IN SUMATRA. 255 



responsibility he liaJ ever borne when he deposited me again 

 on my own Rakit. 



Some of the trees which were ^rowin^ near the mouth of 



the side streams, couhl the forty or fifty feet of water in wliich 

 they stood have been removed to show them from their roots 

 npwards, must have been stupendous specimens of arboreal 

 vegetation. I gathered a slender species of Pandan (P. helio- 

 eopus), standing above the water to a height of thirty to thirty- 

 five feet, where the water measured between forty-five and fifty 

 feet, giving seventy to eighty feet for its true height- Here 

 I caught, in the act of swimming across the river, a lovely little 

 Carnivore (Linsang gracilis), one of the most beautiful of its 

 race, which, though I kept alive for a long time, never, to my 

 regret, became very tame, and therefore did not gain in my 

 affection the place that its beauty deserved, which was given 

 to another member of my menagerie, the curious crepuscular 

 honey-stealing Malay Bear. 



My next halting place was tne village of Pan, situated a little 

 below the junction of the water of the RaM^as region witli the 

 Musi which comes past Tebbing-tinggi, a celebrated prau 

 building depot doing a great trade with Palembang. These 

 boats, from six to seven feet in breadth, are made from a 

 single tree stem, out of which no one not acquainted with the 

 manner of their construction, on seeing it newly felled, would 

 believe that a boat of these dimensions could possibly bo 

 made. When the stem has been partially excavated, fires arc 

 kindled in the hollow, and bars of wood changed at intervals 

 for longer ones, are forced in crosswise to separate the sides. 

 The greatest possible care is necessary in this operation, as 

 the heat often at the very last will start a knot, or crack the 

 loff, renderiii<r ^11 their work of months useless. A perfect 

 pantjalan, therefore, costs a large sum. 



Pleasant as " rakiting " was, it had its perils, for where the 

 river widened out greatly and decreased in current, the wind 

 blowing across the stream rendered navigation very dangerous. 

 About 100 miles above Palembang (and 150 from the sea) 

 we were caught in a heavy squall of wind and min in the night 

 time, which simply took the entire control of our rather 

 unwieldy vessels. So intensely dark was the night that we had 

 no idea, except when a momentary gleam of lightning lit up 



