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The brother of the chief of Long Pelaban, who was with us fishing, three months previously had returned from Samarinda, where he had spent one year in prison for having been implicated in a minor way in this crime, while the main offenders were serving labor terms of six years in Sorabaia, Java. This report was confirmed by a Dutch officer whom I met a month later and who came from Apo Kayan.
Only when his long-pent curiosity as to happenings in Europe had been appeased did I find an opportunity to mention the reasons which had brought me to Samarinda. I wished to go up country, I explained. I wanted to see the real jungle and the strange tribes which dwell in it; particularly I wished to see the head-hunters.
"I was told in Samarinda," I remarked carelessly, by way of introducing the topic in which I was most interested, "that some of the native girls here in Bali are remarkably good looking." "I thought you'd be asking about them," the Hollander commented dryly. "That's usually the first question asked by everyone who comes to Bali. But you won't find them on this side of the island.
Northeast Borneo and North Celebes have a comparatively cool climate, but from Samarinda southward it is warmer. I called on the assistant Resident, in whose office a beautiful blue water-rail, with a red head, walked unconcernedly about. He advised me that this was the worst time for travelling, when the northwest monsoons, which are accompanied by much rain, are blowing.
The Dutch officials whom I had met in Samarinda and Makassar had depicted the obscure little isle as a flaming, fragrant garden, overrun with flowers, a sort of unspoiled island Eden, where bronze-brown Eves with faces and figures of surpassing loveliness disported themselves on the long white beaches, or loitered the lazy days away beneath the palms.
The Negros was not fast thirteen knots was about the best she could do so that it took us two days to cross from Samarinda, in Borneo, to Makassar, the capital of the Celebes. Our course took us within sight of "the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank," where, as you may remember, Sir Anthony Gloster, of Kipling's ballad of The Mary Gloster, was buried beside his wife.
Dysentery was prevalent among the coolies, and occasionally cases of malaria occurred, but malaria is found even in Holland, he added. As we sailed up the Kutei River in the early morning, approaching Samarinda, an attractive scene presented itself.
Absolute calm and peace reigned, a slight morning mist rising here and there before us and giving a touch of charm to the vista of modest white houses that stretched along the beach in their tropical surroundings. Samarinda lies almost on the equator, but nights and mornings are always cool, even to a greater degree than in Bandjermasin.
The steamship connection with Samarinda is irregular, and as a small transport steamer was making ready to take away its usual cargo of rattan and rubber, I decided to avail myself of the opportunity. The commercial products are loaded in a fair-sized boat, which is made fast to the side of the steamer, and a similar one may be attached to the other side.
The Koetei, which has its nativity somewhere in the mysterious Kapuas Mountains, winds its way across four hundred miles of unmapped wilderness, and, a score of miles below Samarinda, empties into Makassar Straits, answered my requirements admirably, providing a highroad to the country of my boyish dreams.
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