s pheasant, and we continually heard its cry.
On asking the old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he told me that
although he had been for twenty years shooting birds in these forests he
had never yet shot one, and had never even seen one except after it had
been caught. The bird is so exceedingly shy and wary, and runs along
the ground in the densest parts of the forest so quickly, that it is
impossible to get near it; and its sober colours and rich eye-like
spots, which are so ornamental when seen in a museum, must harmonize
well with the dead leaves among which it dwells, and render it very
inconspicuous. All the specimens sold in Malacca are caught in snares,
and my informant, though he had shot none, had snared plenty.

The tiger and rhinoceros are still found here, and a few years ago
elephants abounded, but they have lately all disappeared. We found some
heaps of dung, which seemed to be that of elephants, and some tracks of
the rhinoceros, but saw none of the animals. However, we kept a fire up
all night in case any of these creatures should visit us, and two of our
men declared that they did one day see a rhinoceros. When our rice was
finished, and our boxes full of specimens, we returned to Ayer-Panas,
and a few days afterwards went on to Malacca, and thence to Singapore.
Mount Ophir has quite a reputation for fever, and all our friends were
astonished at our recklessness in staying so long at its foot; but none
of us suffered in the least, and I shall ever look back with pleasure
to my trip as being my first introduction to mountain scenery in the
Eastern tropics.

The meagreness and brevity of the sketch I have here given of my visit
to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula is due to my having trusted chiefly
to some private letters and a notebook, which were lost; and to a paper
on Malacca and Mount Ophir which was sent to the Royal Geographical
Society, but which was neither read nor printed owing to press of matter
at the end of a session, and the MSS. of which cannot now be found. I
the less regret this, however, as so many works have been written on
these parts; and I always intended to pass lightly over my travels in
the western and better known portions of the Archipelago, in order to
devote more space to the remoter districts, about which hardly anything
has been written in the English language.

CHAPTER IV. BORNEO--THE ORANGUTAN.

I ARRIVED at Sarawak on November 1st, 1854, and left it on Januar