A Trip to a Source of the Sarawak River and 
Bengkarum Mountains. 
bY (Ce J BROOKS: 
At the end of September, 1908, I had the opportunity of 
making a jungle excursion and decided to follow the main stream 
of the so-called right hand branch of the Sarawak River to its 
source, cross the watershed to the upper waters of the Sambas 
River, visit Bengkarum Mountain, and return to Sarawak by Jagnay. 
As far as lam able to ascertain much of the country I passed 
through had not been visited by a European, certainly the ascent 
of Bengkarum Mountain had not been made, this together with the 
highly interesting botanical collection obtained makes a_ short 
account of the trip of sufficient interest to place on record. The 
start was made from Bidi on the Twenty-first of September, where 
I engaged eight Dyak coolies to carry necessaries and collecting 
materials, with a Malay to act as Mandor. The path taken was 
that over Gonong Tran through the old village of the Krokong 
Dyaks. Here we stopped for a few minutes to adjust the various 
loads ; this village had two years before been completely abandoned 
as a bad epidemic of smallpox broke out there: the Dyaks are now 
returning and a number of new houses are being built on the old 
site in spite of the insanitary conditions which exist; the hill top 
having become a perfect midden from the accumulation of refuse 
dropped through the floors of the houses. I once tried with a ten 
foot iron probe (used for prospecting) to reach the hard ground but 
this I was unable to do anywhere in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the houses. Descending on the further side of the hill and 
taking the path to the river where the new village has been built, 
then through undulating country covered with new jungle to the 
B’down river which we forded, and then following for some hours 
a belt of old jungle, we finally forded the main stream at Tebang 
or Pangkaln Gumbang, which we reached at two o’clock. Here is 
a flourishing Chinese Kampong with several pepper gardens, the 
situation is extremely picturesque as the houses are interspersed 
with groups of cocoanut palms and the surrounding country is 
mountainous and rugged. To escape a heavy shower which com- 
menced just as we arrived I took shelter in a Chinaman’s house, 
my host, with the usual Chinese hospitality offered me a cup of 
tea; its fine flavour caused me to enquire where he had obtained 
it, | found that it was of his own cultivation: this is not unusual, 
many up country Chinese growing their own tea plants. On 
leaving Tebang our path followed the river in which we had to 
wade for some distance—the stream was shallow and fast running 
with large boulders among the Krangan. Here in the clear space 
Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc., No. 60, 1911. 
