Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And In Borneo And The Philippines By H. Wilfrid Walker
























































































































 -  We ate some of the divers that evening
and found them first-class food, tasting much like goose. We later - Page 107
Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And In Borneo And The Philippines By H. Wilfrid Walker - Page 107 of 114 - First - Home

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We Ate Some Of The Divers That Evening And Found Them First-Class Food, Tasting Much Like Goose.

We later in the day disturbed a whole colony of these water-birds feeding on the carcase of a large stag in the river, and the smell was very strong for some distance.

I did not attempt to shoot any more mock geese till we had put a good many miles between ourselves and the dead stag. We passed several canoes slowly wending their way to the eaves, the people taking it easy and camping on the banks and fishing. They dried the fish on the roofs of their thatched canoes. Some of these people had very curious rattan pyramid-shaped hats gaily ornamented with strips of bright-coloured cloth.

Toward evening the river got exceedingly narrow, and fallen trees obstructed our way, so that we had sometimes to lie flat on our backs to pass under them, and at other times we had to get out while our canoe was hauled over the mud at the side.

Just before we reached our destination for the night, we came to a spot where the bank was hung with bits of coloured cloth and calico fastened to sticks, I also noticed some bananas and dried fish tied to the sticks. This signified that there was a native burial ground close by, and all the canoes were stopped, the scullers putting their paddles down, while the Hadji and all his men proceeded to wash their faces in the river. This they did to ensure success in their nest-collecting.

We stayed the night in one of two raised half-thatched huts used only by the natives in the collecting seasons, a ladder from the river leading into them. It was almost dark when we arrived, and hardly were we under shelter when rain came down in torrents. It poured all night, and when we started off on foot at sunrise the next morning we found the track in the forest a regular quagmire; in places we waded through mud up to our knees. As we scrambled and floundered through the mud at our best pace we heard a great crashing noise just in front of us, and the air resounded with cries of "Gajah, gajah!" (elephant). I was just in time to see a large elephant tear by. It literally seemed to fly, and knocked down small trees as if they were grass. It seemed greatly frightened, and made a sort of coughing noise. It went by so quickly that I was unable to see whether it had tusks or not.

After about three hours' hard tramping, I caught sight of a high mass of white limestone gleaming through the trees. It made a pretty picture in the early morning, the white rock peeping out of luxuriant creepers and foliage. It rises very abruptly from the surrounding forest, and at a distance looked quite inaccessible to a climber.

We waded through a stream of clear water, washing the horrible forest mud from off us, and soon found ourselves in a most picturesque village at the very base of the rock.

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