AN EXPEDITION TO MOUNT BATU LAWI. 27 
May 17th: A certain amount of thick heads this morning 
and consequently rather slow in getting away. Our plan is to get 
up the Madihit to Penribut’s house by boat as far as possible, wait 
a day there for coolies and rice, and then walk overland to Batu 
Lawi. ‘The eleven Pandaruan Dayaks make some trouble over the 
shortage of matches and even say they want to return on this 
account. I had foolishly trusted to some patent lighters which I 
thought would withstand the wet better than boxes of wooden 
matches and in consequence had not brought many boxes of 
matches. Unfortunately they also withstood our attempts at strik- 
ing a light, however some of the Tabuns had brought a few packets 
and by taking a little care we were able to make them last out all 
right. ‘There is a strong fresh in the Madihit so that we can 
use boats, though progress is necessarily slow against this strong 
stream ; without the fresh the river would be too dry to allow boats 
to be used at all. At 3 o'clock clouds began to gather and we stop 
to make a lancho on the left bank. In the evening we catch a 
large number of moths flying to the lamp on the “ krangan” (stony 
river bed) below our hut. 
May 18th: (Temp. 7.45 a.m. 73.5°). Break camp early and 
after breakfast start off again (8 a.m.), soon encountering steep 
rapids. Pass the kuala Rawan on our left and later on-the kuala 
Tera (?=that marked in St. John’s map as Petra). The boats are 
dragged up with some difficulty and we come later to a-bad place 
called the Seridan rapid; here Tama Belulok says he has been 
wrecked twice, losing most of his belongings each time. Just above 
this we come to the kuala Aripenou and find a small Kalabit house 
on the right bank. It is impossible to get the boats any further 
up the river and although it is only one o’clock, Penribtt’s house 
is too far off to reach to-night, so we haul the boats up and have 
a refreshing bathe—a daily joy in the latter part of this up-river 
journey safe from the fear of crocodiles, although the natives say 
that they are seen right up these streams even as far as this, but they 
never attack human ‘beings : after the bathe, a meal and then a ram- 
ble in the jungle behind the house. Some Kalabits arrive in the 
afternoon from ‘l'ama Kuling’s house, havig left early in the morn- 
ing on foot, doing the journey in about 6 hours (without carrying 
baggage) while we have taken a day and a half to do the same 
distance by river. Penribut arrives later and finds me bathing at 
the landing place. He makes a picturesque figure fording the river 
in his bark war-coat ornamented with the black and white tail 
feathers of a hornbill hanging over his shoulders; the- front of the 
coat (which by the way is armless) is much shorter and is orna- 
mented by a large round pearl-shell ;* a blue chawat (loin cloth), 
his hair twisted in a knot at the back of his head and fastened’ with 
a long iron pin (about 9 inches and about as thick as a big French 
nail) and a spear in his hand completes the picture. Belulok tells 
* See Ling Roth, vol. 2, pp. 101 and 103. 
R. A. Soc., No. 63, 1912. 
