OF MT. KINABALU AND BRITISH NORTH BORNEO. 27 
botanists in Java, and his time at Kiau was wholly spent in solemnly turning 
over papers and specimens before an admiring Dusun audience. A Manila 
boy who had been in the police, and was kindly found for me by the 
Governor, always accompanied me on my trips and helped with the collecting. 
Kiau is a very seattered village, and one marvelled that the Dusun chalets 
clinging to the steep slippery slopes are not washed down by the tremendous 
and continuous rain that generally prevails here. Their preservation is only 
to be attributed to an instinctive care, no doubt the result of the experi- 
ence of generations, which would do credit to a Forest Department. The 
higher slopes and ridges are left in permanent forest ; the lower slopes are 
protected when cleared by leaving intersecting belts of trees and fringing 
woods to the streams. On any steep cultivated slope horizontal logs are laid. 
to prevent the washing away of the surface-soil. 
To teach these intelligent and industrious people to terrace their hills for 
permanent cultivation would be a simple process after a little practical 
demonstration of the value of such a system. European vegetables could 
then be supplied to all the coast stations once they had ocular proof of the 
ralue of such crops. But as the Dutch found in Java, it is useless simply to 
distribute seed and instruction. Practical experiment can alone show the 
use of methods and crops different from those to which they are accustomed. 
Every day during my stay at Kiau a continual supply of kladi, sweet 
potatoes, gourds, corn cobs, green oranges, and bananas, the latter surprising 
in their variety, some being barely 1 cm, long, was brought in by the attrac- 
tive little Dusun women, who were also responsible for all the wood supplies. 
T was constantly asked to exchange piles of copper cents, the bulky currency 
up-country, for one dollar notes ; this certainly showed a latent commercial 
spirit which it would take very little encouragement to develop. 
The natural riches of a country are supposed to exist in a prosperous and 
well-to-do population. It is to the scientific study and exploitation of this 
fact that the extraordinary development of Java under the Dutch adminis- 
tration is due, and there is nothing in the fertile soil, the temperate climate 
and the industrious population of the highlands of British North Borneo 
to prevent the achievement of a similar result. 
At Kiau, in the immediate vicinity of the houses, a good turf sward is 
kept cropped by buffaloes. The padi fields, runningiup the hill to the village, 
were bare and covered with a crop of Salomon/a cantoniensis and Cyperus 
Haspan. These fields continued to the east and west, alternating with the 
ample fringing woods of the many streams which scored the slopes to flow 
into the Kadamaian. Much weedy jungle separated the different groups of 
houses. This I did not work through, as it seemed very similar in character 
to that already described for Tenom. 
Following the bridle-path towards Koung, to the west, after passing present 
