244 UDA PRANG 



disappointment in not having found rhinoceros 

 as well as elephant. Uda was quite a linguist, evi- 

 dently the result of his several years' service on the 

 coasting steamers. He spoke half English in de- 

 liberate fashion, and some Dutch, when he was 

 feeling particularly joyous— though he confessed 

 to me one day on the Indragiri River that he was 

 not so proud of his Dutch. His English was not 

 always to be relied on— but at least it was under- 

 standable and proved a great boon to me, who had 

 been confined to sign language for weeks. If Uda 

 was not a fluent talker, he was at all events an eco- 

 nomical one, for a single story usually lasted the 

 night; not that the tale was intricate— but Uda 

 enjoyed the telling. He seemed to have quite an 

 opinion of himself as a hunter, and later, whenever 

 he and I together encountered natives, he was good 

 enough to bracket us with much flourishing of 

 hands and an ornate preamble in the soft, tuneful 

 Malay. He informed me that he had hunted at 

 various times in Java and Borneo, and that if I 

 would wait until he had harvested his little crop 

 he would go with me on my proposed trip for rhino. 

 Uda was for ascending some of the rivers which 

 bear to the south and westward from the Siak ; but 

 I had seen all that part of Sumatra I cared to, and 

 was rather set on making my way to the sections 

 divided by the Kampar and the Indragiri rivers, 



