20 KELANTAN AND GUNONG TAHAN. 



to the top when the weather was fine, in the hope of finding 

 traces of the men that I left on my first trip ; but could find none 

 where we were, which, considering- the immense size of the moun- 

 tain, was not at all strange, as half a dozen different parties 

 might have been on the mountain, without seeing each other. 

 Far away we could see a large black patch that looked 

 as if the low jungle had been burned away ; but it was too 

 far for us to attempt to reach it, as we should not have 

 been able to do much collecting on the way, and I wanted to 

 get together as large a collection as possible before our provi- 

 sions gave out. Later on, I found out that it really was a piece 

 of jungle that my men had burned down to attract our attention, 

 but they had already left the mountain two months before we 

 reached it. The mountain seemed really to consist of three se- 

 parate ranges running parallel from about east to west, connected 

 with each other at their highest points by a number of peaks, the 

 one in the middle being the highest. In the ravines between the 

 different ranges the following rivers had their sources, as far as 

 I was able to judge with the help of my Pahang Malays : — to- 

 wards the Kelantan side the river Relai and two branches of 

 the Aring : towards the Pahang side the rivers Keehau, Tahan, 

 and perhaps also another branch of the Tembeling, — as I am not 

 sure that the river which we struck on my first trip was not a 

 branch of that river, and not the Tahan as the Sakais stated. 

 I found that all the branches of these rivers which sprung 

 from anywhere near the top of the mountain, had very 

 discoloured water, something like the water found in stagnant 

 swamps ; whereas the streams that came from an altitude of less 

 than 4000' had beautifully clear water ; but what might be the 

 reason of this I did not find out. Nearly the whole of the 

 mountain consists of white quartz. From my own experience on 

 the Tahan or Tembeling river, and from what I saw from the 

 top, I should say that it will be very difficult to get up from 

 the Pahang side, as the mountain on that side is very precipitous 

 (probably deriving its name of Tahan on that account) and 

 provisions have to be carried a much greater distance than from 

 the Kelantan side. 1 only saw one village on the Pahang side, 

 lying beside a huge limestone cliff that somewhat resembled the 

 shape of an elephant; but none of my men could give me any 



