The Rajah was accompanied on the occasion by one of his officers who had come to meet us at Singapore. As we three sat on deck, I thought they were the most silent pair I had ever come across. I wanted to know about the country, and asked questions, but no satisfactory answer could be obtained, and I was gently made to understand that I had better find things out for myself. I wanted to know about the mangroves which grew in the mud, and which at high tide stand “knee-deep in the flood.” I wanted to know about those great forests of nipa palms, like gigantic hearse plumes, fringing the river-banks, and from which I had been told in Singapore that sixteen different and most useful products to commerce could be obtained. I wanted to know the names of long, slender palms towering over the other vegetation farther inland, whose glossy fronds swaying in the morning breeze looked like green and graceful diadems. Then I saw great things like logs of wood lying on the mud, and when these moved, and went with a sickening flop into the water, I had to find out for myself that they were the first crocodiles of my acquaintance. I saw the black and mobile faces of monkeys peering at us from between the branches overhanging the water, grimacing like angry old men at our intrusion into their solitude, and to my inquiry as to what kind of monkeys they were, the usual indifferent answer was given. I remember trying to make friends with the English officer from Sarawak, with the object of eliciting from him some facts about the place, but my questions did not meet with any very interesting responses, and I soon found out that I should have to make my own discoveries about the country, and from that moment I simply panted to understand the Malay language and make friends with the people belonging to the place. Although here and there we met a few boats coming up the river, some of the reaches were deserted and silent as the grave. I was exceedingly lonely, and felt as though I had fallen into a phantom land, in the midst of a lost and silent world. But even in such out-of-the-way places people have to be fed, and I remember my first meal in Sarawak, brought to me by the Chinese steward. There were captain’s biscuits, lumps of tinned butter slipping about the plate like oil, one boiled egg which had seen its best days, and the cup of Chinese tea, innocent of milk, which the Rajah and his friend seemed to enjoy, but which I thought extremely nasty. The quiet, matter-of-fact way in which they participated in this unpalatable meal surprised me, but I thought that perhaps I, too, might in time look upon such things as mere trifles.