AN EXPEDITION TO MOUNT BATU LAWI. 19 
gave $1.50 for it! Hugely pleased with himself over his trans- 
action.” 
While encamped there I ascended the hill just above the mouth 
of the Saladong and from an altitude of 770 ft. got a view of Mt. 
Obong bearing 8. 8. W. It did not look very far off—the natives 
said three days, and I should have guessed it to be but 3-4000 feet 
in height. EK. S. E. of us we saw a Jong range called Pagun ending 
in a high peak due S. E. They told me rhinoceros were to be 
found there; also that the streams Madamit and Saladong rise 
there. ‘The Trusan river lies East of this range. On another day 
I went to visit an old burial ground just above the kuala Saladong. 
About an hour’s walk (unnecessarily long, but there was no path 
and the guide was a bit hazy as to the right direction) through 
the jungle we came to a limestone cliff; about 30 feet up 
this was a small cave, “ Libong Seriou,” to which we climbed 
by means of tree-roots, etc.; although only a small cave of 
no great depth, it seemed to be the home of innumerable bats, 
which, with a great whir-r-ring of wings, created quite a 
blast of cold air. In this cave were a number of broken jars 
(I counted 30 to 40) n which Muruts or Tabuns had been buried. 
Some of the jars were said to be very old and worth from two to 
three hundred dollars if they had not been broken. I had one (the 
least broken) removed and succeeded in bringing it safely to Ku- 
ching, and it is now in the Sarawak Museum. Knowing how 
particular natives are about safe-guarding their burial-grounds, as 
of course is only natural, | was most careful to inquire if they 
objected to my removing the jar; they assured me that it did’nt 
matter in the least, that nobody was buried there now and had not 
been within the memory of man, that these broken jars were of no 
use to anyone and that if I was anxious to take the remains of 
one, nobody could possibly object.- So I took it, arriving in due 
course at Limbang with the jar and party safe and sound. Then 
followed an unpleasant 10 days of malaria before reaching Kuching 
at the end of April. This year I am warned against taking any 
more jars, as that, according to my Limbang friends, was the 
obvious cause of my fever and such was only to be expected as a 
reminder from the offended spirits! 
Belulok told me that it was supposed to be an old Tabun 
burying place, although none knew for certain now; their custom, 
like that of other tribes of this region, is to bury their dead 
temporarily in one of these big jars, then place it in a cave like 
Libong Seriou for some six to twelve months, during which interval 
the body decomposes and drains through a hole in the bottom. 
After this interval a great feast is held, the jar is opened, and the 
bones taken out and placed in a smaller jar for similar burial in 
some other place. According to Belulok the story goes that there 
used to be a house on a flat rock just in the mouth of this cave, 
until a landslip occurred causing the collapse of the house and the 
death of most of the inhabitants. The few survivors buried their 
R. A, Soc., No. 63,'1912. 
