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ey began and where they ended, for they all seemed joined together, and roots and branches seemed one and the same thing. It was the acme of vegetable confusion. Even the river could not stop their progress, and we were constantly gliding between their roots and branches. The growth of ferns, orchids and parasites on the branches and roots of these trees was luxuriant to a degree and formed veritable hanging gardens. On these Bornean rivers one is constantly seeing pigs, crocodiles and monkeys, but I noticed on this river an abundance of a monkey which one seldom sees on the large Kinabatangan River. I refer to the very curious proboscis or long-nosed monkey (_Nasalis larvatus_). These animals often sat still overhead and stared down at us in the most contemptuous and indifferent manner, and they looked so human and yet so comical with their enormous red noses that I found myself laughing aloud, our scullers doing the same, till the monkeys actually grinned with indignation. They axe large monkeys with long tails, and are beautifully marked with various shades of grey and brown, and their large, fleshy, red noses give them an extraordinary appearance. One of them did a performance that astonished me. We saw a group of them on a branch over the river about forty yards ahead of us, when one of them jumped into the middle of the river and coolly swam to a hanging creeper up which it climbed, none the worse for its voluntary bath. This was the only time that I had ever seen a monkey swim, but the natives assured me that these monkeys are very good swimmers. It struck me as being a very risky performance, as this river was full of crocodiles. I saw on this river a wonderful orchid growing on large trees. This was a _Grammatophyllum_ with bulbs some times over eight feet in length. The length of the name is certainly suitable for so large an orchid. I saw plenty of water-birds, including white egrets and a long-necked diver which is called the "snake-bird," owing to its long neck projecting lout of the water and thus greatly resembling a snake. I shot several of each kind of bird, plucking the fine plumes from the backs of the egrets. We ate some of the divers that evening and found them first-class food, tasting much like goose. We later in the day disturbed a whole colony of these water-birds feeding on the carcase of a large stag in the river, and the smell was very strong for some distance. I did not attempt to shoo
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