Higher Up On The Bill Is A
Forest Of Immense Trees, Among Which Those Producing The Resin
Called Dammar (Dammara Sp.) Are Abundant.
The inhabitants of
several small villages in Batchian are entirely engaged in
searching for this product, and making it
Into torches by
pounding it and filling it into tubes of palm leaves about a yard
long, which are the only lights used by many of the natives.
Sometimes the dammar accumulates in large masses of ten or twenty
pounds weight, either attached to the trunk, or found buried in
the ground at the foot of the trees. The most extraordinary trees
of the forest are, however, a kind of fig, the aerial roots of
which form a pyramid near a hundred feet high, terminating just
where the tree branches out above, so that there is no real
trunk. This pyramid or cone is formed of roots of every size,
mostly descending in straight lines, but more or less obliquely-
and so crossing each other, and connected by cross branches,
which grow from one to another; as to form a dense and
complicated network, to which nothing but a photograph could do
justice (see illustration at Vol. I. page 130). The Kanary is
also abundant in this forest, the nut of which has a very
agreeable flavour, and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy
outer covering of the nut is the favourite food of the great
green pigeons of these islands (Carpophaga, perspicillata), and
their hoarse copings and heavy flutterings among the branches can
be almost continually heard.
After ten days at Langundi, finding it impossible to get the bird
I was particularly in search of (the Nicobar pigeon, or a new
species allied to it), and finding no new birds, and very few
insects, I left early on the morning of April 1st, and in the
evening entered a river on the main island of Batchian (Langundi,
like Kasserota, being on a distinct island), where some Malays
and Galela men have a small village, and have made extensive
rice-fields and plantain grounds. Here we found a good house near
the river bank, where the water was fresh and clear, and the
owner, a respectable Batchian Malay, offered me sleeping room and
the use of the verandah if I liked to stay. Seeing forest all
round within a short distance, I accepted his offer, and the next
morning before breakfast walked out to explore, and on the skirts
of the forest captured a few interesting insects.
Afterwards, I found a path which led for a mile or more through a
very fine forest, richer in palms than any I had seen in the
Moluccas. One of these especially attracted my attention from its
elegance. The stein was not thicker than my wrist, yet it was
very lofty, and bore clusters of bright red fruit. It was
apparently a species of Areca. Another of immense height closely
resembled in appearance the Euterpes of South America. Here also
grew the fan-leafed palm, whose small, nearly entire leaves are
used to make the dammar torches, and to form the water-buckets in
universal use.
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