Shortly Afterward We All Made An Excursion Up The River As Far As Batu Boa, Which, As Is Often The Case, Contains A Dayak As Well As A Malay Kampong.

At the first one, a forlorn and desolate looking place, the kapala, who had an unusually large goitre, told

Me that eighteen men had been engaged by the captain for his journey northward from there, which definitely precluded any prospect of ours for an overland expedition, even if under other conditions it would have been possible. As for the Malays, I found them rather distant, and was glad to return to Tumbang Marowei.

Here a singular sight met us in a sculptured representation of a rhinoceros with a man on his back, entirely composed of red rubber, standing on a float and surrounded by a number of blocks made of the same material. White and red pieces of cloth tied to upright saplings on the float added a certain gaiety to the scene. Some of the kampong people had just returned from a rubber expedition, and part of the output had been cleverly turned into plastics in this way.

The rhino was about seventy-five centimetres high, strong and burly looking, and the posture of the young man on his back conveyed a vivid suggestion of action. They were now on their way to sell this to some Chinaman. The image was said to be worth from two to three hundred florins, and as there was considerable additional rubber, perhaps all of it approached a value of a thousand florins.

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