26 MISS L. S. GIBBS ON THE FLORA AND PLANT FORMATIONS 
houses clinging to the roof-like hillside, all vividly recalled Low’s, St. John’s, 
Burbidge’s, and Whitehead’s graphic descriptions. 
At the middle village, Mr. Bunbury, the officer in charge of the district 
and stationed at Tuaran, came out to meet me. He had arrived two days 
before with his assistant, Mr. D. R. Maxwell, from Kotabelud. The weather 
had been abnormally bad all over the country, and they had had some 
difficulty in crossing the Tampussuk when coming up from the coast. 
Mr. Bunbury left the next morning, Mr. Maxwell remaining behind to 
organise the expedition up the mountain should the weather improve. But 
ging, the first stage being through the bed of the 
D D?) 
Kadamaian river, the local name for the head-waters of the Tampussuk, 
prospects were not encoura 
a mountain torrent, impassable in flood. 
All the second supply of stores had been brought up to Kiau from the 
coast, ineluding ** Kajangs" (mats made from the Nipa palm, used for walls. 
and roofing) and some constabulary blankets, the latter very thoughtfully 
sent up by Major Harrington, the Chief of Police, for the use of the coolies 
in the event of the ascent. Amongst the usual crowd of natives squatting in 
the public apartment of the rest-house, Sumpat, an oldish man of self- 
respecting appearance, was presented as the head-man of the village. He 
immediately handed me a letter written by Haviland, stating that he had 
acted as guide to him in his expedition up the mountain. My mind was 
already full of the previous experience and the results of those whose devoted 
work had rendered this mountain a Mecca to biologists of the present day, 
and that letter seemed almost an augury from one whose unknown fate in 
South Africa was met in the quest of his life's work. Next to Sumpat was 
a nice-looking boy of about 16, Umpoh, the son of Kaboung, the last head- 
man of Kiau, whose name is so often mentioned by Whitehead in his 
admirable work on this mountain, on which he spent three years collecting 
the fauna and especially the avifauna, and whose ascent, after being twice 
baflled in his efforts, he finally achieved under very favourable conditions. 
The Dusuns of Kiau all speak the Dusun language, but one Lamat, the 
potential head-man of the place, who had three ascents to his credit, could 
speak good Malay, having been to Singapore with Walterstadt, one of 
Rothschild’s orchid collectors, who was the last person known to have 
ascended the mountain. Lamat was to be our guide in chief, and proved, 
of course, invaluable to Mr. Maxwell in the endless preliminary discussions 
and arrangements, and I also found him a most active and interested 
coadjutor in collecting plants. 
My first care at Kiau was to establish a Javanese boy in the cook-house 
where a good fire had to be kept going night and day, for the purpose of 
drying the material collected. This boy was very kindly procured for me 
by the authorities a£ Buitenzorg, and had been out with many well-known 
