usual, took up our quarters with “ Lapayang” in his
bamboo-house. He and his people were sui’prised at our
having got across the river to-day, and pointed to where
it was rushing and foaming a yard higher than its usual
current. Smith lost his stick and some plants he was
carrying for me, and his rifle, too, would have gone had
it not been strapped to his hack. No one can possibly
understand the danger of these swollen torrents who has
not had personal experience of them. Once off one’s feet
in the surging stream, running seven or eight miles an
hour at the least, one’s life would inevitably be dashed
away on the boulders and jagged rocks which occur every
few yards. Adventures of this kind look tame when
calmly written down after all danger is past, and when
read by a comfortable fireside, but they are really very
real and exciting when one is undergoing them in person.
A little later we were surprised by “ Suong” and my
“ boy,” poor little “ Kimjeck,” who came in looking as
miserable as drowned rats. They had avoided the dangerous
fords by coming along the hill-path beside the
river, but my other fellows refused to come on, and took
shelter from the rain in some Dusun huts midway.
“ Lapayang ” received us kindly, as usual, and gave us
a fowl and some rice, and lent us some cooking pots.
Another villager brought us eggs and a cluster of fine
golden bananas—I never tasted more delicious ones-—so
that we dined well after all our mishaps. After dinner our
host brought us in a couple 'of fine large tarippe fruit,
just at a time when dessert was least expected; we deserved
it, however, and enjoyed it accordingly. I think
I never felt so fatigued before in my life, my feet and
legs were sore, and the exertion of the descent yesterday,
and the falls I had, made me ache all over. Added to
this, my skin from head to foot was covered with irritable
red eruptions, caused by a minute red parasite of acaroid
nature, which my men told me came off the buffalo on
which I had ridden. As we sat smoking after dinner we
heard the rain falling very heavily, and it lasted most of
the night. The troubles of the day are ended, and we
have cause to be grateful for our preservation from its
dangers.
August 20th.—It was at first very wet this morning,
but an hour after sunrise it cleared up and the sun shone
beautifully. Our laggards came in about eight o’clock,
just as we finished our breakfast of fowl and rice. There
are plenty of fine cocoanut trees here, and one can obtain
fine fruit, i Kurow ” overtook us here this morning,
having, together with his little daughter and another girl,
walked from Kiau since daybreak. They are going on to
Kambatuan, he tells me, to trade, and the girls have
baskets of tobacco on their backs. We bought some
cocoanuts and paid our host “ Lapayang.” He particularly
wanted some powder and caps for his musket, and
these we gave him, together with a handkerchief or two,
and looking-glasses for his sisters, two fine girls, both
married to young men of the village.
We started for Kambatuan after all our men had arrived,
and “ Kurow” accompanied us. Altogether we had a
day’s rough work, two of the crossings being shoulder
high and very rapid, so that only I and the buffalo could
cross, and the men and Smith had to follow the windings
of the river a much longer distance over rough ground,
for the most part covered with coarse grasses and jungle.
It rained heavily at intervals, and we did not reach the
foot of Kambatuan hill much before dusk; and after half
an hour’s climbing up a path like a drain, sometimes
stony, sometimes of slippery yellow clay, we reached the
village in a regular downpour. Nowhere else in Borneo