FROM SINGAPORE TO BANJERMASSING. 259 
a horrible stench, and attracting a vast number of hawks, who sailed 
round and round, swooping every now and then at the tempting morsels, 
and succeeded occasionally in carrying a piece off, in spite of the nu- 
merous naked urchins who kept guard with long sticks. There were 
four species of these birds, the most numerous being the red Brahminee 
kite of India: they were perfectly fearless, sweeping past close to one’s 
head; and it was interesting to watch them devouring their prey on 
the wing, and really picking out the pieces of meat with their beaks 
from between their clenched talons. There were several Singapore 
prahus in company with these people, waiting to buy fish. As we 
rowed past, an extremely filthy old savage, who called himself Orang 
Kaya, or chief, came on board ; he told us that his office was hereditary, 
and that every man of his family bore the same name, Pulek. He told 
me that his people sometimes entered the rivers, but only far enough 
to get fresh water to drink, which he said was very good. I felt some- 
what interested about this matter, as I began to suspect we should be 
some time in reaching Indragiri, so I asked him to let me see it. He 
fetched a cupfull from his boat: it was muddy, nearly black, and not 
brackish, but so actually salt that I could not touch it; yet he drank it 
with great relish, and said it was better than the clear water we had 
brought from Singapore: so much will habit do in modifying human 
tastes. T exchanged with him some tobacco and an old pair of trowsers, 
to which he took a great fancy, for a bundle of dried fish for the boat- 
men; and after a most barefaced attempt to steal my short clay pipe (a 
high crime, for it was the only one I had with me), he took his leave, 
and we pulled on.. We soon got aground however, about a mile from 
the trees, and were of course obliged to wait for the tide. Shortly after- 
wards the whole tribe was in motion, following us, and they moored 
themselves to poles stuck in the mud in a long line, of which our boat i 
was nearly the centre. They now began to prepare their balat, or fishing — 
weir; it was a sort of flexible paling, made of strips of bamboo, an inch 
wide and four or five feet long, fastened together by the twisted stems 
of a species of Cissus (this material, like their boats, they get from the 
Malays) This paling is doubled up and piled upon the small boats | 
before mentioned, in lengths of 100 to 200 feet in each boat, and from — 
these it is shot like a seine net, when the tide begins to ebb, in about - 
six feet water, and in a line parallel with the shore; as fast as one boat 
was exhausted another was brought up, and a fresh length joined on. 
