rent disappointments with such philosophy as we could muster.
The night shut down upon us once more, but we did not call a halt. We had no knowledge concern- ing the distance that still separated us from the nearest human habitation and we were running a race against hunger-an opponent that never grants an armistice. We were already so spent that we dared not rest lest we should lack the force and courage to renew our efforts, and the pangs we were suffering for none of us had now tasted food for five and thirty hours-were goads that pricked us onward. Therefore, we fumbled and groped our way down the Sempam with the dogged, spiritless per- sistency of the desperate. Our discomfort was com- pleted by the fact that we had got ourselves smoth- cred in jungle ticks, crablike monsters that fix their claws into selected nerve centres, whence they can only be withdrawn at the cost of acute pain.
At about half-past eight we saw a point of light ahead of us and a few minutes later we were eagerly devouring all the available cooked rice in the little village of Chĕrok.
"The falls of this river are very difficult, Tuan." said a village elder to me, as I sat smoking and talk- ing to the people of the place, after I had crammed myself with fat, new rice. "They are very difficult, and no man may pass up or down those which are of the largest size. Moreover, even we, who are children of the river, may not approach the lesser
