IN SUMATRA. 239 



The recent rains had produced a flood — the greatest, it was 

 said, for five years — which had risen from ten to twelve feet 

 a,bove its ordinary mark. Throughout a distance of from thirty, 

 to forty miles it had carried away pieces of the bank from three 

 to five yards wide and from eight to ten feet deep. In these 

 new sections large trees (stems and branches) had become ex- 

 posed, buried more than six feet below the surface oi the sur- 

 rounding land. These sections showed the soil resting on a 

 deep band of clay, which in turn was lying on a thick stratum 

 of shingle, which was being again washed out, to be subjected 

 to fresh attrition after having rested for many cycles. Below 

 the confluence of the Eiver Tiku, which rises among the Palae- 

 ozoic rocks in the Eedjang region a considerable quantity of 

 gold is found when the river is very low, caught among the 

 stones, larger pebbles and sand. This sand is collected — the 

 occupation mostly of the older women — and, when freed from 

 the larger particles, goes by the name of bungin ; the bungin 

 is washed in a broad cone-shaped vessel of wood — the dulang 

 — by a rotatory motion, till only an extremely fine heavy black 

 sand (kalam) is left. The kalam, which contains the gold is 

 then rotated in the dulang with a little water till the heavier 

 metal falls to the apex of the cone, whence it is carefully 

 removed. A very successful day's washing in this fashion will 

 bring only Is. 8d. 



With a halt of one night at the village of Ambatjang, so 

 called from an old large and symmetrical tree of that name 

 {Mangifera fcetida) growing in the village, then in magni- 

 ficent blossom, I reached Muara-Eupit at the confluence of 

 the Rawas river, on the afternoon of the second day. Muara- 

 Bupit, to the Ulu men from among whom I had come, is a 

 great place which perhaps some day fate may permit them to 

 visit. To have been to Muara-Rupit from the Ulu country 

 is to have gained a certain precedence amongst their fellow 

 villagers, while to have been to Palembang, a to-and-fro jour- 

 ney of six weeks, is to have seen the world ! This place is 

 the seat of a great trade ; everything from the coast for the 

 Eupit and the country watered by its tributaries, and for the 

 Eawas and its tributaries up to the Djambi country, is brought 

 to Muara-Eupit, whither can come a small steamer able to 

 carry a company of troops. I was consequently not surprised 



