Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-15

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Mindanao and across the Sulu Sea,
I started on i've months job of prospecting
and exploring among Borneos hills and valleys,
rivers and jungles. Ny work, as usual, kept
me of the beaten track of civilization. There
was no club house for the old orchid hunter.
lived the simple life with my Dusun bearers,
pitching camp wherever the days work hap
pened to finish. My quarters consisted OF
portable shelter of bamboo, palm leaves and
Jungle grass, which could be dismantled and
packed in 10 minutes.
I could never wish to have finer men with
me that the Dusuns Of the northeast whose
clearings entered some IS miles from the
coast. It was up stream, which have chris
tened Python River where I saw these fearless
snake hunters, the Dusuns, perform astonishing
feats. The river meanders through the denSest
Borneo jungle and the overhanging branches
of the trees are alive with pythons. You might
well imagine that the Dusuns would take care to
give these huge snakes very wide berth-I
may say that their length may be anything up
to about IL feet. But, on the contrary, he has
only to espy python coiled on a branch, or
lurking wickedly in the fork of a tree, when he
shins up after the brute and starts the most
hair-raiSing kind of fight have ever seen.
There is a reason. To the Dusuns python
flesh is a delicious dainty. They great
python eaters L astonished me to how
eagerly they will penetrate deep into these
darkened, dank, snake-infested forests, when
most fellows would have preferred to take some
other-and perhaps less exciting-turning.
should say that the Dusun tribe is thoroughly
hated by these pythons-the fearful rage OF
these giant reptiles when attacked IN their
lairs is a sight not readily forgotten.
A ND the Dusun python hunt appealed to me
a enormously. 1t was case of putting the
shoe on the other foot with vengeance. I
Aave seen a great many snakes OF all varieties
"A my time and my chief recollection is the
agility displayed by man in leaping out of their
way But my DuSunS up a python tree were
as unconcerned and sporty as an American on
a Scottish grouse moor. Armed only with his
beloved parang, he wades into that old python
so heartily that the tables are completely turned
and it's the big snake that urgently wants to
get away.
I embarked for a trip up the Python River
with a fleet of six dug-outs and IL Dusun
bearers who we're evidently looking forward
gleefully to a big bag of toothsome python
farther up the stream-nearby their own clear
ings did not single python, for the very
good reason that the Dusuns had eaten them
an. Padding easily upstream, with vigilant
boatman at the bow and stern Of every one Of
our hotilla Of half dozsn dug-outs passed
clearings in the jungle where the Dusun villages
peeped at us-bamboo stockades, matched huts
huddled together and dwarfed by the stately
trees of enormous height that fringe the edges
Of the forest. Villagers squatting the ground
turned their heads to look at us and watched
us out of sight. noticed that the walls of some
of their huts displayed examples Of mural art
as practiced by the Dusuns.
We passed the last Of the clearings when we
camped for the night, and on the following
day the jungle of the real python country
swallowed US. It was here that we glided into
the region of perpetual twilight. Our laden
dugouts entered tortuous, silent tunnel whose
leaning walls and lowly hanging roof were the
interlocked boughs and branches and leaves
and tendrils of trees that crowded either bank.
Only the slenderest darts Of sunshine shot
Slantwise through the interstices, playing odd
tricks with ones eyesight.
The little Dusun boatren qulvered with ex-
element, just keeping the dug-outs moving with
their paddles. moving stealthily, with hardly a
ripple on the surface Of che water. They were
watching the oyerhazlging branches and. stin