CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
STILL TRUSTING IN GOD.
The reader may suppose the strange conflict we have described to be a thing of the author's imagination.

Some will, no doubt, pronounce it a story of the sensational and fabulous kind--in short, a "sailor's yarn." So may it seem to those who give but little attention to the study of nature.

To the naturalist, however, this chapter of animal life and habits will cause no astonishment; for he will know it to be a true one; and that the spectacle described, although perhaps not one coming every day under the eye of man, and especially civilised man, has nevertheless been witnessed by the inhabitants of the recesses of the Bornean forest.
Ask any old Bornean bee-hunter, and he will tell you just such a tale as the above; adding that the ourang-outang, or red gorilla, which he calls _mias_, is a match, and more than a match, for any animal it may encounter in forest or jungle; and that the only two creatures which dare attack it are the crocodile and the great _ular_ or _python_, the latter a serpent of the boa-constructor kind, with one of which our castaways had already formed acquaintance.

But the Bornean bee-hunter, usually a Dyak, will also tell you that in these conflicts the red gorilla is the victor, though each of the two great reptile antagonists that attack it is often thirty feet in length, with a girth almost equalling its own.

Only fancy a snake ten yards long, and a lizard the same; either of which would reach from end to end of the largest room in which you may be seated, or across the street in which you may be walking! You will seldom find such specimens in our museums; for they are not often encountered by our naturalists or secured by our travellers.