[A frontage.] The stream became so rapid and so shallow that the party disembarked and dragged the boat over the stony bed.  In this manner we passed through a sharp curve, twelve feet in height, formed by two rocks thrown opposite to each other, into a tranquil oval-shaped basin of water enclosed in a circle of limestone walls, inclining inwards, of from sixty to seventy feet in height; on the upper edge of which a circle of trees permitted only a misty sunlight to glimmer through the thick foliage.  A magnificent gateway of rock, fifty to sixty feet high, and adorned with numerous stalactites, raised itself up opposite the low entrance; and through it we could see, at some distance, the upper portion of the river bathed in the sun. [A beautiful grotto.] A cavern of a hundred feet in length, and easily climbed, opened itself in the left side of the oval court, some sixty feet above the surface of the water; and it ended in a small gateway, through which you stepped on to a projection like a balcony, studded with stalactites.  From this point both the landscape and the rocky cauldron are visible, and the latter is seen to be the remainder of a stalactitic cavern, the roof of which has fallen in.  The beauty and peculiar character of the place have been felt even by the natives, who have called it Sogoton (properly, a bay in the sea).  In the very hard limestone, which is like marble, I observed traces of bivalves and multitudes of spines of the sea-urchin, but no well-defined remains could be knocked off.  The river could still be followed a short distance further upwards; and in its bed there were disjointed fragments of talcose and chloritic rocks.

[Fishing.] A few small fishes were obtained with much difficulty; and amongst them was a new and interesting species, viviparous. [183] An allied species (H. fluviatilis, Bleeker) which I had two years previously found in a limestone cavern on Nusa Kambangan, in Java, likewise contained living young ones.  The net employed in fishing appears to be suited to the locality, which is a shallow river, full of transparent blocks.  It is a fine-meshed, longish, four-cornered net, having its ample sides fastened to two poles of bamboo, which at the bottom were provided with a kind of wooden shoes, which curve upwards towards the stems when pushed forwards.  The fisherman, taking hold of the upper ends of the poles, pushes the net, which is held obliquely before him, and the wooden shoes cause it to slide over the stones, while another person drives the fish towards him.

[Fossil beds.] On the right bank, below the cavern, and twenty feet above the surface of the water, there are beds of fossils, pectunculus, tapes, and placuna, some of which, from the fact of their barely adhering by the tip, must be of very recent date.  I passed the night in a small hut, which was quickly erected for me, and on the following day attempted to pass up the river as far as the limits of the crystalline rock, but in vain.  In the afternoon we set out on our return to Basey, which we reached at night.