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The hole is drilled with an iron rod, one end of which is chisel-pointed, through a log of hard wood, which is afterwards pared down and rounded till it is about an inch in diameter. The dart used with the sumpit is usually made of a thin splinter of the nibong palm, stuck into a round piece of very light wood, so as to afford a surface for the breath to act upon.
We sent three men down with a thousand palm-leaf attaps for the outside walls and roof, and thirty mats to make inner walls. The men went into the jungle and felled wood for posts and rafters, then nibong palms were split into strips for the floors. The whole building was tied together with rattans, like all Malay houses.
Blount instantly set to work to have a cottage prepared for Eva and me. A very neat one was provided, situated on a sloping bank above a running stream, and backed by a grove of palm-trees. It was built partly of the wood of the Nibong palm, and partly of bamboo, and was thatched with palm-leaves. It was indeed a very light and pretty structure, and perfectly clean.
It is rare for the Orang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree, probably because it is too windy and cold there for him; but, as soon as night draws on, he descends from the height and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one of those parasitic Orchids which give the primeval forests of Borneo so characteristic and striking an appearance.
Near it, two tall nibong palms, that seemed to have come out of the forests in the background, leaned slightly over the ragged roof, with a suggestion of sad tenderness and care in the droop of their leafy and soaring heads. The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, "Arsat is there. I see his canoe fast between the piles."
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