her
side of the river, and, it being late, they said he dared not cross
in his small "gobang," as the crocodiles are very bad indeed here,
and at night they often help themselves to a man out of his canoe. We
went to the late Panglima's house and had a chat, but nothing was said
about the new Panglima. I caught sight of one of the widows swathed in
white, going through all sorts of contortions by way of mourning for
her late husband. We found that the people were going to the caves in
two or three days to collect the black nests. The white nests had been
collected earlier in the year, but the influential Hadji "who would
be king" offered to go with us on the morrow and start work earlier
than he at first intended if his dreams were favourable, and thus
we should be able to see them at work collecting the nests. Here was
luck both for ourselves and the Hadji: it meant a step in his hopes
of the much-desired Panglima-ship by thus gaining favour with the
magistrate over his younger rival. He was a tall, haughty-looking man,
with an orange-coloured turban, worn only by Hadjis, and the people
seemed to stand in great awe of him and addressed him as "Tuan" or
"Tuan Hadji," the word "Tuan" being usually used only when addressing
Europeans like ourselves; still, his house in which we spent the night
was little better than a pigsty, although he was a very wealthy man.

The next morning we were off before sunrise. After leaving the
village we had a walk of about an hour and a half over a very steep
hill through luxuriant, tall forest, and on the other side came to a
small river, the Menungal, on the banks of which was a shed full of
"gobangs" (canoes) which were speedily launched, we both getting into
the leading one. We were followed by three others, in one of which was
the Hadji. Most of the way was through fine forest, the trees arching
overhead to shade us from the hot sun, the only exception being when
we passed through a stretch of swamps, with low, tangled growth, when
the river broadened out, but in the shady forest it was delightful,
gliding along to the music of the even dip of the paddles.

The most striking feature about the forest on this Menungal River
was the extraordinary growth of a species of banyan trees (_Ficus_
sp.). I have seen many curious stilted trees of this _Ficus_ family in
various tropical countries I have visited, but these I think were more
curious than any I had ever seen. One hardly knew where th