i88 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



heavily loaded craft take water. In Borneo it usually 

 requires as many days to get up-stream as it takes hours 

 to come down. 



We stayed for the night at a former camping place of 

 rattan seekers, a small, narrow clearing on the river brink, 

 on which tents and sheds were huddled closely together 

 in the way military- men prefer when travelling in the 

 utan. The paddlers had asked us to be ready at day- 

 light, but at seven o'clock in the chilly and very foggy 

 morning they were still warming themselves around the 

 fire. An hour later, when we had finished loading the 

 prahus, the river began to rise incredibly fast, at the rate 

 of ten centimetres per minute in the first six minutes, and 

 in two hours and a quarter it had risen 2.30 metres, 

 when it became steady. In the meantime we had re- 

 made our camp, hoping that the river might permit us 

 to travel next day. Three of the Penyahbongs went out 

 hunting with the only sumpitan we had, and shortly 

 afterward returned with a pig. 



Early in the afternoon we were much surprised by 

 the appearance of a prahu with three Dayaks who had a 

 dog and a sumpitan and brought a pig which they had 

 killed in the morning. They were the chief, with two 

 companions, from Data Laong on the Kasao River for 

 which we were aiming. The rumour of our j)arty had 

 reached his ears, and with thirty men he had been waiting 

 for us on this side of the watershed. Their scanty pro- 

 visions soon ran out, and after waiting nine days all had 

 returned home except the present party, whom we wel- 

 comed. The new men proved a valuable addition to our 



