We Passed A Timber Float Stranded On High Ground, With Malay Men, Women, And Children Who Had Been Living There For Weeks, Waiting For The Water To Rise Again As High As Where It Had Left Them.

They evidently enjoyed the unusual sight of the steamer, and followed us attentively.

In the afternoon we arrived at Poru, a small, oppressively warm kampong, deserted but for an old man and one family, the others having gone to gather rattan in the utan. This was to be our starting-point, where our baggage would have to be put in convenient shape for travel in boat and overland, and where we hoped it might be possible to buy prahus and obtain men by searching the kampongs higher up the river. In this we were disappointed, so the lieutenant went back to Puruk Tjahu, in the neighbourhood of which are many kampongs, nearly all Malay, there as well as here. He took with him one soldier who had proved to have an obnoxious disease, leaving us with five for the expedition, which we deemed sufficient.

On Christmas day I bought from an old Dayak a large, ripe fruit called in Malay nangca (artocarpus integrifolia) of the jack fruit family. It is very common. Before maturing it is used as an every-day vegetable, which is boiled before eating. I was surprised to find that when fully ripe this fruit has an agreeable flavour of banana, but its contents being sticky it is difficult to eat.

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