ON THE PATANI. 131 



sportsmanlike procedure, it was customary with us, when ascending 

 aud descending the river, to summon all the natives within hail — 

 men, women and children — and with the aid of a dynamite cartridge 

 raise more fish of all kinds and sizes in five minutes than the whole 

 tribes around us had seen for months : the rush into the water 

 pell-mell, helter-skelter, of the whole crowd, and the shouts of glee 

 and laughter, were something to see and hear, the women and 

 children were particularly amusing, whilst the capture of the fish 

 delighted them, fed them, and afforded us infinite pleasure to witness 

 the unbounded delight which it occasioned. 



Bukit BSsar beyond Jalor, already referred to, is of granite 

 formation with upheaved schist and limestone and on the other 

 bank above Biserah lie Bukits Bilau and Ko Pinang, both of 

 granite formation largely intermixed with quartz ; these are lofty 

 mountains similar to Bukit Besar, rugged and picturesque. On 

 this part of the river are many high gravel beaches consisting 

 almost entirely of rounded white quartz, sparsely intermixed with 

 granite, schist, and limestone shales. Here the eye may travel 

 from undulating range to range, rolling wave-like between these 

 monarchs of the mountains, all taking one direction nearly due 

 south. The strike of the schistose and limestone strata is, with 

 slight variation, east and west, and the idea suggests itself of a vast 

 plutonic ocean hurling its irresistible billows southward, breaking 

 up into one regular system of fracture, the superincumbent strata, 

 which, yielding to the impulse of the moving mass, have formed 

 into the smaller waves of a shallower sea. I do not as yet venture 

 to propound this as a geological thesis, I only mean to say that 

 the idea suggests itself. 



Passing through many scenes of this description, we reach 

 Banisita, which is situated about forty-five to fifty miles nearly 

 due south of Patani, although the river mileage is very much 

 greater ; Banisita is the depot for the galena mines in this neigh- 

 bourhood and is situated in a very picturesque amphitheatre 

 throug'h which flows the Patani river. • In the centre of this amphi- 

 theatre there is an open level plain in which are many padi-fields, 

 with a hill of forest encircling it ; beyond this hill rise undulating 

 wooded ridges ; behind these again, at intervals tower vast walls of 



