The Tawaran, on the contrary, is a fresh-water river even to its mouth, the flood-tides making but a slight impression on it. Large native prahus can safely ascend it for six miles; after that it depends on the state of the weather, rising and falling very rapidly as it is influenced by the rains. The banks of the river as far as Bawang village are flat; there the hills commence; and three miles beyond the Tawaran divides into two branches; one coming from the south, the other from the E.S.E. They immediately degenerate into mountain torrents, and are not to be used by boats, but at some risk produce is occasionally brought down on rafts. Every range of hills affords the parent stream a rivulet, but the Tawaran does not penetrate far into the country; its sources are in the main spur of Kina Balu; the east branch rising between the second and third sub-spur, on the west side of the main spur; the southern branch appears very small. On both occasions I passed the Tawaran, it was of a dirty yellow colour, being filled with the detritus of the neighbouring hills. Land slips are very common, which afford a considerable amount of matter for the torrents to carry seawards. The Tawaran is subject to very sudden inundations, the waters occasionally reaching the houses at the village of Buñgol, though fifty feet above the stream. There is no foundation for Dalrymple’s story, which has been often repeated, of the Tawaran rising in the lake; it evidently springs from the main spur of Kina Balu. The Abai is a salt-water creek, but preserving more the appearance of a river; much of both banks are mangrove until we approach the houses. Its depth varies: on the bar it is but one fathom, while inside it deepens to four, and it has a channel to the villages of about two fathoms. It is a favourite anchorage for native prahus, being admirably adapted for them. Two small rivulets join the Abai; the Gading, and the Paka Paka, both inhabited by the Ida’an. The Tampasuk is essentially a fresh-water river, very similar to the Tawaran, of no importance to European ships, except that in wet seasons its waters run unmixed half a mile out to sea. It differs from the Tawaran, in having occasionally immense granite boulders in the stream; while the latter drains only a sandstone country; but, like the Tawaran, it divides into two branches; the eastern one flows from the northern portion of Kina Balu. We could observe its direction for above ten miles, as it ran through the low land, and its course was E.S.E. from the junction. The Pengantaran, that drains a portion of the north-west of Kina Balu, bringing down immense quantities of blocks of serpentine, is the only other stream worth noticing. The natives seldom make use of the Tampasuk beyond the spot where the river divides, though above it rafts are occasionally used; but it evidently is not a general practice, as the river is filled with fish traps, which require the stream to be dammed across with loose stone walls.