The two days we were here, people kept flocking into the village,
most of the men carrying long steel-pointed spears, in many cases
beautifully mounted with engraved silver: others carried long "parangs"
and "krises" in rough wooden sheaths, but the handles were often of
carved ivory and silver.
After some breakfast we started off to see the near lower cave, which
was one of the smaller ones. We followed a very pretty ferny track
by the side of a rocky stream for a short distance, the forest being
partially cleared and open, with large boulders scattered around. The
sky overhead was thick with swallows, in fact one could almost say
the air was black with them. These of course were the birds that make
the nests. The mouth of the cave partly prepared me for what I was to
see. I had expected a small entrance, but here it was, I should say,
sixty feet in height and of great width, the entrance being partly
overhung with a curtain of luxuriant creepers. The smell of guano
had been strong before, but here it was overpowering.
Extending inside the cave for about one hundred yards was a small
village of native huts used chiefly by the guards or watchers of
these caves. Compared with the vastness of the interior of the cave
- I believe about four hundred and eighty feet in height - one
could almost imagine that one was looking at the small model of a
village. A small stream ran out of a large hill of guano, and if you
left the track you sank over your knees in guano. The vastness of the
interior of this cave impressed me beyond words. It was stupendous,
and to describe it properly would take a better pen than mine. One
could actually see the very roof overhead, as there were two or
three openings near the top (reminding one of windows high up in
a cathedral) through which broad shafts of light forced their way,
making some old hanging rattan ladders high up appear like silvery
spider webs. Of course there were recesses overhead where the light
could not penetrate, and these were the homes of millions of small
bats, of which more presently. As for the birds themselves, this
was one of their nesting seasons, and the cave was full of myriads
of them. The twittering they made resembled the whisperings of a
multitude. The majority of them kept near the roof, and as they
flew to and fro through the shafts of light they presented a most
curious effect and looked like swarms of gnats; lower down they
resembled silvery butterflies. Where the light shone on the rocky
walls and roofs one could distinguish masses upon masses of little
silver black specks. These were their nests, as this was a black-nest
cave. Somewhere below in the bowels of the earth rumbled an underground
river with a noise like distant thunder. This cavernous roar far below
and the twittering whisper of the swallows far overhead, combined to
add much to the mysteriousness of these wonderful caves.
On the ground in the guano I picked up several eggs, unbroken. How
they could fall that distance and yet not get smashed is hard to
understand, unless it is that they fell in the soft guano on their
ends. We were told that when a man fell from the top he was smashed
literally into jelly. I also picked up a few birds which had been
stunned when flying against the rocks. This saved me from shooting any.
Spread out on the ground in the cave and also drying outside, raised
from the ground on stakes, were coil after coil of rattan ropes and
ladders used for collecting the nests. These always have to be new
each season, and are first carefully tested. The ladders are made
of well twisted strands of rattan with steps of strong, hard wood,
generally "bilian."
On our return to the village we bathed in a shady stream of clear
water, the banks of which I noted were composed chiefly of guano. In
the afternoon we started off in search of the upper eaves. After
a short, stiff climb amid natural rockeries of jagged limestone,
we passed under a rock archway or bridge, under which were perched
frail-looking raised native huts of the watchers. As we stood under
this curious archway we looked down a precipice on our left. It was
very steep at our feet, but from the far side it took the form of a
slanting shaft, which terminated in a little window or inlet into the
lower cave we had visited in the morning. In our ascent we had to climb
up very rough, steep ladders fastened against the rocky ledges. The
rocks were in many places gay with variegated plants, the most notable
being a very pretty-leafed begonia, covered with pink and silver spots,
the spots being half pink, half white. The natives with us seemed to
enjoy eating these leaves; they certainly looked tempting enough.
Another fine plant growing among these rocks was a climbing POTHOS,
with very dark green leaves, ornamented with a silver band across
each leaf, but the finest of all was a fine velvet-leafed climber,
veined with crimson, pink, or white (CISSUS sp.).
We at length came to the entrance of a long chain of eaves, through
which we passed, going down a very steep grade, and our guides had to
carry lights. After a climb down some steep rocks in semi-darkness,
we at length found ourselves in the largest cave of all, supposed to
be about five hundred and sixty feet in height.[14] It, too, had two or
three natural windows, through which the light penetrated.
