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Updated: June 22, 2025
AEsop's fables transposed into a Bornean key were, we found, much appreciated.
But they still had some dread of danger from man from those terrible enemies, the Dyaks, of whom Bornean travellers have told such ghastly tales. It seemed, however, as if our adventurers were not destined to discover whether these tales were true or false, or in any way to realise them.
"How shall we saw the head off? Can you do it, Lane?" "I can do that," interposed the Bornean, as he went to a bundle of implements he had procured in the town and from the natives. He drew from it a very heavy sword, from which he took off the covering of dry leaves, and applied his thumb to the edge of the weapon.
The gangway was hoisted, Captain Galvez gave brisk orders from the bridge, there was a jangle of bells in the engine-room, and we were off up the Koetei, into the mysterious heart of Borneo. Above Samarinda the great river flows between solid walls of vegetation. The density of the Bornean jungle is indeed almost unbelievable.
Ask any old Bornean bee-hunter, and he will tell you just such a tale as the above; adding that the ourang-outang, or red gorilla, which he calls mias, is a match, and more than a match, for any animal it may encounter in forest or jungle; and that the only two creatures which dare attack it are the crocodile and the great ular or python, the latter a serpent of the boa-constructor kind, with one of which our castaways had already formed acquaintance.
Failing winter, the Bornean has to be content with the the change afforded by a dry and a wet season, the latter being looked upon as the "winter," and prevailing during the month of November, December and January.
There was nothing to reflect a glint of light except a collection of weapons of all ages which occupied the wall behind a bare stone hearth; suits of inlaid armour, coats of chainmail as flexible as silk, assegais and blowpipes, Bornean parangs and Gurkha kukris, Abyssinian shotels with their double blades, Mexican knives in chert and chalcedony, damascened swords and automatic pistols, a Chinese bronze drum, a Persian mace of the date of Rustum, and an Austrian cavalry helmet marked with a bullet-hole and a stain.
"I saw one like it years ago;" and he gave a long Dyak name to it which the others did not understand. "Wait a minute or two, and I will bring him on board for you." "I don't know that we want him on board," added Louis. "He is not poison, and he won't hurt you," said the Bornean, as he made a slip-noose at the end of a piece of cord.
It is proved by the simple fact that those bears belonging to warm latitudes, as the Bornean, Malayan, and even the black American of the Southern States, do not hybernate at all. There is no need for them to do so. Their unfrozen forests furnish them with food all the year round; and all the year round are they seen roaming about in search of it.
Rajimin accompanied by Longko, the principal one of our Malays, went out in the evening to hunt deer, employing the approved Bornean method. With a lamp in the bow the prahu is paddled noiselessly along the river near the bank. Rusa, as a large species of deer are called, come to the water, and instead of being frightened are attracted by the light.
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