226 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



Lupar also adiiiits large vessels, but has a very much 

 shorter course, and the Sarawak river is only of import- 

 ance as the stream on which Kuching is built. It is 

 not till we come to the more southern part of the island 

 that the characteristic Bornean rivers are met with, and of 

 these one of the largest is the Kapuas, which reaches the 

 sea at Pontianak. It has its sources in the central moun- 

 tains, probably near Mount Tebang, which is also reputed 

 to give origin to the Barito, the Mahakkam, and the 

 Kayan or Bulungan. Thence it pursues a tortuous 

 course in a south-west direction, forming an enormous 

 delta at its mouth. As it is beset by a bar carrying 

 only 10 to 12 feet of water at high tide, it is un- 

 navigable by large vessels, but small Government steamers 

 ascend it for 200 miles. Until lately, large lakes were 

 formed in the middle part of its course during the rainy 

 season, a common feature in Bornean rivers, but now these 

 have become to a great extent silted up, and the detritus 

 brought down by the floods has caused the land to gain 

 rapidly on the sea at the river's mouth. 



Between the Kapuas and the Barito occur various 

 considerable rivers, the Lamandu, Pembuan, JMentaya, 

 Katingan, Kahayan, and others, but they are of little im- 

 portance commercially. It is otherwise with the great 

 Barito, upon which Banjarmasin is situated. It is 3 miles 

 wide at the mouth, is supposed to exceed 570 miles in 

 length, and is thus the longest river in the Malay Archi- 

 pelago. In its upper course it is very rapid, and is said to 

 abound in waterfalls, and lower it expands in the w^et season 

 into lakes and morasses, which occupy, as has already been 

 stated, an area of some hundreds of square miles, in 

 which respect it is almost equalled by the Mahakkam or 

 Koti river. A bar prevents the entrance of large vessels, 

 but the stream is navigable for smaller craft for some 



