The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

v.] BORNEO—JOURNEY IN THE INTERIOR. 59purposes, to serve which other materials would require muchmore labour and preparation. The Bamboo is one of tlie mostwonderful and most beautiful productions of the tropics, and oneof nature's most valuable gifts to uncivilized man.The Dyak houses are all raised on posts, and are often two orthree hundred feet long and forty or fifty wide. The floor isalways formed of strips sjilit from large Bamboos, so that eachmay be nearly flat and about three inches wide, and these arefirmly tied down with rattan to the joists beneath.When wellmade, this is a delightful floor to walk upon barefooted, therounded surfaces of the Bamboo being very smooth and agreeableto the feet, while at the same time affording a firm hold.But, what is more important, they form with a mat over theman excellent bed, the elasticity of the Bamboo and its roundedsurface being far superior to a more rigid and a flatter floor.Here we at once find a use for Bamboo which cannot besupplied so well by another material without a vast amount oflabour, palms and other substitutes requiring much cutting andsmoothing, and not being equally good when finished. When,however, a flat, close floor is required, excellent boards are madeby splitting open large Bamboos on one side only, and flatteningthem out so as to form slabs eighteen inches wide and six feetlong, with which some Dyaks floor their houses. These withconstant rubbing of the feet and the smoke of years becomedark and polished, like w^alnut or old oak, so that their realmaterial can hardly be recognized. What labour is here savedto a savage whose only tools are an axe and a knife, and who, ifhe 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 assmooth and beautiful as the Bamboo thus treated affords him.Again, if a temporary house is wanted, either by the native inhis plantation or by the traveller in the forest, nothing is soconvenient as the Bamboo, with which a house can be constructedwith a quarter of the labour and time than if othermaterials are used.As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the interior ofSarawak make paths for long distances from village to villageand to their cultivated grounds, in the course of which they haveto cross many gullies and ravines, and even rivers : or sometimes,to avoid a long circuit, to carry the path along the face of aprecipice. In all these cases the bridges they construct ai-e ofBamboos, and so admirably adapted is the material for this purpose,that it seems doubtful whether they ever would liaveattempted such works if they had not possessed it. Tlie Dyakbridge is simple but well designed. It consists merely of stoutBamboos crossing each other at the roadway like the letter X, andrising a few feet above it. At the ci'ossing they are fii-mly boundtogether, and to a large Bamboo which lays upon them and formsthe only pathway, with a slender and often very shaky one toserve as a handrail. When a river is to be crossed an o\er-