_13th._--About nine, we pushed off, and got on very well for two hours. Found one of the rafts smashed up against a rock, and the men away walking. Continued till about one o’clock, when ours also became fixed on a rock, and our men were too dispirited to get it off; and saying that the rapids ahead of us were dangerous, they proposed walking to-morrow. We should have thought nothing of such paltry difficulties a week ago, but the men were losing their courage with their strength. I refused, however, to stop till to-morrow, and walked on for a couple of hours. In crossing a ravine to-day, we disturbed a female bear, which, however, dashed with her cubs into thick brushwood, so without dogs it was useless following her. She roared in a manner worthy of an animal double her size. _14th._--The river still full of rapids; but the hills are gradually receding from the banks, giving it more space, and it sometimes spreads out into extensive sheets of water, with immense pebbly flats. Islands are also beginning to appear. It was again proposed to build rafts, but I steadily refused, and kept walking till nearly five. After sunset, the last stragglers overtook us. We continually came upon the traces of the advance-party. At one of their resting-places, we found the bones of a fine fish, which by some means they had secured. Our old Pakatan declared they had either found it stranded, or else had startled a kite from his prey. It proved to be the former, though the latter had happened to us once. _15th._--Yesterday and to-day the character of the forest has altered. We are now marching through the old farming grounds of the Muruts; found some of their fruit trees; among others, one covered with fine-looking oranges, but intolerably sour. I secured the opium bottle to-day, intending to take a dose to deaden the pangs of hunger, but I put it off till the evening, thinking it might interfere with my walking. I noticed near the orange-tree above mentioned that the whole ground was a mass of water-worn pebbles, evidently the ancient bed of the stream; it was now at least a hundred feet above the water’s edge. At half-past four p.m. I brought up for the night, and after bathing stretched myself on my back, munching a great lump of cabbage, when my eyes, wandering over the scene, fell on a hill about three miles ahead of us. I sat up and looked at it again; and, turning to my companions, said, “Why, that reminds me of the high land near the mouth of the Madihit;” but we agreed that it was impossible, as our five men had been gone six days, and we felt assured that we should have met them ere this if we were so near our boats as that, particularly as we, both yesterday and to-day, had made very long walks. Since we have had a bearing of Molu, we have been keeping generally in a west course, but the river has taken some very extraordinary windings.