m only as savages--wild men of the woods--some of them covered
with hair, and whose chief delight and glory are the cutting off men's
heads, and not unfrequently feasting on men's flesh! No wonder that,
with these facts, or fancies, acting upon their imagination, our
travellers set forth upon their journey determined to give a wide berth
to everything that bore the shape of a human being. It was a strange
commentary on man's superiority to the lower animals, and not very
creditable to the former, that he himself was the thing they most feared
to meet with in the wooded wilderness. And yet, humiliating as the
reflection may appear, it depressed the minds of the castaways, as,
looking their last upon the bright blue sea, they turned their faces
toward the interior of the forest-covered land of Borneo.

For the first day they pursued a course leading along the bank of the
stream at whose mouth they had been sojourning ever since their arrival
on the island. They had more than one reason for keeping to the stream.
It seemed to flow in a due easterly direction, and therefore to ascend
it would lead them due west--the way they wanted to go. Besides, there
was a path along its banks, not made by man, but evidently by large
animals; whose tracks, seen here and there in soft places, showed them
to be tapirs, wild-boars, and the larger but more rare rhinoceros.

They saw none of these animals during their day's journey, though many
of the traces were fresh. Generally nocturnal in their habits, the huge
pachydermatous creatures that had made them were, during daylight,
probably lying asleep in their lairs, amid the thick underwood of the
adjacent jungles.

The travellers might have brought the pinnace up the river--so far it
was deep enough to be navigated by a row-boat; and they had at first
thought of doing so. But for several reasons they had changed their
minds, and abandoned their boat. It was too heavy to be easily
propelled by oars, especially against the current of a stream which in
many places was very rapid. Besides, if there should be a settlement of
savages on the bank, to approach in a boat would just be the way to
expose themselves to being seen, without first seeing.

But to Captain Redwood the chief objection was, that a mountain-range
rose only a short distance off, and the stream appeared to issue from
its steep sloping side; in which case it would soon assume the character
of a headlong torrent utter