226 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
Lupar also admits large vessels, but has a very much 
shorter course, and the Sarawak river is only of import¬ 
ance as the stream on which Kuching is built. It is 
not till we come to the more southern part of the island 
that the characteristic Bornean rivers are met with, and of 
these one of the largest is the Kapuas, which reaches the 
sea at Pontianak. It has its sources in the central moun¬ 
tains, probably near Mount Tebang, which is also reputed 
to give origin to the Barito, the Mahakkam, and the 
Kayan or Bulungan. Thence it pursues a tortuous 
course in a south-west direction, forming an enormous 
delta at its mouth. As it is beset by a bar carrying 
only 10 to 12 feet of water at high tide, it is un- 
navigable by large vessels, but small Government steamers 
ascend it for 200 miles. Until lately, large lakes were 
formed in the middle part of its course during the rainy 
season, a common feature in Bornean rivers, but now these 
have become to a great extent silted up, and the detritus 
brought down by the floods has caused the land to gain 
rapidly on the sea at the river’s mouth. 
Between the Kapuas and the Barito occur various 
considerable rivers, the Lamandu, Pembuan, Mentaya, 
Katingan, Kahayan, and others, but they are of little im¬ 
portance commercially. It is otherwise with the great 
Barito, upon which Banjarmasin is situated. It is 3 miles 
wide at the mouth, is supposed to exceed 570 miles in 
length, and is thus the longest river in the Malay Archi¬ 
pelago. In its upper course it is very rapid, and is said to 
abound in waterfalls, and lower it expands in the wet season 
into lakes and morasses, which occupy, as has already been 
stated, an area of some hundreds of square miles, in 
which respect it is almost equalled by the Mahakkam or 
Koti river. A bar prevents the entrance of large vessels, 
but the stream is navigable for smaller craft for some 
