended, a third was
added, and shortly after, the lowest branches of the tree were
reached, along which the young Dyak scrambled, and soon sent the
Mias tumbling down headlong. I was exceedingly struck by the
ingenuity of this mode of climbing, and the admirable manner in
which the peculiar properties of the bamboo were made available.
The ladder itself was perfectly safe, since if any one peg were
loose or faulty, and gave way, the strain would be thrown on
several others above and below it. I now understood the use of
the line of bamboo pegs sticking in trees, which I had often
seen, and wondered for what purpose they could have been put
there. This animal was almost identical in size and appearance
with the one I had obtained at Semabang, and was the only other
male specimen of the Simia morio which I obtained. It is now in
the Derby Museum.
I afterwards shot two adult females and two young ones of
different ages, all of which I preserved. One of the females,
with several young ones, was feeding on a Durian tree with unripe
fruit; and as soon as she saw us she began breaking off branches
and the great spiny fruits with every appearance of rage, causing
such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching
too near the tree.
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