Borneo — Journey in the Interior. 75 



• CHAPTER V. 



BORNEO — JOURNEY IN THE INTERIOR. 



NOVEMBER, 18o5, TO JANUARY, 1856. 



As the wet season was approaching, I determined to re- 

 turn to Sarawak, sending all my collections with Charles Al- 

 len round by sea, while I myself proposed to go up to the 

 sources of the Sadong River, and descend by the Sarawak val- 

 ley. As the route was somewhat difficult, I took the small- 

 est 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 

 Gudong, where I staid 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 out- 

 side and in, and was very inquisitive about my business, and 

 particularly about the coal-mines. These puzzle the natives 

 exceedingly, as they can not understand the extensive and 

 costly preparations for working coal, and can not believe it is 

 to be used only as fuel when wood is so abundant and so 

 easily obtained. It was evident that Europeans seldom 

 came here, for numbers of women skeltered away as I walked 

 through the village ; and one girl about ten or twelve years 

 old, who had just brought a bamboo full of water from the 

 river, threw it down with a cry of horror and alarm the mo- 

 ment she caught sight of me, turned round and jumped into 

 the stream. She swam beautifully, and kept looking back as 

 if expecting I would follow hex*, screaming violently all the 

 time, while a number of men and boys were laughing at her 

 ignorant terror. 



At Jahij the next village, the stream became so swift in 

 consequence of a flood, that my heavy boat could make no 

 way, and I was obliged to send it back, and go on in a very 

 small open one. So far the river had been very monotonous, 



