AMONG THE OKANG-UTANS. 363 



progress. "With great labor we cut through one drift and cut a 

 passage around the other wide enough for our boats. 



Just before reaching Little Padang Lake, we came to a spot 

 where about forty acres of j angle had been killed — by fii'e, the ]VIa- 

 lays said, although I hardly see how it could have been burned. 

 The trees stood in the water leafless, dead, and bare, save for a 

 green epiphyte here and there on their branches. Acres of dead 

 screw pines reared their leafless stems aloft, and the prospect was 

 dreary enough. Winding in and out, and turning a great many 

 times, we came to Little Padang Lake, and found it a perfect jungle 

 of Pandanus. Threading our wav throufrh that, we came to forest 

 again, and a Httle farther on entered Padang Lake, also a labji'inth 

 of screw pines. As we were crossing a bit of oj^en water, one of 

 the Malays chanced to look back and immediately exclaimed, in an 

 excited whisper : " Mias, tuan ! mias ! mias ! " 



Sure enough, there we espied a mias fast asleep in a Httle tree 

 close to which we had passed. He lay on his back in the main fork 

 of the tree, holding on by the large Hmbs. 



We paddled up very qmetly to within fifty yards, when he dis- 

 covered us and started tip. I fired at him, and, as the boat crashed 

 into the pines, took another shot. The pines were very thick, and 

 there was no shore anywhere. We were obHged to take to the 

 water or lose the animal, so overboard we went, and kept our heads 

 above water by holding to the spiny stems which pricked our hands 

 painfully. After a while we touched a bottom of mud, and were 

 able to wade, though the water was up to our necks. It was slow 

 work. Our feet often got caught in vines, and roots, and some- 

 times we came against submerged pine-stems waist high, while up 

 to our chins in water. Had the mias not have been hit hard, he 

 would have escaped, for, in spite of our eagerness, our progress 

 was slow and painful. After forty yards of wading we came up 

 with him, and found him badly hurt, and visibly weakening. Not 

 wishing to prolong his sufferings, I sent a bullet through his head, 

 which smashed his skull all to pieces, and tumbled him Hke a log 

 into the water. Lamudin took him in tow, and we toiled back to 

 the boat. 



Three orang-utans in one day ! The men huiTahed loud and 

 long ; and I beheve I must have indulged in a Httle shout on my 

 o^\Ti account. 



When you remember, my reader, that it was for the orang-utan 

 that I had made an expensive risit to Borneo, and up to that day 



