112 BORNEO. [chap. v. 



sent for, and by dint of threats and promises, and the 

 exertion of all Bujon's eloquence, we succeeded in getting 

 off after two hours' delay. 



For the first few miles our path lay over a country 

 cleared for rice-fields, consisting entirely of small but deep 

 and sharply-cut ridges and valleys, without a yard of level 

 ground. After crossing the Kayan Piiver, a main branch 

 of the Sadong, we got on to the lower slopes of the Seboran 

 Mountain, and the path lay along a sharp and moderately 

 steep ridge, affording an excellent view of the country. 

 Its features were exactly those of the Himalayas in 

 miniature, as they are described by Dr. Hooker and other 

 travellers ; and looked like a natural model of some parts 

 of those vast mountains on a scale of about a tenth, 

 thousands of feet being here represented by hundreds. I 

 now discovered the source of the beautiful pebbles which 

 had so pleased me in the river-bed. The slaty rocks had 

 ceased, and these mountains seemed to consist of a sand- 

 stone conglomerate, which was in some places a mere 

 mass of pebbles cemented together. I might have known 

 that such small streams could not produce such vast 

 quantities ot well-rounded pebbles of the very hardest 

 materials. They had evidently been formed in past ages, 

 by the action of some continental stream or seabeach, 

 before the great island of Borneo had risen from the ocean. 

 The existence of such a system of hills and valleys repro- 



