pebae: to slim. 67 



to houses, but we could uot reach Raja Itam's place to-uight. My 

 steam launch, they say, is there. 



I ordered them several times to bring the launch as high up as 

 possible, and she might easily have got to the place we stayed at last 

 night. 



"We have now been going two days and part of a third, I 

 won't say without seeing a house, but without seeing the slightest 

 sign of man's ever haying been here, except a few bundles of rattans 

 lying on the river bank. We have come in that time, I should say 

 eighty miles, and now we have only met a boat. 



At 10.15 a.m. we reached the first clearing, and stopped there 

 for breakfast, ninety-five miles from Tanjong Blit. 



We went on again at 12.50 p.m. and after four and-a-half hours' 

 rowing against the tide, going in that time about ten miles, we 

 reached a house where there was a large boat. 



The river had got so wide, that in the last reach the waves nearly 

 swamped our cockle-shell, moreover a heavy thunder storm came 

 on, so we hired a larger boat, though the owner was rather unwilling 

 to let us have it, and pushed on. 



It rained in torrents, but as the tide was now with us we 

 determined to row till it turned, so I took an oar, whilst Tunku 

 SrLOXG and one of the men cooked the rice ; that to eat and water 

 to drink being our only food. 



In our dug-out we had four paddles, one of which I took, but 

 this boat was big and heavy, so we did not get on so fast. 



We saw several crocodiles to-day and two more wild duck this 

 morning. I shot a small eagle this evening. The ball going 

 through his body near the tail and then breaking his wing ; he had 

 very formidable beak and talons. 



We rowed till midnight, making fifteen miles more, one hundred 

 and twenty miles from Tan-jong Blit. 



