104 The Gardens of the Sun. [en. v. 



Our food supply, too, that is, the rice ran short, and 

 so the men were reduced to live on kaladi and sweet 

 potatoes roasted in the embers and eaten with a little 

 salt. Our Dusan guides also complained of the cold, 

 and tried to hurry us in our descent ; indeed at last they 

 would wait no longer, and they slipped away, leaving us 

 to reach their village alone as best we could. We were 

 fully determined not to be defeated in our object, how- 

 ever, and keeping ahead of our own men we descended 

 leisurely so as to gather plants by the way, until all had 

 as much as they could possibly cany down. I carried 

 my servant's load in order that he might cany a lot of 

 rare specimens which I had secured for him in a hand- 

 kerchief. The descent after the rain of the night before 

 was difficult and dangerous, and we had a good many 

 falls. Once I fell down a steep place a depth of about 

 twenty feet, among shrubs and creepers, which saved me 

 from serious injury. Mr. Veitch and myself, my " boy," 

 and a solitary Labuan man, went on a-head of our main 

 party, and just at nightfall discovered that we had lost 

 our way. The right path lay across a clearing down 

 which we turned instead of pushing across and striking 

 the path beyond. 



We floundered along in the gloaming down several 

 dangerous steeps and across a rocky stream, in crossing 

 which I stepped incautiously on a slippery water-worn 

 boulder, and became thoroughly submerged in the water, 

 which being from the heights above is icy cold, at least 

 it seems so after one has been used to the heat of the 

 tropics. This increased my discomfort, and poor Mr. 

 Veitch was but little better. Here we were at dark lost 

 and benighted beside the rocky declivities of this moun- 

 tain stream ; but there was no help for it ; and after 

 vainly trying to strike a path, we gave up at the base of 



