The Batang Lupar district is rich in legends, and I will tell yet another as related to me by a fortman’s wife in Simanggang. Every one living in Simanggang knows the great mass of sandstone and forest, called Lingga Mountain, and all those who have travelled at all (so said the fortman’s wife) have seen this Lingga Mountain and know how high and difficult it is to climb, and how a great stretch of country can be seen from its flat and narrow top with the wide expanse of sea stretching from the shores of the Batang Lupar across the great bay of Sarawak to the mountains beyond the town of Kuching. A young Dyak, named Laja, once resided in a village at the foot of this mountain. A beautiful lady, the Spirit of the mountain, one night appeared to him in his dreams, and told him he must rise early the next morning, before the trees on the banks of the river had emerged from the mists of night, and climb Lingga Mountain, where he would find the safflower (that blossom which has since become so great a blessing to the Dyak race) at the top. The vision went on to explain that this plant would benefit Laja’s tribe, for it could cure most illnesses, more especially sprains and internal inflammation. Laja obeyed the orders of this beautiful lady and started off the next morning before dawn had broken over the land. He had climbed half-way up the mountain when he saw, just above the fog, the fragment of a rainbow, like a gigantic orchid painted in the sky, its rose colour gleaming through the mist and melting away in the most wonderful moss-green hue. Seeing the coloured fragment, Laja knew at once that the Spirit of the mountain, a king’s daughter, was about to descend by the rainbow to bathe in the mountain stream. When the colours had faded from the sky, Laja went his way, until he reached the top, where he had some difficulty in finding the safflower on account of its diminutive size. After searching for some time, he found the root and carried it back to his village. He then pounded it up and gave it to people who were sick. But the plant was capricious, for, whilst it cured some, others derived no benefit from it and died. Its successes, however, proved more numerous than its failures, and every member of the tribe became anxious to procure a root for himself, although no one ventured to undertake the journey at the time as the farming season was in full swing, necessitating the villagers working hard at their paddy; moreover, the place where the plant grew was a long way off and the climb up the mountain was a somewhat perilous one.