to the skill of the Sea Dyaks. At length we came to a really dangerous
rapid where boats were often swamped, and my men were afraid to pass it.
Some Malays with a boatload of rice here overtook us, and after safely
passing down kindly sent back one of their men to assist me. As it was,
my Dyaks lost their balance in the critical part of the passage, and
had they been alone would certainly have upset the boat. The river now
became exceedingly picturesque, the ground on each side being partially
cleared for ricefields, affording a good view of the country. Numerous
little granaries were built high up in trees overhanging the river, and
having a bamboo bridge sloping up to them from the bank; and here and
there bamboo suspension bridge crossed the stream, where overhanging
trees favoured their construction.
I slept that night in the village of the Sebungow Dyaks, and the next
day reached Sarawak, passing through a most beautiful country where
limestone mountains with their fantastic forms and white precipices shot
up on every side, draped and festooned with a luxuriant vegetation.
The banks of the Sarawak River are everywhere covered with fruit trees,
which supply the Dyaks with a great deal of their food. The Mangosteen,
Lansat, Rambutan, Jack, Jambou, and Blimbing, are all abundant; but
most abundant and most esteemed is the Durian, a fruit about which very
little is known in England, but which both by natives and Europeans
in the Malay Archipelago is reckoned superior to all others. The old
traveller Linschott, writing in 1599, says: "It is of such an excellent
taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world,
according to those who have tasted it." And Doctor Paludanus adds: "This
fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, it seems at
first to smell like rotten onions, but immediately when they have tasted
it, they prefer it to all other food. The natives give it honourable
titles, exalt it, and make verses on it." When brought into a house the
smell is often so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste
it. This was my own case when I first tried it in Malacca, but in Borneo
I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at
once became a confirmed Durian eater.
The Durian grows on a large and lofty forest tree, somewhat resembling
an elm in its general character, but with a more smooth and scaly bark.
The fruit is round or slightly oval, about the size of a large cocoanut,
of a green colour, and covered all over with short stout spines
the bases of which touch each other, and are consequently somewhat
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