waving glare of torches flashing fitfully on the skeleton pier, the
lofty jungle trees, the dark, fast-flowing river, and the dark, lithe
forms of our half-naked boatmen.

The prahu was a flattish-bottomed boat about twenty-two and a half feet
long by six and a half feet broad, with a bamboo gridiron flooring
resting on the gunwale for the greater part of its length. This was
covered for seven feet in the middle by a low, circular roof, thatched
with attap. It was steered by a broad paddle loosely lashed, and poled
by three men who, standing at the bow, planted their poles firmly in
the mud and then walked half-way down the boat and back again. All
craft must ascend the Linggi by this laborious process, for its current
is so strong that the Japanese would call it one long "rapid."
Descending loaded with tin, the stream brings boats down with great
rapidity, the poles being used only to keep them off the banks and
shallows. Our boat was essentially "native."

The "Golden Chersonese" is very hot, and much infested by things which
bite and sting. Though the mercury has not been lower than 80 degrees
at night since I reached Singapore, I have never felt the heat
overpowering in a house; but the night on the river was awful, and
after the intolerable blaze of the day the fighting with the heat and
mosquitoes was most exhausting, crowded as we were into very close and
uneasy quarters, a bamboo gridiron being by no means a bed of down. Bad
as it was, I was often amused by the thought of the unusual feast which
the jungle mosquitoes were having on the blood of four white people.
If it had not been for the fire in the bow, which helped to keep them
down by smoking them (and us), I at least should now be laid up with
"mosquito fever."