48 A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 
and Perak rivers. The Kendrong river, which we followed down 
to its confluence with the parent stream, was an angry yellow flood, 
and it was hard to recognize in it the clear, sparkling, well-behaved ' 
little river which we had passed on the 6th. The path unfortunate- 
ly does not follow one bank of the stream the whole way, and we 
had to cross the Kendrong six times, wading waist deep at an 
imminent risk of being carried off our legs by the force of the 
current. The Perak river even as far up the country as this, 
nearly two hundred miles from its mouth, is still a noble stream. 
The left bank is high and steep, while the right bank on which we 
stood is a long stretch of pebbles and shingle. With the exception 
of an unimportant village at the mouth of the Kendrong, there is 
no sign of life or cultivation. Here, as lower down, every reach 
has its legend. A little further up-stream two rocks facing each 
other, one on each side of the river, are said to have been the forts 
of two rival tribes of monkeys, the Mawah (Stmia lar) and the 
Siamang (Sema syndactyla) in a terrible war which was waged 
between them in a bygone age. The Siamangs defeated their 
adversaries, whom tliey have ever since confined to the right bank 
of the river. If any matter-of-fact person should doubt the truth 
of this tradition, are there not two facts for the discomfiture of 
scepticism—the monkey forts (called Batu Mawah to this day) 
threatening each other from opposite banks of the river, and the 
assurance of all Perak Malays that no Mawah is to be found on 
the left bank ? 
A journey of two days further up this beautiful river brings 
the traveller to Tumungau, in the neighbourhood of which is the 
Belong gold mine. Here gold dust is the currency, and silver 
dollars are scarce. Iam not aware that this place has ever been 
visited by an European. The writer of a work on the Peninsula, 
published in Penang in 1824, (AnpERson), mentions Belong, of | 
which he had heard from native report. He states the probable 
yield in his day to have been about ten catties (about thirteen 
pounds avoirdupois) annually, not a very startling quantity. 
A Malay opium-smoker is not an early riser. He begins to live 
about the middle of the day and is probably at his best late in 
the afternoon. He will sit up to any hour at night and is then 
