138 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



put into execution, and both served my purpose excellently. As I look back on my 

 experiences my only regret is that I did not spend another month in pursuing exactly 

 the same method of investigation, and clear up the points which must now be left 

 to the future. 



Throughout this monograph I have avoided, as much as possible, detailed reference 

 to the personalities of the expedition which I made in search of the pheasants, feeling 

 that this was in no sense a travelogue, and that the pheasants were the important thing, 

 and their hunter and his adventures of no direct concern. But the general conditions 

 under which I worked in the Argus country seem of sufficient interest to touch upon. 



With twelve Dyak paddlers, a Malay guide and cook and a Eurasian taxidermist 

 my tale of servants is complete, and we all lived on a Dyak war canoe, seventy feet over 

 all with only four-foot beam, protected by a low, thatched shelter. This was moored 

 close to the bank, and from this I made my excursions into the jungle. 



For a number of reasons it was at first difficult to sleep at night. Often it pours 

 from dusk to dawn, with frequent terrific thunderstorms about midnight. Then there is 

 always a more or less constant chorus of grunts, groans and snores from the men, and 

 every now and then the boat tips as a Dyak rolls ofi" into the water to ease a tie- 

 rope or shunt off some threatening piece of drift. At daybreak, if a village is not far 

 away, several canoefuls of Dyaks, men and women, pass and shout at us, on their way 

 hunting or to look after their small jungle paddy-fields. 



Until I look out I have no idea of the location of our boat. If the rains of the 

 preceding night have been local and have already flooded the river, we are floating high 

 up among the branches of the trees, and can push close in to the bank and step ashore. 

 But if the water be low we shall be lying ten to twenty feet lower, out at the end of the 

 ingenious causeway of notched poles which my men have erected over the mud banks. 

 The sun comes over the trees about seven o'clock, and, if the day is to be a fair one, a 

 dense mist overhangs the river. Fish leap here and there ; great trees come hurtling 

 past, branches scraping our sides, uprooted by some tropical downpour far up-river. 

 For an hour or two in early morning black flies are rather bad, then they vanish, to 

 reappear for an hour at sundown. The prevailing bird notes in early morning are the 

 loud, liquid warbles of the white-faced bulbuls and the shrill, chattering cry of wood 

 shrikes. At each day's end comes the wonderful tropical afterglow, the east becoming 

 rose as by a reflection from some great forest fire, the west a marvel of purples and 

 yellows, staining the river with rainbow tints and emphasizing the intense green of the 

 jungle's edge. After dark one has to walk gingerly on account of the fire-ants which 

 gather about our refuse. From the canoe I take a moonlight plunge, and then lie and 

 listen to the distant tom-toms or the nearer chorus of frogs. The voice of an Argus 

 comes faintly, and I thrill with the thought that I am able to slough off" enough of my 

 veneer of civilization to free my senses, and make them sufficiently keen to match 

 against the marvellous eyes and ears of this king of pheasants. This, in a word, is a 

 hint of the background of the picture. The foreground is filled with the heart-breaking 

 jungle work of tramping, creeping or waiting ; eyes and ears tuned to highest pitch, 

 racking to body, but when successful, giving a peace and joy which the man of cities and 

 conventional business can never experience. 



When the regularly recurring crepuscular call of the Argus told me that I was near 



