$64 THE TAWABAN AND PUTATAN H1TERS. 



cot well planted and were short in the staple. Some of the 

 Dusun homesteads dotted about this Tawaran plain possessed 

 quite a home-like air of tranquillity and repose about them. 

 Nestling in the grateful shade of cocoa-nut groves, bowered in 

 broad-leaved bananas, and girdled with green paddy fields, 

 they had a pleasant look to the tired traveller's eye. Snowy 

 paddy birds dotted the verdant pastures, huge adjutant birds 

 flew on lazy wing from point to point. The scene was not 

 without its idyllic charms, nor were home-associations want- 

 ing in the familiar-sounding caw of the Bornean crow (Gorvus 

 validusj as it was borne to the ear on the breeze. 



The district towards the mouth of the Tawaran is called the 

 Timbalang country, and has a Bajau colony settled in it. 

 Above this point the Dusun population prevails, though a 

 Bajau house may be found here and there. The tribal desig- 

 nation of the Tawaran Dusuns is Latud, and it may here be 

 mentioned that that of the Dusuns up the Tampassuk river 

 further north, is Ti tidal ; that of the Dusuns in the vicinity 

 of the North Borneo Company's Station of Kudat, on the 

 north coast, Memdgun ( vide the late Mr. F. Witti ) ; while 

 that of the Dusuns up the Labuk river, on the east coast, is 

 Tambenua. 



Beaching at sunset the house of a Bajau named Ibu, who had 

 settled down there and had taken a Tawaran Dusun maiden to 

 wife, we put up for the night, our slumbers soothed by the 

 potent influence of some tuak, or cocoa-nut toddy, pressed 

 upon us by the proprietor of a neighbouring Dusun house. 

 This district we were told was called Telibong. 



An early start on the morrow down the bank of the river, 

 brought us to the village of Liong Liongan, the Tawaran at 

 our starting point flowing from N.E. with a rapid current. The 

 bed rock of this region is sandstone. Proceeding some dis- 

 tance further down stream we accomplished a perilous transit 

 in a gobong, or dug-out canoe of the very slenderest di- 

 mensions. C'etait un mauvais quart d'heure, for neither of 

 us could swim, and the river, swollen by flood water, resemr 

 bled a boiling, eddying Maelstrom, but fortune was kind, and 

 on safely reaching the right bank, a short walk brought us to 

 the Sungei Damit, which we struck a few hundred yards above 



