Having These Undoubted Examples Of Error In The Dimensions Of
Orangs, It Is Not Too Much To Conclude That Mr. St. John's Friend
Made A Similar Error Of Measurement, Or Rather, Perhaps, Of
Memory; For We Are Not Told That The Dimensions Were Noted Down
At The Time They Were Made.
The only figures given by Mr. St.
John on his own authority are that "the head was 15 inches
Broad
by 14 inches long." As my largest male was 13 1/2 broad across
the face, measured as soon as the animal was killed, I can quite
understand that when the head arrived at Sarawak from the Batang
Lupar, after two or three days' voyage, it was so swollen by
decomposition as to measure an inch more than when it was fresh.
On the whole, therefore, I think it will be allowed, that up to
this time we have not the least reliable evidence of the
existence of Orangs in Borneo more than 4 feet 2 inches high.
CHAPTER V.
BORNEO - JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR.
(NOVEMBER 1855 TO JANUARY 1856.)
As the wet season was approaching, I determined to return to
Sarawak, sending all my collections with Charles Allen around by
sea, while I myself proposed to go up to the sources of the
Sadong River and descend by the Sarawak valley. As the route was
somewhat difficult, I took the smallest quantity of baggage, and
only one servant, a Malay lad named Bujon, who knew the language
of the Sadong Dyaks, with whom he had traded.
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