here divides the Labuk into two. Nothinog but Og oinOg
up rapids to-day; we ascended one 4 feet high in
20 yards, and shortly afterwards got up one 8 feet
high in 15 yards, and passed a veritable whirlpool.
The water rushing round a sharp bend was met by
some vertical rocks, and the stream striking on these
had created a dangerous whirlpool. Ju st above this
pool there is a small Dumpas village, on the left bank,
called “ Kabuan.” The population numbers thirty
persons, and none of them dare go further up the river
than they are at present, as the men of Sogolitan have
closed the river against them. We passed a splendid
waterfall on the right bank, the mouth of the Bombolie,
which is some eight yards wide, and falls from a height
of fifty feet into the Labuk. We camped to-night just
below a rattan, which was stretched across the river
marking the frontier of the Sogolitan and Delarnass
countries.2 To our camp to-night came two small
2 A rattan slung across a river is in some districts called a bintang-
marrow station, for raising which a heavy tax or fine is levied. Occasionally
the tax is taken out in blood, though in the neighbourhood
of the coast the bintang-marrow is not maintained with the severity
that obtains inland. Mr. Resident Pryer in his account of a trip on
the Kinabatangan was accompanied by a native, named Banjer, who
spun many yarns about this rattan business. Banjer was a sultan’s man,
and had once been put on a “ bintang-marrow ” station. The man
in charge of it thought the time had come to take a little duty in
blood, just to let people see that the sultan didn’t keep “ bintang-
marrow ” stations for nothing. So they caught a trader, accused him
of evading the payment of duties, and tying a rope round his wrists
fastened him to a post with his feet off the ground, and left him
hanging there. He cried continually all day long: “ I have committed
no fault, I have committed no fault.” They returned in the evening
with their krises and hewed him to bits. Banjer went on to tell Mr.
Pryer that he was present when the Tunbumohas “ semunguped”
a man who was a bought slave.. The Tunbumohas tied him up.
prahus containing two Sarawak gutta traders and four
Dumpas men whom they had engaged to take them up
the river. The head of the party asked permission to
accompany us, as he was afraid of the Sin-Dyaks of
Sogolitan. I agreed, and so we all went to sleep under
three enormous fig-trees, from which we were unpleasantly
moved in the middle of the night by a
sudden rise of the river.
There was a heavy stream running the next morning
as' we moved onwards, and our only way of progress
for miles was by bugging the bank and dragging
ourselves up by trees, rocks, or anything that was
possible to catch hold of. We soon, however, passed
the Sogolitan river on the left bank. Opposite this is
another tributary ending its course in a splendid cascade,
some sixty or seventy feet high.
I was informed that in this district there are several
thousand people calling themselves Sin-Dyaks. They are
painted and tattooed in a peculiar way. On the other
side of the rattan, which my Malays were not at all
willing to go under, there was a guard of three Dyaks
in a native dugout. Their boat was of capital workmanship,
being carved at the bow. The men were
tattooed with blue all down the arms, breasts, and
legs, and had pieces of wood in their ears. They wore
with his arms outstretched (crucified in fact), and they danced round
him. At last the headman approached, and wishing him a pleasant
journey to Kina Balu, stuck his spear about an inch deep, and no
more, in the man’s body; and another then said, “ Bear my kind
remembrances to my brother at Kina Balu,” and did the same ; and
in this way, with messages to deceased relatives at Kina Balu, all
those present slightly wounded the man. When the dance was over
they unbound him, but he was dead. This custom is known as
“ semungup,” and is practised by the far inland tribes to this day.