The Woodlands Orchids Part 14

'Anything--anything!' cried Baker. 'We haven't even our guns!'

So the Malay went back to negotiate, but they ran on--came to the awful bridge, Baker foremost. He reached the middle. One of the sailors behind would wait no longer--advanced and both fell headlong down. The sailor was killed instantly; Baker, in the middle of the bridge, dropped among the branches of a tree.

There he lay, bruised, half conscious, until Tuzzadeen's shouts roused him, and he answered faintly.

'Hold on!' cried the Malay. 'We come good time, Tuan Cap'n! Before dark!'

Six hours to wait at least!

Baker began to stir--found he had no limbs broken, and thought of descending. His movements were quickened by the onslaught of innumerable ants, not a venomous species happily. But in climbing down he remarked that the tree-top was loaded with orchids, which he tore off and dropped; long before nightfall he met the search-party, toiling up the ravine from its opening on the sh.o.r.e.

Next day Tuzzadeen returned to bury the dead man and bring away the orchids; among them was Mr. Vicars' Dendrobium Lowii.

The Dyak practice referred to--of putting the father to bed when a child is born--prevails, or has prevailed, from China to Peru. It lingers even in Corsica and the Basque Provinces of Europe. Those who would know more may consult an Encyclopaedia, under the heading 'Couvade.' The house is 'taboo'--called 'pamali' in Borneo--for eight days. Hence the commotion.

CALANTHE HOUSE

For my own part I rank Calanthes among the most charming of flowers, and in the abstract most people agree with me perhaps. Yet they are contemned--the natural species--by all professed orchidists; and even hybrids mostly will be found in holes and corners, where no one is invited to pause and look at them. There are grand exceptions certainly. In Baron Schroder's wondrous collection, the hybrid Calanthes hold a most honourable place. I have seen them in bloom there filling a big house, more like flowering shrubs than orchids--a blaze and a ma.s.s of colour almost startling. But these are unique, raised with the utmost care from the largest and rarest and most brilliant varieties which money unlimited could discover. The species used for hybridising were, as I understand, Cal. vest.i.ta oculata gigantea with Cal. Regnieri, Sanderiana, and igneo-oculata--but picked examples, as has been said.

Here we have, among others, _Sandhurstiana_, offspring of Limatodes rosea Cal. vest. rubro-oculata. The individual flowers are large, and a spike may bear as many as forty; brightest crimson, with a large yellow 'eye'

upon the lip. No mortal contemns this.

_Bella_ (Veitchii Turneri).--Sepals white, petals daintily flushed; lip somewhat more deeply flushed, with a white patch upon the disc, and in this a broad spot of the deepest but liveliest crimson.

_Veitchii_ of course; but also the pure white form of Veitchii, which is by no means a matter of course.

_William Murray_ (vest. rubro-oculata Williamsii).--A hybrid notably robust, which is always a recommendation. White sepals and petals, a crimson patch on the lip, darkest at the throat.

_Florence_ (bella Veitchii).--Flowers large, of a deep rose, with purplish rose markings.

_Clive._--The parentage of this hybrid is lost. Petals lively carmine, sepals paler. Throat yellow, lip white at base with carmine disc.

_Victoria Regina_ (Veitchii rosea).--The large flowers are all tender rose, saving a touch of sulphurous yellow at base of the lip.

Phaio-calanthe _Arnoldiae_ is a bi-generic hybrid (C. Regnieri Phajus grandifolius).--Sepals and petals yellow; lip rose-pink.

Here also I may mention some interesting Phajus hybrids:--

_Phoebe_ (Sanderia.n.u.s Humblotii).--Sepals and petals light fawn-colour with a pinkish tone; lip crimson, veined with yellow.

_Owenia.n.u.s_ (bicolor Oweniae Humblotti).--Sepals and petals milk-white, tinged with purplish brown. Lip like crimson velvet, orange at the base.

_Ashworthia.n.u.s_ (Mannii maculatus).--Sepals and petals deep yellow, touched with ochre, lip similarly coloured, marked with heavy radiating lines of chocolate.

_Cooksoni_ (Wallichii tuberculosus).--The sepals and petals are those of Wallichii--buff tinged with reddish purple, china-white at back; the lip is that of tuberculosus--side-lobes yellow, spotted with crimson; disc white, with purple spots.

_Marthae_ (Blumei tuberculosus).--Sepals and petals pale buff. The large lip white, touched with pale rose, and thickly covered with golden-brown spots.

Very notable is the Zygo-colax hybrid, _Leopardinus_ (Zygopetalum maxillare Colax jugosus), of which we give an ill.u.s.tration.

Here is also the Zygopetalum hybrid, _Perrenoudii_ (intermedium Guatieri).--Sepals and petals green, heavily blurred with brown. Lip violet, deepening to purple.

Against the back wall of this house stands a little grove of Thunias Bensoniae and Marshalliana; the former magenta and purple, and the latter white with yellow throat, profusely striped with orange red. The wondrous intricacy of design so notable in the colouring of orchids is nowhere more conspicuous than in Thunia Marshalliana.

THE CYMBIDIUM HOUSE

Our 'specimen' Cymbidiums, that is, the large plants, are scattered up and down in other houses; for singly they are ornaments, and together their great bulk and long leaves would occupy too much s.p.a.ce. Here are only small examples, or small species, planted out upon a bed of tufa amidst ferns and moss and begonias, Cyrtodeira Chontalensis, and the pretty 'African violet,' St. Paulii ionantha.

Cymbidiums are not showy, as the term applies to Cattleyas and Dendrobes.

Their colour, if not white, is brown or yellow, with red-brown markings.

We hear indeed of wonders to be introduced some day--of a gigantic species, all golden, which dwells in secluded valleys of the Himalayas, and another, bright scarlet, in Madagascar. In fact, this was collected again and again by M. Humblot and shipped to Europe; but every piece died before arrival. At length M. Humblot carried some home himself, and a few survived. Sir Trevor Lawrence bought two, I believe, but they died before flowering. So did all the rest.

But if the Cymbidiums of our experience make no display of brilliant colour, a.s.suredly they have other virtues. When eburneum thrusts up its rigid spikes, in winter or earliest spring, crowned with great ivory blooms, the air is loaded with their perfume. I have seen a plant of Lowianum with more than twenty garlands arching out from its thicket of leaves, each bearing fifteen to twenty-five three-inch flowers, yellow or greenish, with a heavy bar of copper-red across the lip. And they grow fast. It is said that at Alnwick the Duke of Northumberland has specimens of unknown age filling boxes four feet square; each must be a garden in itself when the flowers open. And they last three months when circ.u.mstances are favourable. Sometimes also--but too rarely--the greenish yellow of Lowianum is changed to bright soft green. n.o.body then could say that the colouring is not attractive.

We have here most of the recognised species--Cymbidiums are not much given to 'sporting': Devonianum, buff, freckled with dull crimson--lip purplish, with a dark spot on either side; Sinensis, small, brown and yellow, scented; Hookeri, greenish, dotted and blotched with purple; Traceyanum, greenish, striped with red-brown, lip white, similarly dotted, and the famous Baron Schroder variety thereof, which arrived in the very first consignment, but never since; pendulum, dusky olive, lip whitish, reddish at the sides and tip; and so on.

The only hybrids of Cymbidium known to me are eburneo-Lowianum and its converse, Lowiano-eburneum. The former is creamy yellow, with the V-shaped blotch of its father on the lip; the latter pure white, with the same blotch more sharply defined--which is to say, that Lowiano-eburneum is much the better of the two. Both are represented here.

Against the gla.s.s, right and left all round, are Coelogynes of sorts.

We have another house devoted mainly to Cymbidium, in which they have been planted out for some years, with results worth noting. I am convinced that in a future day amateurs who put the well-being of their orchids above all else--above money in especial!--will discard pots entirely. Every species perhaps--every one that I have observed, at least--grows more strongly when placed in a niche, of size appropriate, on a block of tufa. There are objections, of course--quite fatal for those who have not abundance of labour at command; for the compost very quickly turns sour under such conditions if not watered with great care and judgment. Moreover, what suits the plant suits also the insects which feed upon it. And if there be rats in the neighbourhood they soon discover that there is snug lying against the pipes, behind the wall of stone. Anxious mothers find it the ideal spot for a nursery. I cannot learn, however, that they do any wanton damage, beyond nipping off a few old leaves to make their beds, which is no serious injury. I have rats in my own cool house. Many years ago, on their first arrival probably, an Odontoglossum bulb was eaten up.

Doubtless that was an experiment which did not prove satisfactory, for it has never been repeated. However, rats and insects can be kept down, if not exterminated.

The Cymbidiums here were rough pieces, odds and ends, consigned to this house to live or die. Now they are grand plants, in the way to become 'specimens,' set among ferns and creepers on a lofty wall of tufa, the base of which is clothed with Tradescantia and Ficus repens. In front and on one side are banks of tufa planted with Masdevallias, Lycastes, Laelia harpophylla, and so forth.

STORY OF COELOGYNE SPECIOSA

Orchid stories lack one essential quality of romance. They have little of the 'female interest,' and nothing of love. The defect is beyond remedy, I fear--collectors are men of business. It is rumoured, indeed, that personages of vast weight in the City could tell romantic adventures of their own, if they would. So, perhaps, could my heroes. But neither do tell willingly. I have asked in vain. However, among my miscellaneous notes on Orchidology, it is recorded that 'W. C. Williams found Coelogyne speciosa up the Baram River. Books confine its habitat to Java and Sumatra.' The Baram is in Borneo. When travelling in that island thirty years ago I heard a story of Williams' doings, and I think I can recall the outline. But imagination furnishes the details, of course, aided by local knowledge.

It may be worth while to tell briefly how this gentleman came to be wandering in Borneo--in the Sultan's territory also--at a date when Rajah Brooke had but just begun to establish order in his own little province.

Williams' position or business I never heard. Some Dutch firm sold or entrusted to him a stock of earthenware jars made in Holland, facsimiles of those precious objects cherished by the Dyaks. The speculation was much favoured in that day--it seemed such in easy cut to fortune. But they say that not a solitary Dyak was ever taken in. The failure was attributed, of course, to some minute divergence from the pattern. Manufacturers tried again, still more carefully. They sent jars to be copied in China, whence the originals came, evidently, at an unknown period. But it was no use; the Dyaks only looked somewhat more respectfully at these forgeries before rejecting them. For many years the attempt was made occasionally. Rich Chinamen tried their skill. But at length everybody got to understand, though no one is able to explain, that those savages possess some means of distinguishing a jar of their own from a copy absolutely identical in our eyes.

Mr. Williams had tried elsewhere without success, I fancy, before visiting Brunei, the capital. But he had good reason to feel confidence there. The Malay n.o.bles would buy his jars without question, and compel their Dyak subjects to accept them at their own price; such was the established means of collecting subsidies. In fact, the n.o.bles were overjoyed. But the Sultan heard what was afoot. He possesses several of these mystic objects, and he makes no inconsiderable portion of his revenue by selling water drawn from them to sprinkle over the crops, to take as medicine, and so forth. For his are the finest and holiest of all--beyond price. One speaks upon occasion, giving him warning when grave troubles impend. Sir Spencer St. John says he asked the Sultan a few years afterwards 'whether he would take 2000 for it; he answered he did not think any offer in the world would tempt him.'

The Brunei monarch was shrewd enough to see that pa.s.sing off false jars could not be to his interest. The Pangarans argued in vain. There's no telling where it would end, he said, if the idolaters once began to feel suspicious. 'Let your Englishman take his wares among the Kayan dogs. He may swindle them to his heart's content.' The Kayans were not only independent but ruthless and conquering foes of Brunei.

There was no other hope of selling the confounded jars. After a.s.suring himself that the enterprise was not too hazardous, Williams sought a merchant familiar with the Kayan trade. He chose Nakodah Rahim, a sanctimonious and unprepossessing individual, but one whose riches made a guarantee of good faith. This man contracted to transport him and his goods to Langusan, the nearest town of the Kayans on the Baram, and to bring him back.

Williams was the first European perhaps to reach that secluded but charming settlement. The Nakodah prudently anch.o.r.ed in mid-stream and landed by himself to call on the head chief. When the news spread that a white man was aboard the craft, swarms of delighted Kayans tumbled pell-mell into their canoes and raced towards it, yelling, laughing, splashing one another in joyous excitement. But the great chief Tamawan put a stop to this unseemly demonstration. Rushing from the Council Hall, where he and his peers were giving audience to the Nakodah, he commanded the people to return, each to his own dwelling. Stentor had not a grander voice. It overpowered even that prodigious din. The mob obeyed. They swarmed back, and, landing, shinned up the forty-foot poles which are their stairs, like ants; reappearing a moment afterwards on the verandah, among the tree-tops. These vast 'houses,' containing perhaps a thousand inmates, lined each bank of the river, and every soul pressed to the front, mostly shouting--a wild but pleasant tumult.

The chiefs sent an a.s.surance of hearty welcome. Williams paid his respects; they returned his call on board, and Tamawan invited him to a feast. Next day another potentate entertained him and then another. Drink of all sorts, including 'best French brandy,' flowed without intermission. Williams began to be ill. But there was no talk of business. His goods had been landed at the Council Hall, as is usual, but not unpacked. The Nakodah a.s.sured him all was right. He himself had a quant.i.ty of merchandise waiting under the same conditions.