and sat there panting and gasping. I had come into violent collision with more than one rock during my short swim and I was bruised and cut in many places, but it seemed to me then that I had escaped almost scot free, and I and my fellows screamed congratula- tions to one another at the top of our voices above the roar of the rapids. Then we rose to our feet and picked our way along the bank, through the thick jungle, to rejoin our companions farther up- stream.
Here a blow awaited us. The raft which had been following mine proved to have contained, among other things, our cooking utensils and our store of rice, and its loss meant that our prospects of having anything to eat that night was unpleasantly remote. We knew that there existed a few Malay villages on the banks of the lower reaches of the Sempam; but what might be the distance that separated us from these havens of refuge we could not tell. This was a problem that could only be solved by personal in- vestigation, which for hungry men might well prove a lengthy and therefore painful process.
The first thing to be done, however, was to find out the nature of the river below the rapid which had wrought our undoing, as we still hoped that it might be possible to lower our two uninjured rafts down the falls by means of rattan painters. Those who have never seen a Malayan forest will find it difficult to realize the difficulty which "getting out and walk- ing presents to the wayfarer in an unfrequented portion of the country. The rivers in such localitie;
