i64 THROUGH CENTRAL l^ORNEO 



the t\v(i nioiu} -boxes belonging to the expedition, con- 

 taining f. 3,000 in silver, had been stolen one night from 

 inv lent, a few feet away from the pasang-grahan. They 

 were both standing at one side covered with a bag, and 

 while it was possible for two men to carry off such a 

 hea\y box if one of them lifted the tent wall, still the 

 theft implied an amount of audacity and skill with which 

 hitherto I had not credited the Malays. The rain 

 clattering on the roof of the tent, and the fact that, con- 

 trar>^ to Dutch custom, I always extinguished my lamp 

 at night, was in their favour. After this occurrence the 

 lamp at night always hung lighted outside of the tent door. 

 All evidence pointed to the four men from Tumbang 

 Djuloi who recently left us. The sergeant had noticed 

 their prahus departing from a point lower down than 

 convenience would dictate, and, as a matter of fact, no- 

 body else could have done it. But they were gone, we 

 were in seclusion, and there was nobody to send anywhere. 

 In the middle of February we had twenty-nine men 

 here from Tamaloe, twenty of them Penyahbongs and the 

 remainder Malays. Tiie lieutenant had been successful, 

 and the men had only used two days in coming down with 

 the current. They were in charge of a Malay called Bang- 

 sul, who formerly had been in the service of a Dutch 

 official, and whose fortune had brought him to distant 

 Tamaloe, where he had acquired a dominating position 

 over the Penyahbongs. I wrote a report of the robbery to 

 the captain in Puruk Tjahu, and sent Longko to Tumbang 

 Djuloi to deliver it to the kapala, who was requested to 

 forward it. Tliere the matter ended, 



