11th.—We stopped all day. The industrious cut down some Loba-palms, and made a little sago; the lazy collected a few cabbages. I tried a little of the former; it was indeed delicious.
Some of the men, who wandered farther than the others in search of wild fruits, reported seeing some very large monkeys, which they said might be orang-utans, and whilst speaking of them I was reminded of the various stories told of people being carried off by them. I have referred to this subject in my account of my journeys among the Sea Dayaks, but although many stories are related of the male orang-utan carrying off young Dayak maidens into the jungle, yet it is seldom that we hear of the female orang-utan running off with a man. But the Muruts of Padas tell the following narrative, which, they say, may be believed. Some years ago, one of their young men was wandering in the jungle, armed with a sumpitan, or blow-pipe, and a sword. He came to the banks of a pebbly stream, and being a hot day, he thought he would have a bathe. He placed his arms and clothes at the foot of a tree, and then went into the water. After a time, being sufficiently refreshed, he was returning to dress, when he perceived an enormous female orang-utan standing between him and the tree. She advanced towards him, as he stood paralyzed by surprise, and seizing him by the arm, compelled him to follow her to a branching tree and climb up it. When he reached her resting-place, consisting of boughs and branches woven into a comfortable nest, she made him enter. There he remained some months jealously watched by his strange companion, fed by her on fruits and the cabbage of the palm, and rarely permitted to touch the earth with his feet, but compelled to move from tree to tree. This life continued some time, till the female orang-utan becoming less watchful permitted the Murut more liberty. He availed himself of it to slip down the trunk of the tree and run to the place where he had formerly left his weapons. She, seeing his attempted escape, followed, to be pierced, as she approached him, by a poisoned arrow. I was told if I would ascend the Padas river as far as the man’s village, I might hear the story from his own lips, as he was still alive.
12th.—Walked on a mile, the men excessively lazy. Finding the river smooth, they proposed trying rafts; so we stopped to construct them. One of the men, observing that I was dining on a cabbage-palm boiled in a little rice-water, presented me with a cup full of uncooked rice. I was very grateful to him for it; but we put it by, in case the palms should fail us, as they do in some districts.
13th.—About nine, we pushed off, and got on very well for two hours. Found one of the rafts smashed up against a rock, and the men away walking. Continued till about one o’clock, when ours also became fixed on a rock, and our men were too dispirited to get it off; and saying that the rapids ahead of us were dangerous, they proposed walking to-morrow. We should have thought nothing of such paltry difficulties a week ago, but the men were losing their courage with their strength. I refused, however, to stop till to-morrow, and walked on for a couple of hours. In crossing a ravine to-day, we disturbed a female bear, which, however, dashed with her cubs into thick brushwood, so without dogs it was useless following her. She roared in a manner worthy of an animal double her size.
14th.—The river still full of rapids; but the hills are gradually receding from the banks, giving it more space, and it sometimes spreads out into extensive sheets of water, with immense pebbly flats. Islands are also beginning to appear. It was again proposed to build rafts, but I steadily refused, and kept walking till nearly five. After sunset, the last stragglers overtook us. We continually came upon the traces of the advance-party. At one of their resting-places, we found the bones of a fine fish, which by some means they had secured. Our old Pakatan declared they had either found it stranded, or else had startled a kite from his prey. It proved to be the former, though the latter had happened to us once.
15th.—Yesterday and to-day the character of the forest has altered. We are now marching through the old farming grounds of the Muruts; found some of their fruit trees; among others, one covered with fine-looking oranges, but intolerably sour. I secured the opium bottle to-day, intending to take a dose to deaden the pangs of hunger, but I put it off till the evening, thinking it might interfere with my walking. I noticed near the orange-tree above mentioned that the whole ground was a mass of water-worn pebbles, evidently the ancient bed of the stream; it was now at least a hundred feet above the water’s edge.
At half-past four p.m. I brought up for the night, and after bathing stretched myself on my back, munching a great lump of cabbage, when my eyes, wandering over the scene, fell on a hill about three miles ahead of us. I sat up and looked at it again; and, turning to my companions, said, “Why, that reminds me of the high land near the mouth of the Madihit;” but we agreed that it was impossible, as our five men had been gone six days, and we felt assured that we should have met them ere this if we were so near our boats as that, particularly as we, both yesterday and to-day, had made very long walks. Since we have had a bearing of Molu, we have been keeping generally in a west course, but the river has taken some very extraordinary windings.
Having secured some fruit of the Jintawan, or Indian-rubber plant, and some cabbages, I was enabled to satisfy my hunger before going to sleep, so put off taking any laudanum, to which I had a very great dislike. The Jintawan fruit is very pleasantly acid, about the size of a very large pear, and of a deep orange colour. It consists of a thick rind full of Indian-rubber, surrounding some pulp-covered seeds. One of the plants we came across was very handsome, growing in the most luxuriant manner over a lofty tree with few branches. The Jintawan is a creeper, and this one had extended itself at least forty feet up the trunk and had covered the outspreading boughs. It was loaded with fruit, but my men had so lost heart that not one would climb the tree, but contented themselves with picking up the over-ripe produce which had fallen on the ground below. We had another very happy find to-day, for while passing under a fine tapang-tree, we noticed the remains of a bees’ nest scattered about, and every particle was eagerly appropriated. From the marks around it appeared as if a bear had climbed this lofty tree and torn down the nest to be devoured by its young below, as there were numerous tracks of the smaller animals around, but whether the comb had been sucked by the bears or not was very immaterial to our men, who rejoiced in securing the little honey still clinging to it.
16th.—Started early. About half my followers had so delayed us by their constantly lagging behind, that I determined to wait for them no longer, but to push on with such men as would follow me with all their strength. We felt that it would be impossible to walk many days farther on our scanty fare. The lazy ones having heard of our arrangement, tried to keep up with us, and did do so till eight, when I heard a shout from the foremost man, “Bandera! bandera!—the flag! the flag!” We rushed down the side of the hill like madmen, the fellows shouting for joy. Sure enough, there was the British flag hoisted, and our small boats at the mouth of the Madihit, with our five men looking fat and well beside my pale and famished followers. The rascals having left my guns and all the baggage in the jungle, and all being in good health, had managed to reach the Madihit in three days, and then set to work to eat and drink as much as possible.
We arrived to find the provisions nearly gone; they said the bears had found out our cache and destroyed everything, and the only provisions left were those we put into the garei. I could only divide a cupful of beans to each man, as the five had managed to consume thirty pounds of sago and forty-two pints of beans in the course of four days, and they confessed to have daily caught very fine fish. But what angered the men most was the signs of waste around, where, having only half finished a plate of sago, they had thrown the rest away. I saw some picking up the burnt pieces that had not been washed away by the rain. I asked why, according to their agreement, they had not come back to meet us, knowing that we had several sick men. They put the blame on each other: one man, a Javanese, had left his sick son with us, but he unfeelingly observed that he was old enough to look after himself; that son had given us more trouble than any one else, both in going and returning.