THE BATS’ GUANO FROM GUNONG PONDOK. 73 
In this list it would take a central position, coming after Ichaboe 
guano. The amount of potash is very small—only ‘68 per cent, equal to 
iAAe per cent of dry. nitrate of potash—which is rather curious, for 
Mr. W. E. Maxwell (in Notes and Queries, page 103, of the Straits 
Branch, Royal Asiatic Society,) says that Mr. Howison, who owned a 
erehouse in Beach Street, Penang, in partnership with a Mr. Lamb, 
‘started the manufacture of saltpetre out of the bats’ guano in the caves 
in Gunong Pondok, and built a large shed with 4o or 50 pans. The 
saltpetre which he produced was very white. He lost money in this 
enterprise.’ This is the Mr. Howison who cleared the hill at Sungei 
Limau, which is now known as Changkat Orang Puteh. He is said to 
have lived there about three years.* 
Mr. W. Barrington D’Almeida, in a paper entitled Geography of 
Perak and Salangore, and a Brief Sketch of some of the Adjacent 
Malay States, Seal before the Royal Geographical Society in 1876, 
says, in reference to the same place, “ saltpetre has been found in large 
quantities in Perak, and is obtained from a nitrous mud, which has been 
forming for ages in certain caverns and clefts of the rocks in the interior.” 
Recently a Chinaman named Li Peng Neo has found some very 
good nitrate of potash in a cave in a limestone hill near Tambun, in 
Kinta, which he has asked permission to work. Judging from the 
specimens which have been forwarded by the District Magistrate of 
Kinta to the Museum, the salt occurs in bats’ guano like that winch was 
formerly worked in Gunong Pondok. 
* The Malays of Gapis have a curious legend abont this man. They say that he once 
took a rifle and fired a shot at the rocky face of Gunong Pondok, and that his arm and head 
became fixed in the position he took when firing, and that he could never put down his arm 
or put up his head again. This is interesting as showing how short a time is sufficient for 
a tradition of this kind to grow in. Gunong Pondok is supposed to be the house of a giant 
who lived there and whose fish-trap (bwbw), turned into stone, now forms the conical summit 
of Gunong Bubu. In the cave where the guano is, there used to be a sort of altar made of 
wood, with the heads of buffaloes and other offerings on it. 
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