When I was living in Brunei a similar panic occurred. So many people were snatched from their boats that there was talk of a crusade being undertaken against the alligator which caused it. But as that did not come off, I proposed to my six boatmen that we should attempt the destruction of the brute. I armed my men with muskets, and I took for my own use a Minié rifle. We arranged that I should have first shot, and if I missed, they were to fire a volley at the enemy. We pulled down quietly to the haunted spot, and then floated with the stream. We had not been there many minutes when my head man said, ‘There he is.’ I looked round, and all I could see were a pair of prominent eyes, a broad forehead and a streak of its back. It was coming at us with all its speed. I waited until it was within about twenty-five yards, and then fired. The heavy ball struck it between the eyes, then bounded off, and fell into the water many a yard away. There was great commotion as the alligator dived beneath the surface. My men, who had wonderfully sharp eyes, said that the bullet had torn the skin off the forehead, and that the beast must die, as the worms with which these waters swarm would get into the wound. A week or two subsequently, some fishermen told me they had seen an immense alligator, at least twenty feet in length, lying on the mud bank of a small stream. All the flesh on its head and neck was rotting away, and it was evidently nearly dead, as it scarcely moved on their approach. At all events, the man-eater never appeared again. The largest alligator which I ever measured myself was only seventeen feet six inches long, but Sir Hugh Low tells me that he has himself measured one which touched twenty-six feet in length. I think it highly probable that hunger has driven the alligators to be as aggressive as they have been during the last few years. When the rinderpest was killing cattle in the Malay Peninsula, some similar disease attacked the wild pigs, and they died by hundreds. About the same time a like mortality occurred in Borneo. The principal food of the alligator is the wild pig, which is taken whilst swimming across the rivers in search of jungle fruits. When the pest occurred this supply of pork was much lessened, and the alligators became more voracious. The wild animals in Sarawak must be rapidly disappearing as cultivation and population increase, and also as a ready market is found for venison. Wild pig and various species of deer are the only animals which were ever plentiful in Sarawak. In its last acquired districts, however, such as Baram and Limbang, there are large herds of wild cattle—splendid beasts.