and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look
out.

"My little frond is obstinate sometimes," remarked the naturalist,
picking up the fruit, "but ven I bring my glasses to bear on him he
always gives in, I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go
to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee bootterflies somevere before
night."

But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the butterflies
that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not
quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them
saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate
return to the village.

"Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah--ant I am
sorry--very sorry--zat I cannot show you zee bootterflies to-day. No
matter.--Go," (to the Dyak youth), "tell your chief ve vill come.
Better lock zee next time!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY.

Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was
compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he
could reach the river and procure a boat.

Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they
passed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the
summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice
fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets
were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor
explained, as he went along, the immense value of the bamboo to the
natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their
houses, and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want
broader planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out
to a plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo
serve as receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path,
the Dyaks will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of
it, using branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the
path, and every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the
bamboos by which it is supported.

Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt,
under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees
of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of
trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder--which can be
prolonged to any height