CH. v.] Scarcity of Water. loi 



wood ; but so paralysed were they by the wet and cold, 

 that it was with the greatest difficulty that we could 

 persuade them to do this. Poor old " Musa " cut some 

 wood and made a floor to the cave, after which some 

 brushwood and leaves formed a substitute for a mattress. 

 The next difficulty was to obtain water, since the men 

 we had sent to search for it returned empty handed, 

 liaving failed to find any. As a last resort I had to 

 undertake this duty myself, and, descending the hiU-side, 

 I found a tiny pool in a gully, from which I procured a 

 little in our cook-pots. It was not near enough, how- 

 ever ; and in wandering in search of more, I came upon 

 a patch of the large nepenthes, from the old pitchers of 

 which I was able to augment my supply by carefully 

 pouring off the rain water from a rather liberal under 

 stratum of flies, ants, and other insect debris. Our 

 guides slept under a rock a little further on and higher 

 up the mountain side, and they found a stream from 

 which good water was procm-ed by our men in the morn- 

 ing and during our stay here. 



It commenced to rain heavily at nightfall, and we 

 found it very cold, although we kept a good fire burning 

 nearly all night, one of the results being that we were 

 nearly blinded by the smoke, there being a draught 

 towards an opening at the hinder part of the cave. The 

 wet dripped from the roof all night, and the walls were 

 also wet and slimy ; indeed our quarters were neither 

 extensive nor luxurious ; still we made the best of them, 

 and, after aU, were rather sorry to leave them at last. We 

 arose at daybreak to collect plants and roots, in the 

 which we were tolerably successful ; and before night we 

 had secured all our collections in baskets and bundles 

 ready for the men to carry down. It was very cool and 

 misty in the morniug, but about noon it became clearer. 



