ace, the celebrated hunter naturalist, thus quaintly describes it:--

"A rich, butter-like custard, highly flavoured with almonds, gives the
best general idea of it; but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour
that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown-sherry, and other
incongruities. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp,
which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is
neither acid, nor sweet, nor juicy; yet one feels the want of none of
these qualities, for it is perfect as it is. It produces no nausea, or
other bad effects; and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined
to stop. In fact, to eat durions is a new sensation, worth a voyage to
the East to experience. When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself; and
the only way to eat durions to perfection is to get them as they fall,
and the smell is then less overpowering. When unripe, it makes a very
good vegetable if cooked, and it is also eaten by the Dyaks raw. In a
good fruit season large quantities are preserved salted, in jars and
bamboos, and kept the year round, when it acquires a most disgusting
odour to Europeans, but the Dyaks appreciate it highly as a relish with
their rice. There are in the forest two varieties of wild durions with
much smaller fruits, one of them orange-coloured inside. It would not
perhaps be correct to say that the durion is the best of all fruits,
because it cannot supply the place of a sub-acid juicy kind; such as the
orange, grape, mango, and mangosteen, whose refreshing and cooling
qualities are so wholesome and grateful; but as producing a food of the
most exquisite flavour, it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two only
as representing the perfection of the two classes, I should certainly
choose the durion and the orange as the king and queen of fruits.

"The durion is however sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to
ripen it falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently
happen to persons walking or working under the trees. When the durion
strikes a man in its fall it produces a dreadful wound, the strong
spines tearing open the flesh, whilst the blow itself is very heavy; but
from this very circumstance death rarely ensues, the copious effusion of
blood preventing the inflammation which might otherwise take place. A
Dyak chief informed me that he had been struck by a durion falling on
his head, which he thought would certainly have caused his de