Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/29

Rh interesting to see them run a ladder a hundred feet up the perpendicular stem of a tree, than to watch them disappearing over a precipice. Axe in hand, the honey-picker makes a hole in the bark for a little peg, standing on which he inserts a second peg higher up, ties a long cane from one to the other, and by night—for the darkness Gives confidence—he will ascend the tallest trees,and bring down honey without any accident." I have been told, with how much of truth I know not, that, when a Kādir goes down the face of a rock or precipice in search of honey, he sometimes takes with him, as a precautionary measure, and guarantee of his safety, the wife of the man who is holding the ladder above. Often, when out on the tramp with the late Government Botanist, Mr. M. A. Lawson, I have heard him lament that it is impossible to train arboreal monkeys to collect specimens of the fruit and flowers of lofty forest trees, which are inaccessible to the ordinary man. Far superior to any trained Simian is the Kādir, who, by means of pegs or notches, climbs even the tallest masts of trees with an agility which recalls to memory the celebrated picture in "Punch," representing Darwin's 'Habit of climbing plants.' For the ascent of comparatively low trees, notches are made with a bill-hook, alternately right and left, at intervals of about thirty inches. To this method the Kādir will not have recourse in wet weather, as the notches are damp and slippery, and there is the danger of an insecure foot-hold. An important ethnographic fact, and one which is significant, is that the detailed description of tree-climbing by the Dyaks of Borneo, as given by Wallace,* might have been written on the Ānaimalai hills, and would