KELANTAN AND GUNONG TAHAN. 23 



no good, saying there was absolutely no strength in them, and 

 on the following days I could not get them to collect any. 

 The next day we kept on following the river, hoping to find 

 some bamboos, of which we then intended to make a raft and 

 drift down stream until we reached the Sakai settlement which 

 I knew existed there ; but to our great disappointment there 

 were none to be found in that part of the country, so we kept 

 trudging along, now on this, and now on that side of the river, 

 the Malays complaining very much, and getting more disheart- 

 ened the farther we went. I tried my best to cheer them up 

 and get them to hurry on, but finding this useless, I left them 

 and went on by myself till some time in the afternoon ; when 

 having found a suitable place for camping I sat down and 

 waited for them. When they at last arrived I had great diffi- 

 culty in getting them to collect leaves for a shelter, as none of 

 the large kind of palm leaves were to be found in the vicinity, 

 and the men preferred to sleep in the open, rather than to take 

 the trouble of making a shelter of the smaller leaves found there. 

 However I insisted on having one built, and lucky it was that 

 I did so, as the rain came pouring down as soon as it was 

 finished, and this lasted half the night, so we should have been 

 in a sorry plight had we had no roof over us. While the men 

 made the shelter I fired another charge of dynamite in a pool, 

 and this time I was more successful, getting a number of good- 

 sized fishes. So we had enough for a fairly good meal that night 

 and for another the next morning before we started, that being the 

 last food we tasted before we reached the village four days later. 

 The river was now in flood to such an extent that it was dangerous 

 to cross over, and as we could not keep continually on one side 

 of it owing to the many hills, we decided to leave it altogether 

 and strike across country until we reached the Aring, where 

 we could make a raft and drift down to the village. Soon 

 after we had left the river bank, we got to some hills, and 

 seeing no chance of getting round by the foot of them, I started 

 climbing up, the Malays of course protesting; but as I did not 

 take any notice of that, they had to follow me, grumbling very 

 much as they went, and sitting down very often to rest. My 

 Chinese boy proved to be the best man of the lot and kept fairly 

 close behind me, whereas the Malays were soon left far behind. 



