Not Until Eight O'clock In The Evening Did We Reach Our Destination, The Kampong Buntut Mangkikit.

In beautiful moonlight I put up my tent on the clearing along the river bank in front of the houses, perhaps for the last time in a long period.

The roar of the rapids nearly two kilometres distant was plainly audible and soothing to the nerves, reminding me of the subdued sound of remote waterfalls, familiar to those who have travelled in Norway. However, the kiham at this time was not formidable and comparatively few have perished there, but many in the one below, which, though lower in its fall and very long, is full of rocks. The nights here were surprisingly cool, almost cold, and the mornings very chilly.

A Kahayan was the only person about the place who could speak Malay. The kapala presented the unusual spectacle of a man leaning on a long stick when walking, disabled from wasting muscles of the legs. I have seen a Lower Katingan who for two years had suffered in this way, his legs having little flesh left, though he was able to move. The kapala was a truthful and intelligent man who commanded respect. His wife was the greatest of the four blians here, all women; male blians, as usual, being less in demand. Her eyes were sunk in their sockets and she looked as if she had spent too many nights awake singing, also as if she had been drinking too much tuak.

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