Dyak house, a mountain with abundance of fruit, and
plenty of Oxangs and fine birds. As the river was very
narrow, and I was obliged to go in a very small boat with
little luggage, I only took with me a Chinese boy as a
servant. I carried a cask of medicated arrack to put Mias
skins in, and stores and ammunition for a fortnight.
After a few miles, the stream became very narrow and
winding, and the whole country on each side was flooded.
On the banks were abundance of monkeys,—the common
Macacus cynomolgus, a black Semnopithecus, and the
extraordinary long-nosed monkey (Nasalis larvatus), which
is as large as a three-year ofd child, has a very long tail,
and a fleshy nose, longer than that of the biggest-nosed
man. The further we went on the narrower and more
winding the stream became ; fallen trees sometimes
blocked up our passage, and sometimes tangled branches
and creepers met completely across it, and had to be
cut away before we could get on. It took us two days
to reach Semabang, and we hardly saw a bit of dry land
all the way. In the latter part of the journey I could
touch the bushes on each side for miles; and we were
often delayed by the screw-pines (Pandanus), which grew
abundantly in the water, falling across the stream. In
other places dense rafts of floating grass completely filled
up the channel, making our journey a constant succession
of difficulties.
Near the landing-place we found a fine house, 250
feet long, raised high above the ground on posts, with a
wide verandah and still wider platform of bamboo in
front of it.. Almost all the people, however, were away
on some excursion after edible birds’-nests or bees’-wax,
and there only remained in the house two or three old men
and women with a lot of children. The mountain or hill
was close by, covered with a complete forest of fruit-trees,
among which the Durian and Mangusteen were very
abundant; but the fruit was not yet quite ripe, except
a little here and there. I spent a week at this place,
going out every day in various directions about the mountain,
accompanied by a Malay, who had stayed with me
while the other boatmen returned. For three days we
found no Orangs, but shot a deer and several monkeys.
On the fourth day, however, we found a Mias feeding on
a very lofty Durian tree, and succeeded in killing it, after
eight shots. Unfortunately it remained in the tree, hanging
by its hands, and we were obliged to leave it and return
home, as it was several miles off. As I felt pretty sure it
would fall during the night, I returned to the place early
the next morning, and found it on the ground beneath the
tree. To my astonishment and pleasure, it appeared to be
a different kind from any I had yet seen; for although a
full-grown male, by its fully developed teeth and very
large canines, it had no sign of the lateral protuberance
G 2