CHAPTER I 

 Borneo 



The recollection of the trip which I made from 

 Sandakan up the Labuk River will always remain fresh 

 with me. For sheer discomfort the early part of it 

 would have been hard to equal, almost impossible to 

 beat. Travelling in a virgin forest anywhere can 

 never be a wholly pleasant experience, but when that 

 forest lies along the bank of a river, within a few 

 degrees of the Line, a day's journey often becomes 

 a long-drawn-out misery, mud, insects, heat and 

 vegetation apparently acting in concert to take the heart 

 out of the invader, and so force him to turn back. 



I started from Sandakan in a steam launch, which 

 the Borneo Government had kindly loaned, having 

 with me Mr. Clarke, of the local copper mines — it is 

 curious that the names of all the companions I had taken 

 on my trips hitherto had begun with the letter " C." 

 Leaving the picturesque little town, with its native 



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