A year after this visit, the Rev. W. Gomez was established there, to endeavour to convert the Sibuyau Dayaks. At first, he did not press religious instruction upon them, but opened a school. I mention this circumstance on account of the very remarkable tact he must have exercised to induce the children to attend as they did. His system of punishment was admirable, but difficult to be followed with English boys. He merely refused to hear the offending child’s lesson, and told him to go home. A friend, who often watched the progress of the school, has told me that instead of going home the little fellows would sob and cry and remain in a quiet part of the school till they thought Mr. Gomez had relented. They would rarely return to their parents, if it could be avoided, before their lessons were said. On our journey along the coast, while walking at the edge of the jungle, a favourite dog of mine was seized by a boa-constrictor, perhaps twelve feet in length. Fortunately, Captain Brooke was near, and sent a charge of shot into the reptile, which then let go its hold and made off. The dog had a wound on the side of his neck. The natives tell many stories of these monstrous snakes; but rejecting the testimony of those who say they have seen them so large as to mistake them for trees, I will mention three cases where the animals were measured. A boa one night got into a closely-latticed place under a Dayak house, and finding it could not drag away a pig which it had killed there, on account of the wooden bars, swallowed the beast on the spot. In the morning the owner was astonished to find the new occupant of the sty; but as the reptile was gorged, he had no difficulty in destroying it. Its body was brought to Sarawak and measured by Mr. Ruppell, when it was found to be nineteen feet in length. The next was killed in Labuan, and without head and a large portion of its neck, it measured above twenty feet. I heard the story told how the reptile was secured. One day, a dog belonging to Mr. Coulson disappeared, and a servant averred that it was taken by an enormous snake. The following week, as the same servant was laying the cloth for dinner, he saw, to his horror, a huge snake dart at a dog, that was quietly dozing in the verandah, and carry it off. The master, alarmed at the cries of his follower, rushed out, and, on hearing the cause, gave chase, spear in hand, followed by all his household. They tracked the reptile to his lair, and found the dead dog opposite a hole in a hollow tree; placing a man with a drawn sword to watch there, Mr. Coulson thrust a spear into an upper hole, and struck the boa, which, feeling the wound, put its head out of the entrance, and instantly lost it by a blow from the Malay. I believe that when it was drawn from its hiding-place it measured about twenty-four feet; the before-mentioned length was taken by me from the mutilated skin.