Page:Malay Sketches.pdf/51

 side, the river is shut in by a wealth of jungle foliage through which the sun strikes at rare intervals, just sufficiently to give the sense of warmth and colour.

It is delightfully picturesque with all these people in their many-coloured garments, grouped in artistic confusion, on bank and rock. They only sit for a brief rest after the climb, to collect wood, make fires and get the work of cooking started, and you will not be left long in doubt as to the meaning of mĕng-gĕlunchor. It is to slide, and the game is to "toboggan" down this waterfall into the lynn at its base.

A crowd of little boys is already walking up the steep, slippery rock. They go to the very top, sit down in the shallow water with feet straight out in front of them and a hand on either side for guidance, and immediately begin to slide down the sixty feet of height, gaining, before they have gone half way, so great a speed that the final descent into the pool like the fall of a stone. They succeed each other in a constant stream, those behind coming on the top of those who have already reached the lynn.

But now the men, and lastly the women, are drawn to join the sliders and the fun becomes indeed both fast and furious. The women begin timidly, only