Viewing page 115 of 185

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

^[[-91-  

On our way back we passed plantations of arica palm (from which comes the betel nut), and also a tremendous durian tree, with natives waiting for the fruit to fall. A big pile of the odorous fruits was stacked on the ground ready to be taken to market. As the Brues had not yet tasted durian we bought]]

two and sat by the roadside to eat them. They were really delicious, and I enjoyed them much more than I did the first time I ate durian at Ambon. Even the odor was less offensive, and when we returned to Kwala Simpang we stopped in the market and got some more to eat in the evening.

Mr. Mijts invited ys to come to his house, where we met his attractive wife and enjoyed a couple of gin and tonics. While we were sitting in the pretty, cool living room, with its view of the river and the jungle beyond, the boy brought a half-grown orang utan through the room, and sat her in a big chair on the terrace outside. A baby orang, about six months old, was also brought in, and the photographers in the crowd went wild, posing the two tame animals. Nellie was the large female; the baby, a male, is named KingKong - a ridiculously inappropriate name at his age. Mr. Mijts assured us that it would grow into one of the Mawa kuda type, however, and then King Kong will be a good name. He told us that both orangs (Nellie has been with them for seven years) had been abandoned by their jungle mothers, picked up by kind-hearted natives, and brought to them to rear. We hear the same story so often that we begin to scoff, as we are also told that natives are fond of orang meat. Anyway, it was a pleasant house, and the orangs are probably safer and happier here than in the jungle.

After lunching at the Boulevard Hotel in Kwala Simpang we drove on to Langsa, over rather rough and very dusty roads. Here we put up at the Hotel Emma, a bright little freshly painted inn with a cordial though very deaf Dutchman in charge. The air was heavy with the sweetness of white blossoms on a large tree. The hotel proprietor could only give us the native name (bunga puteh, meaning white flower) but someone later told us it was, I think, a form of Eugenia.

June 20 - 

We left Langsa at 7.30, and drove all morning through rather open country. Of course we still had rubber plantations and coconut palms, but there was a good deal of scrub county, and more different kinds of palms than we had seen before - arica, pandanus, nipa, and in certain arid stretches the fan palm. There was variety all day in the vegetation. Part of the road ran close to the coast, and mangrove swamps bordered the road closely. Nipa palm grew among the mangroves. We watched eagerly for crocodiles - there were many brackish inlets where porosus should have been plentiful - but there was never even a splash or ripple to betray the man-eater. We went through long stretches of pasture land, where yellow headed egrets by the hundreds paraded among the cows. A long stretch of casuarina trees, planted on both sides of the road, made a lovely shady avenue; these were succeeded by sweet-smelling acacia trees.

The natives, and their houses, also took on a slightly different character, as we got farther and farther in Atjeh. The houses are built high off the ground, and look very shallow in comparison with 

Transcription Notes:
Used instructions on "Tips" page to correctly note the handwritten portion of this page.