228 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



exhibited of a series of lakes lying on either side of the 

 river. Occasionally, rivers change their beds entirely, or 

 a complete network of anastomoses is formed with other 

 streams, in which it is an easy matter for the traveller to 

 lose his way. Finally, the mouths of almost all are 

 beset with bars, which prevent the ingress of large 

 ships. 



Borneo is, apparently, without permanent lakes of any 

 great size. For many years a large sheet of water was 

 represented in the maps as lying to the south of Ivina- 

 balu, but recent travellers have shown that it is only low 

 land submerged in the rainy season, similar to that 

 existing on most rivers, as already described. In the 

 upper basin of the Kapuas are two lakes of minor im- 

 portance, the Seriang and the Luar. Mr. Crocker found 

 the former a fine sheet of water with four Dutch gun- 

 boats anchored in it, but it was said to have completely 

 dried in 1877. It also appears to be subject to tre- 

 mendous inundations. The diary of the same traveller 

 records that a Malay, his informant, on the occasion of 

 one of these floods, found a boy eating sugar-cane, and on 

 asking where he got it, as he saw nothing but water, the 

 boy told him he had dived down to their garden, which 

 was at that time several feet under water. 



4. Climate. 



Bisected as it is by the equator, Borneo is exposed 

 to the action of the four monsoons : in the northern 

 portion theoretically to the N.E. and S.W., and in 

 the southern to the S.E. and N.W., but those winds 

 become considerably altered with the locality. At Ban- 

 jarmasin the westerly monsoon blows as a south-west or 



