I Had Spent About Seven Months In The Forests Of British North
Borneo, Going Many Days' Journey Into The Heart
Of the country, had
made fine natural-history collections and had come across a great
deal of game, including elephant,
Rhinoceros, bear, and "tembadu" or
wild cattle, huge wild pig and deer of three species being especially
plentiful. But above all I had come across a great many "orang-utan"
(Malay for "jungle-man") and had been able to study their habits. One
of these great apes has the strength of eight men and possesses an
extraordinary amount of vitality. One that I shot lived for nearly
three hours with five soft-nosed Mauser bullets in its body.
But I had not yet seen the REAL jungle-man in his native haunts -
the head-hunting Dayak, as the Dayaks are rarely to be found in North
Borneo, whereas the people on the Kinabatangan River (where I spent
most of my time) were a sort of Malay termed "Orang Sungei" (River
People). So, as I was anxious to see the real head-hunting Dayak,
I determined to go to Sarawak, which is in quite a different part of
Borneo. To do this, I had to return to Singapore, and thence, after a
two days' voyage, I arrived at Kuching, the capital of Sarawak. Except
for a Chinese towkay, I was the only saloon passenger, as strangers
rarely visit this country.
Kuching is about twenty-five miles up the Sarawak River, and contains
about thirty thousand inhabitants, chiefly Malays and Chinese,
with about fifty Europeans, who are for the most part government
officials or belong to the Borneo Company, Limited.
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