persons walking or working under the trees. When a Durian strikes a man in its
fall, it produces a dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while
the blow itself is very heavy; but from this very circumstance death rarely
ensues, the copious effusion of blood preventing the inflammation which might
otherwise take place. A Dyak chief informed me that he had been struck down
by a Durian falling on his head, which he thought would certainly have caused
his death, yet he recovered in a very short time.
Poets and moralists, judging from our English trees and fruits, have thought
that small fruits always grew on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless
to man, while the large ones trailed on the ground. Two of the largest and
heaviest fruits known, however, the Brazil-nut fruit (Bertholletia) and Durian,
grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and
often wound or kill the native inhabitants. From this we may learn two things:
first, not to draw general conclusions from a very partial view of nature; and
secondly, that trees and fruits, no less than the varied productions of the animal
kingdom, do not appear to be organized with exclusive reference to the use and
convenience of man.
During my many journeys in Borneo, and especially during my various
residences among the Dyaks, I first came to appreciate the admirable qualities of
the Bamboo. In those parts of South America which I had previously visited,
these gigantic grasses were comparatively scarce; and where found but little
used, their place being taken as to one class of uses by the great variety of Palms,
and as to another by calabashes and gourds. Almost all tropical countries
produce Bamboos, and wherever they are found in abundance the natives apply
them to a variety of uses. Their strength, lightness, smoothness, straightness,
roundness and hollowness, the facility and regularity with which they can be
split, their many different sizes, the varying length of their joints, the ease with
which they can be cut and with which holes can be made through them, their
hardness outside, their freedom from any pronounced taste or smell, their great
abundance, and the rapidity of their growth and increase, are all qualities which
render them useful for a hundred different purposes, to serve which other
materials would require much more labour and preparation. The Bamboo is one
of the most wonderful and most beautiful productions of the tropics, and one of
nature's most valuable gifts to uncivilized man.
The Dyak houses are all raised on posts, and are often two or three hundred
feet long and forty or fifty wide. The floor is always formed of strips split from
large Bamboos, so that each may be nearly flat and about three inches wide, and
these are firmly tied down with rattan to the joists beneath. When well made, this