Of These There Were Two Varieties,
And On One Large Plant I Saw Fully A Dozen Flower-Spikes.
Further
back in the mountains I came across some fine species of PHALAENOPSIS.
I early made the acquaintance of the little Negritos, the aborigines of
these mountains, and during my wanderings I would often stumble across
their huts in small clearings in the forest. They never seemed to have
any villages, and I hardly ever saw more than one hut in one place,
and they were nearly always miserable bamboo hovels. As for the little
people themselves, they seemed perfectly harmless, and from the first
treated me with the greatest friendliness, and would often pay me a
visit at my hut, sometimes bringing me rice and "papayas" or a large
hornbill, which had been shot with their steel-pointed arrows. They
were quite naked except for a very small strip of cloth. Their skin
was of a very dark brown colour, their hair frizzly, and the nose
flat. They were by far the smallest race of people I had ever seen,
and they might quite properly be termed pigmies. I certainly never
came across a Negrito man over four feet six inches, if as tall,
and the women were a great deal smaller, coming as a rule only up to
the men's shoulders; the elderly women looked like small children
with old faces. Both sexes generally had their bodies covered with
various patterns cut in their skins, a kind of tattooing it might
be called, but the skin was very much raised. Many of them had
the backs of their heads in the centre shaved in a curious manner,
like a very broad parting. I did not see them wearing many ornaments,
but the men had tight-fitting fibre bracelets on their arms and legs,
and the women sometimes wore necklaces of seeds, berries and beads;
they would also sometimes wear curiously carved bamboo combs in their
hair. The men used spears and bows and arrows; these latter they were
rarely without. Their arrows were often works of art, very fine and
neat patterns being burnt on the bamboo shafts. The feathers on the
heads were large, and the steel points were very neatly bound on with
rattan. These steel points were often cruel-looking things, having
many fishhook-like barbs set at different angles, so that if they once
entered a man's body it would be impossible to extract them again. A
very clever invention was an arrow made for shooting deer and pig. The
steel point was comparatively small, and it was fitted very lightly
to a small piece of wood, which was also lightly placed in the end
of the arrow. Attached at one end to the arrow-head was a long piece
of stout native cord, which was wound round the shaft, the other end
being fastened to the main shaft. When the arrow was shot into a pig,
for instance, the steel head soon fell apart from the small bit of
wood, which in its turn would also drop off from the main shaft.
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