re was to trade chiefly with the natives, from whom we
were more likely to learn something about the wreck of the "Amphion"
than from the Dutch, for it was considered that if they had had any
communication with the survivors of her crew, means would have been
found to send home an account of the occurrence. Now, as I have said,
nothing had been heard of the "Amphion" when we left England, nearly
four years after the time it was supposed she had been lost, beyond the
statement made by the two men who said they had escaped from her. Ned's
account showed that the owners were right in their conjectures as to the
possibility of her having been cast on some desert shore, instead of
having gone down, as was more generally believed, in a typhoon. By
working night and day, we at length got the "Lily" _ataunto_, and we
were thankful when being towed cut of harbour we found ourselves with a
fair wind standing to the eastward. We had the same dangers of coral
reefs, sand banks, and low islands to encounter as before, but we were
in a better condition now to avoid them.

Having passed the island of Labuan--since taken possession of by the
English--on the north-west of Borneo, we stood along the coast until we
rounded the northern end of that large island. To give some idea of the
size of Borneo, I may say that the whole of England, Ireland, and
Scotland, with the Orkney and Shetland Islands, would fit inside it,
leaving a very wide margin all round in addition. We were talking about
the inhabitants, when Uncle Jack observed--

"With the exception of Sarawak in the west, the whole of this
magnificent country is in a state of barbarism. The few Malay
settlements along the coast are but very slightly removed from the same
condition. It is said that the chief delight of the Dyak tribes, who
inhabit the interior as well as the larger part of the coast and the
banks of the rivers, is to attack their neighbours for the sake of
obtaining heads, and that no lover can present himself before his
intended bride until he offers her one of those gory trophies as a proof
of his prowess. The greater the number of heads he can present, the
more willing the damsel becomes to receive his advances.
Notwithstanding such a peculiar custom, the Dyaks possess many excellent
qualities. They are said to be truthful and honest, generally
intelligent, kind tempered and mild, and tolerably industrious; superior
indeed in many respects to the Malays a