is nasty with a soupçon of something rather sweet and
nice. On opening a fruit for yourself, however, you find
that the perfume, like that of the musk plant, ceases to
he evident after you have once had a fair whiff at it at
close quarters. The flavour of the straw-coloured, custardlike
pulp which surrounds the four or five rows of large
chestnut-like seeds is perfectly unique : to taste it, as
Wallace tells us, is “ a new sensation, worth a journey to
the East to experience ; ” but much depends on a good
fruit being obtained when perfectty, not over ripe. You
then find the pulp sweet, rich, and satisfying ; it is indeed
a new sensation, but no two persons can agree as to the
flavour—no two descriptions of it are alike. Its subtle
action upon the palate—and perhaps this best explains
the unceasing popularity it enj oys—is like the music of a
well-played violin on the ear, rich, soothing, sweet,
piquant. The flavour of durian is satisfying, but it never
cloys ; the richness seems counteracted by a delicate
acidity, the want of grape-like juiciness is supplied by the
moist creamy softness of the pulp as it melts away icelike
on your tongue.
It is said that the best of whisky is that made by
blending several good kinds together, and Nature seems
to have blended four or five good flavours together when
she made the durian. “ A macedoine of fruits,” says a
modem author, “ when well made and judiciously flavoured,
is a delicious sweetmeat. The grape, the peach,
the apricot, and the pine, meet in welcome harmony ;
the pear, the apple, and the cherry, and their friendly
companionship, and all these opposing elements of flavour
are blended with a soft and soothing syrup.” In a word,
the durian is a natural macédoine—one of Dame Nature’s
“ made dishes ”—and if it be possible for you to imagine
the flavour of a combination of corn flour and rotten
cheese, nectarines, crushed filberts, a dash of pineapple,
a spoonful of old dry sherry, thick cream,
apricot-pulp, and a soupçon of garlic, all reduced to the
consistency of a rich custard, you have a glimmering
idea of the durian, but, as before pointed out, the odour
is almost unmentionable—perfectly indescribable, except
it be as “ the fruit with the fragrant stink ! ”
The fruit itself is in size as large as a Cadiz melon,
and the leathery skin is protected by sharp broad-based
spines very similar to those of a horse chestnut. The
name durian, in fact, is derived from these—the word
duri in Malay meaning a spine or thorn. There are
many varieties in the Bornean woods, some but little
larger than horse chestnut fruits, and having only two
seeds ; others larger, but with stiff orange-red pulp, not
at all nice to eat, however hungry you may be ; and even
the large kinds, with creamy pulp and many seeds, vary
very much in flavour. The trees are monarchs of the
forest, as a rule varying from seventy to one hundred and
fifty feet, or even more, in height, with tall straight boles
and spreading tops, and the foliage is oblong acuminate,
dark green above, paler and covered with rufous stellate
hairs or scales below. The fruits of the finer varieties fall
when ripe, and accidents sometimes happen.
I saw a native who had the flesh torn from his shoulder
by a blow from one of these armed fruits, and saw several
narrow escapes, but personally I gave the trees a wide
berth at fruiting time. Some varieties, especially the
“ durianburong,” or wild-bird durians, do not shed the
fruits, which haug on the branches until the valves open,
when the seeds fall to the ground, or are eaten by horn-
bills and other large fruit-eating birds and monkeys. I
saw some magnificent specimens of durian trees in the
Bornean forests north of the capital, and also in other