Through an unknown Corner of Pahang with 
H. Clifford in 1897. 
By F. W. Dovewas. 
A portion of the map on the border between the States of 
Pahang and Trengganu is still blank. It les in a rough triangle, 
of which Gunong Irong, the source of the Tekal and Tembeling 
rivers (both northern branches of the great Pahang river), is the 
western apex, with Gunong Tapis, the source of the Kuantan 
River, the south-eastern point, and the mountainous range at the 
head of the Kemaman River, which flows in an easterly direction 
through the southern end of Trengganu, as the north-eastern 
point. 
This area is still a tera incognita. It has occurred to me 
therefore that the following notes from an old diary may possibly 
be of interest and perhaps serve to stimulate some member of this 
Society to explore this region thoroughly. The triangle is marked 
on the accompanying map. 
In 1897, Hugh Chfford (now Governor of Nigeria), who was 
then Resident of Pahang wanted to make a bridle-path connecting 
Kuantan, which hes on the east coast at the mouth of the Kuantan 
River, with Kuala Lipis, which les some 200 miles inland up the 
Pahang River and which had then been selected as the temporary 
Capital for the State of Pahang. He and I accordingly set out 
from Kuantan on the 12th April, proceeding up the Kuantan 
River to its source, across the fterva incognita and down the Tekal 
River and thence on down the great Pahang River to Pekan at the 
mouth. 
We reached there on the 23rd April. Our journey therefore 
took 12 days, during which we travelled some 300 miles almost 
entirely by river. The followi ing notes are taken from a diary kept 
during the trip. 
ist Aprit. Clifford wrote asking me to get guides for the 
journey, as no one had ever done the trip from the Ulu Pahang 
side. The only men I could find were not exactly ideal for the 
purpose. One was an opium-smoking waster, Bakar Tekal by 
name, who had been in the Ulu Tekal with gétah-hunting Dayaks, 
but who had not been down the river; the other was one Komeng 
liar, half Sakai, who had been the guide for a party of raiders in 
1896 from Kemaman (Trengganu) into Pahang and had helped 
some of Bahman, the Orang Kaya Semantan’s people, to escape. 
He was selected for our party simply as a useful man in the jungle. 
Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc., No. 85, 1922. 
