CHAPTER VII 

 IN THE SWAMPS 



IT is full seventy miles from Tanjong Rambah 

 to Tanjong Tor facing the Strait of Malacca, 

 and every coastwise mile of it is mangrove swamp 

 with the tide in and mud flat with the tide out. 

 Long-necked, long-legged birds perch solemnly, 

 grotesquely expectant, upon the scarcely sub- 

 merged mangrove roots during high water, and 

 range industriously for stranded fish and other 

 smelling garbage things so generously exhibited at 

 low water as to make profitable hunting for thou- 

 sands upon thousands of winged scavengers. Be- 

 hind this shimmering, bird-dotted mess, noisome 

 banks of clinging mire run flatly away for one 

 hundred yards or so until lost in the densely over- 

 grown swamp of the jungle. Little creeks, little 

 rivers, come winding out from the jungle through 

 the swamps and the mud flats, making their way 

 to the sea along shallow channels that are as one 

 with the surroundings at high tide, but show bare 

 and ugly when the tide is low. It is not a pleasing 

 spectacle at best; but when the glistening, shivering 

 muck stands revealed in all its nakedness, it is the 

 most uninspiring bit of landscape eye ever rested 



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