I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

  “And we must stop early evening and make a suitable camp, for Martin’s simply got to have properly cooked meals to keep him well.”

  Mr. Holmes smiled and said he saw no reason at all why it couldn’t be done.

  “We’ll move in on our way back from the rapids,” I concluded, happy just thinking about it. “And it will navigate easily because we’ll be going with the stream.”

  A terrified squealing just back of us in the jungle seemed to freeze me where I stood. This stopped and was followed by a horrible crunching sound. Martin, Mr. Holmes, and our hunters ran to investigate. Hurrying back for the camera and flares, they said a python had captured an enormous wild pig and was devouring it. Measuring the snake where it lay asleep the next morning, we found it was twenty-seven-and-a-half feet long. The pig with which it bulged was estimated to weigh about two hundred pounds. Chief Hadji said the snake would lie asleep for six months digesting it. I had no appetite for dinner that night.

  I often wondered how we managed to keep healthy on this trip. Night brought relief from the heat of the day, but regularly for about four hours it rained. Usually we pitched camp in the vicinity of the villages. Occasionally we tried sleeping in the huts, but while we were drenched wherever we slept, we found ourselves splashed with mud in the huts and went back to our gobongs.

  Martin, I knew, was growing a little discouraged. We had traveled all of two hundred and fifty miles from Sandakan. The jungles on either side of the river were teeming with wildlife, but how to photograph it was the problem. The growth was so thick that the men had literally to cut an opening in it before we could advance even a foot. By the time we had advanced a hundred feet, all the animals in the vicinity had scattered beyond our view. The Hadji, who was most sympathetic with our problem, assured us through our interpreter that at the headwaters we would be on higher ground where the nature of the growth would be different—thinner, he said, and less difficult to penetrate.

  Nature seems full of strange tricks in this fantastic country, tricks designed to make miserable anyone entering it. The nanti-dulu (“wait-a-minute”) thorn, so called by the natives, grows in thousands on a bush with long, flexible, vine-like branches and has the shape of a fishhook, which snags you as you pass. Martin swore they even reached out after us. In some instances, however, nature is kind. One case in point is the water-vine, a blessing to man and animals alike. Its stems, the thickness of a man’s arm, give out clear, cold, pure water when cut, and as much as a pint can be had from a piece less than two feet long.

  At length we reached the village of Sungei Iyau, where, it seemed to Mr. Holmes, we would be wise to have the houseboat built. Chief Hadji was taken into our confidence, and the careful instructions given to the natives by that gentleman (and he was a gentleman by any standard) gave us every assurance that upon our return from the headwaters, a little floating home would be ready for our use on the long trip down to Lamag.

  I had kept this entire plan from Martin because I was afraid he would think it an unnecessary expense. But to see him get up morning after morning as early as three o’clock and work until sunrise in the cramping quarters of the canoe, changing motion-picture film and sealing negatives as well as developing plates, was more than I could endure. It is true that our funds were low, and yet to make my husband as comfortable as conditions would allow for the difficult work he had to do—and this also meant safeguarding his health—seemed distinctly to be my part of the whole undertaking. Fortunately, he was so intent upon securing motion pictures of the natives in the village that he never once suspected our conspiracy.

  It was at the edge of the village, outside the door of a wretched hut, that we came upon Kalowatt. A baby gibbon ape, she was on a chain—a pathetic little ball of silver-gray fluff. Martin and I stood and stared at her and clutched at each other’s hands, and then Martin picked her up and cuddled her against his cheek. From that moment we knew we must have her. We rapped at the door, and two women, fully as wretched as their hut, came outside and stared at us. One was probably Eurasian, the other Malay.

  The baby ape seemed to belong to the Malay woman, and so it was with her that we bargained. Apparently she loved the little thing and didn’t want to part with her, and it wasn’t until we offered a stiff price—six dollars Malay, or three dollars U.S.—that she would consent to let us have her.

  At parting, the poor woman, whose ribs showed on her torso like bars and whose back ran in raw welts, wept bitterly. It seemed cruel to take Kalowatt away from her, and yet crueler not to, for from the looks of the frail little creature she could not have lived long without better care than the Malay woman was giving her.

  As it was, with a little box about the size of a shoebox for her bed, and with the good, nourishing food she could eat, we soon had her filling out, and in no time at all she became the most important member of our expedition. As a matter of fact, she never left us from that moment on until her tragic death in Nairobi, British East Africa (now Kenya) many years later.

  Our next stop was at Penangah—the last native settlement, apparently, to have contact with the outside world, and that only rarely, for few of the people had ever seen a white man, and none had ever seen a white woman.

  These were handsome people, both the men and the women, with lean, erect bodies and well-combed straight hair. Their features were quite fine, with occasionally a definite Chinese look. They smoked long pipes, and all the men carried a parang—a wicked knife used throughout North Borneo for making trails through the jungle and skinning and cutting up animals, and as weapons for personal combat. These people also carried blowguns and a bamboo quiver of poisoned darts. Martin took many pictures of these people, whom he found much more interesting than those on the lower parts of the river, and I’m afraid our friends of the faraway New Hebrides suffered considerably by comparison.

  Next we came to the rapids, and I doubt that any but our native crew could have got us and all our equipment safely over them. At last we were at the headwaters where lay the Tenggara village.

  Chapter 15

  From Tenggara we planned to continue perhaps a mile farther up the river and then to travel afoot into the higher and somewhat thinner jungle, where we hoped to secure pictures of at least some of the monkey and ape species. The presence of the Hadji in our party impressed the Tenggara to such an extent, however, that we were forced to linger and accept some of their hospitality. Great earthenware jars of sago spirits were brought out with much ceremony and set before us, and plainly we were expected not only to show delight but also to drink. This we did, though as little as possible. I don’t know when I’ve found a smile more difficult to put on than I did with that sour stuff in my mouth.

  As is always the case with natives who never before have seen a white woman, the Tenggara people subjected me to the usual amazed scrutiny, inspecting my clothes and fingering my skin and hair, but wholly without offensiveness. The chief, a big fellow with a round head and a jovial laugh, commanded that our visit be properly celebrated, whereupon the men of the village drank long and deeply of the sago, and the women hurried about building fires and cooking rice and yams together with fish, lizard, and monkey flesh in preparation for a feast.

  The men wore G-strings of woven bark fiber; the women, knee-length skirts of the same material; the children, up to ten, were naked. Most of them had good, intelligent features, sometimes with a slightly Mongolian look. Their skin was a clear, tawny brown and their bodies, for the most part, were strong and graceful. A disfigurement which we had also found among some people of the Solomons and New Hebrides was the filing of the teeth. Some were filed to points, others straight off. And increasing this unnatural look of their otherwise fine mouths was the stain of the narcotic betel nut, which blackened the teeth and gave a cerise color to the lips.

  Martin was delighted with them as photographic subjects and was everywhere with his camera; indeed, he was able to forget his disappo
intment over Borneo as a place in which to secure wild-animal pictures. Thanks to the Hadji, the natives performed willingly for my husband, the women first with their bark-fiber weaving, the preparation and cooking of food, the care of their children, and the prideful combing of their own and their husbands’ straight, glossy hair. And it pleased me very much as I watched these women to see that while they did much of the hard work of the village, nevertheless they were spirited and independent and would tolerate no abuse either of themselves or of their children.

  Next, the men demonstrated the use of their blowguns and poison darts, in both hunting and fighting, and the workings of their bamboo fire-making apparatus. This, together with a parang, was carried in a sheath of wood on every male Tenggara’s hip. A sinister implication, at least, was the human scalp of long black hair which frequently was used to adorn the parang’s handle. Tenggaras, we learned, had been and probably still were headhunters. We gleaned that they had many heads hidden away, but since a penalty of seven years was pronounced by the government upon any man found with one in his possession, a necessary secrecy surrounded what probably was an ancient and, to them, an honored custom.

  The sago spirits apparently were very potent, for the men squatting around the big jars and sucking on straws were growing hilarious, and in some instances actually combative.

  “Looks as if this might turn into a sort of Saturday-night toot,” Martin said in an aside to me.

  “Maybe we’d better go,” I replied, a bit eagerly. In any case, I’d been feeling rather miserable at the thought of eating monkey meat; it savored too much of cannibalism. Martin consulted first with Mr. Holmes and then with the Hadji, and both agreed that any native under the influence of liquor was something to avoid.

  With what must have seemed bewildering suddenness, we put some trade goods into the hands of the chief for distribution, then took to our canoes. Half the village, it seemed to me, followed us, protesting, to the shore, and eight or ten of the younger men piled into a gobong and paddled furiously upstream after us. Angrily flourishing their parangs, they demanded that we return to the village, but their erratic paddling sent them into a mud bank, and we waved them a laughing farewell.

  We camped that night a mile or so above Tenggara and prepared for an early-morning trip into the jungle. It seemed to me we had only just fallen asleep when we were awakened by a terrifying, almost human shriek of rage.

  Keeping his voice low, Mr. Holmes told us it was a male orangutan, and that he had probably just discovered our camp and was protesting our intrusion into his jungle domain.

  “I’ve got to have a picture of him right now!” Martin reached excitedly for his camera and the flares.

  “You’ll never get him tonight,” Mr. Holmes warned. “He’d be off like a shot the moment you stepped out of the canoe.”

  “But I’ve got to do something about him!”

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. Holmes said. “His curiosity will keep him right where he is until morning.”

  Astonishingly, the men went promptly to sleep. I sat up all night and dabbed coal oil on my face and arms to drive the mosquitoes away, and kept track of the general position of the big orangutan by his hoarse jabbering and the creaking of branches under his great weight. I also remembered “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and was quite miserable.

  We were stirring at sun-up and, to our delight, saw the big, dark shape of the creature in a tree not thirty feet from shore. He was quiet now but watching us sharply.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen Martin more excited, not even when he got his camera ready for his first picture of Nagapate. Ways and means to bring the big fellow within camera range were discussed, and finally it was decided to send a dozen or more of our natives in behind him to drive him, if possible, into the open.

  The big orangutan was not to be outwitted quite so easily, for with a yell he was off through the treetops over our heads. He didn’t go far, however, and Martin, with a glint in his eye, shouldered his camera and followed him. I followed Martin. Mr. Holmes—very wisely, I afterwards concluded—remained behind with the Hadji.

  This went on all day long, the big orangutan keeping just out of camera range. I could have sworn that at times he actually laughed at us. Martin followed grimly and gave up only when the light was gone.

  “If the big brute came and sat right on my lens now I couldn’t get a picture of him,” he said, exasperated.

  He gave the order to return to camp. I was so tired even then that it seemed to me if another thornbush snagged me or if I slipped on another slimy root or saw another snake or had to singe off another leach, I’d start screaming and nothing could stop me.

  After this, we followed our carriers for perhaps an hour through the dark green undergrowth, when suddenly they stopped and began arguing among themselves as to which direction to take. Then we knew we were lost.

  My head throbbed, my body ached, and I was thorn scratches from head to foot. I wanted to cry. Martin gave me a quick, anxious look, so I busied myself cutting a water-vine and getting a drink.

  “Well,” he said, putting his arm around me, “shall we see if we can get them to agree on a direction, or shall I take over?”

  I looked up at him. His ash-blond hair stuck in damp little curls to his forehead. He was anxious and earnest and disappointed over everything, and just as tired as I was.

  I had found that there is nothing quite so heartening to a man as knowing his woman has confidence in him.

  “You take over,” I said.

  He smiled briefly. “I—” He broke off and looked carefully in all directions. We might as well have been at the bottom of a deep green ocean. It was dusk by now.

  “Well,” he said, then took my hand and plunged off at right angles from the course our natives had taken. They protested en masse that this would never get us back to the river, and followed in grumbling reluctance. We arrived at the river in exactly half an hour and found ourselves about a quarter of a mile up from our camp.

  I was very proud of my husband over this and told him so, but I doubt that he heard me. He was facing an honest awareness of his inexperience in photographing animals. The jungle and the problems of light baffled him. He was fearfully tired when we headed our gobong caravan downstream for the return trip.

  “What’s the big smile about?” he asked suddenly.

  “Smile? Was I smiling?”

  “Yes, sort of mysterious and gloating. You know, little yellow feathers sticking out all around your mouth.”

  “Oh, I’m a cat now, am I?”

  I pretended indignation, but I kept smiling all the way to Sungei Iyau, where, on our arrival three days later, we found our houseboat waiting for us. I shall never forget Martin’s face. He shot one keen, startled look at me, then without a word stepped onto the raft and in through the little door. Then, in turn, he stretched out on the bed, sat on one of the rattan chairs, leaned his elbows on the table. He even set his tripod up on the little porch, and then, still without speaking, he hugged me close. Mr. Holmes and the good Hadji, to both of whom I owed the perfect carrying-out of my plan, stood and looked on, and I think they were almost as happy about it as we were.

  That night we had a wonderful dinner. I had brought flour in one of the boxes, so immediately I whipped up some biscuits. I had also brought sugar, tea, and condiments. The men netted shrimps and clams right out of the river, and our hunters brought in some green pigeons and an argus pheasant, which I boiled. Wild mushrooms and spinach from the forest, together with yams and rice which we bought from the natives, took care of our vegetable needs, and for dessert we had the freshly picked wild fruits. I put on a clean white blouse with my pants and boots, and brushed my hair and did it up with “rats” and pins as was the fashion of the day. Martin shaved and put on a clean shirt. We had as guests Mr. Holmes and the Hadji, whom we had grown to love, together with the chief of Sungei
Iyau.

  The trip in our houseboat, when we got under way, was one of luxurious comfort compared with the gobongs. The kinks in our backs soon straightened, Martin looked rested again, and our little gibbon ape, given the freedom of the raft, was soon fat, saucy, and active. She was a little startled—and resentful too, I think—when, after putting in at a rubber plantation one day, Martin returned with a half-grown titian-haired orangutan named Bessie. They were soon great friends, though, and Martin took some interesting pictures of them and their crazy antics.

  I believe that Martin’s love extended to practically every creature that lived. He had even taught me to accept two huge hairy spiders that had taken up lodging in the roof of our little floating house. But when, on the morning following Bessie’s entrance into our family, I stepped out on our little porch, I knew I would have to draw the line. There, not six inches from where I stood petrified in the doorway, was a basket of squirming, lightning-fanged cobras. Martin pointed out their beauty and said that with their fangs removed they would make fine pets, but I stood firm. Kalowatt jumped to his shoulder and Bessie hid behind him. Both added loud objections to mine, so we had the men pole us into the bank, where Martin reluctantly let the reptiles go.

  Reaching Pintasin, the Hadji Mohammed’s home, we were both touched and pleased to find that the natives, with some vague idea of what we were seeking in the jungle, had captured some fine specimens of honey bear, several of the native deer (about the size of a fox), and three monkeys. After Martin had photographed all these, we turned them loose in their jungle home.

  We continued on down the river to Lamag, the government post, and here once more remained for a few days as the guests of Mr. Holmes, of whom we had become deeply fond. There were reports of an elephant herd in the vicinity, and Martin, hopes high, set out with his camera and hunters in pursuit of them. We got within “hearing” distance, but that was all. The jungle continued to present its green, solid, inscrutable face, and when we took leave of our host, we were still without pictures of Borneo’s more important animal life.