ion, the Bishop took Mr. Waterhouse to Lundu,
and Mr. Hawkins, a missionary lately come out, went with them. They
arrived on a Saturday. On Sunday there was a great gathering of
Christian Dyaks: fifty-two people were confirmed, eighty received the
Holy Communion, so that they were more than three hours in church, the
Bishop preaching to them in Malay. On Monday Mr. Waterhouse and Mr.
Hawkins paid a visit to a beautiful waterfall, about two miles from the
town; and on Tuesday all the party, Mr. Gomez included, went in boats
forty miles up the river Lundu, with three hundred Dyaks, to tuba fish.
The Bishop had paid the Dyaks to collect tuba the week before. It is a
plant found in the jungle, the root of which washed in water makes a
milky-looking poison. It does not make the fish unwholesome to eat, only
intoxicates them for the time, so that they rise floundering about on
the surface of the water, but it destroys human life, and is the poison
chosen by Dyaks who commit suicide, though I do not believe that this
crime is common among them.

When the party had ascended the river far enough, the Dyaks built a hut
for the English to sleep in. They made a floor of logs of wood, spread
over with the bark of trees, which, beaten down hard, made a capital
mattress on which to lay their mats and pillows. The kajangs (leaf mats)
off the boat made some shelter from the weather, although it takes a
good deal to keep Borneo rain out! The Dyaks were much too busy to go to
sleep at all: they drove stakes all across the river to secure their
fish, then they beat out the tuba in the bottom of their boats. It took
all night, by the light of torches, to do this; and a wild sight it was,
in the midst of the solemn old jungle. Very early in the morning, when
the tide was at its lowest ebb, they put the tuba into the river; the
flood coming up, and bringing plenty of fish, encountered this
intoxicating milk, and carried over the stakes a whole shoal of dead and
tipsy fish. Then the Dyaks, darting about in little boats, speared the
big fishes, and caught the small ones in landing-nets.

Hundreds of fish were caught, and the Dyaks had a grand feast; also,
they salted quantities, in their nasty way--pounding the fish up,
letting it turn sour, and then packing it into bamboos with salt, as a
relish to eat with their rice. Certainly it has a strong flavour! They
all camped two nights in the jungle, then returned to Lundu, and reached
Sarawak in t