260 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



rounded on all sides by handiwork that is not man's, 

 by swarming millions of creatures that live out their little 

 lives without the faintest reference to you. If a man 

 die in a city, he knows at least that he leaves behind 

 him a blank perhaps a small one, a memory maybe 

 but short-lived ; at any rate, if it be only in the smallest 

 way, his death does affect his fellow-man, for none of 

 us lives to himself alone. But if he die here in the 

 great forest, what is his death ? It is but one out of 

 thousands that occur perpetually uncared for, indif- 

 ferent, without effect. 



With the dawn we were astir again, and, breakfast 

 over, we continued our climb ; by noon we had 

 reached what had once been a clearing, for it was 

 now covered by saplings and undergrowth. Our guides 

 told us that here was the place where a previous visitor 

 to the mountain, my predecessor the late Dr. G. D. 

 Haviland, had camped. It did not look a very 

 promising spot, for the slope of the ground was steep 

 and there was but one small and trickling brook to 

 furnish our water-supply, but we were told that higher 

 up there was still less water, so we had to acquiesce 

 in our guide's choice. The men with us began to cut 

 down the saplings and clear the brush-wood, and in 

 doing so disturbed quantities of insects. Life in the 

 jungle is thickest in the trees, and there is compara- 

 tively little on the floor itself ; the felling of a tree 

 always reveals a little world of living creatures. The 

 bearers with the collecting gear, killing-bottles, spirit- 

 jars, and so on, had not yet made their appearance, so 

 I was hard put to it to keep hold of the specimens that 

 I caught and that were brought to me ; my hat and 

 pockets soon were full, and I was driven to tying 



