ACCOUNT OF A TRIP UP THE PAHANG, AND OTHER RIVERS. 37 



^rd July. As we knew that we should be unable to get 

 much beyond Temerloh in our large boat, we began to look out 

 for smaller ones and landing at Pulau Guai, where there is a 

 straggling village, we found, after some search, one sampan 

 which the owners, after some bargaining, let us have for .,^11. 

 We shot a few birds here but nothing unusual. Taking our 

 newly acquired boat in tow, we proceeded up-stream still 

 looking out for boats, and presently we passed another which 

 looked suitable but it was some time before we could find 

 the owner who was at Mosque, it being Friday, but eventually, 

 after some hours' delay, we agreed to give ^15 for the boat 

 and went away with it in tow. A nest of the Racket-tailed 

 Drongo was noticed in a tree near the bank of the river. An 

 unsuccessful attempt, owing to its being at the end of a thin 

 branch, was made to get it. The nest is a very frail structure 

 being a cup of open basket-work of grass stems about as large 

 as an ordinary large breakfast cup suspended below the 

 branch. It contained young birds and the parents resented 

 the attempted robbery most pluckily, flying round the head 

 of the intruder and uttering shrill screams. We halted for the 

 night at Pualau Jelam where we saw some teal {Dendrocygna 

 javanicd). The night was so dark that we could not travel. 

 About 10 a.m. on the 4th we reached Temerloh where, finding 

 that it was impossible to get the big boat any further, we stayed 

 the whole of that day and the next trying to get boats which, 

 owing to the demand for them by the miners in the Ulu, were 

 difficult to obtain. At last, however, and after a great deal 

 of bargaining we got three of a suitable size at a fairly reason- 

 able price. 



The night before our arrival a buffalo calf had been killed 

 by a tiger about three miles from Temerloh and the following 

 night Mr. OwEN, the District Officer, accompanied by one of 

 our party, sat up for some hours over the hill in the hopes that 

 the tiger would return, but without success. The pretty striped 

 squirrel called Tupai B'lang (Scinrus Rafflesii) was here very 

 plentiful. On the 6th July, having transferred all our baggage 

 to the small boats, seven in number, including the two 

 small sampans we had brought from Pekan, we got under/ 



