134 
ETHNOLOGICAL NOILS. 
and one day it occurred to the parents to try and find 
out, whether their children were imbued with sense and 
knowledge sufficient to face life’s struggles. So the 
father caused a large ditch to be constructed from the 
river, by which he lived, through a hill to a small stream 
on the further side, so making it that the water would 
flow rapidly through the ditch. The children were 
then ordered to descend into the ditch and all but one 
entering the water, were swept away and drowned. 
He who was left, evidently of a more cautious mind, 
slowly let himself into the water, and by holding on 
to the roots of trees, passed safely from end of end 
of the ditch. Again the scene changes, his parents 
dead: the youth found himself alone in the world. 
Weary of travelling about the jungle, and with what 
appeared to him no purpose in life, no home, no wife, 
he one day fell asleep ; and there came to him a vision, 
in which he was advised to ascend Mt. Batu Api.* On 
its summit he would find an egg which he was to crack, 
and a woman would be found inside, who was to be 
his wife. Following the instruction he gained his wife, 
and from these two the Murut race sprang. 
W. R. T. Clement. 
Batu Lawi. 
Should you happen to visit the Government station 
at Limbang and ride in the early morning round what 
is known as the “Five Mile,when the banks of* mist 
have rolled away from the distant hills, you would 
perhaps see far away in the distance the peak of Batu 
Lawi. It is described as being of limestone destitute of 
all vegetation, its sides precipitous and unscaleable. 
The cause of this phenomenon, so remarkable in a 
land where all else is clothed in verdant forest, is told 
in a legendary manner by the Muruts of that region. 
These events happened generations ago, when the 
Batu Api is a legendary mountain for account of which see next story. 
