Our pride in our rafts was fast leaving us when, about an hour afterwards, we saw one of the smaller ones rushing round at a frantic pace in a whirlpool, and three men trying to save one of their companions, whose head we could occasionally see bobbing up: we were on them in a minute; our strong raft went headlong against the rock, creaked to the force of the waters, but did not break up, and we were enabled to push the man near enough to the shore to be seized by his companions: our raft was too long to be mastered by the whirlpool: we just saw one man holding on to the fellow’s long hair, as we were swept out of sight. Our raft had bravely carried us through dangers that, one after the other, had destroyed its companions, so that at four p.m. I very much regretted finding it stuck firm on a great rapid that appeared a mile in length. I proposed that we should encamp opposite, and trust to the night’s rain to enable us to float it over; but the men said we had better push on to the Limbang and build new rafts there; so we walked till five, when, catching up our wrecked companions, we pitched our tents: there was very little cheerfulness in the party that night. We had passed through a country of nothing but low forest, with a few hills scattered about. Our course was nearly west south-west. _4th._--We had heavy rain during the night, which made the river rise a fathom; so that had we stuck to our raft, we might have advanced in her. The course of the river continued winding to the west-south-west, passed the Umur on the right bank. Had some difficulty in finding a ford: after five hours’ walking, reached the Limbang. I had but a partial view of the junction; I thought it only the end of an island, though a clear view shortly after showed, by the augmented volume of water, that we were on the main river: walked forward for an hour and a half, till we found sufficient light wood to make our rafts: then pitching our tents, the men set to work preparing them, and after doing my best to make our tent comfortable, I am now inditing this journal. The men this afternoon evidently think that matters are looking a little serious, and have worked away with a will till dark. Convinced that bamboos make bad rafts, strong but not sufficiently buoyant, they are using only light woods;[8] and remembering the severe blows they received in the tributary, they are preparing for worse in the main stream. We are now beginning to remember the warnings of the Muruts, that you cannot descend the stream in rafts at any time, and in boats only in fine weather; and the addition, that if the rafts fail now, the country is composed of such steep mountains that it would be impossible to cross them. I hear these not very cheerful discussions going on around me; but the sanguine portion of my retainers point to the beautiful smooth stream, whose banks we have followed for several miles.