Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra13141884roya).pdf/285

 The entire population of this district is Bajan, and is supported mainly by fishing, a little hill paddy being grown as well.

The Mongkâbong "river," so called, bears evidences of having been originally an inlet of the sea dotted with sandstone islands, which have, for the most part, become connected by the rising of the land and by the silting up of the basin itself, the blocking up of the mouth of which, by sand-bars, has led to its assuming its present form. In general features, it much resembles the Sulâman basin, no great distance to the north of it.

After threading this watery labyrinth for some hours we penetrated a narrow channel and landed at its head, at a small kampong called Brungis, whence a walk of about an hour over a low ridge, and then across a broad plain, brought us to the banks of the swiftly flowing Tawâran river, which at this point is a fine stream rolling its turgid yellow flood along between sandy banks of medium height. The Tawâran here intersects a level plain of large extent and sandy soil, dotted with homesteads surrounded by plantations of cocoa-nuts, and here and there under paddy cultivation. This plain is bounded by the sea to the W., by the mountains of the upper Tawâran to the E., and to the S. by the low ridge mentioned above, which divides the respective water-sheds of the Tawâran and the Mengkâbong. On the northern bank the plain apparently extends to the foot of the mountains separating the Tawâran from the Sulâman basin. Our route from Brungis lay East, East by North and then Norih, and the portion of the plain traversed had a general fall towards the East of North, but a very slight one.

On striking the river, our course lay upstream for some considerable distance, at first over level ground, and then, when the limits of the plain had been reached, and the true valley of the Tawâran entered, along the steep flanks of hills abutting on the stream, where a false step would often have precipitated one into the flood below. Fields of paddy, groves of cocoa-nut trees, herds of buffaloes, together with pigs, goats and poultry, betokoned a well-to-do and prosperous population. Sugar-cane appeared to thrive, but the specimens seen were