After continuing our course about a quarter of a mile, we came on a spot where the height of the cave from seventy feet decreased to three, and through this aperture the wind blew sharply and felt very cold. The Dayaks now proposed we should stop, as our torches would not last longer than the time required to return to the entrance; but we said we wished to advance as far as the chamber in which the edible birds’ nests were collected; so putting out some of the torches we pushed on in a stooping position. One fresher blast blew out some of the lights, and I thought for a moment that we were about to be left in the dark. A hundred yards brought us to the spot where the Dayaks take up their abode during the gathering season: it was a more lofty chamber than any we had as yet passed through. The birds build as near as possible to the top of the cave, and the dangerous operation of collecting the nests is performed by Dayaks who climb long poles fastened together to the height of eighty or ninety feet, which looked very poor scaffolding to sustain men at that dizzy height. The gathering is slow work, taking them five days. The nests found in these caves are very inferior to those of Baram; the former being like dirty glue, the latter like the finest isinglass. We should like to have penetrated farther and seen the country on the opposite side, but the cave was reputed dangerous and but seldom frequented, as the Dayaks never go beyond the profitable chamber. This would have rendered our progress slow, and the blasts of cold wind might have blown out our torches, now nearly consumed; and if the chasms were as bad even as those we had passed over, we could scarcely have finished our journey in safety. Reluctantly, we gave the order to return, when the whole body of little Dayak boys who had accompanied us, half frightened of ghosts and half in fun, started away yelling and whooping, their torches occasionally throwing light on the rocky sides and now fading away to mere specks of light. The loftiness of this cave, its great extent, the cry of the disturbed swallows, the peculiarly grave look of our almost naked guides, the knowledge that we were the first Europeans who had ever penetrated to this spot, the distant shouts of the boys as they were re-echoed back--all combined to render the scene interesting and impressive. From every calculation we could make, we were convinced that we penetrated the cave above a third of a mile. It is the finest I have ever seen, but I afterwards heard that there is another called Gua Mawap, or the cloudy cave, which is infinitely larger. It is said that some Malays who had entered it to look for birds’ nests lost their way and were no more heard of. The Dayaks from this, or some superstitious reason, did not mention its existence to us, as they are very well aware that Englishmen have a propensity to search every spot, whether dangerous or not.