Journal of the Federated Malay States museums - Sabrizain.org

228 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. |Vol. Vll,
by the continual dropping of water from the point of a
large stalactite. I therefore decided that these bays would
probably be well worth excavating.
I may remark here that the rock-shelters in the neighbourhood
of Lenggong are frequently visited, and sometimes
occupied for short periods, by the Negrito tribesmen who
frequent the locality. The two mentioned above, and others
which I examined later, showed traces of having been recently
used, among the remains left behind by the Negritos being
bamboo sleeping-platforms, sections of blow -pipes, burnt-out
fires, and the bones of soft turtles, bats and flying-foxes, which
had been roasted and consumed on the spot. The walls of
the Gua Kajang and the two bays were covered with the
names of Malay visitors written in Arabic cr Roman character,
while Chinese too had inscribed their signatures in their
native ideographs. On the walls of the left-hand bay, however,
I found some patterns, drawn with charcoal, which were
obviously the work of Negritos, since they were exactly similar
to those which they engrave on their dart-quivers. Some
other very rude drawings should also, probably, be attributed
to these people. One of them, seemingly of an elephant
drawing a four-wheeled waggon, had points of interest; for the
artist, wishing to depict a vehicle of this kind, but either being
unable to visualise it as it would appear when viewed from the
side, or not being skilful enough to depict the parts of the
off-side wheels which would be seen, had sketched the two
near wheels and then added another couple, which were not
attached to the waggon at all, one being placed in front of
it, and the other behind.
I came into contact with the Negritos on two occasions.
and once employed two men of the tribe to assist me in digging.
I was thus able to get them to talk to me about their habit of
using the caves, and to hear what they had to say with regard
to the specimens found. On their visiting me at Lenggong
Rest-House I also showed them three polished stone implements
which I had purchased from Malays, who had found
them in the surface-soil of land planted with rice or rubber.
The Negritos called these b.du kareh, " thunder stones," which
is practically equivalent to the Malay name for them {haliliniar
or batu lintar). I do not think that they have any traditions
of their ancestors using anything of the kind.
Having determined to excavate the left-hand bay, I started
work withafew coolies. I first of all had small trial pits sunk
here and there in the cave floor with the object of gaining some
idea of the nature of the deposits and of their thickness. I n every
pit fragments of bones and spiral fresh-water shells were found
in quantities. At the further end of the cave the deposit proved
to be only a few inches in depth, but towards the mouth it was
over four fret thick. About the middle, at a depth of two feet,
a hard stratum of shells and broken bits of bone cemented together
with lime was encountered, with about another foot of