If they had fallen in with a rhinoceros, they would have had some difficulty in killing it; seeing that this enormous brute is as large as a small elephant, its body protected by a thick hide embossed with hard knob-like protuberances, like those upon shields, giving to the animal the appearance of being encased in a full suit of ancient armour.
The Sumatran tapir, too, is a creature that does not readily succumb to its assailant, being larger and stronger than its namesake of South America.
There are two species of deer known in Borneo; one of them, the "rusa," a fine large animal.
Captain Redwood was in hopes he might meet with an individual of either species; and with this object in view, he continued to make short excursions into the woods, taking his rifle along with him, occasionally accompanied by Murtagh, with the ship's musket.
But they always returned empty-handed, and a good deal down-hearted, having seen nothing that could be converted into venison.
Saloo had again tried for eggs and shell-fish, but was unsuccessful in his search after both; evidently there were no more depositories of maleos' eggs, nor Singapore oysters, nor, indeed, any kind of shell-fish, on that part of the shore.

They did not again see any of the mound-making birds--not even those they had despoiled; for it is not the habit of the megapodes to return to their eggs, but to leave them to be hatched under the hot sand, and the chicks to scratch their way upward to the surface, thus taking care of themselves from the very moment of their birth, and, indeed, we may say, before it, since it can scarcely be said they are born before breaking through the shell; and this they have to do for themselves, else they would never see daylight.
Talk of precocious chicks! There are none anywhere to be compared with the megapodean pullets of the Malayan Archipelago, no birds half so "early" as they.
For some days, after eating up the last chicken of the flock, our castaways could get nothing to live upon but durions; and although these formed a diet sufficiently agreeable to the palate, they were not very strengthening.

Besides, they were not so easily gathered; the few they had found on some trees, which Saloo had conveniently climbed, being quickly exhausted.

The large durion-tree under which they had first encamped was well furnished with fruit.

But its tall stem, nearly a hundred feet, without a branch, and with a bark smooth as that of a sycamore, looked as if no mortal man could ascend it.