Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/199

Rh blue crabs are also extremely common, and scuttle away to their holes as the boat approaches the shore.

Further up the river and along the narrow channels the bank is often fringed with dense masses of the Nipa palm, whose long, graceful leaves are extensively used throughout the Malayan region for thatch, and also for covering the sides of the native houses. Another palm, the Nibong (Oncosperma filamentosa), may often be seen forming groves behind the Nipa zone. This beautiful palm has a tall, slender stem and a crown of extremely graceful feathery leaves.

As the saltness of the water decreases, in ascending the river, the mangroves give way gradually to a variety of other shrubs and trees, supporting many climbing plants and with their branches often loaded with epiphytes. These epiphytic growths, comprising an astonishing variety of ferns and orchids, and other less familiar types, are a marked feature of this intensely humid region.

Back of the belt of shrubs and low trees immediately bordering the river the tall trees of the forest proper now appear, the outposts of the prodigious forests which still cover most of the wet lowlands of Borneo.

Most of the native settlements are along the rivers, which are almost the only avenues of communication except narrow forest trails. These river-people are Malays and the little thatched houses, raised on posts well above the ground, or actually over the water, are much like those one sees everywhere throughout the whole Malayan region. Plying up and down the river may be seen the picturesque native boats, usually having a thatched shelter, which not infrequently serves as a dwelling for these aquatic people. Squatted at the bow, dressed in a gay sarong, and often with a brightly painted sun hat, the owner may be seen propelling his gondola-like craft rapidly and gracefully along the stream.

Kuching, like all of the larger settlements of Malaya, is essentially a Chinese town. Much of the business of the place is in the hands of Chinese, and, except for the government buildings and the dwellings of the Europeans, the architecture is characteristically Chinese. Some of these structures, including several temples, are excellent samples of Chinese architecture, and are very picturesque, the ornamentation often being really admirable in its details. Highly colored glazed pottery in elaborate and often attractive designs is used lavishly in the decoration of the more pretentious Chinese buildings.

The water front is crowded with Chinese and Malay craft, among which the Singapore steamer and the Rajah's yacht seem rather out of place.

Opposite the town, on a sightly hill, lies the Astana, the Rajah's palace, an attractive but quite unpretentious building surrounded by beautiful gardens. Adjoining it is a picturesque but not especially formidable-looking fort. This structure, with the buildings of the