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.
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