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Updated: June 22, 2025
"They are a kind of swallow, of which you may have seen some as we came down from Rangoon. They make the edible birds'-nests which are so great a delicacy among the Chinese when made into soup. The rivers, lakes, and swamps swarm with crocodiles, the real man-eaters. Leeches are a nuisance when you bathe in the rivers and ponds, and various kinds of snakes abound.
The birds and birds'-nests, the berries, the squirrels, the woodchucks, the beech woods with their treasures into which the cows loved so to wander and to browse, the fragrant wintergreens and a hundred nameless adventures, all strung upon that brief journey of half a mile to and from the remote pastures.
The ports of Pasir and Coti originally belonged to the King of Benjarmasing; very fine birds'-nests are procured here at twenty dollars the catty; much gold, tripan, wax, &c. Were Borneo to be settled, I think the principal factory ought to be at Borneo Proper; the second at Sambas; the third at Benjarmasing; the fourth at Pasir; the fifth at Tabesan or Sandakan.
In the advance was Ah-Cum, the guide, bearing aloft a fearful idol, "the ugliest I could find in China," this being Sister Lucy's characteristic commission; Vandy followed with his pockets stuffed with "birds'-nests," "Joss-sticks," "temple money," and etceteras too numerous to mention; then came two coolies, one after the other, naked as Adam after he donned the fig-leaf, carrying the gongs, while I brought up the rear with fans, vials, ivory carvings, and what-not.
They make their returns in gold, diamonds, birds'-nests, wax, rattans, garu, ebony, agar-agar; beside pepper, sago, camphor, cassia, tripan, &c. brought here by the prows: five Chinese junks annually visit Pontiana, bringing down produce amounting to about fifty thousand dollars. The depredations of the Pangeran Annam prevent an extension of this most useful of all trades to this country.
There are great numbers of Sarawak people at Sadong, all looking out for birds'-nests; new caves have been explored; mountains ascended for the first time in the search. It shows the progress of good government and security, and, at the same time, is characteristic of the Malay character.
"Oh, ever so far over the river, and over the hills, and past the woods; away away away down in a little hollow by the brook." The children looked at her with astonished eyes. She went on: "There are birds'-nests there, and little birds that sing. Oh, you should hear how they sing! And there are little lambs that play all day long among the clover. And there are dandelions and buttercups, and oh!
Already in his earliest childhood the principal chances were gone. The common had been enclosed; no little boys were sent out to mind cows there all day, and incidentally to look for birds'-nests and acquaint themselves with the ways of the rabbits and hedgehogs and butterflies and birds of the heath.
The heads of these old pollards are favourite places for birds'-nests, and all kinds of plants and bushes take root in their decaying fibre, the seeds having been carried by the birds; so that ivy, brambles, wild gooseberries, currants, raspberries, nut bushes and elders, can be seen growing there.
Under the Mombins the undergrowth is, for the most part, huge fans of Cocorite palm, thirty or forty feet high, their short rugged trunks, as usual, loaded with creepers, orchids, birds'-nests, and huge round black lumps, which are the nests of ants; all lodged among the butts of old leaves and the spathes of old flowers.
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