When Bertram and I stopped at Sibu for a few days on our way up the Rejang to Kanowit, he was much interested in all the things I had to tell him about Sibu. The early days of my life were lived over again, and I was delighted to see the interest he took in the smallest details of my first and most interesting stay in these regions so many years before. During this later visit, Mr. Bampfylde told me of a Haji who had experienced an interesting and somewhat alarming adventure with a sea-serpent. As I wished to hear the tale from the man’s own lips, Mr. Bampfylde sent for him the next morning. Haji Matahim was a typical Malay from Sambas. He lived at Sibu with his relations. He possessed a small trading schooner of about 200 tons, and made voyages to the Dutch Settlements, to Rhio, and to Singapore. His face was round and short; he had a receding chin and a protruding upper lip, shaded by a black and bristly moustache. He was flat between the eyes, and his complexion was rather darker than most Malays, being tanned by exposure and sea air. He told me that about two or three months before the time of which I write he was sailing from Pontianak, a place in Dutch Borneo, with a cargo for Singapore. One day he was becalmed not far from an island called Rhio, when his ship was suddenly surrounded by an extraordinary shoal of fishes. As the fish swarmed round the ship, the crew managed to haul them up with buckets and baskets, capturing them in enormous quantities. Having no salt on board, with which to preserve the fish, the crew, eight in number, cleaned them there and then on the vessel’s deck, and threw the offal into the sea. Haji Matahim was standing in the bows looking at this extraordinary capture, when suddenly the rudder chain snapped. This was nothing out of the way, for it had previously been broken and mended with a piece of wire. The Haji and his crew were busily discussing how best they could remedy the accident, when a man in the stern saw a floating mass of “something,” striped white and green, lying motionless under the clear surface of the water. He rushed up to the Haji and told him what he had seen, whereupon the Haji ordered the lead to be thrown over to ascertain the depth at which this unlooked-for object was lying. The lead gave only six fathoms, whereas it is well known that in that particular region the sea is about fifty fathoms deep. Then the Haji saw a flat, monstrous head rising out of the water, some ten or twelve yards from the vessel, the schooner’s bows floating between its eyes. The head was like that of a fish, and, according to the Haji’s account, the eyes looked like two round balls stuck at the end of spikes, seven or eight inches long: the time for observation was sufficient, as the monster remained motionless for about half an hour. The Haji and his crew were too terrified to move or speak, but after a time they collected their wits together sufficiently to procure some tuba and garlic (stowed on