IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



the village every month, coming from Sintang, whence it is easy 

 to ascend the Kapuas. 



Having noticed a hill on the side of the lake opposite Lamadjan, 

 and hoping to get an extensive view over the surrounding country 

 from its summit, I decided to pay it a visit. The hill is called 

 Bukit Lampei, and on it were several Dyak houses, where Intika 

 told me that he had friends. The usual landing-place was now 

 covered with water six feet deep, and for some distance we paddled 

 through the forest over the pathway leading up the hill. 



From the summit of Bukit Lampei I had an extensive view. 

 Eastwards water extended as far as we could see, intersected by 

 clumps of forest ; to the north, hills were visible in the distance. 

 Most of the country was flat and covered with interminable j ungle, 

 amidst which small isolated and scattered eminences were here and 

 there to be seen. The hills which separate the watershed of the 

 Kapuas from that of the Batang Lupar lay to the north-west, quite 

 near and of no great elevation. Here is the shortest and easiest 

 road from the Dutch territory into that of the Rajah of Sarawak. 

 The traveller paddles a day's journey up the Sungei Bunut, and then 

 another day's land march takes him to Lobok Antu on the Batang 

 Lupar. Towards the west the highest point is Bukit Kananpei, or 

 Kananpajang, which hardly looks more than twenty miles off. 

 It hid from my view the hills of the Kumpang, which I crossed 

 to descend to the Kantu. 



On the Lampei hill the vegetation was entirely of secondary 

 growth. Of plants worth collecting I only found an Ixora, and the 

 " Kayu silimpo" a Rubiaceous plant of the genus Sarcocephalus. 

 The nearest Malay village on the Kapuas bears the name of this 

 tree. 



The Lampei Dyaks, although they live on Dutch territory, do 

 their marketing at Simanggan ; and hearing that I came from there, 

 asked eagerly for news of the Rajah. 



It was by the Bunut route that in January, 1852, that adven- 

 turous lady traveller, Mme. Ida Pfeiffer, crossed over to this region ; 

 a feat which few ladies would try again, even at the present day, 

 when travel is so much easier. Mme. Pfeiffer tells us that in the 

 midst of the lakes she found a large number of dead trees still 

 standing where they had grown. I can only explain this by sup- 

 posing that the vegetation of which I have spoken, which appears 

 specially adapted to flourish with its roots in the water, had been 

 left dry during a season of exceptional drought, and thus been 

 killed, and that with the rainy season the waters returned once 

 more to cover the roots of the dead trees whose naked branches 

 had so much struck Mme. Pfeiffer. 



" To-day," I find noted in my diary of May 15, 1867, " is the 

 second anniversary of my arrival in Borneo." 



186 



