230 EAMBLES OP A NATUEALIST. [Ch. XIV. 



hirds' -nests of commerce, frequently found in the numerous 

 limestone caverns with which the country ahounds, ac- 

 companied us all day, skimming like the Enghsh sand- 

 martin over the river surface. Another little bird, having a 

 note not unlike that of the yellow-hammer, was pointed out 

 to me by the Malays as the aUigator-bird, about which they 

 had a legend to the effect that the alligators of the river 

 were constantly demanding of it payment of a debt long due 

 to them from its ancestors, to which the bird is supposed to 

 reply, " I have nothing to give you except the feathers of 

 my tan, and those you may have if you can get them," — a 

 legend which seems intended to place their most dreaded 

 enemy in a ridiculous light. For these terrible monsters 

 ascend the rivers even above the rapids, and, if well-informed 

 residents can be trusted, even sharks have been known to do 

 the same. The Malays remarked of another small bird that 

 it was the diamond-bird, averring that wherever it was seen 

 diamonds were certainly to be found near at hand. 



At a bend of the river we suddenly met a canoe, paddled 

 by four little Dyak girls, who seemed half frightened at 

 meeting us. I was much struck with their upright graceful 

 figures as they sat at their paddles ; for, like other savage 

 or semi-savage people, the children are often pretty, though 

 the exposure which they undergo, and the labour which they 

 necessarily have to perform, soon turn their infantine 

 be§,uty into the harsh and unredeemed ugliness of coarse 

 adolescence. 



The increasing shallowness of the river rendered it neces- 

 sary soon after this that we should change our boats for two 

 small canoes, in each of which two of us sat, with one of our 

 boatmen at the stern, while a Dyak wielded a pole in the 

 fore part of each, and thus we performed the remainder of 



