rer),
washed down by a bottle of claret cool and fresh from the spring on
shore, where it had been placed on arrival. The night was beautiful
and starlight, and, our repast over, the awning was removed, and we
sat out enjoying our cigars in the cool night breeze blowing in fresh
and strong from the sea. The quiet ripple of the waves as they broke
on the sandy beach had a soothing effect very favourable to reflection
(and baccy), and the lights of the little fishing village twinkling at
the foot of the black and rugged peak of Santubong--which rose to a
height of 1,500 feet above our heads, and behind which the moon was
just rising--presented a fine and uncommon picture.

But, alas! our enjoyment, like many others in this world, was of short
duration, and received a severe shock from a sudden exclamation by H.
of "By Jove! we have forgotten mosquito curtains! We shall be eaten
alive!" It was too true. In the hurry of departure, and forgetting
that we were to pass a night at the mouth, we had left them behind,
knowing that on Matang mosquitoes are unknown. There was no help for
it, however, and, our cigars finished, we turned in with a foreboding
that sleep that night was not for us. Nor were we wrong in our
conjecture, for no sooner were we wrapped in our blankets, and the
lights out, than the enemy, mosquitoes and sandflies--for the latter
of which Santubong is famous--attacked us in myriads. We eventually
gave it up as a bad job about eleven p.m., lit our lamps, and waited
for daylight, when the cold land breeze came and dispersed these
pests, leaving us a couple of hours' sleep ere we should start with
the morning tide.

The morning was bright and sunny, and, starting at seven, we were
entering the Matang stream which runs past the Bungalow landing-stage
at eleven o'clock a.m. Our destination was reached at one p.m., and,
loading our amiable crew with baggage and provisions, we started off
up the mountain for the bungalow, which was reached, after a rather
severe climb, at three o'clock.

There was formerly a coffee estate on Matang belonging to the Raja.
This was started in 1868, but the coffee, though good in quality, grew
in such small quantities that it was deemed advisable to abandon the
scheme, and this was accordingly done in 1873. The bungalow, however,
which was built in the same year is still kept up as a sanitarium--a
great boon to the Europeans in Kuching, as the climate here is
delightful, the tempera