by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER VI
THE VOYAGE UP THE SADONG TO SIMUJAN
The money received for the heads of the crocodiles was in the hands ofFelix, who was the clerk of the captain on board the ship, and it wasproper to make him purser of the Blanchita. What to do with it was thenext question. Louis's advice was asked for, and he promptly suggestedthat it should be divided into ten parts, and a share given to all buthimself; and this was done. He refused to accept a penny, but all theothers received about four dollars apiece.
The money was all in silver, as it is all over India and the Archipelagofor general use. The engineer and the seamen shared with the fourhunters; for the former had done all the work and some of the shooting.The steamer was made fast at the shore, and all hands except Pittslanded for a walk through the town. Their first visit was to afruit-store kept by a Chinaman; and most of the shops in the place werein the hands of the Celestials.
Bananas and oranges were the principal, though there were also nearlyall the tropical fruits in season. Many of the party purchased usefularticles in other places. They had learned in Singapore and Batavia howto deal with Chinese traders, and they seldom gave even more thanone-third or one-half of what was demanded. After diligent search Achangfound a certain Dyak tool he wanted,--a sort of axe, which Lane, thecarpenter's assistant, ridiculed without mercy.
The young men visited the English Mission, where they were kindlyreceived, and went to the school. The American missionaries are alsoactive in Borneo, and one of them has made a vocabulary of the Dyaklanguage.
It was decided to start down the river the next morning on the way tothe Sadong and Simujan Rivers, the latter being a branch of the former.In the early morning, as the hands were casting off the fasts, twoMalays came alongside in a sampan, and asked to be towed to the Sadong.Achang had some talk with them, and made the request of the captain forthem. He learned that they were engaged in the business of catchingcrocodiles for the reward.
"They don't shoot crocodiles, and they have no rifles," added Achang.
"How do they get them then?" asked Louis.
"They fish for them."
"What, with a hook and line?" demanded Captain Scott.
"With a line, but have no fish-hook," replied the Bornean. "You must seethem catch one."
"All right," replied the captain; "we will tow them down the river."
After the yacht had been moving about an hour, they came to a colony ofsaurians apparently, for several of them were in sight at once. Achangdirected the reptile-hunters to catch one of them, and they paddledtheir sampan towards a large one. The Blanchita kept near enough toenable all hands to witness the operation, which the Bornean describedto them as the Malays made their preparations, for they had all theirfishing-gear in their boat.
The line they used was a rattan about forty feet long. At the "businessend," as Scott called it, they attached a float to keep it on the top ofthe water. The steamer just crawled along on the river in order not todisturb the game, though the reptiles were accustomed to the sight ofvessels.
"Now you see that stick the hunter has in his hand," said Achang, thougheach of them had one. "'Most a foot long, like a new moon."
"Crescent-shaped," added Louis.
"Called an _alir_ in Malay. Made of green wood, very tough, pointed atthe ends; they fasten the rattan line to the middle of the stick."
Some tough green bark, braided together, was then wound around the stickso that the game could not bite it in two. A big fish for bait was thenattached to the alir, and carefully fastened to it so that the reptilecould not tear it off.
Thus prepared, the apparatus was thrown overboard, and the sampanpaddled away from it to give the game an opportunity to approach it, theMalays each paying out his forty feet of line, one on each side of theboat. The spectators watched the result with great interest. As thesampan receded from the saurians, they approached the bait. Crocodilesand alligators do not nibble at their prey, but bolt it as a snake doesa frog.
The bait nearest to the observers on the yacht was soon gobbled up bythe hungry crocodile, who appeared not to have been to breakfast thatmorning; and the Malay at the other end of the line gave a sharp jerk tohis gear, the effect of which was to draw the pointed crescent "athwartships," as the sailors would say, or across his stomach; and the harderit was pulled the more the pointed ends would penetrate the interior ofthe organ.
The first Malay had hardly hooked his game before the second had anotherready to haul in. Both of the saurians struggled and lashed the darkwater into a foam; but both of the men in the sampan kept the line astaut as they could with all their strength; and this is the rule inhauling in all gamey fish.
"Tell them we will go ahead, Achang, and all they need to do is to makefast their rattans to the sampan," said Captain Scott, when he had takenin the situation.
In reply to the message the Bornean delivered to them, the Malays noddedtheir heads vigorously, and smiled their assent.
"Go ahead, down the river, Clinch," added the captain to the helmsman.
"I fancy there will be a lively kick-up on the part of the game," saidLouis, as the boat came up to her course.
"Not much," added Scott. "If we put them through the water at the rateof eight knots an hour, the crocs will not feel much like doing anygambolling. We are not making more than four knots now."
"They are as lively now as a parched pea in a hot skillet."
"I will ring the speed-bell now, and see how that will affect them,"replied the captain, suiting the action to the word.
The Blanchita darted ahead at her usual speed. Clingman began tooverhaul the painter of the sampan, for it did not look strong enoughfor the present strain. He had scarcely got hold of it before it snappedin the middle, and relieved the strain on the crocodiles. The steamerbacked at the order of the captain; and a strong line was thrown intothe sampan, which one of the Malays seized and made fast.
When the strain upon them was thus removed, the saurians made violentstruggles to escape. The yacht then went ahead again, and the speed-bellwas rung immediately. The pressure on the game was renewed, and theyceased to struggle. The apparatus held fast, for the saurian fisherswere experienced in their business, and had done their work well.
At eight o'clock the Blanchita reached the mouth of the river. Thecrocodiles were not dead, but their stomachs must have been in aterrible condition. To Louis it seemed to be cruel to prolong theirsufferings; and he wished Achang to request the Malays to kill them, andScott agreed with him. The Bornean said they could not kill them whilethey were towing behind, and that, if the lines were slacked, they mightget away.
The captain took the matter in hand, and told Achang what he intended todo, which he communicated to the reptile-hunters. On the starboard handScott fixed his gaze on a small tongue of land extending out into theriver. Taking the wheel himself, he run her close to the land somedistance above the point, and worked the sampan and its tow close to theshore. The tow-line of the sampan was then lengthened out to a hundredfeet or more, and the yacht went ahead again, rounding the point, sothat the peninsula lay between the steamer and her tow.
Then she went ahead again, and the result was that she pulled the sampanupon the point; and as she was flat-bottomed, there was no difficulty indoing so. The Blanchita continued on her course, and the two crocodileswere landed after her. One of the Malays then produced a parong latok;and even more skilfully than Achang had done the job, he cut off theheads of both reptiles. They were out of misery then, and Louis wassatisfied.
The yacht was then run up to the point, and Lane was sent on shore tomeasure the reptiles, while the fishermen proceeded to recover theapparatus from the stomachs of the defunct reptiles. The largercrocodile was twelve feet and four inches long, and the other ten feetand seven inches. The voyage was resumed on the sea to the mouth of theSadong; and in three hours more she entered the stream, which was alarge one, averaging half a mile wide for twenty miles.
"Bujang!" called Achang, as instruct
ed by the captain. "Do you want togo any farther?"
The head man replied in his own language that they wished to go toSimujan, or till they came to plenty of game. The Bornean said Bujangwas a great hunter, for he had killed fifty-three crocodiles that year.The yacht, with the sampan still in tow, started up the river, keepingin the middle of it. Just before sunset she reached the junction of theSimujan and Sadong.
On one side of the branch stream there was a considerable Malay village,backed by an abundance of cocoanut palms; and, of course, the houseswere built on stilts close to the water. On the other side was theChinese kampon, or quarter, consisting largely of shops andtrading-houses. Louis Belgrave had been presented to the officials atSarawak as the owner of the Guardian-Mother, and that established him asa person of great distinction.
After the ship departed on her voyage to Siam, many attentions werebestowed upon him; and when, after the return of the yacht from up theSarawak, they learned that she was going to the Simujan, one of theofficials had given him a letter of introduction to the Chinesehalf-cast government official, who was the magnate of the place.Figuratively, he took the "Big Four" in his arms, and there was nothinghe was not ready to do for them.
He conducted them to the government house, and insisted that they shouldlive there during their stay at Simujan. It had been erected to receivesuch officials as might have occasion to remain there at any time. Itwas well built and comfortable, and each chamber had a veranda in frontof it. It was set on posts six feet from the ground, like all the otherdwellings near it. It was the police station of the region; and the twoMalays collected eight or nine dollars for their game, which they didnot offer to share with the crew of the yacht--no Malay would do such athing.
The agent's tender of the rooms to the party was accepted, for themembers wished to sleep in a four-posted bedstead once more for achange. The chief Malay of the place called upon them, and treated themvery handsomely. The Chinese official gave them much information as theywere seated on a veranda of the house.
"You may find the orang-outang up the Simujan; but I don't know that youwant such large game," said he.
"We have shot tigers in India, and Mr. McGavonty has shot more cobrasthan all the rest of us. He has a talent for killing snakes."
"Show me the snakes, and I will finish them," added Felix.
"You will not find many of them in the jungle. There are some watersnakes taken occasionally, and people here eat them. They make a veryfine curry."
"I should ask to be excused from partaking of that dish," said Scott.
"That is all prejudice," said the agent. "Perhaps you would like to goa-fishing in the Sadong and its branches. We have a peculiar way oftaking fish here. We use the tuba plant, which the Malays prepare foruse. It is a climbing-plant, the root of which has some of theproperties of opium. It is reduced to a pulp, mixed with water. I cannotfully explain the process of preparation, in which the Malays are veryskilful. At the right time of tide, the fluid is thrown into the stream.The effect is to stupefy and sometimes kill the fish. With dip-nets thefish are picked up, though some of them are so large that they can besecured only with a kind of barbed spear."
"I don't think I care to fish in that way," said Louis, with somedisgust in his expression. "It is very unsportsmanlike, and it looks tome to be a mean way to do it."
"Just what some Englishmen who were here a while ago said, and perhapsyou are right; but it is a Malay art, and not English."
The party slept very comfortably on bedsteads that night, but they wereup before the sun the next morning.