420 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



to see her. She was very poor, for children there were 

 none, and her husband was dead. Wearing old garments, 

 and in a dilapidated prahu, she went out to the ships, 

 where she made known that she wanted to see her anak 

 (child). The sailors informed the captain that his mother 

 was there, and he went to meet her, and behold ! an old 

 woman with white hair and soiled, torn clothing. "No !" 

 he said, "she cannot be my mother, who was beautiful 

 and strong." "I am truly your mother/' she replied, 

 but he refused to recognise her, and he took a pole (by 

 which the prahus are poled) and drove her off. 



She wept and said: "As I am your mother, and have 

 borne you, I wish that your wife, your ships, and all your 

 men may change into stone." The sky became dark, 

 and thunder, lightning, and storm prevailed. The ships, 

 the men, and the implements, everything, changed into 

 stone, which to-day may be seen in these caves. 



Note. — In the neighbourhood of Kandangan, a small town northward 

 from Bandjermasin, are two mountains, one called gunong batu laki: the 

 mountain of the stone man, the other gunong batu bini: the mountain of 

 the stone wife. They contain large caves with stalactite formations which 

 resemble human beings, ships, chairs, etc. The natives here visualise a 

 drama enacted in the long gone-by, as related. 



The Ex-Sultan of Pasir, a Malay then interned by the government in 

 Bandjermasin, who was present when this story was told to me by a Mo- 

 hammedan Kahayan, maintained that it is Dayak and said that it is also 

 known in Pasir (on the east coast). Although the fact that the scene is 

 laid in a region at present strongly Malay does not necessarily give a clew to 

 the origin of the tale, still its contents are not such as to favour a Dayak 

 source. 



