A Writer's Notebook (59 page)

Going up the river. High overhead fly a pair of doves and a kingfisher darts rapidly across the water, a flash of colour, a
living jewel, brilliant like a Chinese porcelain. Two monkeys sit side by side on a branch with their tails hanging down; another monkey leaps from branch to branch. There is the ceaseless sound of the cicadas, and the sound has a sort of fury. It is as continual and monotonous as the rushing of a brook over a rocky bed. Then suddenly it is silenced by the loud singing of a bird, whose notes are those of an English blackbird.

At night the frogs croak, croak, croak, such a racket; and now and then some singing bird of the night breaks in upon it with a few short notes. The fireflies give the shrubs the look of a Christmas tree all lit up with tiny candles. They sparkle softly; the radiance of a soul at peace.

The river narrows and it is like a leafy reach of the Thames.

The fever bird. It has three notes, and it just misses the fourth which would make the chord, and the ear waits for it maddeningly.

The Bore. We saw it coming from a good way off, two or three large waves following one another, and it didn't look very alarming. It came nearer, very quickly, with a roar like the roar of a stormy sea, and I saw that the waves were much larger than I had thought. I didn't like the look of them, and I tightened my belt so that my trousers shouldn't slip down if I had to swim for it. Then in a moment the Bore was upon us. It was a great mass of water, eight, ten, twelve feet high, and it was quite plain at once that no boat could weather it. The first wave dashed over us, drenching us all and half filling the boat with water, and then immediately another wave struck us. The boatmen began to shout. They were prisoners from the up-country jail and they wore their prison clothes. They lost control of the boat; the force of the water turned it round so that we were broadside on as we were carried on the
crest of the Bore. Another wave dashed over us and we began to sink. Gerald, R. and I scrambled from beneath the awning under which we had been lying, and suddenly the boat gave way under us and we found ourselves in the water. It was surging and storming round us. My first impulse was to swim for the shore, but R. shouted to Gerald and me to cling to the boat. For two or three minutes we did this. I expected that the waves would pass as the Bore swept up the river and that in a few minutes at the outside we should find ourselves once more in calm water. I forgot that we were being carried along with the Bore. The waves kept dashing over us. We were hanging on to the gunwale and the base of the framework which supported the rattan mats of the awning. Then a bigger wave caught the boat, and it turned over, falling upon us, so that we lost our hold. There was nothing then but a slippery bottom to put our hands to, and as the keel came within reach we made a desperate grab at it. The boat continued to turn, like a wheel, and then we caught hold of the gunwale with a greater sense of security, only to feel the boat turn again, forcing us under water, and the whole business repeated itself.

This went on for I don't know how long. I thought it was because we were all clinging to the side of the boat, and I tried to get some of the crew to go round to the other side; I thought that if half of us remained on one side while half went over to the other, we could keep the boat bottom down and so easily hang on; but I could make no one understand. The waves swept over us, and each time the gunwale slipped out of my hand I was pushed under, only to come up again as the keel gave me something to cling to.

Presently I began to get terribly out of breath, and I felt my strength going. I knew I couldn't hold out much longer. I thought the best thing was to make a dash for the bank, but Gerald begged me to try to hold on. The bank now didn't look more than forty or fifty yards away. We were still being carried along among the seething, pounding waves. The boat went round and round and we all scrambled round it like
squirrels in a cage. I swallowed a good deal of water. I felt I was very nearly done. Gerald stayed near me and two or three times gave me a hand. He couldn't do much, for as the side of the boat fell over us we were equally helpless. Then, I don't know why, for three or four minutes the boat held keel downwards, and we were able to hold on and rest. I thought the danger was past. It was a precious thing to be able to get one's breath. But on a sudden the boat rolled right round again, and the same thing repeated itself. The few moments' respite had helped me, and I was able to struggle a little longer. Then again I became terribly out of breath and I felt as weak as a rat. My strength was gone, and I didn't know if I had enough now to try to swim for the shore. Gerald by this time was nearly as exhausted as I was. I told him my only chance was to try to get ashore. I suppose we were in deeper water then, for it seemed that the waves were not so turbulent. On the other side of Gerald were two of the crew, and somehow they understood that we were down and out. They made signs to us that now we could risk making for the bank. I was dreadfully tired. They caught hold of a thin mattress as it floated past us, it was one of those that we had been lying on, and they made it into a roll which they used as a life-belt. It didn't look as though it would be much use, but I took hold of it with one hand, and with the other struck out for the shore. The two men came with Gerald and me. One of them swam by my side. I don't quite know how we reached it. Suddenly Gerald cried out that he could touch the bottom. I put down my legs, but could feel nothing. I swam a few more strokes, and then, trying again, my feet sank into thick mud. I was thankful to feel its beastly softness. I floundered on, and there was the bank, black mud into which we sank up to the knees.

We scrambled up with the help of roots of dead trees that stuck out of the mud, and when we came to the top found a little flat of tall rank grass. We sank down and for a while lay there stretched out and exhausted. We were so tired that we couldn't move. We were covered with black mud from head to
foot. After a time we stripped off our things and I made myself a loin cloth out of my dripping shirt. Then Gerald had a heart attack. I thought he was going to die. I could do nothing but let him lie still and tell him it would pass over. I don't know how long we lay there, the better part of an hour, I should think, and I don't know how long we were in the water. At last R. came along in a canoe and fetched us off.

When we got to the Dyak long-house on the other side where we were to spend the night, although we were caked with mud from top to toe, and were in the habit of having a swim three or four times a day, we couldn't bring ourselves to go into the river, but washed ourselves perfunctorily in a pail. None of us said anything, but we certainly all felt that we didn't want to have anything more to do with the river that night.

Looking back, I was surprised to notice that not at any moment had I been at all frightened. I suppose the struggle was so severe that there was no time for any emotion, and even when I felt my strength going and thought that in a moment or two I should have to give up, I am not conscious that I had any feeling of fear or even distress at the thought of death by drowning. I was so tired that it seemed to me rather in the nature of a relief. Later in the evening when I was sitting in a dry sarong in the Dyak house and from it saw the yellow moon lying on her back it gave me a keen, almost a sensual pleasure. I couldn't help thinking that I might at that moment have been a corpse floating along with the tide up the river. And next morning when we started off again to go down stream I found an added pleasure in the cheerful sky and the sunshine and the greenness of the trees. The air was singularly good to breathe.

The Dyak House. It was very long, built on piles, with a thatched roof. Access was obtained by climbing up the trunk of a tree which had been rudely notched into steps. There was a veranda outside, the floor of which was made of bamboos
attached with rattan; and within a long common-room with a platform and the rooms in each one of which lived a family. At the sides of the common-room stood the large jars which are the Dyaks' wealth. When we came in, clean mats were unrolled and laid down for us to sit on. Chickens flew about. A monkey was attached to one of the posts. Dogs wandered around. Beds were made up for us on the platform. Through the night cocks crowed and with the dawn they made an infernal racket. Then the noise of the household began again. The men set out for their work in the rice-fields. The women went down to the river to get water. The sun had scarcely risen and the long-house was already as busy as a hive.

The Dyaks are rather small, but very trimly built, with brown skins, large shining eye, flat in the skull like the eyes of Coptic mosaics, and flat noses. They have ready, sweet smiles and engaging manners. The women are very small, shy, with something hieratic in their immobile faces, pretty, with dainty little figures when they are young. But they age quickly, their hair goes grey, and the skin hangs loosely on their bones, all wrinkled and shrivelled; and their dried breasts are pendulous. There was an old, old woman, quite blind, who sat in a corner like an idol, upright on her haunches, taking no notice of anyone. The busy life passed her by and she remained absorbed in memories of the past. The preparation of the rice is left to the women. There is an absolute division of labour, and it would never occur to a man to do anything that immemorial custom has established as woman's work. The women wear nothing but a cloth reaching from the waist to the knee. Round their arms is curled silver wire and many have silver wire curled round their waists. It looks like a huge watch spring. They carry their children on their backs, making a seat for them from a shawl tied round their necks. The men wear silver bracelets, ear-rings and rings, and in full dress they are handsome and jaunty. Many of them have long hair hanging down their backs; and the slightly feminine appearance
it gives them is strange and ambiguous. For all their ready smiles and pleasant manners you feel in them a latent savagery which is a little startling.

Under the long-house pigs rustled around devouring garbage, and chickens and ducks kept up a constant clatter. From the house to the river a pathway was made of roughly-hewn planks so that you should not have to walk in the mud of the track, but when the tide is low you have to climb up slippery banks of mud, dark and slimy, into which you sink knee-deep.