282 The Gardens of the Sun. [ch. xiv. 



scalding my feet received last night. My feet were very 

 painful at first, but getting warm with walking, they did 

 not inconvenience me so much as I had expected. We 

 had a long walk up the mountain side to-day searching 

 for seeds and plants. The highest height we reached 

 was 10,700 feet, but it must be pointed out that our 

 object was to collect all the plants and seeds we could in 

 the richest vegetable zone on the mountaiu, and not to 

 reach the summit. Had our object been to ascend to the 

 top nothing would have prevented our doing so ; indeed, 

 the real difficulties of climbing "Kina Balu" are very 

 few, and not worth mentioning; indeed, we found our 

 journey to its base from the coast far more exacting to 

 our strength and temper. We were fortunate in our 

 search to-day, having, after a long and disappointing 

 search yesterday, failed to obtain the particular plants 

 and seeds I was anxious to obtain. To-day, however, I 

 was rewarded by finding a few in good condition. We 

 returned to our cave at about four o'clock, and found our 

 Dusun followers, who had been in another direction, had 

 also brought me in a nice lot of seeds, plants, and flowers. 

 They had complained of the cold nights on the mountain, 

 and threatened to leave us this morning (as indeed they 

 did last journey), but I promised them some rice for their 

 evening meal, and eventually they had consented to stay 

 another night. Before dinner we packed up our plants 

 and seeds carefully, and arranged everything ready for 

 our descent in the morning, I wished to start early, so 

 as to have plenty of time for collecting on our way, as at 

 one spot I much wished to make a detour to collect seeds. 

 Our bird visitors came around us to-day again, and fear- 

 lessly came qitite close to pick up the crumbs of rice we 

 threw towards them. We have had rain more or less for 

 two whole days, and it was bitterly cold towards eight 



