The Malay Archipelago Volume 1

b >> by Alfred Russell Wallace >> The Malay Archipelago Volume 1

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While upon the subject of plants I may here mention a few of the
more striking vegetable productions of Borneo. The wonderful
Pitcher-plants, forming the genus Nepenthes of botanists, here
reach their greatest development. Every mountain-top abounds with
them, running along the ground, or climbing over shrubs and
stunted trees; their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction.
Some of these are long and slender, resembling in form the
beautiful Philippine lace-sponge (Euplectella), which has now
become so common; others are broad and short. Their colours are
green, variously tinted and mottled with red or purple. The
finest yet known were obtained on the summit of Kini-balou, in
North-west Borneo. One of the broad sort, Nepenthes rajah, will
hold two quarts of water in its pitcher. Another, Nepenthes
Edwardsiania, has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long; while the
plant itself grows to a length of twenty feet.

Ferns are abundant, but are not so varied as on the volcanic
mountains of Java; and Tree-ferns are neither so plentiful nor so
large as on that island. They grow, however, quite down to the
level of the sea, and are generally slender and graceful plants
from eight to fifteen feet high. Without devoting much time to
the search I collected fifty species of Ferns in Borneo, and I
have no doubt a good botanist would have obtained twice the
number. The interesting group of Orchids is very abundant, but,
as is generally the case, nine-tenths of the species have small
and inconspicuous flowers. Among the exceptions are the fine
Coelogynes, whose large clusters of yellow flowers ornament the
gloomiest forests, and that most extraordinary plant, Vanda
Lowii, which last is particularly abundant near some hot springs
at the foot of the Penin-jauh Mountain. It grows on the lower
branches of trees, and its us strange pendant flower-spires often
hang down so as almost to reach the ground. These are generally
six or eight feet long, bearing large and handsome flowers three
inches across, and varying in colour from orange to red, with
deep purple-red spots. I measured one spike, which reached the
extraordinary length of nine feet eight inches, and bore thirty-
six flowers, spirally arranged upon a slender thread-like stalk.
Specimens grown in our English hot-houses have produced flower-
spires of equal length, and with a much larger number of
blossoms.

Flowers were scarce, as is usual in equatorial forests, and it
was only at rare intervals that I met with anything striking. A
few fine climbers were sometimes seen, especially a handsome
crimson and yellow Aeschynanthus, and a fine leguminous plant
with clusters of large Cassia-like flowers of a rich purple
colour. Once I found a number of small Anonaceous trees of the
genus Polyalthea, producing a most striking effect in the gloomy
forest shades. They were about thirty feet high, and their
slender trunks were covered with large star-like crimson flowers,
which clustered over them like garlands, and resembled some
artificial decoration more than a natural product.

The forests abound with gigantic trees with cylindrical,
buttressed, or furrowed stems, while occasionally the traveller
comes upon a wonderful fig-tree, whose trunk is itself a forest
of stems and aerial roots. Still more rarely are found trees
which appear to have begun growing in mid-air, and from the same
point send out wide-spreading branches above and a complicated
pyramid of roots descending for seventy or eighty feet to the
ground below, and so spreading on every side, that one can stand
in the very centre with the trunk of the tree immediately
overhead. Trees of this character are found all over the
Archipelago, and the accompanying illustration (taken from one
which I often visited in the Aru Islands) will convey some idea
of their general character. I believe that they originate as
parasites, from seeds carried by birds and dropped in the fork of
some lofty tree. Hence descend aerial roots, clasping and
ultimately destroying the supporting tree, which is in time
entirely replaced by the humble plant which was at first
dependent upon it. Thus we have an actual struggle for life in
the vegetable kingdom, not less fatal to the vanquished than the
struggles among animals which we can so much more easily observe
and understand. The advantage of quicker access to light and
warmth and air, which is gained in one way by climbing plants, is
here obtained by a forest tree, which has the means of starting
in life at an elevation which others can only attain after many
years of growth, and then only when the fall of some other tree
has made room for then. Thus it is that in the warm and moist and
equable climate of the tropics, each available station is seized
upon and becomes the means of developing new forms of life
especially adapted to occupy it.

On reaching Sarawak early in December, I found there would not be
an opportunity of returning to Singapore until the latter end of
January. I therefore accepted Sir James Brooke's invitation to
spend a week with him and Mr. St. John at his cottage on Peninjauh.
This is a very steep pyramidal mountain of crystalline
basaltic rock, about a thousand feet high, and covered with
luxuriant forest. There are three Dyak villages upon it, and on a
little platform near the summit is the rude wooden lodge where
the English Rajah was accustomed to go for relaxation and cool
fresh air. It is only twenty miles up the river, but the road up
the mountain is a succession of ladders on the face of
precipices, bamboo bridges over gullies and chasms, and slippery
paths over rocks and tree-trunks and huge boulders as big as
houses. A cool spring under an overhanging rock just below the
cottage furnished us with refreshing baths and delicious drinking
water, and the Dyaks brought us daily heaped-up baskets of
Mangosteens and Lansats, two of the most delicious of the subacid
tropical fruits. We returned to Sarawak for Christmas (the second
I had spent with Sir James Brooke), when all the Europeans both
in the town and from the out-stations enjoyed the hospitality of
the Rajah, who possessed in a pre-eminent degree the art of
making every one around him comfortable and happy.

A few days afterwards I returned to the mountain with Charles and
a Malay boy named Ali and stayed there three weeks for the
purpose of making a collection of land-shells, butterflies and
moths, ferns and orchids. On the hill itself ferns were tolerably
plentiful, and I made a collection of about forty species. But
what occupied me most was the great abundance of moths which on
certain occasions I was able to capture. As during the whole of
my eight years' wanderings in the East I never found another spot
where these insects were at all plentiful, it will be interesting
to state the exact conditions under which I here obtained them.

On one side of the cottage there was a verandah, looking down
the whole side of the mountain and to its summit on the right,
all densely clothed with forest. The boarded sides of the cottage
were whitewashed, and the roof of the verandah was low, and also
boarded and whitewashed. As soon as it got dark I placed my lamp
on a table against the wall, and with pins, insect-forceps, net,
and collecting-boxes by my side, sat down with a book. Sometimes
during the whole evening only one solitary moth would visit me,
while on other nights they would pour in, in a continual stream,
keeping me hard at work catching and pinning till past midnight.
They came literally by the thousands. These good nights were very
few. During the four weeks that I spent altogether on the hill I
only had four really good nights, and these were always rainy,
and the best of them soaking wet. But wet nights were not always
good, for a rainy moonlight night produced next to nothing. All
the chief tribes of moths were represented, and the beauty and
variety of the species was very great. On good nights I was able
to capture from a hundred to two hundred and fifty moths, and these
comprised on each occasion from half to two-thirds that number of
distinct species. Some of them would settle on the wall, some on
the table, while many would fly up to the roof and give me a chase
all over the verandah before I could secure them. In order to show
the curious connection between the state of weather and the degree
in which moths were attracted to light, I add a list of my captures
each night of my stay on the hill.

Date (1855) No. of Moths Remarks

Dec. 13th 1 Fine; starlight.
14th 75 Drizzly and fog.
15th 41 Showery; cloudy.
16th 158 (120 species.) Steady rain.
17th 82 Wet; rather moonlight.
18th 9 Fine; moonlight.
19th 2 Fine; clear moonlight.
31st 200 (130 species.) Dark and windy;
heavy rain.

Date (1856)
Jan. 1st 185 Very wet.
2d 68 Cloudy and showers.
3d 50 Cloudy.
4th 12 Fine.
5th 10 Fine.
6th 8 Very fine.
7th 8 Very fine.
8th 10 Fine.
9th 36 Showery.
10th 30 Showery.
11th 260 Heavy rain all night, and dark.
12th 56 Showery.
13th 44 Showery; some moonlight.
14th 4 Fine; moonlight.
15th 24 Rain; moonlight.
16th 6 Showers; moonlight.
17th 6 Showers; moonlight.
18th 1 Showers; moonlight.
Total 1,386

It thus appears that on twenty-six nights I collected 1,386
moths, but that more than 800 of them were collected on four very
wet and dark nights. My success here led me to hope that, by
similar arrangements, I might on every island be able to obtain an
abundance of these insects; but, strange to say, during the six
succeeding years, I was never once able to make any collections at
all approaching those at Sarawak. The reason for this I can pretty
well understand to be owing to the absence of some one or other
essential condition that were here all combined. Sometimes the
dry season was the hindrance; more frequently residence in a town
or village not close to virgin forest, and surrounded by other
houses whose lights were a counter-attraction; still more
frequently residence in a dark palm-thatched house, with a lofty
roof, in whose recesses every moth was lost the instant it
entered. This last was the greatest drawback, and the real reason
why I never again was able to make a collection of moths; for I
never afterwards lived in a solitary jungle-house with a low
boarded and whitewashed verandah, so constructed as to prevent
insects at once escaping into the upper part of the house, quite
out of reach.

After my long experience, my numerous failures, and my one success,
I feel sure that if any party of naturalists ever make a yacht-voyage
to explore the Malayan Archipelago, or any other tropical region,
making entomology one of their chief pursuits, it would well repay
them to carry a small framed verandah, or a verandah-shaped tent
of white canvas, to set up in every favourable situation, as a means
of making a collection of nocturnal Lepidoptera, and also of obtaining
rare specimens of Coleoptera and other insects. I make the suggestion
here, because no one would suspect the enormous difference in results
that such an apparatus would produce; and because I consider it one
of the curiosities of a collector's experience, to have found out
that some such apparatus is required.

When I returned to Singapore I took with me the Malay lad named
Ali, who subsequently accompanied me all over the Archipelago.
Charles Allen preferred staying at the Mission-house, and
afterwards obtained employment in Sarawak and in Singapore, until
he again joined me four years later at Amboyna in the Moluccas.

CHAPTER VI.

BORNEO--THE DYAKS.

THE manners and customs of the aborigines of Borneo have been
described in great detail, and with much fuller information than I
possess, in the writings of Sir James Brooke, Messrs. Low, St. John,
Johnson Brooke, and many others. I do not propose to go over the
ground again, but shall confine myself to a sketch, from personal
observation, of the general character of the Dyaks, and of such
physical, moral, and social characteristics as have been less
frequently noticed.

The Dyak is closely allied to the Malay, and more remotely to the
Siamese, Chinese, and other Mongol races. All these are characterised
by a reddish-brown or yellowish-brown skin of various shades, by jet-
black straight hair, by the scanty or deficient beard, by the rather
small and broad nose, and high cheekbones; but none of the Malayan
races have the oblique eyes which are characteristic of the more
typical Mongols. The average stature of the Dyaks is rather more than
that of the Malays, while it is considerably under that of most
Europeans. Their forms are well proportioned, their feet and hands
small, and they rarely or never attain the bulk of body so often seen
in Malays and Chinese.

I am inclined to rank the Dyaks above the Malays in mental capacity,
while in moral character they are undoubtedly superior to them. They
are simple and honest, and become the prey of the Malay and Chinese
trailers, who cheat and plunder them continually. They are more
lively, more talkative, less secretive, and less suspicious than the
Malay, and are therefore pleasanter companions. The Malay boys have
little inclination for active sports and games, which form quite a
feature in the life of the Dyak youths, who, besides outdoor games of
skill and strength, possess a variety of indoor amusements. One wet
day, in a Dyak house, when a number of boys and young men were about
me, I thought to amuse them with something new, and showed them how
to make "cat's cradle" with a piece of string. Greatly to my
surprise, they knew all about it, and more than I did; for, after
Charles and I had gone through all the changes we could make, one of
the boys took it off my hand, and made several new figures which
quite puzzled me. They then showed me a number of other tricks with
pieces of string, which seemed a favourite amusement with them.

Even these apparently trifling matters may assist us to form a truer
estimate of the Dyaks' character and social condition. We learn
thereby, that these people have passed beyond that first stage of
savage life in which the struggle for existence absorbs all of the
faculties, and in which every thought and idea is connected with war
or hunting, or the provision for their immediate necessities. These
amusements indicate a capability of civilization, an aptitude to
enjoy other than mere sensual pleasures, which night be taken
advantage of to elevate their whole intellectual and social life.

The moral character of the Dyaks is undoubtedly high--a statement
which will seem strange to those who have heard of them only as
head-hunters and pirates. The Hill Dyaks of whom I am speaking,
however, have never been pirates, since they never go near the sea;
and head-hunting is a custom originating in the petty wars of village
with village, and tribe with tribe, which no more implies a bad moral
character than did the custom of the slave-trade a hundred years ago
imply want of general morality in all who participated in it. Against
this one stain on their character (which in the case of the Sarawak
Dyaks no longer exists) we have to set many good points. They are
truthful and honest to a remarkable degree. From this cause it is
very often impossible to get from them any definite information, or
even an opinion. They say, "If I were to tell yon what I don't know,
I might tell a lie;" and whenever they voluntarily relate any matter
of fact, you may be sure they are speaking the truth. In a Dyak
village the fruit trees have each their owner, and it has often
happened to me, on asking an inhabitant to gather me some fruit, to
be answered, "I can't do that, for the owner of the tree is not
here;" never seeming to contemplate the possibility of acting
otherwise. Neither will they take the smallest thing belonging to an
European. When living at Simunjon, they continually came to my house,
and would pick up scraps of torn newspaper or crooked pins that I had
thrown away, and ask as a great favour whether they might have them.
Crimes of violence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for
in twelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been only
one case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a
stranger who had been adopted into the tribe. In several other
matters of morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above
many civilized nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the
gross sensuality of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them.
They have the usual fault of all people in a half-savage state--
apathy and dilatoriness, but, however annoying this may be to
Europeans who come in contact with them, it cannot be considered a
very grave offence, or be held to outweigh their many excellent
qualities.

During my residence among the Hill Dyaks, I was much struck by the
apparent absence of those causes which are generally supposed to
check the increase of population, although there were plain
indications of stationary or but slowly increasing numbers. The
conditions most favourable to a rapid increase of population are: an
abundance of food, a healthy climate, and early marriages. Here these
conditions all exist. The people produce far more food than they
consume, and exchange the surplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient
jars, and gold and silver ornaments, which constitute their wealth.
On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take
place early (but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are
alike unknown. Why, then, we must inquire, has not a greater
population been produced? Why are the Dyak villages so small and so
widely scattered, while nine-tenths of the country is still covered
with forest?

Of all the checks to population among savage nations mentioned by
Malthus--starvation, disease, war, infanticide, immorality, and
infertility of the women--the last is that which he seems to think
least important, and of doubtful efficacy; and yet it is the only one
that seems to me capable of accounting for the state of the
population among the Sarawak Dyaks. The population of Great Britain
increases so as to double itself in about fifty years. To do this it
is evident that each married couple must average three children who
live to be married at the age of about twenty-five. Add to these
those who die in infancy, those who never marry, or those who marry
late in life and have no offspring, the number of children born to
each marriage must average four or five, and we know that families
of seven or eight are very common, and of ten and twelve by no means
rare. But from inquiries at almost every Dyak tribe I visited, I
ascertained that the women rarely had more than three or four
children, and an old chief assured me that he had never known a woman
to have more than seven.

In a village consisting of a hundred and fifty families, only one
consisted of six children living, and only six of five children,
the majority of families appearing to be two, three, or four.
Comparing this with the known proportions in European countries,
it is evident that the number of children to each marriage can hardly
average more than three or four; and as even in civilized countries
half the population die before the age of twenty-five, we should have
only two left to replace their parents; and so long as this state of
things continued, the population must remain stationary. Of course
this is a mere illustration; but the facts I have stated seem to
indicate that something of the kind really takes place; and if so,
there is no difficulty in understanding the smallness and almost
stationary population of the Dyak tribes.

We have next to inquire what is the cause of the small number of
births and of living children in a family. Climate and race may have
something to do with this, but a more real and efficient cause seems
to me to be the hard labour of the women, and the heavy weights they
constantly carry. A Dyak woman generally spends the whole day in the
field, and carries home every night a heavy load of vegetables and
firewood, often for several miles, over rough and hilly paths; and
not unfrequently has to climb up a rocky mountain by ladders, and
over slippery steppingstones, to an elevation of a thousand feet.
Besides this, she has an hour's work every evening to pound the rice
with a heavy wooden stamper, which violently strains every part of
the body. She begins this kind of labour when nine or ten years old,
and it never ceases but with the extreme decrepitude of age. Surely
we need not wonder at the limited number of her progeny, but rather
be surprised at the successful efforts of nature to prevent the
extermination of the race.

One of the surest and most beneficial effects of advancing
civilization, will be the amelioration of the condition of these
women. The precept and example of higher races will make the Dyak
ashamed of his comparatively idle life, while his weaker partner
labours like a beast of burthen. As his wants become increased and
his tastes refined, the women will have more household duties to
attend to, and will then cease to labour in the field--a change which
has already to a great extent taken place in the allied Malay,
Javanese, and Bugis tribes. Population will then certainly increase
more rapidly, improved systems of agriculture and some division of
labour will become necessary in order to provide the means of
existence, and a more complicated social state will take the place of
the simple conditions of society which now occur among them. But,
with the sharper struggle for existence that will then arise, will
the happiness of the people as a whole be increased or diminished?
Will not evil passions be aroused by the spirit of competition, and
crimes and vices, now unknown or dormant, be called into active
existence? These are problems that time alone can solve; but it is to
be hoped that education and a high-class European example may obviate
much of the evil that too often arises in analogous cases, and that we
may at length be able to point to one instance of an uncivilized
people who have not become demoralized, and finally exterminated, by
contact with European civilization.

A few words in conclusion, about the government of Sarawak. Sir James
Brooke found the Dyaks oppressed and ground down by the most cruel
tyranny. They were cheated by the Malay traders and robbed by the
Malay chiefs. Their wives and children were often captured and sold
into slavery, and hostile tribes purchased permission from their
cruel rulers to plunder, enslave, and murder them. Anything like
justice or redress for these injuries was utterly unattainable. From
the time Sir James obtained possession of the country, all this was
stopped. Equal justice was awarded to Malay, Chinaman, and Dyak. The
remorseless pirates from the rivers farther east were punished, and
finally shut up within their own territories, and the Dyak, for the
first time, could sleep in peace. His wife and children were now
safe from slavery; his house was no longer burned over his head; his
crops and his fruits were now his own to sell or consume as he
pleased. And the unknown stranger who had done all this for them, and
asked for nothing in return, what could he be? How was it possible
for them to realize his motives? Was it not natural that they should
refuse to believe he was a man? For of pure benevolence combined with
great power, they had had no experience among men. They naturally
concluded that he was a superior being, come down upon earth to
confer blessings on the afflicted. In many villages where he had not
been seen, I was asked strange questions about him. Was he not as old
as the mountains? Could he not bring the dead to life? And they
firmly believe that he can give them good harvests, and make their
fruit-trees bear an abundant crop.

In forming a proper estimate of Sir James Brooke's government it must
ever be remembered that he held Sarawak solely by the goodwill of the
native inhabitant. He had to deal with two races, one of whom, the
Mahometan Malays, looked upon the other race, the Dyaks, as savages
and slaves, only fit to be robbed and plundered. He has effectually
protected the Dyaks, and has invariably treated them as, in his
sight, equal to the Malays; and yet he has secured the affection and
goodwill of both. Notwithstanding the religious prejudice, of
Mahometans, he has induced them to modify many of their worst laws
and customs, and to assimilate their criminal code to that of the
civilized world. That his government still continues, after twenty-
seven years--notwithstanding his frequent absences from ill-health,
notwithstanding conspiracies of Malay chiefs, and insurrections of
Chinese gold-diggers, all of which have been overcome by the support
of the native population, and notwithstanding financial, political,
and domestic troubles is due, I believe, solely to the many admirable
qualities which Sir James Brooke possessed, and especially to his
having convinced the native population, by every action of his life,
that he ruled them, not for his own advantage, but for their good.

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