KELANTAN AND GUNONG TAHAST. 7 



me, and with these I ascended to the top of the mountain that 

 we had seen from the river. The ascent was however so diffi- 

 cult, that it was impossible to carry anything- with us, and we 

 had therefore to return to our old camp every night. Especial- 

 ly the last 500' proved to be very difficult to negotiate, as there 

 was a sheer wall of rock about 300' in height, down which the 

 Tahan river come thundering, forming the splendid waterfall 

 that we had seen from the bottom, and which I christened the 

 Lama Falls. After several failures we at last found a way to 

 the top of the falls and were then confronted by two peaks, 

 nearly inaccessible, and the river seemed to wind its way in be- 

 tween them. We tried to follow up the river, but soon had to 

 stop, on account of huge boulders and deep pools, with sheer 

 walls on each side, making it impossible for us to get through : so 

 we had to give it up, and attempted instead to scale the least 

 forbidding looking" of the two peaks. 



In this we succeeded at last, only to find however the top 

 involved in thick mist, so that it was impossible to see anything 

 and to ascertain whether we were really on a spur of the Tahan 

 range or not. As it was impossible to stay up there for the 

 night without any food or shelter, we had to return to our camp, 

 my intention being to get up there again early the next day and 

 have a good look at the surrounding country before the clouds 

 commenced to gather round the mountain tops, as they always 

 do in the afternoon. In the night however I got an attack of 

 fever and w T as unable to walk for some days, so I sent my men 

 up to try and find out the whereabouts of Gunong Tahan, and 

 they returned with the information that the mountain that we 

 were on was in no way connected with the Tahan, which they 

 said they had seen a long way to the westward, but according* 

 to them it would be impossible to get up that mountain from 

 that side, as we were separated from it by a deep chasm, which 

 ran along for many miles, with sheer walls of rock on the other 

 side, up which they declared it impossible for anybody to get. 

 The Sakais stated that they had seen another river coming near- 

 ly from the top of the mountain, and this they took to be a 

 branch of the Galas river, another tributary of the Kelantan 

 river ; and they strongly advised me to go back, and try to get 

 up the mountain by that route. As they absolutely refused to 



