At the broadest part of the Batang Lupar, nearly four miles across, I saw a herd of pigs swimming from one shore to the other. If pigs do this with ease, we need not be surprised that the tigers get over the old Singapore Strait to devour, on a low average, a man a day.
On our return, while anchored at Pamutus, we saw the bore coming up, and it was a pretty sight from our safe position. A crested wave spread from shore to shore, and rushed along with inconceivable speed, to subside as it approached deep water, to commence again at the sands with as great violence when it had passed us. At full and change, few native boats escape which are caught on the shallows, but are rolled over and over, and the men are dashed breathless on the bank, few escaping with life.
Some of our Malays went ashore last night to snare deer, while the Balaus tried for pigs. It used to be a very favourite hunting ground of the Dayaks, who are expert in everything appertaining to the jungle; they nearly always employ dogs, which are very small, not larger than a spaniel, sagacious and clever in the jungle, but stupid, sleepy-looking creatures out of it, having all the attributes of bad-looking, mongrel curs as they lurk about the houses; but when some four or five are led into the jungle, dense and pathless as it is in most places, then they are ready to attack a wild boar ten times their size. And the wild boar of the East is a very formidable animal. I have seen one that measured forty inches high at the shoulder, with a head nearly two feet in length. Sir Henry Keppel also was present when this was shot, and he thought a small child could have sat within its jaws. Captain Hamilton of the 21st M. N. I., a very successful sportsman, killed one forty-two inches high. Native hunting with good dogs is easy work; the master loiters about gathering rattans, fruit, or other things of various uses to his limited wants, and the dogs beat the jungle for themselves, and when they have found a scent, give tongue, and soon run the animal to bay: the master knowing this by the peculiar bark, follows quickly and spears the game.
I have known as many as six or seven pigs killed before midday by Dayaks while walking along a beach: their dogs searching on the borders of the forest, bring the pigs to bay, but never really attack till the master comes with his spear to help them. The boars are very dangerous when wounded, as they turn furiously on the hunter, and unless he has the means of escape by climbing a tree, he would fare ill in spite of his sword and spear, if it were not for the assistance of his dogs. These creatures, though small, never give in unless severely wounded, and by attacking the hind legs, keep the pig continually turning round.
The Dayaks are very fond of pork, and fortunately it is so, or they would be much more easily persuaded to become Mahomedans. They have a sort of respect for the domestic pig, and an English gentleman was in disgrace at Lingga on account of allowing his dogs to hunt one that they met in the fruit-groves, which in any civilized country would have been considered wild. The European sportsman said in his defence, that he could not help clapping his hands when he heard his dogs give tongue in chase. Upon a hot day a deer is soon run down by them; in fact, hunters declare that they could easily catch them themselves in very dry weather, when the heat is extremely oppressive. The deer have regular bathing-places to which they resort, sometimes during the day, and at others by night.
There are, I believe, only two kinds of deer in Borneo, one Rusa Balum, and the other Rusa Lalang. The former frequents low swampy ground, and has double branched horns, averaging about eighteen inches in length. The Rusa Lalang is a small, plump, hill deer, with short horns, and having one fork branch near the roots.
The Dayaks say there is another kind; but after making many inquiries, it appears to be the same as Rusa Balum. Occasionally you meet with deer whose horns are completely encased in skin.
The natives snare them with rattan loops and nooses, fastened on a long rope. They are of different lengths, varying from twenty to fifty feet. A number of these attached to each other, and resting on the tops of forked sticks, they stretch across a point of land where they have previously ascertained that deer are lying. After they have arranged the snares, the party is divided, one division watching them, and the other landing on the point; barking dogs and yelling men rush up towards the snare, driving the game before them; the deer, though they sometimes lie very close, generally spring up immediately and dart off bewildered, rushing into the nooses, catching their necks or their fore legs in them; the men on the watch dash up and cut them down, or spear them before they can break through. They sometimes catch as many as twenty in one night, but generally only one or two; snaring may be carried on either in the light or dark.
The evening we set sail from the Batang Lupar, we had a discussion on Marsden’s theory of the land and sea breezes; one of our party denied the correctness of the authority whom we looked upon as not to be challenged in all that relates to the Eastern Archipelago. At midnight the land breeze commenced blowing, as the ocean does retain the heat longer than the land, and at midday the sea breeze set in, which carried us pleasantly onward, passing the mouths of the Seribas and Kalaka, to our anchorage in the noble river of Rejang. We did not triumph over our adversary, but recommended him to study Marsden more carefully. On the bar at the entrance of this river at dead low water, we had one cast which did not exceed three fathoms, but I do not think we were in the centre of the channel.
At the entrance of the Rejang is a small town of Milanaus, a people differing greatly from the Malays in manners and customs; some converted to Islamism are clothed like other Mahomedans, while those who still delight in pork dress like Dayaks, to which race they undoubtedly belong. Their houses are built on lofty posts, or rather whole trunks of trees are used for the purpose, to defend themselves against the Seribas.