138 COLLECTING EXPEDITION TO BATANG PADANG. 
5 feet high on one side to about one foot on the other. 
Having set the men to work to cut wood to make a /antz floor 
and a wall of sticks and leaves to keep out some of the wind, 
we went on up to the summit, but it was so thick and cloudy 
that nothing could be seen. However, we collected a quanti- 
ty of plants and returned to the cave at a quarter past three 
and shortly afterwards it began to rain, and continued rain- 
ing nearly the whole of the time we were up there. 
I have before mentioned that the fresh tracks of a tiger 
were seen on the first ascent of this hill and on the second 
they were again seen. In fact the tiger had been right through 
the cave in which we camped. The presence of fresh marks 
on two occasions with an interval of a month between them 
seems to show that the higher hills of Perak are regularly 
inhabited by tigers. I have previously often seen tracks on 
the Larut hills, but then they are more than two thousand feet 
lower. ‘The last time I was at the Resident’s Cottage I noticed 
that the same habit which is common amongst domestic cats, 
of eating grass as an emetic, is also in vogue amongst the larger 
felidz ; but as grass was not at hand, rattan leaves had been 
eaten instead, and apparently with equally satisfactory results 
as regards the patient. 
A fact which does not seem to be in conformity with the 
generally received ideas of the habits of the gibbons, is that on 
both of my ascents of the summit of Gunong Batu Puteh 1 heard 
the cries of szamangs at between 6 and 7,000 feet altitude. 
One would have thought that the climate was too cold and 
bleak for such delicate animals, but it appears that they can 
and do voluntarily stand a considerable degree of cold with- 
out any inconvenience. It is, therefore, probable that want of 
exercise and proper food has been the real difficulty in the way 
of sending them to Europe, and not the climate. 
At the higher camp they were to be heard nearly every day, 
and on one occasion they were making a great noise in the mid- 
dle of the night, which, by the bye, was a moonless one. On the 
other hand the whole time I afterwards stayed at the lower 
camp I never heard them once. 
In the evening the wind rose and howled through the cave, 
making us all shiver again with the cold. 
