52 AN EXPEDITION TO MOUNT BATU LAWI. 
agreed to come with me to-morrow, not that the two former are 
likely to be of any use as carriers, but they are curious, never 
having seen a white man before, and wish to do the journey to the 
Melana with us; also I think the young man would not come 
without them. Belulok understands their language, but few of 
the Kalabits do. They excite a certain amount of admiration on 
the part of the Kalabits on account of their hard life, wandering 
for ever homeless in the jungle, depending on jungle produce alone 
for their sustenance. The wild sago palm is their chief support 
to which they add anything they can gain with their blow-pipe. 
They would’nt come up into our huts but stood quietly outside in 
the rain, with their loads on their backs, making arrangements for 
to-morrow. I served out cigarettes and biscuits which were received 
with a slow smile of thanks. The phrase “ Thank you,” by the 
way, seems unknown among all Sarawak natives, and any gift or 
service is always received in silence, but this by no means implies 
rudeness or ingratitude, although it looks so like it to a European. 
In spite of the rain and approach of night our nomad friends 
refused to share our huts and moved off into the jungle to some 
favoured spot of their own, promising to be with us again for an 
early start to-morrow morning. 
Among our Kalabit bearers is a well-built young man, the 
slave of one of the up-river chiefs. Unhappily he is both deaf and 
dumb, but in spite of this terrible infliction seems wonderfully 
quick to understand and make himself understood. His friends 
always seemed sympathetically attentive to his wants, although 
he was well able to look after himself. 
June 11th. We take leave of the Bruneis and set off across 
the Sidam under the leadership of a fat Kalabit, one Metaribu, a 
pleasant, though somewhat happy-go-lucky, casual gentleman, who 
says he thinks he knows the way having done the journey once 
before some three years ago. The others do not seem to think 
anything of trusting themselves to his guidance, though I express 
my doubts as to his ability to remember it after such a long time. 
Belulok laughs scornfully, “ of course he knows the path, if he has 
been along it once;” and somehow Metaribu brings us through, 
now along a winding pig-track, now down some dried water-course, 
up another, across a succession of short steep hills, across one 
stream and down another, in and out of a maze of jungle and 
eventually late in the evening down to the banks of the Melana. 
As its name implies it was the blackest river we have come across 
so far, in great contrast to the beautiful clear waters of the 
mountain streams we passed from the Madihit to Batu Lawi. I 
asked Belulok if he knew the meaning of the name Melana, but 
he did not know nor was he able to give me a clue to the native Pro- 
fessor of Greek who (presumably) had named it thus. We passed 
several shelters used by other Penans evidently quite recently, we 
all enjoyed a refreshing bathe in the black waters of the Melana, 
except the Penans, who, true to Belulok’s description of them some 
Jour. Straits Branch 
