Under these circumstances he set himself to examine the banks on either side, and his men steadily paddled on hour after hour, till a halt was made at an open part where they landed, and made a fire to cook the birds that had been shot on the way up. Then a fresh start was made, and all through the long hot afternoon the doctor sat back scrutinising most diligently the sides of the little river.
But it was always the same—one dense bank of verdure on either side, with the trees hanging over the river, and encroaching so that at last the stream was only a few yards wide; but by pulling the branches aside the boat could have been thrust in, to glide along under a natural arcade—the home of thousands of crocodiles, from monsters fifteen and twenty feet long to their spawn not many more inches.
It was a perfect paradise for a naturalist, and the doctor grew so much interested that he forgot the prime object of his visit, seeing nothing but birds and insects, to the exclusion of old gold-workings, though had there been anything of the kind it would have been completely hidden amongst the tangled, luxuriant growth.
It was growing fast towards sunset when the doctor was suddenly brought back to the matter-of-fact every-day life from a kind of dream about the wondrous beauties of some peculiar beetles he had captured and held beneath his magnifying glass, by a sudden exclamation from the elder Malay.
“What is it?” exclaimed the doctor, sharply.
“The prahu came no farther than this. See, master, we shall have to cut the branches now to get along.”
He pointed with his paddle, and it was plain enough to see that the water-weeds and lilies were unbroken higher up, and that some large vessel must have been turned here, for the aqueous growth was crushed to a much greater extent.
“There is a path there,” said the Malay, and he showed his employer the bank beaten down by footsteps, and that the bushes and trees had been cut away.
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “someone has landed there, but it does not matter. We have come to the fresh ground. Let’s get a few miles farther, and then we’ll rest.”
The doctor was so anxious to get on that no further notice of the marks of other travellers was taken, and with his spirits growing more elate as he went on, he watched the dense jungle on either side, and peered down into the black water as night came rapidly on, so swiftly indeed that they had not progressed more than a couple of miles before the darkness made a halt absolutely necessary.