42 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



but bamboo, a very ingenious construction. Some 

 twenty pieces of bamboo, about thirty feet long, had 

 been lashed together with bamboo thongs, and upon 

 these, in the centre, was a raised platform about fif- 

 teen by six feet. A light frame supported the tent 

 and fly as a covering over this. Not a single nail had 

 been used in the construction. 



The trip down river would have been thoroughly 

 delightful had it not been for the rain. As it was, 

 the mornings were bright and warm, and the river- 

 banks, as we floated leisurely past, were always 

 full of interest. As on our journeys through the 

 jungle, gorgeously colored birds kept flying and 

 singing around us; the shores were here and there 

 lined with banana and other fruit trees, in which 

 monkeys played and squabbled, and occasionally 

 we passed a little kampong, half hidden in the foli- 

 age, with natives working and babies sprawling on 

 the thresholds of the huts. 



In one place we had to go over a rather formidable 

 set of rapids, which our paddlers had been discussing 

 for days beforehand, and which apparently caused 

 them some apprehension. The barang, or luggage, 

 was carefully lashed, a huge steering paddle con- 

 structed in the stern, and, with paddlers and polers 

 at their posts, we pushed out into the stream. As 

 we drifted toward the first pitch, the pilot, a gray- 



