I have taken five meals in the society of apes only, who make me laugh with genuine laughter. The sentries are absolutely silent, and I hardly hear a human voice. It is so good to be away for a time from the "wearing world," from all clatter, chatter, and "strife of tongues," in the unsophisticated society of apes and elephants. Dullness is out of the question. The apes are always doing something new, and are far more initiative than imitative. Eblis has just now taken a letter of yours from an elastic band, and is holding it wide open as if he were reading it; an untamed siamang, which lives on the roof, but has mustered up courage to-day to come down into the veranda, has jumped like a demon on the retriever's back, and riding astride, is beating him with a ruler; and jolly, wicked Mahmoud, having taken the cushions out of the chairs, has laid them in a row, has pulled a table cover off the table, and having rolled it up for a pillow, is now lying down in an easy, careless attitude, occasionally helping himself to a piece of pine-apple. When they are angry they make a fearful noise, and if you hinder them from putting their hands into your plate they shriek with rage like children, and utter much the same sound as the Ainos do when displeased. They seem frightfully jealous of the sweet little wah-wah Eblis. Mahmoud beats it and teases it whenever it is not with me; he takes its food, and when it screams with rage he laughs and shows his white teeth. He upset all the chairs in the veranda this morning, and when I attempted to scold him he took a banana which he was peeling and threw it at me. I am sure that he would have a great deal of rough wit if he could speak our tongue.
The night I came, Mr. Low's clerk, a Singhalese, came to arrange an expedition, and early the next morning, after I had breakfasted with the apes, he arrived, bringing the Royal Elephant, as well-broken and stately an animal as I should wish to ride. He is such a height (they say ten feet!) that, though he lay down to be mounted, a good-sized ladder was needed for the climb upon his back. Assam put pillows and a good lunch into the baskets, and as the day was glorious from sunrise to sunset I had an altogether delightful expedition.
We turned at once into the jungle, and rode through it for seven hours on the left bank of the Perak river. The loveliness was intoxicating.
The trees were lofty and magnificent; there were very many such as I have not seen before. Many run up a hundred feet or more before they branch. The twilight was green and dim, and ofttimes amidst the wealth of vegetation not a flower was to be seen. But as often, through rifts in the leafage far aloft, there were glimpses of the sunny, heavenly blue sky, and now and then there were openings where trees had fallen, and the glorious tropical sunshine streamed in on gaudy blossoms of huge trees, and on pure white orchids, and canary-colored clusters borne by lianas; on sun-birds, iridescent and gorgeous in the sunlight; and on butterflies, some all golden, others amber and black, and amber and blue, some with velvety bands of violet and green, others altogether velvety black with spots of vermilion or emerald-green, the under side of the wings corresponding to the spot, while sometimes a shoal of turquoise-blue or wholly canary-colored sprites fluttered in the sunbeams; the flash of sun-birds and the flutter of butterflies giving one an idea of the joy which possibly was intended to be the heritage of all animated existence. In these openings I was glad for the moment to be neither an ornithologist nor an entomologist, so that I might leave everyone of these daintily colored creatures to the enjoyment of its life and beauty.
It was not the trees and lianas only that were beautiful in these sunny openings, but the ferns, mosses, orchids, and selaginellas, with the crimson-tipped dracaena, and the crimson-veined caladium, and the great red nepenthe with purple blotches on its nearly diaphanous pitchers, and another pitcher-plant of an epiphytal habit, with pea-green pitchers scrambling to a great height over the branches of the smaller trees. The beautiful tree-ferns themselves were loaded with other ferns, orchids, and mosses; every fallen tree was draped with fresh green forms, every swampy bit was the home of mottled aroids, film ferns, and foliage plants, mostly green and gold, while in some places there were ginger-worts with noble shining leaves fully six feet long.
In the green twilight of the depths of the forest the dew gemmed the leaves till nearly 10 A.M., but in the openings the sun blazed with the heat of a furnace. The silence and colorlessness of the heart of the forest; and the color, vivacity, light, and movement in the openings, and among the tree-tops, contrast most curiously. Legions of monkeys inhabit the tree-tops, and seem to lead a completely aerial life. It is said that they never come down to earth, but that they cross the forests swinging themselves from tree to tree.
The Malays, if they can, build their kampongs near rivers, and during the day we passed several of these. Several had mosques more or less rude. Every village consists of such houses as I have described before, grouped, but not by any means closely, under the shade of cocoa-palms, jak, durion, bread-fruit, mango, nutmeg, and other fruit-trees.
Plantations of bananas are never far off. Many of these people have "dug-outs" or other boats on the adjacent river, some have bathing-sheds, and others padi plantations. These kampongs have much of the poetry as well as inanity of tropical life about them. They are beautiful and appropriate, and food is above them and around them.
