1847.] Proceedings of the Mad. Lit. Society , ^-c. 17S 



argument, that an object of such veneration should not be permitted 

 to be exposed in the jungle, and that it should be placed under a shed 

 in the town where it now accordingly stands. 



*' Two other objects, the workmanship of a people who had at= 

 tained to some degree of skill in the art of working stone, have been 

 discovered ; the one at a point of the river, about six miles above the 

 town of Sarawak, called Battu Kawa ; the other on the Samarkand 

 river, near Ledah Tanah, and called by the Malays, Battu Berala, 

 5or the Idol Stone. 



" The Battu Berala, on the contrary, is highly venerated by the 

 surrounding Dyaks, who suppose the slight elevation on which it is 

 placed, to be the residence of some great spirit, in whose honor, 

 once a year, the Dyaks are said, at this spot, to hold a great feast, 

 bringing the pigs and provisions from their village for this purpose. 

 I exceedingly regret that during the time I visited the stone, it was 

 impossible to proceed further up the river, which becomes small at 

 this distance from the sea, to learn from these Dyaks themselves the 

 whole of the particulars concerning it. About the Battu Berala, 

 one of which appeared to have formed part of the shaft of a column, 

 but they were so broken, that nothing certain, as to their original 

 shape or uses, could be gathered from these fragments. 



*' Though these stones are few in number, the image of the bull 

 jilone, and the veneration in which it and the Battu Berala are held, 

 hxQ sufficient evidences that the religion which introduced and used 

 them, has had some influence in this part of the island. 



IX. Proceedikgs THfi Madras Literary SocIi^ty an£) 

 Auxiliary of the Boyal Asiatic Society. 



At a Meeting of the Mariaging Committee of the Madras Lite- 

 rary Society, on Friday Evening the 9th January, 1846. 

 Read a letter from Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co., dated 19th No- 

 vember, 1845. Advising the dispatch of books and periodicals per 

 Steamer. 



Besolved,—Thsit the following w^orks be ordered out from England 

 for the Society : 



Oliver Cromweirs Letters and Speeches. By Thomas Carlyle. 

 The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England. 

 By Lord Campbell. 



