The river widened out again, the rocks on the sides disappeared, and deep pools were passed, though often the water ran very shallow, so the prahus were dragged along with difficulty. Fish were plentiful, some astonishingly large. In leaping for something on the surface they made splashes as if a man had jumped into the water. On the last day, as the morning mist began to rise, our thirty odd men, eager to get home, poling the prahus with long sticks, made a picturesque sight. In early March, after a successful journey, we arrived at Tamaloe, having consumed only fourteen days from Bahandang because weather conditions had been favourable, with no overflow of the river and little rain. It was pleasant to know that the most laborious part of the expedition was over. I put up my tent under a large durian tree, which was then in bloom. CHAPTER XVII THE PENYAHBONGS, MEN OF THE WOODS--RHINOCEROS HUNTERS--CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PENYAHBONGS--EASY HOUSEKEEPING--DAILY LIFE--WOMAN'S LOT The Penyahbongs until lately were nomadic people, roaming about in the nearby Müller mountains, subsisting on wild sago and the chase and cultivating some tobacco. They lived in bark huts on the ground or in trees. Some eight years previous to my visit they were induced by the government to form kampongs and adopt agricultural pursuits, and while most of them appear to be in the western division, two kampongs were formed east of the mountains, the Sabaoi and the Tamaloe, with less than seventy inhabitants altogether. Tamaloe is the name of an antoh (spirit) who lived here in the distant past. The kampong consists of four small, poorly built communal houses, and of the Malays who have settled here, in houses of their own making, the most important is Bangsul, who married a daughter of Pisha, the Penyahbong chief. Both before and since their transition to sedentary habits the Penyahbongs have been influenced by the Saputans, their nearest neighbours, four days' journey to the north, on the other side of the water-shed. Their ideas about rice culture and the superstitions and festivals attending it, come from the Saputans, of whom also a few live in Tamaloe. They have only recently learned to swim and many do not yet know how to paddle. It may be of some interest to note the usual occurrence of rain at this kampong as gathered from native observation. April-July there is no rain; August-October, little; November and December have a little more; January much; February and March less.