28 JOURNEY ACROSS THE MALAY PENINSULA. 
Klédi, two miles above the Pékan, at 4.15 px. Here we 
waited, according to agreement, and in a short time Cue Aur 
returned with Cue GApox and a message from the Yam Tian 
to say that he was very unwell ( consumption they say), and 
asking me to wait here till to-morrow to allow them to make 
proper preparations. We accordingly camped on the bank, 
and the tide falling left us ten yards of mud to cross to the 
boats. 7 
Distance travelled, eighteen miles; general direction, S.H. 
The river is about one thousand yards wide at this pomt, and 
the banks low, but covered with grass and jungle where there 
is no cultivation. 
Unlike the rivers on the West coast, there is no mangrove. 
To-day the banks were thickly populated, and we passed the 
following hamlets:—Kampong Temai, Bliker Acheh, Pulau 
Ganchong, Tanjong Réngas, Aur Gading, Kampong Téluk, 
Sungei Pihane ‘Tua, Kula Langger. 
This sort of travelling may seem very easy and pleasant, 
but it has its disadvantages; for mstance, at midnight I started 
for bed, seemingly no very dificult journey, and immediately 
stepped into a nest of the sémut api, cr fire ant, that is an 
experience that no one would care to repeat. A Sikh-then 
carried me over the mud and deposited me up to my ankles 
in water in a dug-out and, with the assistance of that unstable 
conveyance, I reached the back of my boat somewhere in the 
depths of which a rat had died three days before. To get as 
far as possible from the pestilent stench of the decaying rat, 
IT had had my mosquito net hung in the middle of the ‘boat, 
and to reach that it was necessary to crawl through two doors, 
each two and a half feet by two feet, and over the body of a 
sleeping Malay, arranged seemingly to make one’s Progress as 
difficult and uncomfortable as possible. ‘Then I faced my cur- 
tain to find the hole through which alone entrance can be 
gained, and which for the best reasons is not im the side but 
in the bottom of the curtain, next the sidé otf the boat, 7.e., 
with two inches of wood between it and the water. Through 
that hole [ got by a series of gymnastic feats which no one 
would attempt in the light, and tinally reached my goal to find 
the small mattress quite wet with the heavy dew, ne the eur- 
dain simply wringing. Fifteen days in a_ boat four feet wide 
