100 BORNEO—THE ORANG-UTAN. [c h a p . iy .
broad across the face, measured as soon as the animal
was killed, I can quite understand that when the head
arrived at Sarawak from the Batang Lupar, after two if
not three days’ voyage, it was so swollen by decomposition
as to measure an inch more than when it was fresh. On
the whole, therefore, I think it will be allowed, that up to
this time we have not the least reliable evidence of the
existence of Orangs in Borneo more than 4 feet 2 inches
high.
CHAPTER V.
BORNEO— JO U R N E Y IN TH E IN T ER IO R .
(NOVEMBER 1855 TO JANUARY 1856.)
AS the wet season was approaching I determined to
return to Sarawak, sending all gay collections with
Charles Allen round by sea, while I myself proposed to go
up to the sources of the Sadong River, and descend by the
Sarawak valley. As the route was somewhat difficult, I
took the smallest quantity of baggage, and only one servant,
a Malay lad named Bujon, who knew the language of the
Sadong Dyaks, with whom he had traded. We left the
mines on the 27th of November, and the next day reached
the Malay village of Goidong, where I stayed a short time
to buy fruit and eggs, and called upon the Datu Bandar, or
Malay governor of the place. He lived in a large and
well-built house, very dirty outside and in, and was very
inquisitive about my business, and particularly about the
coal mines. These puzzle the natives exceedingly, as they
cannot understand the extensive and costly preparations for
working coal, and cannot believe it is to be used only as