Southward of our anchorage we fell in with a small stream, which near its embouchure on the beach was lost in a sand-bank. Some of the members of the Expedition explored it in a very small flat-bottomed boat, a Venetian gondola, which was transported across the bar in order to admit of its being sculled up the river. At first it was found to be about 2-1/2 feet deep, by about 12 to 14 yards in width; the general direction of its very sinuous course being towards E.S.E. All around the forest presented a scene to which perhaps only the fantastic whimsicality of certain theatrical forest sceneries might furnish a dim resemblance. Along the steep bank of the river rose to a height of nearly 100 feet the slender Nibong palm, adorned with blossoms and clusters of fruit, and close adjoining the graceful Catechu palm. Gigantic forest trees, with thick squat trunks, extended their shady masses of foliage far over the stream; screw-pines towering up from the scaffold-like arrangement of their numerous roots, were reflected from the glassy bosom of the water; clumps of bamboo, absolutely alive with butterflies; nymph-like aquatic plants, mossy green banks, and tree-ferns with indescribably graceful corollæ, all combined here to form a landscape of the most enchanting richness, in the water, on the shore, and in the air. Suspended over the whole scene, partly in leaf, partly in bloom, a gigantic garland of climbing and creeping plants, in living cords of every variety of thickness, rose in a lofty arch above the limpid element, interlaced and girt round with thousands of blooming and flourishing parasites! Then, too, from amid the mysterious gloom started forth the strangest voices and cries, without our being able to descry the animals themselves. In the water, which was perfectly sweet to the taste, swarmed multitudes of fish of from one to four inches in length. After rowing about one nautical mile and a half up the stream, some rapids and rocks prevented our further progress, the stream itself being but twelve feet wide. A little further to the east occurs a similar small river, which however had even less water, and at its mouth is yet more sanded up and inaccessible than that above described.