When, after having conquered the head-hunters, the attacking party returned to camp, they found the gravel bed strewn with the bodies of the dead and dying. The return journey to Simanggang was terrible, for all along those many miles of water, corpses had to be flung from the boats in such numbers that there was nothing to be done but to leave them floating in the stream. The enemy, subsequently hearing about the catastrophe, hurried to the place where the Rajah’s force had been encamped, and finding there so many dead bodies, proceeded to cut off their heads and to carry them home. These people, however, fell victims to their detestable habit, for they caught the cholera and spread it amongst their tribe, with the result that it was almost annihilated. A great stretch of country became infected, and the little paths around Simanggang were littered with the corpses of Chinese, Dyaks, and Malays. Nothing apparently could be done to stop the disease, which disappeared as suddenly as it had come, but this calamitous epidemic destroyed nearly one-quarter of the population. Happening to be in Italy at the time, I read in an Italian paper that the Rajah’s son had died of cholera in Sarawak, as he was leading an expedition into the interior. I hurried to England with my younger son, Harry, who was staying with me at the time, and when we arrived at Dover, placards at the station confirmed the report. Telegrams, however, soon put us out of suspense, but I had spent a terrible day. FOOTNOTES: [13] Orang-outang, a species of monkey. [14] I believe it to be a species of _Crinum_. CHAPTER XXX On our return to Kuching, Bertram and I were anxious to pay a flying visit to a place called Paku, where one of the Rajah’s magistrates resides. The people in the neighbourhood are mostly Chinese, and near by are antimony and quicksilver mines worked by the Borneo Company Limited.