AN UNPLEASANT AFFAIR i43 



Enjoying the very pleasant air after the night's rain, 

 we travelled rapidly down-stream on the swollen river to 

 Tumbang Marowei, where we spent the night. There 

 were twenty men from the kampong eager to accompany 

 me on my further journey, but they were swayed to and 

 fro according to the dictates of the kapala, who was res- 

 olutely opposed to letting other kampongs obtain posses- 

 sion of us. He wanted to reserve for himself and the 

 kampong the advantages accruing from our need of 

 prahus and men. To his chagrin, in the morning there 

 arrived a large prahu with four Murungs from Batu 

 Boa, who also wanted a chance at this bonanza, where- 

 upon the kapala began to develop schemes to harass us 

 and to compel me to pay more. 



Without any reason whatsoever, he said that only ten 

 of the twenty men I had engaged would be able to go. 

 This did not frighten me much, as the river was swollen 

 and the current strong, so that one man in each of our 

 prahus would be sufficient to allow us to drift down to the 

 nearest Malay kampong, where I had been promised 

 men some time before. At first I was quite concerned 

 about the loading of the prahus, as the natives all ex- 

 hibited a marked disinclination to work, the kapala, as 

 a matter of fact, having ordered a strike. However, with 

 the ten men allowed I was able by degrees to bring all our 

 goods down to the river bank, whereupon the kapala, 

 seeing that I was not to be intimidated, permitted the 

 rest of the men to proceed. 



It was an unpleasant affair, which was aggravated 

 by what followed, and was utterly at variance with my 



