chap, viii] SANTUBONG PEAK 



conical hill of Santubong (2,974 ft.), which I climbed on the 20th 

 of that month. 



Without a guide it would have been no easy matter to find a 

 passage up the precipitous rocky cliff which bars the way at the 

 very outset ; but I happily found one in one of the huts at the base 

 of the precipice, and we managed to get up somehow, holding on 

 to the roots of the trees, though I found it pretty hard climbing. 

 When we had got over this difficulty we came to a sort of terrace 

 leading up the least precipitous side of the peak — that facing the 

 sea. By this we were able without much difficulty to reach the 

 summit, which I found to consist of a small area of level ground. 



To set foot on the top of a mountain is always a pleasant sen- 

 sation, which various causes doubtless combine to evoke. To the 

 mere climber — whose sole aim is to reach the summit apart from 

 the desire of rest — the attaining of the wished-f or goal is per- 

 haps in itself the chief source of joy : the sensation of exultation 

 at having reached the upper dominating regions of the 

 atmosphere, and vanquished Nature which has tied man 

 down to the earth. Or it may be that our gratification is 

 merely the outcome of those ambitious feelings which spur on so 

 many to endeavour to rise above their fellows. But to the naturalist 

 the attainment of the summit of an unexplored mountain is a 

 genuine source of delight, from the hope he ever has of finding 

 species yet unknown which may afford him new data for discoveries 

 in the field of geographical biology. Nearly always, on the summits 

 of mountains or isolated peaks in Borneo, as in other parts of 

 Malaysia and New Guinea, are to be found species belonging to 

 genera of plants existent in very distant regions, as if such spots 

 were the last refuge of the remains of an extinct flora. Such 

 mountain tops, arguing from these facts, are, perhaps, the last 

 fragments of an older world of former continents now broken up 

 and in great part destroyed. 



On the top of Santubong, as I had observed on the summit of 

 Mattang, shrubs with small coriaceous leaves abounded. They 

 were without flowers, but I could see that several belonged to 

 Myrtaceae of an Australian type, usually found on the mountains 

 of Malaysia, but at much greater elevations than that of Santubong. 

 This leads me to suppose that neither the elevation nor the low 

 temperature explains their presence in such localities, but other 

 circumstances as yet little known, and perhaps, in the first place, 

 their being able to hold their ground against the invading species 

 of the lower regions. On the higher elevations of the mountains 

 in Malaysia light seeds of many plants are doubtless carried by 

 the wind, such as Nepenthes, Rhododendron, orchids, etc., which, had 

 they fallen in the forests of the plain, would have perished ; whilst 

 in more open and better-lighted localities they find bare spots where 



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