KELANTAN AND GUNONG TAHAN. 11 



between two of the native chiefs, and had at last to be contented 

 with eight Pahang Malays; so we were only able to carry provi- 

 sions with us for ten days. The first part of the road lay through 

 fairly fiat country and we had no difficulty in cutting" a path 

 through, — going northeast by the compass, for none of the Malays 

 had been in that part of the country before. At night we 

 camped on the banks of a fairly large river, which proved to be 

 the Kateh, a tributary of the Galas ; and next day we followed 

 this up till we got into the hills, passing- an old deserted mining 

 camp on the way. We only had one glimpse of the mountain 

 on our journey, though we climbed several hills to obtain a 

 good view, but always found other hills in front of us obstruct- 

 ing the view towards the mountain. That night we also camped 

 on the banks of the river, which here reaches an altitude of 

 800' above sea level, the men making a rude shelter of palm 

 leaves, under which we slept undisturbed, though we that day 

 had come across several tracks of tigers. Next day we started 

 up a ridge which we thought sprung from the mountain, but 

 when we at last reached the top of it 2500' up, it proved to be 

 separated from the mountain by another branch of the Kateh 

 river, and so we had to climb down again on the other side. 

 The descent proved to be very difficult, especially the last 

 300' to 400', and I have no idea how the coolies came down, as each 

 man chose his own way over the face of the cliffs, where over- 

 hanging boughs and roots afforded the only support for lower- 

 ing oneself. All got down without any mishap, and we 

 all collected together in the river bed, which was only 

 about 20' wide, and commenced to look for a way out of the 

 canon or gully that we had got into, and this we found to be no 

 easy task. It was impossible to get up on the other side of the 

 stream, the walls of rock there being even more forbidding 

 looking than those we had descended ; and to get up by follow- 

 ing the stream was equally impossible as there was a waterfall 

 about 100' in height in front of us, from which the w r ater came 

 rushing down with a deafening noise. There was therefore no 

 alternative left us but to go down stream ; and this we did for a 

 short distance, scrambling over huge boulders, wading through 

 deep pools of water, and clinging to narrow ledges of rock 

 where the pools were too deep to wade through ; but at last we 



