228 
COMPENDIUM 6F GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
exhibited of a series of lakes lying on either side of the 
river. Occasionally, rivers change their beds entirely, or 
a complete network of anastomoses is formed with other 
streams, in which it is an easy matter for the traveller to 
lose his way. Finally, the months of almost all are 
beset with bars, which prevent the ingress of large 
ships. 
Borneo is, apparently, without permanent lakes of any 
great size. For many years a large sheet of water was 
represented in the maps as lying to the south of Kina¬ 
balu, but recent travellers have shown that it is only low 
land submerged in the rainy season, similar to that 
existing on most rivers, as already described. In the 
upper basin of the Kapuas are two lakes of minor im¬ 
portance, the Seriang and the Luar. Mr. Crocker found 
the former a fine sheet of water with four Dutch gun¬ 
boats anchored in it, but it was said to have completely 
dried in 1877. It also appears to be subject to tre¬ 
mendous inundations. The diary of the same traveller 
records that a Malay, his informant, on the occasion of 
one of these floods, found a boy eating sugar-cane, and on 
asking where he got it, as he saw nothing but water, the 
boy told him he had dived down to their garden, which 
was at that time several feet under water. 
4. Climate. 
Bisected as it is by the equator, Borneo is exposed 
to the action of the four monsoons: in the northern 
portion theoretically to the FT.E. and S.W., and in 
the southern to the S.E. and K.W., but those winds 
become considerably altered with the locality. At Ban- 
jarmasin the westerly monsoon blows as a south-west or 
