78 



TAHAN EXPEDITION. 



down Btream till we reached the Teuibeling in a boat, whirl) 1 hired 

 from one of the elders of the village ('Toll Khatib An tar). Then 

 descending the Tembeiing we reached Pasir Pagi (the village of 

 Penghulu Bakar) in the course of the afternoon. At Pasir Pagi I 

 stayed four nights in the hopes of getting one of the Kelantan Sakais 

 {Orang Pangan) then reported to be in the neighbourhood to ac- 

 company us, but my messenger unfortunately, though well acquainted 

 with the tribe, only succeeded in frightening them away by his 

 bungling and I merely lost the advances which I had forwarded. The 

 Pahang Sakais, who are said to belong to a different tribe, are said to 

 know little or nothing of the mountain, and this was, therefore, a 

 great blow to my hopes of getting accurate local information, the sole 

 purpose for which I required them. As guides the Sakais are, as a 

 rule, extremely good, but I knew that, in this case at all events, 1 

 should have to depend upon my map and compass and to be my own 

 guide, and hence I was not disappointed on this latter account. 



The best of Malay guides may be as good in unknown jungle as a 

 Sakai, but such men are rarely met with. On my way back across the 

 watershed I had with me three Malays, all of whom had been that way 

 before and were introduced to me by the Panghulu as safe guides, 

 and yet on landing on the banks of the Sat, they immediately and 

 hopelessly lost their way, and, as they were quite unable to find it, I 

 was obliged to get out my compass and show it to them myself. 



At Pasir Pagi, however, and at Pulau Dato, a little below the 

 mouth of the Tahan, I was lucky enough to engage as carriers four of 

 the pluckiest and strongest Malays that I have ever met. They were 

 all Tembeiing men and were great on the superiority of the Tembeiing 

 men to the good folk of Pekan (Kuala Pahang). What there may be 

 in their contention I cannot say, but certainly these four men would 

 have been hard to beat. They, with two of my own men from Kuala 

 Aring and myself, made up a little party of seven, which, I am con- 

 vinced, was quite large enough (as things turned out) to be really 

 efficient. The Malays say that big expeditions to Gunong Tahan are 

 bound to come to grief and common sense says that, with a small army 

 of, say, sixty or seventy Malays in the Tahan jungles (on my return to 

 Kuala Aring from the mountain, the Malays not only admitted know- 

 ing about it, but actually told me, as they had told the members of 

 the expedition in my absence, that at least one, if not two, unsuccess- 

 ful attempts had been made by Europeans to reach the mountain by 

 that very route), proper supervision by one or two Europeans is 

 impossible, while the chances of sickness and panic are immeasurably 

 increased. Moreover, where so large a number of men are employed, 

 all cannot be picked men and, as very few of them will be under the 

 master's eye, they will certainly not do good work. With a depot some- 

 where near the foot of the mountain (the only way in which the moun- 

 tain will probably be ascended in safety and comfort), tliifi point would 

 be of less importance, but 1 was only able to pay the mountain a flying 



