There Are No Mosquitoes And Consequently No Malaria.

We were progressing through a country of which little is known accurately beyond its somewhat hilly character, and the fact that it is uninhabited except for small transient parties of Malays searching for rattan or rubber.

The upper part of our route to the divide, a comparatively short distance, had not, to my knowledge, been traversed by white men before. Errors were corrected on the map of the watershed region.

One day at noon, while we were waiting for the largest prahu to overtake us, fresh tracks of pig were discovered on the bank, and the Saputan dog, a very wise animal, was landed. A few minutes later he began the peculiar barking which indicated that he had caught the scent, and one man seized a sumpitan and ran off into the utan as fast as his legs could carry him, holding the weapon in his right hand in a horizontal position, spear end first. It sounded as if the dog might be holding the pig in the water a little higher up, but this was soon found to be a mistake when the barking was heard close by. The Saputan kapala then jumped from my prahu, drew his parang, and with wonderful elastic movements disappeared in the utan. Two or three minutes later they returned, one man bearing in his arms a scarcely half-grown live pig, which had been hit by the sumpitan. The whole affair lasted barely ten minutes.

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