Quite A Crowd Met Us On Our Arrival, And They Seemed Not A Little Excited.

It appeared that their late Panglima (chief), who was also a Hadji, had been on a second voyage to Mecca, and they had just heard that he had died on his way back.

"That was quite right," they said; "his time had come, and, besides, it had been foretold that he would die if he tried to go to Mecca again."

Two men were most anxious to gain favour with Richardson - viz., the dead man's son and another Hadji, who was the richest man in Bilit, and who had a large share in the Gomanton caves. The reason was that Richardson had the power to appoint whom he liked as the new Panglima, provided, of course, that the man was of some standing and fairly popular. Richardson sent for one of the most influential men in the village to come and talk the matter over, but he lived on the other side of the river, and, it being late, they said he dared not cross in his small "gobang," as the crocodiles are very bad indeed here, and at night they often help themselves to a man out of his canoe. We went to the late Panglima's house and had a chat, but nothing was said about the new Panglima. I caught sight of one of the widows swathed in white, going through all sorts of contortions by way of mourning for her late husband. We found that the people were going to the caves in two or three days to collect the black nests. The white nests had been collected earlier in the year, but the influential Hadji "who would be king" offered to go with us on the morrow and start work earlier than he at first intended if his dreams were favourable, and thus we should be able to see them at work collecting the nests. Here was luck both for ourselves and the Hadji: it meant a step in his hopes of the much-desired Panglima-ship by thus gaining favour with the magistrate over his younger rival. He was a tall, haughty-looking man, with an orange-coloured turban, worn only by Hadjis, and the people seemed to stand in great awe of him and addressed him as "Tuan" or "Tuan Hadji," the word "Tuan" being usually used only when addressing Europeans like ourselves; still, his house in which we spent the night was little better than a pigsty, although he was a very wealthy man.

The next morning we were off before sunrise. After leaving the village we had a walk of about an hour and a half over a very steep hill through luxuriant, tall forest, and on the other side came to a small river, the Menungal, on the banks of which was a shed full of "gobangs" (canoes) which were speedily launched, we both getting into the leading one. We were followed by three others, in one of which was the Hadji.

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