248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the roof of the vault is only fifty feet high, and contains both 

 bats' and swifts' nests. The bats' nests are similar in form to the 

 swifts', but are made of moss only, which these mammalia pick 

 off the limestone bowlders outside. 



At one stretch of the lower Kinabatangare several villages had 

 been abandoned some years previously on account of the ravages 

 of small-pox. When asked their age, many natives would answer 

 that they were so many years old at the time of the last epidemic 

 of this disease. The usual interval between the visitations was 

 eighteen or twenty years ; and the old men would sometimes 

 acknowledge to having seen the ravages of three or four epi- 

 demics. Another settlement had been abandoned on account of 

 the voracity of the crocodiles, which had mastered the art of 

 overturning boats and devouring their occupants. The crocodiles 

 are very numerous in these fresh-water rivers, and many natives 

 are taken by them every year. At a place further up the river, a 

 large one, fourteen feet long, was towed to the bank close to the 

 house where the author was staying. "There was much joy 

 manifested by the Muruts at its capture, as it had eaten a brother- 

 in-law of the chief. Pieces of the bones and skull were found in- 

 side, and brought to the house with a good deal of merriment. A 

 chief who has many wives has usually many brothers-in-law, and 

 he is obliged, in a measure, to assist or support the latter. The 

 loss, therefore, of a brother-in-law more or less is not only imma- 

 terial, but rather a merciful dispensation ; and so there was as 

 much joy, feasting, and congratulation as if Maharajah Oban had 

 been presented by one of his wives with a new baby." 



" The Murut," we are informed, " does not wear any clothes, 

 but sports a bit of bark in front ; some strings of colored beads 

 encircle his head, a few charms hang around his neck ; he carries 

 a spear as though he feared no man, and annexes a new wife 

 when he is ' off with the old love.' The women and children are 

 much neglected," 



Where the river passed through a large uninhabited jungle- 

 forest, "in both banks were compressed heaps of leaves and 

 wooden debris from four to ten feet thick, that had been washed 

 down by floods. Where the river-water had washed part of the 

 layers away, the section of the bank presented the appearance of 

 a cutting in a hay-stack. These large deposits, if undisturbed, 

 may, after many centuries of compression, form into coal. At a 

 station near the Batu Timbang caves, where the traveler negoti- 

 ated with the rajah proprietor concerning the proceeds of the 

 bird's-nests, a dance was given in his honor. In the favorite fig- 

 ures the women, holding each other's hands, moved in one circle, 

 while the men, also holding hands, moved in an outside circle, 

 but in the opposite direction — to the sound of music composed of 



