I have just heard that it was a relation of the Orang Kaya Upit who wounded the chief’s son, which explains the bad omens and the fears. Absurd fellow not to have explained the reason, because we could then have all gone on together!
25th.—We advanced about four miles in a S.E. by S. direction to the houses of Si Nina, where we breakfasted. The track was generally along the banks of the river and very bad walking indeed; constant landslips having destroyed the path, we had to crawl along over the loose earth, sometimes finding it impassable; we were then obliged to descend to the foaming stream below, hard and dangerous work after last night’s rain. Among the valleys small plains, slightly undulating, are to be met with; otherwise the character of the country is a general succession of steep hills. At one place two rocks were pointed out to me in the stream about thirty feet apart, called the Tigers’ Leap. I made many inquiries about these animals; they insist that eight came to their country; that they were not tiger-cats as I suggested: if such animals were ever here they might have escaped from cages in the capital: it was a common custom among the far eastern princes to keep these ferocious creatures, but I never heard of Bornean princes doing so. I have read somewhere that formerly there were a few tigers on the north-east coast, probably let loose by strangers as the ancestors of the elephants were.
Si Nina’s village contains about forty families, if we follow the numbers of doors, though he himself says fifty, and their lazy habits may induce two families to live in a space not fit even for one. Here we met Si Puntará, whom we accompanied two miles in a south-west direction to his village on the slope of a hill; it consists of two houses and perhaps forty families. Tapioca is extensively grown round this village, and the clearings are immense. What proves to me that the stories of constant harassing enemies are exaggerations, is that all these villages keep their rice granaries at some distance from the houses, where they might be destroyed without any danger or difficulty; to this the Muruts would answer that their enemies seek heads, not rice.
The mountain at the southern end of the first eastern range, called by the natives Murud, or “the mountain,” bears south-east by south, and in a straight line is perhaps not more than three miles off. (Houses 3,679 feet). Orang Murut simply means a mountain man, or a mountaineer, but is now used for a particular class of aborigines. Standing near the rice granaries of Si Puntará’s village we had a fine view of the ranges that ran from north to south, whose lengthened summits showed occasionally white cliffs, but there was a peak not many miles from us, a little to the eastward of south, called Gura, and from its summit they said on a fine day the eastern coast was visible, with the broad sea beyond, and at its base and beyond it live the Main Muruts, who are the great suppliers of salt.
There are some of the Main Muruts here. I have asked for a guide to their houses; I am promised one if I will remain another week, but as that excursion itself would take us eight days, I must not think of attempting it, as even now I shall not be back to Brunei within the time I promised. The Main Muruts are not only salt but slave dealers. I have noticed but one of them, and he in his pride has beaten out a brass gong into a broad belt a foot across. He is a forbidding-looking fellow, with a hair lip. They say the salt water issues from a spring, and is collected in small ponds, and then boiled for the salt; it looks dirty, and has a peculiar flavour, as if it had much soda in it. The Orang Kaya Upit, with a bad omen, has again deserted us, so that we are without a proper interpreter.
26th.—In looking at a bearskin jacket, of which there are a great many to be seen about, I for the first time saw a specimen of the Batu Gading, “ivory stone,” in fact, white marble. They say the Muruts of Limbang sell it. I should like to know from whence they get it; those I have asked say from Baram. I remember passing a mountain or hill in that river that they called Batu Gading. Sent a party to find if the Orang Kaya Upit had been able to purchase a deer or a goat for us. Many of the women, as I have before noticed in the men, wear leaden rings along the edge of the ear; the lobe being brought down to the shoulder by half-a-dozen heavy ones.
About 11 a.m. started in a south-west direction for about a mile and a half, to the top of a hill, from whence there is usually a view of Lawi in a south-west direction; all the mountains, however, are hidden in clouds, but it must be a high one if remarkable among its towering neighbours. The whole appearance of the country is mountainous, each range becoming more lofty as we approach the hidden interior. From an elevation of about 4,348 feet, the two mountains next us looked very high, perhaps between 7,000 and 8,000 feet; they say these are the children, Lawi the father.
Were the people not so busy with their farms, and I so pressed for time, I would try and reach Lawi, as there are people residing at its foot; but I must put it off till next expedition, when I hope to pass the mountain.
These people are very well off, on account of planting rice twice a year, one kind called Asas being ready in three months, the other in five months. They have plenty of the great essential rice, and trust to hunting for most of their flesh; they, however, keep pigs and a few fowls. Tapioca is a mere weed; dressed as a potato it is excessively indigestible; I have observed some sweet potatoes, and also some yams and Indian corn. They have no fruit-trees, contenting themselves with a few bananas.
Orang Kaya Upit has so far got over his fears, that he has made his appearance, following in the train of a goat, which has been the loadstone to draw him here. I think our farthest resting-place has been reached, as I talk of returning to-morrow, and calculate that should no unforeseen event take place, we may reach Brunei by the 11th October. The plan of returning by an entirely new road has been given up, as it would require our remaining here till all the rice is planted.