I Once Saw The Natives Take A Bees' Nest,
And A Very Interesting Sight It Was.
In the valley where I used to
collect insects, I one day saw three or four Timorese men and boys
under a high tree, and, looking up, saw on a very lofty horizontal
branch three large bees' combs.
The tree was straight and smooth-
barked and without a branch, until at seventy or eighty feet from the
ground it gave out the limb which the bees had chosen for their home.
As the men were evidently looking after the bees, I waited to watch
their operations. One of them first produced a long piece of wood
apparently the stem of a small tree or creeper, which he had brought
with him, and began splitting it through in several directions, which
showed that it was very tough and stringy. He then wrapped it in palm-
leaves, which were secured by twisting a slender creeper round them.
He then fastened his cloth tightly round his loins, and producing
another cloth wrapped it around his head, neck, and body, and tied it
firmly around his neck, leaving his face, arms, and legs completely
bare. Slung to his girdle he carried a long thin coil of cord; and
while he had been making these preparations, one of his companions had
cut a strong creeper or bush-rope eight or ten yards long, to one end
of which the wood-torch was fastened, and lighted at the bottom,
emitting a steady stream of smoke.
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