338 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



their tall, feathery leaves so thickly in places as to exclude the 

 monotonous mangrove entirely. The nipa palm resembles a bunch 

 of cocoanut leaves growing stiffly up, and a cocoanut leaf looks Hke 

 a huge, uncurled ostrich plume dyed a deep gi'een. 



The scenery of the Sarawak Eiver below the capital is decidedly 

 monotonous, and uninteresting except for the distant mountains ; 

 but I venture to assert the same may be said of any equatorial river 

 for the first twenty mUes up. The banks are of soft mud, the 

 jungle is low and swampy, and the trees are so small and strag- 

 gling that even the monkeys disdain to inhabit them. We must 

 get farther from the coast to find the grand forests which are fairly 

 alive with wonderful monkeys, and apes, deer, wild "pigs" (fancy 

 a " pig " standing thirty-seven inches high at the shoulders !), civet 

 cats, &jing squirrels, hornbiUs, and argus pheasants. On the way 

 up the Sarawak we saw not a single monkey nor other mammal, and 

 only one or two stray birds. 



We followed the tortuous windings of the river for nearly four- 

 teen miles before we came to any signs of civihzation ; and, for a 

 time, we were in a quandaiy whether or not to class as such the first 

 Malay houses we saw. The Malay loves water like a duck, and, if 

 possible, he builds his house on piles over a running stream. Fail- 

 ing in that, he builds over stagnant water ; and, failing in that, he 

 builds over the softest mud he can find. 



He cannot build over the Sarawak River suitably for various 

 reasons, so, leaving thousands of dry acres tenantless, he builds 

 over the soft mud on the river-bank. His boat-house is a pole 

 stuck in the mud, and his wharf is a slimy, slipper^', slanting log, 

 reaching down from the top of the bank, across the mud, and into 

 the water indefinitely. If your Malay is really industrious and en- 

 terprising, he may even go so far as to cut a few rough notches 

 along the top of his landing-log ; but even then it is a difficult and 

 perilous feat for a booted European to make a landing just after 

 the tide has gone out and left a good thick deposit of slippery mud 

 all along the top of the wharf. 



As we neared the capital a lofty green peak seemed to rise 

 from just behind the town, but in reahty it was several miles 

 beyond. It was Matang Peak, three thousand one hundred and 

 sixty-eight feet in height. We passed a number of Malay houses 

 and stragghng villages strung along the banks, passed a flourishing 

 pottery, a warehouse containing a million rattan canes, a number 

 of small boats and a few large ones, came to some airy European 



