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Updated: May 17, 2025
Many of the low shores are skirted, and the islands covered by the mangrove, a singular tree, shooting fresh roots as it grows, which, when the tree is at its full age, may be found six or eight feet from the ground, to which the shoots gradually tend in regular succession; the leaf is very thick and stiff and about eight inches long and nine wide, the interval between the roots offer secure hiding places for those who are suddenly pursued.
Among them the atlas moth is found, measuring from eight to ten inches across its wings. The leaf insects are also fascinating, and the fire-flies in a mangrove swamp on a dark, still night, moving in gentle undulations, or flashing into coruscations after brief intervals of quiescence, are inconceivably beautiful. The birds of the Peninsula are many and beautiful.
When we left the village we passed near the mangrove trees, which were growing not only near the water but in it, and like to spread their roots among the thick black slime which accumulates so fast in this country of rapid vegetable growth, and as rapid decomposition.
"The Riam is a fine stream; at its junction with the Morotaba it takes that name, as the Morotaba does that of Sarawak where they join. Low mangrove or Nepa palm banks characterize these streams; and occasionally slight eminences, with timber, are to be seen. The highest hill is about 3000 feet high, called Matang, and is at the point of junction between the Morotaba and Riam.
We have said the banks, but in truth the mouth of that river had no distinguishable banks at all, for it is the nature of the mangrove to grow in the water using its roots as legs with which, as it were, to wade away from shore.
A minute or two of swift anxious paddling and they had whisked the boat down the shore, round the mangrove promontory into the seclusion of a tiny bay. And then: "Hell!" said Higgins. A clean-cut, solidly built man in a suit of greasy overalls was standing on the shore of the bay, looking steadily up at the reddened sky. Payne followed the direction of the man's gaze.
The beach is broken in places by narrow channels, through which the tide rushes, and wanders in many currents among low mudbanks studded with shellfish the feeding grounds of ducks, and gulls, and swans; and around a thousand islands whose soil has been woven together by the roots of the spiky mangrove, or stunted tea-tree.
Little did I know then of the acres of bewildering mangrove swamps filled with the treacherous crocodiles that lie between the low-water line and the firm ground of the coast. But always the most striking thing in the little woodcut to me were the curious, snake-like knives that the naked natives held in their hands. I had never seen anything like them before.
The boat left with our party, and Jackey directed us some distance off in the wake of the canoes, there being nothing but a mangrove swamp on the shore near us. We landed beside of a creek knee-deep in water, among some mangroves. Here we got out of the boat, Jackey, the Captain, Barrett, and myself, Tom, the sailor, who had accompanied us before, saying he could not go, that he had a bad leg.
Their shores were very low, so much so, that frequently a landing is impossible, and generally very difficult, on account of the mud; and often a vast quantity of mangrove trees are found growing in the swamps that surround the shores, and choking the soil with a rank vegetation.
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