396 REPORT— 1900. 



On the 26th I rejoined the rest of the party at Biserat, and then 

 visited the magnificent limestone caves, a very complete collection of 

 whose fauna was made by Mr. Annandale. These caves included the fine 

 Gua Gambar, or Statue Cave, which contains a recumbent figure of Buddha, 

 nearly 100 feet long, as well as a number of other statues in a sitting 

 posture. Extensive zoological and botanical collections were also made at 

 Biserat by Messrs. Evans and Vaughan. An exhibition of devil dancing 

 was here witnessed. 



Smallpox having now set in badly and two deaths occurring in the 

 village, collecting became more difiicult, and presently the Raja and his 

 household retired to the hills, and many houses were closed by means of a 

 rattan, carried round outside the fence of the compound, whilst slipknots 

 of jungle-grass (lalang) were hung across the gate, and a couple of stems 

 of a bitter-tasting tree, called the Bedara Pahit, buried crosswise on the 

 threshold. 



One of the annual ceremonies for the purification of a village was 

 here witnessed, and many ethnological specimens and much information 

 obtained. On June 6 Mr. Evans fell ill, and as he took long to recover, 

 Messrs. Annandale and Vaughan proceeded to Kota Bharu, in Raman, 

 whilst Mr. Evans and I went down to the coast. 



After spending a few days at Patani, we went to Jambu in Jering. 

 Here, too, I witnessed the annual ceremony for the purification of the 

 village, at which the launching of a spirit-boat, about a yard and a half 

 long, formed the chief feature. Before leaving Jambu I paid a flying 

 visit to Teluban. On returning to Patani we were rejoined by Messrs. 

 Vaughan and Annandale, and proceeded by the overland route through 

 Raman Ligeh and Ulu Kelantan, and up the Lebih, a tributary of which 

 stream, the Aring, takes its rise in the neighbourhood of the Tahan 

 Mountain, which it was one of the objects of the expedition, if practi- 

 cable, to ascend. The expedition therefore started from Biserat on July 6, 

 and proceeded to Kota Bharu, the chief town of Raman. 



Halts of some days' duration for transport purposes were made at Kota 

 Bharu, Tremangan, Belirabing, and Aur Gading (a village below the 

 rapids on the Lebih river), but on August 10 the expedition reached the 

 village of Kuala Aring, having covered in thirty-five days (only about half 

 of which were spent in travelling) a distance of about 200 miles. The 

 first eighty or ninety miles were performed on elephant back, the remainder 

 by means of boats or bamboo rafts. Mr. Vaughan, who had only joined 

 the expedition for the first six months, left us at Belimbing. 



At Kuala Aring I found the local authorities so opposed to giving 

 information about the route to the mountain that it appeared to me safer 

 to try to find the way for myself than to put the expedition at the 

 mercy of local guides. I therefore left Messrs. Evans and Annandale at 

 the village, and set out to scout with two of the Malays belonging to the 

 expeditionary staff" I decided to attempt the mountain from the Pahang 

 side, and ascending the Lebih to its headwater crossed the watershed by 

 way of Bukit Batu Atap, and descending the tributaries of the Tembeling 

 eventually reached a village called Kampong Pagi, where I spent four or 

 five days in fruitless attempts to obtain guides from the wild tribes in the 

 neighbourhood. They were afraid to go, but I obtained the services of 

 six of the local Malays as carriers (two of whom absconded at the end of 

 the first day's march), and proceeded up the banks of the Tahan river 

 until the foot of the mountain was reached. My original plan was to 



