"Show me the snakes, and I will finish them," added Felix.

"You will not find many of them in the jungle. There are some water
snakes taken occasionally, and people here eat them. They make a very
fine curry."

"I should ask to be excused from partaking of that dish," said Scott.

"That is all prejudice," said the agent. "Perhaps you would like to go
a-fishing in the Sadong and its branches. We have a peculiar way of
taking fish here. We use the tuba plant, which the Malays prepare for
use. It is a climbing-plant, the root of which has some of the
properties of opium. It is reduced to a pulp, mixed with water. I cannot
fully explain the process of preparation, in which the Malays are very
skilful. At the right time of tide, the fluid is thrown into the stream.
The effect is to stupefy and sometimes kill the fish. With dip-nets the
fish are picked up, though some of them are so large that they can be
secured only with a kind of barbed spear."

"I don't think I care to fish in that way," said Louis, with some
disgust in his expression. "It is very unsportsmanlike, and it looks to
me to be a mean way to do it."

"Just what some Englishmen who were here a while ago said, and perhaps
you are right; but it is a Malay art, and not English."

The party slept very comfortably on bedsteads that night, but they were
up before the sun the next morning.

CHAPTER VII

A SPIRITED BATTLE WITH ORANG-OUTANGS

The civilized people of Simujan were not stirring when the party came
from their chambers. Felipe had steam up at half-past five, for the
captain intended to begin the ascent of the river; but he did not care
to leave without bidding adieu to the kindly agent. But they got under
way at his order, and ran up the river for a morning airing. The boat
had not gone more than a mile when the young men discovered a sampan
containing two Malays paddling with all their might for the shore.

They had no guns, and could not shoot their game, whatever it was; but
each of them had a _biliong_. This was the implement Achang had bought
in Sarawak. It looked something like a pickaxe with only one arm, the
end of which was fashioned like a mortising chisel, and was used as an
axe.

The edge of the chisel portion was parallel to the handle; but Achang
explained that the Dyaks had another kind of biliong, with the cutting
part at right angles with the handle, and this was used as an adze.
While Lane, the carpenter, was ridicu