Two or three days afterwards we went up the river to visit some of the tribes, for, as I have said before, the Rejang is a long river, with villages dotted here and there along its banks. Another surprise was in store for me: when I went on board, I found that wire-netting had been stretched fore and aft the vessel, so as to secure it from any attack. When we were inside, and the wire-netting securely fastened all round us, we must have looked like animals in a cage! We started early in the morning. The sun had hardly risen, and there was a thick fog which hid the land. There was a freshet coming down the river, the effect of heavy rain of the day before in the mountains farther inland. Our speed did not exceed eight knots an hour. In a very short space of time the fog began to lift, and we could see the flat, marshy land through which we travelled. It was bitterly cold, and I remember that I wrapped three or four railway rugs round my shoulders, over my white muslin dress, prepared as I was for the intense heat with the advent of the sun. Cocoa-nut and a few sago palms were planted on the banks, for the water here was brackish, but there were no other signs of cultivation. Near the Fort the river is about twelve hundred yards wide. There were signs of jungle everywhere, the ancient sites of cleared rice lands, with creepers, small trees, and coarse lalang grass covering the soil. There were no virgin forests on these banks. In former years these were the Dyaks’ farm grounds, but the people had long since removed up the river to plant their paddy in its tributary streams. Farther up, the banana and sago plants were replaced by the shrub called rengas, resembling, in the distance, a hedge of clipped holly; but on closer examination, although its leaves are dark and shiny, they are more like laurels in shape with young shoots of brilliant red. The wood of this shrub is valuable, and is used a good deal for making furniture by the carpenters in the Straits. It has peculiar and disagreeable effects on certain persons. Some natives can lop off its branches without its doing them the slightest harm, whilst others, if they but attempt such work, become swollen, and are sometimes absolutely blinded, or are made uncomfortable in various other ways for hours, even if they merely touch or turn aside its branches. On the other hand, those who are immune from its ill-effects can approach the plant with impunity, hack it about as they choose, and can thus obtain its young shoots, which make an excellent dish when boiled as a vegetable. After a time we could see nothing but low, green hills on the edge of the water, and everlasting masses of driftwood hurrying down on the freshet to the sea. This kind of landscape continued for another hour or so, when the banks began to close in, and we saw here and there bright vermilion patches about the green grass near the water. These were made by clerodendron blossoms, a flower of predilection amongst the Sea Dyaks.