is a delightful floor to walk upon barefooted, the rounded surfaces of the bamboo
being very smooth and agreeable to the feet, while at the same time affording a
firm hold. But, what is more important, they form with a mat over them an
excellent bed, the elasticity of the Bamboo and its rounded surface being far
superior to a more rigid and a flatter floor. Here we at once find a use for
Bamboo which cannot be supplied so well by another material without a vast
amount of labour—palms and other substitutes requiring much cutting and
smoothing, and not being equally good when finished. When, however, a flat,
close floor is required, excellent boards are made by splitting open large
Bamboos on one side only, and flattening them out so as to form slabs eighteen
inches wide and six feet long, with which some Dyaks floor their houses. These
with constant rubbing of the feet and the smoke of years become dark and
polished, like walnut or old oak, so that their real material can hardly be
recognised. What labour is here saved to a savage whose only tools are an axe
and a knife, and who, if he wants boards, must hew them out of the solid trunk of
a tree, and must give days and weeks of labour to obtain a surface as smooth and
beautiful as the Bamboo thus treated affords him. Again, if a temporary house is
wanted, either by the native in his plantation or by the traveller in the forest,
nothing is so convenient as the Bamboo, with which a house can be constructed
with a quarter of the labour and time than if other materials are used.
As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the interior of Sarawak make
paths for long distances from village to village and to their cultivated grounds, in
the course of which they have to cross many gullies and ravines, and even rivers;
or sometimes, to avoid a long circuit, to carry the path along the face of a
precipice. In all these cases the bridges they construct are of Bamboo, and so
admirably adapted is the material for this purpose, that it seems doubtful whether
they ever would have attempted such works if they had not possessed it. The
Dyak bridge is simple but well designed. It consists merely of stout Bamboos
crossing each other at the road-way like the letter X, and rising a few feet above
it. At the crossing they are firmly bound together, and to a large Bamboo which
lays upon them and forms the only pathway, with a slender and often very shaky
one to serve as a handrail. When a river is to be crossed, an overhanging tree is
chosen from which the bridge is partly suspended and partly supported by
diagonal struts from the banks, so as to avoid placing posts in the stream itself,
which would be liable to be carried away by floods. In carrying a path along the
face of a precipice, trees and roots are made use of for suspension; struts arise
from suitable notches or crevices in the rocks, and if these are not sufficient,
immense Bamboos fifty or sixty feet long are fixed on the banks or on the