We left the Rejang and started up the Balleh. In places it was as wide as a lake. We arrived at Ruma Dilang at dusk. As our supplies were being unloaded and carried up the mud banks, a servant from the chief's quarters came to lead us to the longhouse.

Borneo longhouses are truly primitive masterpieces of architecture. They are constructed entirely of wood, high off the ground on pilings and may stretch as far as half a mile from end to end. Some may house as many as 100 families, or 600 residents. A longhouse is actually a village under one roof.  In bygone days it served as an armed fort against invading headhunting neighbors.

We were led to the chief's quarters in the very center of the house. The chief bade us sit on mats laid out for us. A boy who had some knowledge of  English served as our interpreter and sat between Willy and me. When we were settled, two young girls took positions and sat directly in front us. They smiled and stared directly at us, as though they were ready to play some game. What was going to happen? The chief raised his hand for everyone to be quiet. He then made a short speech to which his people listened intently.

Flickering shadows from the oil lamps gave the place an eerie feeling. And occasionally came a strange sound and all conversation stopped for a moment. I looked over at Willy. His jaw was half open: he was staring blankly at something overhead. Along a ceiling beam hung tufts of straw.
There appeared to be rice drying, but when I looked again I saw, half hidden among the straw, the fleshless forms of human heads.

Finally, the chief clapped his hands and several women appeared carrying bottles of strong rice wine called tuak. As we soon discovered, the duty of the girls in front of us was to make sure we didn't get thirsty. The girl facing me lifted a glass of wine and held it towards me. When I took hold of it, she maintained her  grip and forced it to my lips. After I had taken a few gulps, and wanted to stop, she kept pouring it down my throat, until the glass was empty. Tears poured downed my cheeks and my throat burned as though I had swallowed hot coals. Before I could recover, she  refilled my glass and repeated the process. Somehow, after the second glass, the heads hanging above us no longer mattered.

Natives from other quarters came to form a circle around us. Someone began chanting and several youths picked up the beat and started pounding on log drums. An old lady with sagging breasts and a toothless grin staggered to her feet and did a hip-swinging dance. The crowd broke into laughter. A few other tipsy women got up and did a short dance. Our girl attendants poured more tuak. We laughed with the others, and even tried our luck at dancing but it was difficult to maintain a balance. By midnight, everyone, from the chief down, was in a state of complete intoxication. With the party still going, I laid my head against a post. The night fused into a dream.

Dawn came lighting up the verandah in a reddish glow, and I was again aware of heads hanging above. Ibans were noted for being the most wicked headhunters in Borneo, if not in all the world. Headhunting among all the island tribes was once a national sport. An Iban maiden would not accept the advances of a young man unless he had taken a head in battle.

Later that morning, we found several boats about to travel upstream, and their owners agreed to carry us and our supplies for barter goods we had for the occasion. As we were to discover, finding transportation on the river would be no problem, nor would it be difficult to put up for the night in a longhouse. We were always welcome, and our presence was always an excuse for a celebration. Several days later, we reached the last longhouse on the Balleh River. It was a splendid house, and one so vast I could not see from one end to the other. Over tuak we negotiated for two longboats and eight porters to guide us and carry our supplies into Kalimantan. With the deal sealed, and a few more strong tuaks, Willy and I feigned drunkenness and got to sleep while the party was still in full swing. Early the next morning, with blurry-eyed boatmen and porters, we set out for the headwaters.

The jungle became a mass of tangled vegetation. The forest hung far over the muddy river and it was impossible to see the river banks. Occasionally we came to an island that divided the river and here the waters always ran swift and deep. There were fewer long rafts floating down stream and we no longer saw longboats or dugouts. We were entering no man's land.

For safety we slept in the longboats which we moored to tree branches hanging over the water. Our diet was mainly boiled rice and tinned beef, although occasionally the Ibans gathered jungle fruit from the forest.

When the river shallowed, we abandoned our boats and took to the jungle on foot. After the first day, our Iban guides began acting strangely. We didn't know it at the time, but Ibans fear the jungle Punans, and we were in Punan territory.

Seldom does one ever see a Punan in the jungle, but they are there. We began to imagine eyes following us. Our convictions became a fact one evening. We had set up camp along a steep slope. The Ibans were gathering firewood and preparing for the night; Willy and I were setting up our lean-tos. Suddenly a Punan materialized out of the jungle and stood at the edge of the clearing, in the semidarkness of the forest. He was very dark, almost black, and wore nothing but a loincloth. He stood motionless. His black hair hung down his back and was tied at the end. Like a shepherd holding his staff, he clung to a blow pipe that towered several inches above his head. His piercing stare froze our Iban guides where they stood. Then, like a statue coming to life, the lone Punan sprang into motion. With an effortless movement he scaled the steep embankment and in an instant was gone.

He needed to utter no words of warning that we were treading in his forbidden territory. I fell asleep not knowing what to expect.

The next morning I awoke to find our camp was deathly still. I sat up and nudged Willy. We slowly stuck our heads out of the lean-to. The camp was deserted. Our tribesmen had abandoned us, leaving us with all our supplies. It would take several more days to reach Kilimantan, a journey we could probably not make without a guide. Nor could we carry the necessary supplies. We had no alterative but to retrace our steps and return to Kapit via the Balleh. Losing no time, we packed up what supplies we could carry and set out for the Balleh. 

We saw no other Punans but we were certain they were there, following our progress. We didn't know if we would meet with a poison dart or if they might give us a helping hand if the need arose. It was an eerie feeling to know you are being watched without being able to detect those doing the watching. We had little trouble retracing our steps. Had we been in flat country, we might have been lost forever, but now we had small streams to follow that eventually lead us into the Balleh.

Once we reached the river we were in luck. A timber crew had tied a dozen logs together to form a raft which was moored in the still waters to a tree along the bank. We threw the few supplies we had left aboard, cut the mooring line and poled our raft out into the current, bound for Kapit.

For the next several days, the raft became our home. In the afternoons we napped in the warm sun, and when it became too warm, we held on to a twisted vine rope and dragged from the stern in the cool water. We listened to the jungle and watched fish jump in the river. But there were also frightening moments when we came upon rapids. The first day out, we were eating a tin of bully beef for lunch when I happened to look up. The water ahead was swirling like an automatic washing machine and we were heading toward an island of jagged rocks at midstream. We met the rapids head on. The logs beneath us twisted and turned and pulled at the taut vines that held us together. Any second I expected the raft to splinter and pile up like a box of matches dumped on a table top.

But the raft held and we safely passed the rapids without incident. After that an occasional rapid now and then broke the monotony. When we reached longhouses further down river, women bathing and washing clothes in the stream did  double-takes as they watched us slowly drift by.

On the fifth day we ran upon a sand bank at Ramah Temonggong Jugah. A longboat with an outboard picked us up and we transferred to a Chinese trading boat. The next day we reached Kapit.

Years later, I did return to the Rejang with my schooner Third Sea. On that second trip, I gained sympathy and respect for another yachtsman, a man who had made his way up the river a hundred years before. He was James Brooke. While I was able to motor up river to reach Kapit, Captain Brooke, having no engine, had to make way up river by sail alone. But then, James Brooke had turned his trip into a romance that Southeast Asia has never been able to live down. James  quelled a rebellion, and became the first White Raja of Sarawak, a rank held by him and his off spring until World War II, when Sabah and Sarawak became part of Malaysia.

Another river I truly enjoy is the Irrawaddy in Burma. Paddle-wheel river boats negotiate the river, and it's possible to rent a cabin aboard one of the vessels and spend weeks traveling up river to Mandalay and beyond. Also, with   tensions easing up in Indochina, river journeys on the mighty Mekong are now possible.

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