BOTANIZING EXCURSIONS IN BORNEO 199 



was spent collecting a fine series of specimens for future study, and well 

 content I returned to Bau for tiffin. 



Before returning to Kuching a day was spent exploring Mt. Sar- 

 ambo, a place of special interest to the naturalist, because it was one of 

 the places where Wallace made some of his most important collections 

 in Borneo more than fifty years ago. My companion, Mr. Moulton, 

 showed me the site of Wallace's house, where he had himself camped 

 a couple of years before. 



On Sarambo there are a couple of small communities of Land 

 Dayaks who received us very hospitably, regaling us with green cocoa- 

 nuts whose water was most refreshing after our hot climb. 



My most interesting experience in Borneo was a week spent on Mt, 

 Mattang, about ten miles from Kuching, but more conveniently 

 reached by a rather roundabout route by water. This mountain was tabu 

 for some reason, and consequently was avoided by the Land Dayaks, 

 who, from time to time, have cleared most of the lower hill slopes in 

 the neighborhood. Except for some relatively small clearings, planted 

 to tea and coffee by the Eajah, the mountain is still covered by magnifi- 

 cent virgin forest. The Eajah built a small bungalow about forty years 

 ago in this clearing, an unpretending, but sufficiently comfortable 

 building, which was kindly placed at my disposal during my stay on 

 the mountain. The site was formerly occupied by a temporary struc- 

 ture erected by the well-known Italian botanist, Beccari, who in the 

 sixties spent a long time in Sarawak and made extensive collections on 

 Mattang. These included many new species. Beccari called his dwell- 

 ing Valombroso, and this name was transferred by the Eajah to his 

 bungalow. 



Accompanied by my Chinese boy and half a dozen coolies carrying 

 the necessary impedimenta for a week's camp (including a crate of 

 chickens and one of the huge pineapples for which Sarawak is famous) 

 I was soon comfortably established, and, for the time being, monarch of 

 all I surveyed. 



The surrounding forest is an intensely interesting one. Gigantic 

 trees bound together by great lianas, like huge cables, and with their 

 trunks and branches often quite covered with a profusion of epiphytes, 

 rose from a dense undergrowth of palms, giant ferns, rattans and a 

 host of other strange tropical growths. 



The wet banks were covered with beautiful ferns, liverworts and 

 mosses and, although, as is usually the case in the tropical Jungle, 

 flowers were not conspicuous, there were a number of very beautiful 

 ones. One of the prettiest (Didymocarpus) had small fox-glove-shaped 

 pale purple flowers borne on slender stems rising from a rosette of very 

 dark green, almost black leaves, exquisitely veined with snowy white. 

 These dainty plants grew abundantly on the mossy banks, mingled 



