2nd.—Occupied in making rafts. The rain last night produced a flood: the river rose about five feet, not many inches below the tent, and is in a capital condition for a start; but making the rafts has occupied more time than I expected, and we cannot set out to-night. The Orang Kaya Upit has not made his appearance: I only regret the rice we left at Si Lopong’s—he may come to-night; but I have never expected him to follow so soon. It has been showery all the afternoon, and I fear a wet night. We have made four rafts: old Japer commands one with three men, Minudin with three more, Lamit and three, then Musa, with three Malays, a boy, Ahtan, and myself. Ours is a very strong raft of bamboo; the others appear but very shaky affairs, the men being too lazy to work well at them.
5th.—Started early; at first all went smoothly enough. The river was sufficiently deep, though it had fallen. We began to congratulate ourselves on the charming sensation of gliding down the stream, with only the occasional trouble of pushing the raft from the bank. The first notice we had that all was not to be smooth water was seeing in a long reach a rock in the centre, with a dashing, breaking fall on either side; and on this rock was one of our men standing, the very picture of despair. Three rafts had passed, and his only chance was to jump on to ours. We came rushing towards him at a tremendous pace, trying to keep as near the rock as possible to give him a better chance, and in doing so, caught it, which threw the raft right across the stream: it rose to an angle of 45°, and we all thought it was going over, when the broad surface presented to the water raised it up, and it slipped past the rock. The man, after having assisted in moving it, stood still, and we had nearly passed him; I yelled at him, which brought him to a sense of his danger: he made a bold spring, and just succeeded in reaching the raft. Had he remained where he was, he must have sprung into the boiling surge, hoping that we could pick him up if he reached the smoother water.
On arriving at the next difficult rapid, it was proposed to take out the baggage, and then pass the rafts down, as the first had already been buried in the water, and everything was wet through. This was tiresome work. It is always difficult to pack and unpack during the day’s journey; but after an hour’s hard work, we had passed all the things down to the bottom of the rapid, except a large tambok, or basket three feet high, made from the covering of the sago-palm stem. This the owner thought he would take with him on the raft; but just as he started, a wave struck it, and it rolled into the water, and went dancing down the stream: it was full of valuables of mine and the man’s clothing. The bold fellow sprang after, but too late to reach it before it sank; he, however, dived till he fished it up.
Our pride in our rafts was fast leaving us when, about an hour afterwards, we saw one of the smaller ones rushing round at a frantic pace in a whirlpool, and three men trying to save one of their companions, whose head we could occasionally see bobbing up: we were on them in a minute; our strong raft went headlong against the rock, creaked to the force of the waters, but did not break up, and we were enabled to push the man near enough to the shore to be seized by his companions: our raft was too long to be mastered by the whirlpool: we just saw one man holding on to the fellow’s long hair, as we were swept out of sight.
Our raft had bravely carried us through dangers that, one after the other, had destroyed its companions, so that at four p.m. I very much regretted finding it stuck firm on a great rapid that appeared a mile in length. I proposed that we should encamp opposite, and trust to the night’s rain to enable us to float it over; but the men said we had better push on to the Limbang and build new rafts there; so we walked till five, when, catching up our wrecked companions, we pitched our tents: there was very little cheerfulness in the party that night. We had passed through a country of nothing but low forest, with a few hills scattered about. Our course was nearly west south-west.
4th.—We had heavy rain during the night, which made the river rise a fathom; so that had we stuck to our raft, we might have advanced in her. The course of the river continued winding to the west-south-west, passed the Umur on the right bank. Had some difficulty in finding a ford: after five hours’ walking, reached the Limbang. I had but a partial view of the junction; I thought it only the end of an island, though a clear view shortly after showed, by the augmented volume of water, that we were on the main river: walked forward for an hour and a half, till we found sufficient light wood to make our rafts: then pitching our tents, the men set to work preparing them, and after doing my best to make our tent comfortable, I am now inditing this journal. The men this afternoon evidently think that matters are looking a little serious, and have worked away with a will till dark.
Convinced that bamboos make bad rafts, strong but not sufficiently buoyant, they are using only light woods;[8] and remembering the severe blows they received in the tributary, they are preparing for worse in the main stream. We are now beginning to remember the warnings of the Muruts, that you cannot descend the stream in rafts at any time, and in boats only in fine weather; and the addition, that if the rafts fail now, the country is composed of such steep mountains that it would be impossible to cross them. I hear these not very cheerful discussions going on around me; but the sanguine portion of my retainers point to the beautiful smooth stream, whose banks we have followed for several miles.
5th.—There was much rain last night, with thunder and lightning; and the river rose a fathom, and is continuing to rise, concealing any signs of rapids in the long reach before us. The men are determined that this time the rafts shall be strong enough: ours is a model, twenty-two feet long by six in breadth, composed of a double layer of trees, the lower nine large ones, the upper a dozen smaller trees; on this is a raised platform, on which we have stowed our provisions and goods. We have all got on it to try its buoyancy, and find that it is not an inch out of water, but that is immaterial. I have just been round to look at the different rafts. Though not so good as ours, they are all tolerably strong; and the men having breakfasted, I have given the orders to put off; and now, at mid-day, we are starting.
Our course was at first very pleasant. The river was broad, deep, and sufficiently rapid; but, after a few reaches, this changed, and bluff points began to invade the stream. Now we were hurled against a rock, or pressed against the bank; the next moment we were in a whirlpool, flying about, and with difficulty getting out of it. These whirlpools were so deep, that with our longest poles, and they were four fathoms, we could not reach the bottom. At one very large one, we continued going in a circle for above ten minutes, when we saw a companion raft coming down upon us. We shouted to the men to try and sheer off, but it was of no use, and it crashed into us; however, the damage was all for them. Our heavy raft merely sank a foot, and was driven near enough to the bank to enable us to get out of this whirlpool, leaving our friends to repair damages while taking the successive turns from which they had driven us. I soon began to find that our rafts were unmanageable, and that we must allow the stream to carry us whither it pleased.
After moving on at a good pace for about a couple of hours, we heard a roaring in the distance, and I called to the men to stop the raft if possible, and send ahead to see what was the cause of this sound; but they thought they could pass the rapid which was before us, and concluded that it produced the roar we heard. I was of a very different opinion. This one was bad enough; but in turning the point, how shall I describe the scene that was presented to me? The almost perpendicular hills closed in on the river, their lofty trees meeting in an arch overhead, and the waters dashing through the narrow space, tumbling over huge rocks, raised waves like those of an angry sea on a rocky shore; but the worst spot was where the cliffs appeared to have fallen across the stream, damming it to half its width by a huge tree-crowned rock, and forming two foaming cascades.