IN SUM Am A, 



255 



responsibility he liad ever borne when he deposited me again 

 on my own Ilakit. 



Some of the treea which were growing near the month of 

 the side streams, conld the forty or fifty feet of water in which 

 they stood have been rcmovei^d to ahow them from their roots 

 np wards, must have been stiipendous specimens of arboreal 

 vegetAtiun, I gathered a slender species of Pandan (P. helio- 

 co^ms), standing above the water to a height of thirty to thirty- 

 five feet, where the water nieasnred between forty-tive and fifty 

 feet, giving seventy to eighty feet for its true heiglit. Here 

 ) I ean<^ht^ in the.aet of swimming across the river, a lovely little 

 ; Carnivore {Linsang graGilu)^ one of the most beautiful of its 

 ^ race, which, though I kept alive for a long time, never, to my 

 regret, became very tame, and therefore did not gain in my 

 aflection the place tluit its bbauty deserved, which was given 

 to another member of my menagerie, the curious crepuscular 

 honey-stealing JVralay Bear. 



3Iy next halting place was the village of Pan, situated a Httle 

 below the junction of the water of the Eawaa region with the 

 Muni which conies past Tebbing-tinggi, a celebrated prau 

 building depot doing a great trade with Palembang. These 

 boats, from six to seven feet in breadth, are made from a 

 single tree stem, out of which no one not acquainted with the 

 manner of their coustructitm, on seeing it newly felled, would 

 believe that a boat of these dimensions could possibly bo 

 made. When the stem has been partially excavatecl, fires are 

 kindled in the hollow, and bars of wood changed at intervals 

 for longer ones, are forced in crosswise to separate the sides. 

 The greatest possible care is necessary in this operation, as 

 the heat often at the very last will start a knot, or crack the 

 ! log, rendering all their work of months useless, A perfect 

 imntjalan, therefore, costs a large sum. 



Pleasant as " rakiting " was, it had its perils, for where the 

 river widened out greatly and decreaseil in current, the wind 

 blowing across the stream rendered navigation very rlangerous. 

 About IQi) miles alwve Palembang (and 150 from the sea) 

 we were caught in a heavy squall of wind and rain in the night 

 time, which simply took the entire control of our rather 

 unwieldy vessels. So intensely dark \si\s, the night that we had 

 no idea, except when a momentary gleam of liglitniiig lit up 



