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 grow 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 everyday 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.
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