128 The Gardens of the Sim. [ch. vi. 



dollars per picul, and the dried article fetches ten or 

 twelve cents per gantang. Their encampment of yellow 

 palm-leaf mats and bamboo poles formed a pretty rural 

 scene beneath the tall trees which overhung the yellow 

 sands, and the dusky limbs and faces, and the bright- 

 coloured " sarongs " worn by the women of the party, 

 added much to the picturesque view as seen beneath a 

 blue and cloudless sky. I and Mr. A. Cook visited the 

 oil springs, which are situated in a shady glade in the 

 forest two or three miles from the coal-mines. All the 

 evidence of the old borings we saw was an old door and 

 a rude trough, into which the oil-surfaced water rises as 

 it wells up slowly from the rocks below. No use is now 

 made of this oil, except by the Kadyans and other 

 natives, who utilise it now and then in the manufacture 

 of torches. The odour of the oil is distinctly perceptible 

 near the spring, and the oil itself covers the surface of 

 the little stream as it flows seawards. Before the spring 

 was reached we passed through an open clearing of a 

 hundred of acres or more covered with grass, on which a 

 few milch cattle belonging to some of the Kling residents 

 were grazing. We were surprised in one place to come 

 across an old garden, of several acres in extent, contain- 

 ing mango, banana, and other fruit trees, with here and 

 there native huts, houses, and rice-barns all going to 

 decay. A Kadyan, who overtook us just before we 

 entered the forest, told us it was an old village belonging 

 to his tribe, adding that they had abandoned it after their 

 headman had died there. It is by no means unusual to 

 find localities abandoned in this way in Borneo owing to 

 the death of the principal man in the village, and when 

 the rotten old palm-thatched houses have been eaten up 

 by the luxuriant jungle which springs up around, the 

 fruit-trees prosper and serve to mark the localities of 



