KELANTAN AND GUNONG TAHAN. 2! 



information as to the name of the river by which it was situated. 

 If anybody wants to try and get up from the Pahang side I 

 would recommend him to start from that village. There was a 

 very grand view from the top, especially very early in the 

 morning-, when the mist covered all the low-lying land, making it 

 resemble a lake of snow ; and so low did the mist keep to the 

 ground that the top of some of the tall jungle trees could be 

 seen, looking like masts of sunken ships, and the smaller mountains 

 stood out dark and sombre like islands in this beautiful lake. 

 Later on in the day the mist would gradually rise and come 

 rolling up the mountain side, with the dark clouds gathering 

 fast near the top, and in the afternoon and evening the rain 

 would come down in torrents. The trees and rocks were all 

 covered with masses of long moss in which the rain kept hang- 

 ing, so that it was impossible to move about without getting 

 wet ; and we had to go about day after day in wet clothes, 

 with wind and rain blowing in on us at night. Besides which my 

 Malays suffered much from the cold at night, when the tem- 

 perature often went down to 50°. 



Altogether I stayed eighteen days near the top of the moun- 

 tain, and I got a very good collection of birds and some orchids ; 

 but I was only able to take a small quantity of the latter, as 

 transporting a large number of them to the coast would have 

 been impossible with the few men that I had. Of mammals we 

 only got very few, and the same was the case with insects, of 

 which I had hoped to get a lot ; but with the wet and miserable 

 weather that we had, all the insects that we saw flew very high, 

 and even if they had come down, it would have been nearly 

 impossible to chase and catch them in the thick low brushwood 

 that covered the whole of the upper part of the mountain. 



For the last few days that we stayed up there we only got 

 half rations, as I was very loath to go down, hoping that the three 

 men would return from the village in time with the provisions ; 

 when it was my intention to remain up there for another fourteen 

 days. But when the last grain of rice and all the tinned provisions 

 were finished, we had to start on the way down, taking with us 

 all my collections except the orchids, which I was forced to 

 leave behind as we could not carry them with us. I expected 

 to find the men with the provisions at the foot of the mountain, 



