THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



139 



RAILWAYS AND DIRT ROADS ARE EQUALLY UNKNOWN IN THE JUNGLES OE SARAWAK: 

 THE RIVERS ARE THE SOLE ARTERIES OE COMMERCE AND COMMUNICATION 



Next to the Rejang, the Baram is the largest river in Sarawak. When the river is in 

 flood, great trees come sweeping down, washed away as the waters continually change their 

 course, so that the beaches at the estuary are piled with huge logs. 



A former Resident once told Tama 

 Bulan, a very intelligent chief, that the 

 earth turns, but Tama Bulan protested 

 that it could hardly be so, for one could 

 see that it is the sun which moves ; and 

 the matter was not referred to again for 

 several years, when Tama Bulan one day 

 remarked that he had decided to accept 

 the statement, for every white man he 

 had asked said the same thing. 



One evening, when I was taking sights 

 on the stars, Kebing told me the names 

 of the constellations ; the Pleiades is "the 

 bamboo clump" and Orion "the pig trap," 

 which it certainly resembles as much as 

 it does a sword, the pig trap being simply 

 a sharp bamboo spike which is driven 

 into the pig and sometimes, unfortu- 

 nately, into the man who walks against 

 the slender vine that releases the spring. 



