found
ourselves in the large cave, on a sort of ledge, within perhaps sixty
feet of the roof. We were told that we were the first Europeans who
had ever descended on to this ledge. From here we watched the natives
collecting the nests. In a short account of this description it is
impossible for me to detail all the wonderful methods the natives
had for collecting the nests, but the chief method was by descending
rattan ladders, which were let down through the hole on the top of
the cave. It made one quite giddy even to watch the men descending
these frail swaying ladders with over five hundred feet of space
below them. The man on the nearest ladder had a long rattan rope
attached low down to his ladder, with a kind of wooden anchor at
the end of it. At the second attempt he succeeded with a wonderful
throw in getting the anchor to stick in the soft guano on the edge
of the slanting ledge where we were. It was then seized by several
men waiting there; by these it was hauled up until they were enabled
to catch hold of the end of the ladder, which they dragged higher and
higher up the steep, slanting rocks we had come down by. This in time
brought the flexible ladder, at least the part on which the man was,
level with the roof, and he, lying on his back on the thin ladder,
pulled the nests off the rocky roof, putting them into a large rattan
basket fastened about his body.

We saw many other methods they have of collecting these nests by the
aid of long bamboo poles and rattan ropes, up which they climbed to
dizzy heights.

These eaves, we were told, were full of very large harmless snakes,
but we did not come across them. If I had had a good head and plenty
of skill and pluck as a climber, I might have come away a wealthy man,
as the Hadji told us that in a sort of side cave high up in the large
cave were the coffins of the men that first discovered these caves,
and with them were large jars of gold and jewels, but no one dared
touch them, as they said it would be certain death to the man who did
so. A man once did take some, but a few days later was taken violently
ill and so had them put back and thus recovered. It was not for any
scruples of this kind that I declined the Hadji's offer to help myself
when he pointed out to me the spot where they were, but I think he
must have guessed that I would not have trusted myself on one of those
frail swaying ladders with over five hundred feet of space beneath me.

On the w