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Updated: June 1, 2025
In the evening we passed the island of Burong, at the mouth of the Batang Lupar River, and Mr. Crookshank tried to stimulate the men pulling the sweeps to reach a Sebuyan village farther on, before the tide left us and it grew dark. By dint of hard pulling we made the village, and its little fort, standing close beside the water and washed by its strong tide.
Midnight saw us scrambling, stiff and numbed, up the muddy "batang" or pole that formed the landing-place of the fort, and we were not sorry to take off our saturated clothes, and, after a stiff glass of grog apiece, to tumble into the two little camp bedsteads, that, with the exception of a table and two chairs, formed the sole furniture of the fort.
The principal rivers thus radiate from a common centre, the Batang Kayan flowing east-north-east, the Kotei south-east by east, the Banjermasin south, the Kapuas a little south of west, the Rejang west, and the Baram north-west.
Of all these six peoples the Sea Dayaks have become best known to Europeans, largely owing to their restless truculent disposition, and to the fact that they are more numerous in Sarawak than any of the others. They have spread northwards over Sarawak during the latter half of the last century, chiefly from the region of the Batang Lupar, where they are still numerous.
Farther to the eastward, and up the Batang Lupar, into which the Sakarran runs, lived another powerful seriff by the name of Muller, elder brother and coadjutor of Seriff Sahib. These all, however, through fear at the moment, sent in submissive messages; but their turn had not yet come, and we proceeded toward the Sarebus.
I found that Captain Bailey had gone with the Younghusband expedition to Lhasa, and was now on his way to Batang with the hope of being able to cross Tibet from the Chinese side. We had an enjoyable evening comparing experiences. I was impressed, as often before, by the comfort a man manages to secure for himself when travelling.
This was observed with regret by an influential chief, who, therefore, found an opportunity to relate in public the following story. "A party of Kayans," he said, "once came over from the Batang Kayan to visit their relatives in the Baram.
The man whose heart is filled with hatred against another will retire secretly to a spot at the edge of a PADI field, or of some other clearing, where he can see a large expanse of sky and yet feel sure of being unobserved. Here he sets up the BATANG PRA, a pole supported horizontally some six or eight feet above the ground, its ends resting on two vertical poles.
This kampong is situated in a very extensive plain on the banks of a large river which empties itself into the straits of Malacca, and is said to be navigable for sloops to within a day's journey of Batang Onan. July 11th. Went to Panka-dulut, the raja of which place claims the property of the cassia-trees, and his people used to cut and cure the bark and transport it to the former place.
Neither these Madangs nor the Kenyahs of the Batang Kayan had entered into friendly relations with the Sarawak government, and they had preserved a hostile attitude towards the Baram tribes.
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