266 THE TAWARAN AND PUTATAN RIVERS. 



the thermometer will often stand as low as 68°, while the keen, 

 cold air blowing down from the black towering summits that 

 cut the eastern sky-line, invigorates the frame and braces the 

 muscles for the coming labours of the. day. It would require 

 a poet's pen to do anything like justice to the gorgeous scenic 

 effects and grand transformation scenes, as the orb of day 

 rises behind the jagged mountain barrier. The whole country 

 is so well opened up, that the monsoons have free play, and 

 fever should be comparatively unknown. The soil may be 

 described as sandy near the sea, but of every quality as one 

 proceeds inland. Kina Balu bears about E.S.E. from the plain 

 near the river mouth. 



An hour's walk brought us back to Brungis, where we had 

 left our pakeranyan, or native boat, and some five hours 

 more brought us to Gay a island, whence a start was effected 

 early on the ensuing morning for the mouth of the Putatan 

 river. 



The Putatan river has two mouths — the Patagas mouth, 

 which lies a little to the E. of S. of the most southerly point 

 of Gay a island at a distance, in a direct line, of about five 

 miles, roughly estimated, and about half that distance south 

 of Tanjong Aru ; and its main mouth, Telipuk, wnieh lies a 

 short distance to the southward of Tanjong Togorongon. The 

 former is the most accessible entrance, the main kuala having 

 a very gradually shoaling foreshore, and but little depth of 

 water on it at high water. The Patagas mouth opens to the* 

 westward and has a depth of about one rathom at low water. 

 A short distance from it, to the northward, off Tanjong Aru, 

 there is good anchorage close inshore for prahus and small 

 boats, completely sheltered from both monsoons by an out- 

 lying sand-bank. The Putatan river is an appanage of the 

 Sultan of Brunei, and of Pangeran Muda Binjai's family. 



A paddle of little over a mile and a half, passing en route, 

 on the true right bank, the confluence of the little river 

 Munglab, brings one to a small Bajau village, the head of 

 which is Datu Kilan. From this point the Patagas flows 

 more from the S.E., and becomes very narrow and tortuous 

 up to its divergence from the main Putatan, rather more thau. 

 a mile further on, where (and situate therefore at the apex of 



