IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



traced to its mouth, which is well marked by the isolated Santubong 

 hill. Farther to the west Singhi, the Mattang group, and in the far 

 distance Gunong Poe are visible. Due west no mountain chains 

 exist, but on the other side of the Sarawak river, and at no great 

 distance, the Staat hill can be made out, and a curious isolated 

 pillar-like rock about 200 feet high, which, I was told, is called 

 Gunong Bulu. Between this pillar-like rock and Gunong Gumbang 

 the country is flat, and across it lies the best and shortest road 

 leading from the territory of Sarawak into that of Sambas. Not 

 only is it entirely without mountains, which are, nevertheless, marked 

 here in almost all the maps of this part of Borneo, but not even 

 slight elevations are to be seen. The Dyaks have a legend that in 

 olden times the sea covered these lowlands, and assert that canoes 

 could cross from Sambas into Sarawak, which was an island 

 completely detached from Borneo. 1 The view is closed by 

 Gunong Bunga, whose irregular and pointed peaks are extremely 

 picturesque. Besides the mountains mentioned, which form, as 

 it were, the frame of the picture, there are other elevations which 

 •can scarcely be called either mountains or hills, but rather isolated 

 crags. These are of limestone formation, and in some of them veins 

 of antimony are found ; whilst the alluvial soil all round affords 

 gold washings, in which a large number of Chinese are employed. 



A few steps from Pininjau bungalow is a cave out of which flows 

 a stream of deliciously cool water, which is one of the most attractive 

 features of the place. On the Serambo hill are three Dyak villages : 

 Pininjau, Bombok, and Serambo, all situated below the bungalow. 

 The hill does not form part of any mountainous chain, but 

 rises abruptly from the plain, like the calcareous rocks above men- 

 tioned ; but it differs from these in its formation, consisting of 

 crystalline rocks of a porphyritic nature. To this formation, too, 

 belongs Singhi, and also probably some of the adjoining hills, whose 

 geological structure I was not able to examine closely. 



Round about Pininjau bungalow numbers of a small swift were 

 continually flying. We secured specimens for preservation, and 

 found that it was Collocalia linchii, Horsf. & Moore. This is a 

 species often confused with the other producing the gelatinous nests 

 so highly esteemed by the Chinese. The Dyaks brought us its 

 nests, which we found to be made mostly of moss glued together by 

 a small quantity of the prized gelatinous substance. The nests of 

 good quality are, however, formed entirely of this white and trans- 



1 Cf. regarding this legend, W. Denison, On Land-Dyaks, in Sarawak 

 Gazette, No. 125, November 1876, who writes : " In old days they say ships 

 and boats came right across from what is now the Sambas coast, past the 

 Sibungo range to Sarawak. A small columnar mountain midway between 

 Gumbang and Gading, called " Ji-mas," was then only just above water, and 

 praus used to touch there for ballast and big stones for anchors." 



56 



