out for them,"
answered Captain Haiselden.

We had a fine breeze as we ran along the coast of Borneo, and although
we saw in the distance not a few long suspicious-looking prahus, we
sailed too fast for them to overtake us. We saw one of these crafts
lately captured, which had been brought to Kuching. She was about
ninety feet in length, and of proportionate beam. In the bow she
carried a long twelve-pounder gun, and six swivels on each broadside,
besides which she had thirty or forty rifles or muskets on board, and
other small arms, swords, pistols, and pikes. She pulled eighty oars in
two tiers, and had had a crew of a hundred men. Over the rowers,
extending the whole length of the vessel, was a light flat roof composed
of fine strips of bamboo covered with matting, which, notwithstanding
its lightness, was very strong. This deck served as a platform, on
which the fighting men stand to fire their muskets or hurl their spears,
while the rowers below them sit cross-legged on a shelf projecting
outwards from the bends of the vessel.

The Dyak piratical vessels are called "Bang Kongs." Although they are a
hundred feet in length by ten in beam, they draw but little water, and
are both light and faster than the Malay prahus. They have long
overhanging stems and sterns, are propelled by eighty paddles, and are
as swift as any craft afloat. Some mount a few small swivels, and each
carries a certain number of Malays armed with muskets, besides which
they have their regular crew of Dyaks, whose weapons are spears. From
drawing so little water they are much dreaded, as they can run up the
shallowest river, when their savage crews, landing, commit most horrible
atrocities on the inhabitants living near the banks.

We had left Sarawak about three days, when it fell almost calm; still
the vessel was making some way through the water. I was stationed
forward to keep a look-out. As I turned my eyes around the horizon
ahead I fancied that I could distinguish what appeared just like a small
number of black dots rising above it. Before I sang out, however,
asking the boatswain, who had come on the forecastle to take my place, I
ran aloft, with a spy-glass slung to my back, to satisfy myself whether
I was right or not. Reaching the fore-topmast cross-trees, I took a
steady look in the direction I had seen the dots I was convinced that
they were prahus, though whether large or small I could not be certain,
pulling towards