CHAPTER IX 

 AN EXPEDITION TO PENRISEN 



As curator of the Sarawak Museum it was my wel- 

 come duty at times to leave the civilization of the 

 capital (Kuching) and visit other parts of the State for 

 the purpose of acquiring new specimens for the 

 Museum collections. I cannot truthfully say that I 

 ever met with any stirring adventures during these 

 collecting expeditions, and the following chapters de- 

 scribing them are written merely in the hope that they 

 may convey some idea to stay-at-home nature-lovers of 

 the delights and difficulties that await a naturalist in 

 the tropics. 



Since the Museum collections were very poor in 

 specimens of the mountain fauna of Borneo I decided 

 to spend a month in visiting and collecting on Pen- 

 risen, a mountain some 4,000 feet in height standing 

 at the head-waters of the Sarawak River, just on the 

 boundary between Sarawak and Dutch Borneo. My 

 friend Mr. E. A. W. Cox, then district magistrate of 

 Upper Sarawak, decided to accompany me, and since 

 he was both keenly interested in natural history and a 

 good shikari his partnership in the enterprise was 

 most welcome. 



247 



