“Look,” Wienersdorf continued enthusiastically, “at those high steep banks, in which chalk and diorite stones almost struggle for supremacy. Observe how they are clad in the loveliest soft green of gigantic ferns, crowned by the sombre foliage of the majestic primeval forest like the proud gothic arches of a mediæval cathedral. See, higher up, where the trunks lean over bending their branches, interwoven by the creepers and forming a low cave from which the white foaming waters escape as if from the mighty urn of the god of the stream.” “And yet how still all seems, does it not? Nothing, absolutely nothing but the noise of the fleeting waters; not the sound of a bird or animal breaking this dead silence. Life seems almost extinct here.” “Shut up!” was Johannes’ gay remark. “Morbid imagination, my boy, nothing else. Our poet is absolutely seeing solitude where none is to be found. The thunder of the cataract deafens all or you would soon hear the harsh cries of the hordes of gray-green paroquets inhabiting the tops of yonder trees. You might hear the piercing cries of that herd of deer now grazing on the tops of the cliffs; you would hear those small bakais or monkeys flying about with their long tails through the branches of the trees, fern leaves and creepers which overhang the abyss, whistling their lively ‘kirah, kirah.’ By heavens, no! life is far from extinct here. On the contrary it shows itself in its most powerful aspects everywhere around you, even in the waters, where you may find the finest salmon disporting themselves. Presently, when we shall have mastered this wild stream and travelled upwards, all this life will disappear as if by magic. Then you will find all blank and quiet about you just as you have pictured it to yourself. Do not, however, blame nature for the change, but only men.” While our deserters were thus philosophizing the Dayaks had taken steps to accomplish the difficult and dangerous ascent of the kiham. Women and children stepped on shore and began to climb the cliffs which formed as it were a flight of steps leading to the higher territory whence the Kapoeas descended. The four deserters, armed with their unerring rifles, and five Dayaks with their lances and mandauws, served as a convoy to the fair sex, all the while keeping an eye upon what was going on on the river.