150 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



young raja's boat came the booming notes of the 

 assembly call of the war -gong. Every one was 

 wearing his gayest and brightest sarong pink, and 

 green, and yellow, and purple ; every one was excited, 

 and every one was happy. 



Only old Alang Abdullah, standing on a bluff 

 behind the river-bank and looking up to the range 

 of mountains at the river's source, was uneasy. 

 Until three days ago the whole month had been 

 rainless, and the river had been so low that a man 

 might wade dry above the hips from bank to bank, 

 and so clear that the water flowing over its sandy 

 bed seemed, but for its ripples, to be of molten 

 glass. This was the condition of water requisite 

 for a really successful drive. But in the last two 

 days there had been heavy rain in the hills, and 

 the river was now charged with mud and silt, and 

 was running more than a foot above its former 

 level. His disappointment was the more bitter 

 because he had originally selected a day in the 

 preceding week as a propitious one, and it was to 

 suit the datoh's European guests that the day had 

 been postponed. Ever since the day when the datoh 

 had decided to have a drive, Alang Abdullah had 

 made every offering that he knew to be acceptable, 

 and had used every incantation and observed every 

 mystic rite to keep the rain from falling until after 

 the appointed day. But despite it all the rain had 

 fallen : and if it rained again that night it would 

 be impossible for the drive to take place. It was 

 with a sinking heart that he eyed the lowering 

 clouds which wrapped the mountains at the river's 



