IN SUM A Tit J. 



2m 



The recent rains had produced a flood— the greatest, it was 

 said, for iive years — which had risen from ten to twelve feet 

 above its ordinary mark. Throughout a distance of from thirty 

 to forty miles it had carried away pieces of the bank from three 

 to five yards wide and from eight to ten feet deep. In these 

 new sections litrge trees (stems and branches) had become ex- 

 posed, buried more than six feet below the surface (tf the sur- 

 roimrliun^ land. These sections showed the soil resting on a 

 deep biind of chiy, which in turn was lying on a thick stratum 

 of abingle, whicii was being again washed ont, to be subjeetcd 

 to fresh attrition after having rested for many cycles. Below 

 the confluence of the River Tiku, which rises among the Pale- 

 ozoic rocks in the Iknljang region a considerable quantity of 

 gold is found when the river is very low, caught among the 

 stones, larger pebbles and sand. This sand is collecti^l — the 

 occupiti«)ii mostly of the older women— an J, when freed from 

 the larger particles, goes by the name of huti^k ; the bnngin 

 is washed in a broad cone-shaped vessel of wood — tlie dulang 

 — by a rotatory motion, till only an extremely hue heavy biuck 

 sand {fcaltim) is left. The kahmi, which contains the gold is 

 then rotated in the dulang with a little water till the hcfavter 

 metal falls to the apex of the cone, whence it is carefully 

 removed. A very successful day's washing in this fashion will 

 bring only 1*-. Sd. 



With a halt of one night at the village of Ambatjang, so 

 called from an old large and symmetrical tree of that name 

 {Mitufjiffrra ffttt'da) growing in the village, then in magni- 

 ficent blossom, I reached j\Iuara-Hnpit at the contluenee of 

 the Rawas river, on the afternoon of the second day. Muara- 

 Rupit, to the TJlu men fr<jni amofig whom I had come, is a 

 great phiee whicli perhaps some day fate may permit them to 

 visit. To have been to Mnara-Rupit from the Ulu ccamtry 

 is to have gained a certain precedence amongst their fellow 

 villagei-s, while to have been to Palcmbang, a to-and-fro jour- 

 ney of BIS. weeks, is to have seen the world ! This pbico is 

 the seat of a great trade; everything from the coast for the 

 Rupit and the country watered by its tributaries, and for tbe 

 Rawas and its tributaries up to the Djamhi country, is brought 

 to ^fthmra-Rupit, wbither can come a small steamer able to 

 carrv a company of trnopi^. I was fuuiSfijucrifly not jiiirprbed 



