START CRANE-SHOOTING. 109 I could hardly conceive it possible to feel so cold and cheerless at the short distance of 200 miles from the equator as I then did. The mist of the early night had fallen in the shape of dew, wetting the decks and awnings as if it had been raining heavily; and a light breeze blowing down from the Patani Hills struck a chill into my bones, already stiffened by sleeping upon a hard and damp deck. Day had as yet hardly dawned, but I was anxious to try and get a shot at some flocks of elegant white cranes of a small size which nightly roosted on a clump of trees about a mile distant from my anchorage; and my only chance of being able to get sufficiently near, was to be there before they flew off to their feeding-grounds. Half lamenting I had troubled myself with any such sporting mania, yet unwilling to let the Malay see what a lazy individual his captain was, I threw myself into the canoe, grasped the paddle, and by a stroke or two awoke to the interest of the spot before me, and the beauties of a morning in Malaya. The day dawn had already chased the stars away from one half the bright heaven overhead; the insect world, so noisy from set of sun on the previous day, had ceased their shrill note, whilst the gloomy forest shook off its sombre hue, and, dripping with dew, 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 66 FISHING. 111 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 112 "OLD SOLDIER " V. YOUNG SAILOR. 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 |