IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



boats, and only to be entered at high tide. They are the Samon- 

 saur, nearest to Tanjong Datu ; the Bekuching, the Poe, and the 

 Sero. 



On the 20th I ascended the Samattang for some hours, but the 

 tree-trunks which had fallen in the river eventually stopped me. 

 The Malays, however, go up it in very small canoes as far as 

 Gunong Poe in search of dammar, which is found there in abundance. 

 Returning nearly to the mouth, I attempted to go up the other branch 

 of the river, which ought to lead to the foot of Gunong Angus, a hill 

 which is said by the natives to be inhabited by antus, or spirits of 

 a bad sort, and where one cannot go without great risk of contracting 

 a disease of some kind. This, at least, my men asserted with an air 

 of great conviction, which only made me the more desirous of reach- 

 ing this abode of the malevolent spirits. The branch of the river 

 I had entered, however, was a perfect labyrinth of canals and small 

 passages between nipa palms and mangroves, quite unknown to my 

 men ; and, having no pilot, we found ourselves, after much wandering 

 about, back at the very point we had started from, and were thus 

 obliged to give up the attempt of reaching the enchanted hill, which , 

 in all probability, must have got its name as a specially malarious 

 locality. 



I was told that at Gunong Angus many edible nests of the small 

 swift are to be found, but nobody dares to go and collect them. 



The Samattang appeared to me very uninteresting, and I found 

 not a single plant or animal that I had not met with before. I was 

 told, however, that along its upper course the " bua pacma" — the 

 Rafflesia which I have already described — grew abundantly. In 

 a straight line I do not think that the principal branch of the Samat- 

 tang river extends for more than ten miles inland. It is very wide 

 at its mouth, and has a very tortuous course ; but, after about two 

 hours' paddling up stream, it became so shallow as to be only navi- 

 gable for small canoes. 



On the 21st I resumed my coasting journey towards the Sarawak 

 river. Halting at Tanjong Batu, I found a beautiful specimen of 

 Cycas circinalis, L., over thirty feet high, and with a twice bifur- 

 cated trunk. We stopped again at Tanjong Plandok to dry the 

 paper of the botanical specimens, where I collected a few good species 

 of seaweeds. The rocks here are of a limestone which is almost 

 black in colour. 



We next passed the Belungei river, navigable for some hours 

 by sampans ; and the Skambal, a small stream which can only be 

 entered at high tide. It was dark when we reached the mouth of 

 the Lundu, where we anchored for the night. 



I had gone to sleep as usual in the sampan, which, with the ebbing 

 tide, became, before long, high and dry. In the middle of the night 

 I was suddenly aroused by the cries of my men, whom, by the feeble 



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