CHAPTER XVI 



ARRIVAL AT BAHANDANG ON THE EQUATOR — A STARTLING 



ROBBERY OUR MOST LABORIOUS JOURNEY — HORN- 

 BILLS — THE SNAKE AND THE INTREPID PENYAHBONG 

 — ARRIVAL AT TAMALOfi 



Bahandang, where we arrived early in the second 

 afternoon, is the headquarters of some Malay rubber and 

 rattan gatherers of the surrounding utan. A house had 

 been built at the conflux with the river of a small affluent, 

 and here lived an old Malay who was employed in re- 

 ceiving the products from the workers in the field. Only 

 his wife was present, he having gone to Naan on the 

 Djuloi River, but was expected to return soon. The 

 place is unattractive and looked abandoned. Evidently 

 at a previous time effort had been made to clear the 

 jungle and to cultivate bananas and cassavas. Among 

 felled trees and the exuberance of a new growth of vege- 

 tation a few straggling bananas were observable, but 

 all the big cassava plants had been uprooted and turned 

 over by the wild pigs, tending to increase the dismal look 

 of the place. A lieutenant in charge of a patrouille had 

 put up a rough pasang-grahan here, where our lieutenant 

 and the soldiers tfK)k refuge, while I had the ground 

 cleared near one end of it, and there placed my tent. 



Not far off stood a magnificent tree with full, straight 



stem, towering in lonely solitude fifty metres above the 



overgrown clearing. In a straight line up its tall trunk 



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