AG AN EXPEDITION TO MOUNT BATU LAWI. 
from the neighbourhood for the annual trip down river. This 
excursion is a big undertaking and involves innumerable delays; 
first the head of each village has to seek good omens before he ean 
start on the preliminary journey which is to bring hia to this 
rendezvous. Once there, boats have to be looked out, fitted. re- 
paired and generally re-made altogether, as they are only used on 
this one occasion each year (or every two years), small canoes 
being much handier for any short journeys between one village and 
another. Balang Katou’s house had been unfortunate, having lost 
several people lately from some mysterious illness, apparently like 
cholera. There were three corpses in the house while I was there, 
each in a jar, well covered up, and standing in the room of the 
bereaved family. They warned me against sleeping in that house 
as the smell was said to be most offensive; however it was not so 
really, although they had been there some 20 to 30 days each, for 
I slept away ‘from them in the long commen verandah under the 
open flap of the roof, with the rest of our little party. When a 
Murut person of rank dies, his next of kin who acts as chief 
mourner may not leave the presence of the dead, and both living 
and dead occupy the same small room for some ten Jays on end. 
In a hot climate like this, the painful nature of this ordeal may he 
better imagined than described. 
It is amusing to watch the Kalabit girls of the house summon- 
ing the visitors to a meal. This is prepared in the living rooms 
and when ready a young girl is usually sent out to cali the visitors 
in from the long common verandah. They take not the slightest 
notice of her, and she stands at the door, rather a pathetic “Jittle 
figure, calling “ kuman, kuman” (“ Eat ay at first in a low rather 
shy tone, eventually getting louder and more impatient, as she 
stands awaiting the men’s pleasure. After perhaps ten minutes or 
quarter of an hour of this by-play the men rise, stretch themselves 
and follow her into the room with an amusing air of protest. 
The start had been delayed a month, as Balang Katou had 
been unable to obtain good omens up till this morning; how- 
ever all was plain sailing now, so he proposes to start tomorrow 
and pick up another contingent a little way down river, where he 
will wait for me. He wants to get the majority of his up-country 
friends off in his two large hoats, as they are not accustomed to 
river-work and are more trouble than use in a boat. He accord- 
ingly deputes a relation of his, one Tamarpin, to get ready a small 
boat and bring me down as soon as possible. 'Tamarpin is a fat, 
smooth-tongued, conceited fellow contrasting very unfavourably 
with all the other natives that I have met in this region—these 
latter always unaffected, courteous, though often blunt, and in 
fact true Nature’s gentlemen. Tamar pin speaks Malay fluently, 
which I supposed i ‘has picked up together with his Malay manner- 
isms, from two or three Brunei traders who often spend a month 
or two in a little house next door. hese traders left four days 
ago with loads of rubber gained by trading up here. 
Jour Straits Branch 
