AN EXPEDITION TO MOUNT BATU LAWI. 37 
he had been in Singapore and the Native States, besides having 
travelled in Sarawak a good deal. We had talked over several 
expeditions to be made together in the future, but alas, now to no 
purpose. 
Rain all this afternoon and temperature down to 62° at 2 p.m. 
A few mosquitoes in the evening—rather surprising at this altitude. 
May 26th: None of the party know the way any further and 
there appears to be no path except the one we have come by and that 
continues south to the Bar plain as far as I can make out; it 1s so, 
overgrown and hard to find that Penribut missed it several times 
on the way here. A small party go out to look for some sort of 
track, others go off collecting, while a few remain to cut down 
some trees so that we can dry our things in the sun. Since leaving 
the Madihit we have hardly been in the glare of the sun a moment 
owing to the dense jungle over our heads practically the whole 
time. Clothes have been dried (or rather smoked) over fires 
whenever opportunity offered. 
In this wet and cold spot, with the thermometer at midday 
under 70° (it varies from 62°-67°) there seemed to be a great 
absence of animal, bird and insect life, and the “din” of a 
tropical night was noticeably absent. One occasionally heard the 
warning crack of some giant of the jungle about to fall.* The 
natives always took great care to build our lanchos out of reach of 
any rotten trees. Hight Kalabits arrive with the remainder of 
our baggage which was left at Penribut’s house for them to bring. 
They should have joined us there, but said the Madihit was in 
flood so that they could’nt get across. The head of them, a sour- 
looking individual, Lawaratu by name, is supposed to know the 
path all the way to Batu Lawi, but now informed us that he does 
not. The path-seekers returned with the report of a hopeiess track 
down the river Kri which rises just below us; they suggest 
looking for another’ path to-morrow. Belulok estimates it as 
two or three days yet before we get there; it looks to me but 
one day’s walk. St. John must have reached the northern end 
of this range before turning north to the Adang villages which 
are said to be about three days journey from here. Mt. 
Derian rises to the westward higher than I thought, about 
5,200 ft. and to the south and parallel to it there runs another 
short range with one high peak about 5,600 ft. The Madihit is 
said to rise between these two. 
*As an instance of the danger cf falling trees I may mention a narrow es- 
cape I had on another occasion (on trip to Mt. Klingkang). After walking for 
some hours our party came to a tempting stream and many of us bathed in the 
coolclear water. I had only fini hed and climbed out of the pool a bare two min- 
utes, before a huge tree fell right across the place. There was no wind at the 
time, and but for a warning crack before its actual fal], some of the natives 
might easily have been caught. In an interval of five davs no less than three 
large trees hid fallen along or across our path to that mountain, in a distance of 
some seven miles. 
R. A. Soc., No. 63, 1912, 
oa 7 a — 
Ss SS Se 
