We had our fire lit when we heard rustling. A chittering. Silence. Then one of god's fouler creations plodded into our fire's light. A blemmy, is the fairest way to describe it, though without any legs it ambulates by walking on its hands, the arms of the creature seemed surprisingly slender for such a robust torso, though the hands were so deformed I couldn't much stand the sight. Not a hair on its body and with pale peach skin lacking distinctive markings or texture. It had a flattened face, distinct eye whites, a large mouth with pink lips.

"The marshes have proven to be the breeding grounds of these diminutive mud-walking creatures. We've been stopped by the reeds from making free progress, as their marshy plants are far woodier and more solidly rooted than our own. Francis has been taking notes on their structures, but from the furrow in his brow he's as lost as I am.”

Francis spotted the beast, after one of our guides from Malacca pointed it out, the great creature was submerged up to its hump in the mud, with only the blow hole poking out the top of the liquid, although once it became aware of us it poked its head up to take a look. The creature appears to have the ability to sink and submerge at will, perhaps there is some form of swim-bladder allowing them to alter their density. Remarkable to say the least, and in any case, simply awesome to see such a creature of such scale emerge from such inconspicuous loam.

I climbed a lightly foliated pine tree to get a better view of our surroundings, when I found myself enthralled by a particularly strange pinecone. It took me a moment to realise that this pine cone had a small face, and teeth which were not so small. It dangled from the branch, possessing a limb with a fully enclosed loop - making it impossible to remove this creature without first breaking its 'stem'.

Today we were observing mudwalkers in a marshland near the southern peninsula. These creatures, legless blemmys who walk upon their hands, live fairly sedentary lives. They sit in gourd husks and only occasionally shuffle across the ground, either in search of food, socialisation, or better access to sunlight. I have noticed their social interactions to have the most jarring civility, these golems so similar to the sordid wallowing mudwalkers we encountered last week in appearance, are nothing alike in behaviour.