glistened in many a varied tint, as the morning beams played upon it, or streamed down through the mountain gorges beyond. The Indian Sea laughed with a thousand rippling smiles, and the distant isles seemed floating on clouds of purple and gold as the night mists rose from their level sea-boards, and encircled the base of their picturesque peaks.

One could have cheered with joy and heartfelt healthful appreciation of the glorious East; but no! not far beyond me, on a projecting shoal, stands the tall adjutant, who had as yet baffled all our attempts to shoot him a very king of fishing-birds. He formerly used to fish in the Parlis river, but our seamen in the cutter, who would brook no competitors in their poaching pursuits, fired and fired at the poor adjutant without hitting it, until, by way of revenge, they nicknamed it the "old soldier"--a term which in their estimation comprised all that was wary, and difficult to catch at a disadvantage. "The old soldier" loomed like a giant in the grey mist flowing from the forest, and he evidently saw me as soon as I did him; but knowing from experience the distance to which his enemies might be allowed to approach with safety, he strutted out a pace or two into deeper mud or water and pursued his fishing. I, however, did not intend to fire until I reached the

cranes, which I could see clustering in some trees ahead; and the adjutant, as if fathoming my intentions, or, what is more likely, taking me for a Malay (who never disturbed him), let me pass within moderate shot distance.

I was interested in seeing how he captured his prey, and watched him narrowly. The bird stood like a statue, in a foot of water and mud, the long legs admirably supporting the comparatively small body, a long neck, and such a bill! It looked as if it could cut a man in two and swallow him. Presently, from a perfect state of quietude, the adjutant was all animation, the head moving rapidly about as if watching its unconscious prey; a rapid stride or two into a deep gully of water, a dive with the prodigious beak, and then the adjutant held in the air what looked like a moderate-sized conger-eel. Poor fish! it made a noble fight; but what chance had it against an "old soldier" who stood ten feet without stockings, and rejoiced in a bill as big as one's thigh and some four feet long? The last I saw of the poor conger-eel was a lively kick in the air, as "the soldier" lifted his beak and shook his breakfast down.

My resolution to shoot cranes alone was not proof against the temptation. I saw before me, not only

a thumping bird, but-alas! for the frailty of a midshipman's appetite!-a jolly good breakfast in the contents of his maw. A more convincing proof of my not being a thorough-bred sportsman could not be adduced, than my allowing such base feelings to actuate me. I stealthily laid my paddle into the boat, capped my fowling-piece before lifting it from between my feet; but the "old soldier" had his eye upon me, and directly I stopped paddling, commenced to walk away from his old position. By the time I took aim, a long range intervened between us, and, of course, all I did was to ruffle his feathers, and send the "old soldier" off, as usual, at "the double," thus losing adjutant and fish, as well as the cranes, which took flight when the echoes of the forest carried the report to them.

My firing had, however, disturbed more than cranes; for a screeching and chattering noise in the jungle on my right made me load again rapidly, and paddle with all my strength for a nullah or watercourse, from which these sounds were, I felt certain, coming. On obtaining a view of it, I saw at once what was the matter-a school of black monkeys had been alarmed; and when I turned my canoe so as to go up the narrow creek of water which led into the forest, the fighting monkeys of the little

MONKEYS IN A PASSION.

113

party seemed determined to frighten me out of it. I never saw anything so comical: the ladies and babies retired, whilst about a dozen large monkeys, perfectly black except their faces-which were grey or white, giving them the appearance of so many old men sprang along the branches, that reached across over my head. They worked themselves up into a perfect fury, shrieking, leaping, and grinning with rage. Once or twice they swung so close over my head, that I expected they were going to touch me; but, amused beyond measure, I was determined not to fire at the poor creatures. Whether, as in the case of the "old soldier," my resolution was proof against all temptation, I had not time to prove; for the sullen boom of a gun from Parlis river rolled along the forest; and being the signal for an enemy in sight to seaward, I left the monkeys for a future day, and hurried back to my vessel, just reaching her in time to start in chase of a prahu that had been seen running for an island called Pulo Bras Manna. The breeze sprang up fresh and fair, and my little vessel soon rattled over the eight miles of distance which intervened, but not before the prahu had disappeared behind the island. Skirting the rocky shores of Pulo Bras Manna, we discovered the prahu at anchor in a pretty little sandy bay, the only

I

114

EDIBLE BIRDS'-NESTS.

one in the island. The nicodar, or master of the prahu, hailed to say he was a friend; and, on my getting alongside of him, showed proofs of her being a peaceful trader, employed in collecting the edible birds'-nests constructed by the "Hirundo esculenta" of naturalists, with which all these islands abound. I was right glad to have an opportunity of gleaning any information about an article of commerce so novel and strange to all Europeans. The nicodar informed me that all the adjacent islands yielded birds'-nests for the Chinese market in a greater or less degree, the more rocky and precipitous islands yielding the larger quantity. The right of taking them was for the time vested in Tonkoo Mahomet Said of Quedah, on behalf of his sovereign; but he had farmed them out for a year to some Penang merchant, who paid a certain rent, and screwed as much more as he could out of the birds'nests. The nicodar of the prahu had entered into a speculation by which he promised a certain number of nests to the merchant, provided he might have the surplus — an engagement which he assured me would this year be a very losing one.

My attention had often been previously called to the little birds which construct these curious nests. They might be constantly seen skimming about the