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Updated: May 18, 2025
There was no suitable place outside for my tent, so I decided to paddle a few hundred kilometres up the river to a dilapidated camping-house for travellers, put up by the Dayaks under government order. Such a house is called pasang-grahan and may be found in many out-of-the-way places in Borneo.
A lieutenant in charge of a patrouille had put up a rough pasang-grahan here, where our lieutenant and the soldiers took refuge, while I had the ground cleared near one end of it, and there placed my tent. Not far off stood a magnificent tree with full, straight stem, towering in lonely solitude fifty metres above the overgrown clearing.
As a climax came the startling discovery that one of the two money-boxes belonging to the expedition, containing f. 3,000 in silver, had been stolen one night from my tent, a few feet away from the pasang-grahan.
The powerful strokes of our enthusiastic crew made my prahu jump with jerky movements, and we progressed rapidly, arriving early in the afternoon at Tandjong Selor. This time I was made comfortable in a government's pasang-grahan that had just been completed, and which was far enough from the main street to avoid disturbing noise.
The surrounding scenery was attractive, having in the background a jungle-clad mountain some distance away, which was called by the same name as the kampong, and which, in the clear air against the blue sky, completed a charming picture. We found a primitive, tiny pasang-grahan, inconveniently small for more than one person, and there was hardly space on which to erect my tent.
The street is long, extremely well kept, and everything looks orderly and clean, while before the captain's house were many beautiful flowers. The pasang-grahan, which is in a very quiet locality, is attractive and has two rooms. One was occupied by an Austrian doctor in the Dutch military service, who was on his way to Long Nawang, while I appropriated the other.
Though generally crude and unpretentious huts where travelling soldiers or Malays put up, these shelters are very useful, especially for the night. There is another kind of pasang-grahan, comfortable structures provided with beds, similar to the rest-houses in India. In the more civilised parts these are built for the use of officials and other travellers.
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