e screw-pines, and hauled it into the
opening. Pulling vines from the trees, they moored it where it was. As
soon as the two men came aboard the boat, the captain went ahead again.

"You did that job handsomely, Captain Scott," said Louis. "I thought the
only way we could get through was by cutting a passage for the boat."

"That would have taken too long," replied Scott, as he called Clinch to
the wheel. "Mind your eye! for the river is very crooked up here. Look
out for the swing as she goes around the bends."

The boat had not gone a great distance when she came to a considerable
expanse of territory which had been swept over by fire. The party did
not think that the green bushes would burn; but they had burned so that
nothing was left of them but the blackened stems, and there was no room
for an argument.

"When the fire gets started, it scorches and dries the bushes till they
will burn," Louis explained. "But what are we coming to now?" he asked,
looking ahead where the country seemed to be level, and covered with a
sheet of water, in which the screw-pines were abundant.

"That must be one of your lakes, Louis," added the captain.

"If it is mine, I will sell it to you," replied he.

"I don't want to buy; but I am not so sure that we can get through as
shoal a place as that seems to be, for it is only the spreading out of
the river. The greater the expanse, the less the depth. How is that,
Achang?"

"Plenty water; float the boat," answered the Bornean. "Little Padang
Lake. Plenty pandanus."

"What are pandanuses?" asked Scott.

"The plural of the word is pandanaceae; and they are the same thing as
the screw-pines, and sometimes are found thirty feet high. There is one;
and you can see roots starting out of the stem, and heading downward.
The leaves are very useful to the natives. We shall get tied in a hard
knot if we follow the twists of this stream much farther."

Presently the boat came to the lake. The captain was considerably
exercised about the depth of water; and as they entered the lake, which
was not very different from the overflowed region they had visited that
day, he ordered the wheelman to stop her.

"There must be some sort of a channel through this pond," said he,
looking about him. "There is a bigger lake than this one farther up.
There are mountains in sight in the distance, and the water from them
must find an outlet to the sea."

"I have no doubt you are right; and probably there