This Was Trying, But One Cannot Expect Every Advantage In The Tropics, Which Are So Beautiful Most Of The Year That I, For One, Gladly Put Up With The Discomforts Of A Wet Season.

Rain-storms came from the north and northeast; from our high point of view, one could see them approaching and hear the noise of the rain on the top of the jungle many minutes before they arrived.

A few times, especially at night, we had storms that lasted for hours, reaching sometimes a velocity of eighty kilometres an hour. The trees of the jungle are naturally not exposed to the force of the wind, standing all together, so those surrounding our clearing seemed helpless, deprived of their usual support. Some smaller ones, apparently of soft wood, which had been left on the clearing, were broken, and the green leaves went flying about. On one occasion at dusk Banglan stood a long time watching for any suspicious-looking tree that might threaten to fall over the camp. Torrents of rain fell during the night and we could barely keep dry within our tents. The rain was more persistent here in the vicinity of the lower Kayan than in any other part of Borneo during my two years of travel through that country.

White-tailed, wattled pheasants (lobiophasis), rare in the museums, were very numerous here. This beautiful bird has a snow-white tail and its head is adorned with four cobalt-blue appendages, two above and two underneath the head. The Dayaks caught this and other birds alive in snares, which they are expert in constructing. I kept one alive for many days, and it soon became tame. It was a handsome, brave bird, and I was sorry one day to find it dead from want of proper nourishment, the Dayaks having been unable to find sufficient rain-worms for it.

The beautiful small deer, kidyang, was secured several times. Its meat is the best of all game in Borneo, although the Kayans look upon it with disfavour. When making new fields for rice-planting, if such an animal should appear, the ground is immediately abandoned.

Scarcely fifty metres below the top of the hill was our water supply, consisting of a scanty amount of running water, which stopped now and then to form tiny pools, and to my astonishment the Dayaks one day brought from these some very small fish which I preserved in alcohol. Naturally the water swells much in time of rain, but still it seems odd that such small fish could reach so high a point.

Many insects were about at night. Longicornes scratched underneath my bed, and moths hovered about my American hurricane lamp hanging outside the tent-door. Leeches also entered the tent and seemed to have a predilection for the tin cans in which my provisions and other things were stored. In the dim lamplight I could sometimes see the uncanny shadows of their bodies on the canvas, raised and stretched to an incredible height, moving their upper parts quickly to all sides before proceeding on their "forward march." To some people, myself included, their bite is poisonous, and on the lower part of the legs produces wounds that may take weeks to cure.

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