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The defenders of the house would attempt to repel such an attack by hurling heavy bars of iron-wood, sharpened at both ends, in such a way that the bar twirls in the air as it hurtles through it; and this is one of the few occasions on which the blow-pipe is used as a weapon of defence.
In the small prison of Sampit, which is built of iron-wood, the mortality from beri-beri among the inmates was appalling. Nine men, implicated in the murder of two Chinese traders, in the course of eight months while the case was being tried, all died except a Chinaman who was taken to Bandjermasin. I understood a new prison was about to be erected.
Into these were placed stout pegs made of a tree called iron-wood; and, when they were hammered well home, the timbers were as firmly fixed as if they had been nailed with iron. The gunwales, which were very stout, were fixed in a similar manner.
The large cattle kraals are accordingly arranged in various quarters in connexion with the great road, and the entrance of each kraal is a small archway in the strong iron-wood fence sufficiently wide to admit one ox at a time. Suspended from the arch is a bell, formed of the shell of the Dolape palm-nut, against which every animal must strike either its horns or back, on entrance.
We had passed the flat cliffs, covered only with iron-wood trees, and now the water was bordered by high coral plateaux, from which a luxuriant forest fell down in heavy cascades, in a thickness almost alarming, like the eruption of a volcano, when one cloud pushes the other before it and new ones are ever behind.
Over three hundred bodies, or rather remains of bodies, had previously been exhumed and placed in forty boxes, for the accommodation of which a special house had been constructed. These, with contents, were burned and the remains deposited in ten receptacles made of iron-wood, those belonging to one family being put in the same container.
The iron-wood which grew in abundance in the neighbourhood, furnished the very material; and after three pieces of sufficient length had been cut down with the axe, they were reduced to the proper size, and pointed by the knives of the hunters. Meanwhile Swartboy had not been idle.
The body is washed and wrapped in white cotton cloth, bought from Malay traders, and placed in a coffin made of iron-wood. As the coffin must not be carried through the door, the house wall is broken open for it to pass on its way to a cemetery in the utan.
My wallet or my knapsack is packed, and ready for strapping on; and here is my staff! He hands it to her; she makes the same remark as Mr. Crisparkle, that it is very heavy; and gives it back to him, asking what wood it is? Iron-wood. Up to this point he has been extremely cheerful.
Armed with the formidable knife which he had about his person, the settler made the most desperate and infuriated efforts to reach his assailant; but in so masterly a manner did his adversary use his simple weapon, that every attempt was foiled, and more than once did the hard iron-wood descend upon his shoulders, in a manner to be heard from the shore.
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