back. After some miles of this cheerless scenery, and at a point where
the fresh water begins to mingle with the salt, the handsome and useful
_nipa_ palm, with leaves twenty to thirty feet in length, which supply
the native with the material for the walls and roof of his house, the
wrapper for his cigarette, the sugar for his breakfast table, the salt
for his daily needs and the strong drink to gladden his heart on his
feast days, becomes intermixed with the mangrove and finally takes its
place--a pleasing change, but still monotonous, as it is so dense that,
itself growing in the water, it quite shuts out all view of the bank and
surrounding country.

One of the first signs of the fresh river water, is the occurrence on
the bank of the graceful _nibong_ palm, with its straight, slender,
round stem, twenty to thirty feet in height, surmounted with a plume of
green leaves. This palm, cut into lengths and requiring no further
preparation, is universally employed by the Malay for the posts and
beams of his house, always raised several feet above the level of the
ground, or of the water, as the case may be, and, split up into lathes
of the requisite size, forms the frame-work of the walls and roof, and
constitutes the flooring throughout. With the pithy centre removed, the
_nibong_ forms an efficient aqueduct, in the absence of bambu, and its
young, growing shoot affords a cabbage, or salad, second only to that
furnished by the coco-nut, which will next come into view, together with
the betel (_Areca_) nut palm, if the river visited is an inhabited one;
but if uninhabited, the traveller will find nothing but thick, almost
impenetrable jungle, with mighty trees shooting up one hundred to a
hundred and fifty feet without a branch, in their endeavour to get their
share of the sun-light, and supporting on their trunks and branches
enormous creepers, rattans, graceful ferns and lovely orchids and other
luxuriant epiphytal growths. Such is the typical North Borneo river, to
which, however, the Brunai is a solitary exception. The mouth of the
Brunai river is approached between pretty verdant islets, and after
passing through a narrow and tortuous passage, formed naturally by
sandbanks and artificially by a barrier of stones, bare at low water,
laid down in former days to keep out the restless European, you find
your vessel, which to cross the bar should not draw more than thirteen
or fourteen feet, in deep water between green, gra