THE OCCUPANTS OF THE JUNGLE. 
93 
and the shining beach. Altogether, it had a most inviting 
look. So, after wo had eaten our plain breakfast and got 
through with the usual Sunday muster, the captain and 
Baber took our two boats and landed for a stroll: it was 
so pleasant to have nothing to do and to stoop for shells 
upon a shining beach. 
The boats pulled in difterent directions, but returned 
about the same time; they had a common object draw- 
ing them back, — a Sunday dinner. The last of our 
roosters, an old weather-beaten fellow who had crowed 
alone for weeks around the limited deck, had breathed 
his last. 
They came back and gave me such glowdng accounts 
of the green grass, and of the rustling of the wind 
through the tall trees, that I longed myself to roll upon 
the smooth turf, to pick up shells upon the hard sand 
beach, and to listen to the rustling of the wind throuo’h 
the overhanging foliage. So another party Avas arranged, 
and, after the rooster had been attended to, we got into 
the cutter and pulled on shore. The party consisted of 
Stevens, myself, and a number of the crew; and we were 
all armed with carbine and pistol, though not with any 
idea of hunting. W e armed ourselves simply as a means 
of defence, for Baber and his whole boat’s crcAV had been 
chased from a pool of rain-water by “ some large ani- 
mal, Avhile two of the captain’s men had seen the tail 
and hind-legs of a tiger. The captain himself had also 
seen the tracks of deer, hogs, monkeys, and panthers, or 
tigers, he could not say which; and, as Tanjong-Brekat 
(the name of the promontory under which we were 
anchored) was known far and wide as the haunt of 
