88 



TAHAN EXPEDITION. 



Next day we started better, and having reached a broad and 

 quietly flowing stream (which was flowing down to meet the stream 

 we had been hitherto following) decided to stop and build rafts. 

 Bamboo was scarce and the building of the rafts took the rest of the 

 day, and so we camped upon the bank for the night, having everything 

 in readiness for an early start next morning. That evening the other 

 Selangor Malay had an alarming attack of high fever with cardiac 

 pains. I managed to reduce the temperature with phenacetene, but 

 for the cardiac pains I had nothing but opium pills, which, however, 

 appeared to afford him a good deal of relief and next morning he was 

 able to take his place on the raft. We had not, however, gone down 

 many bends of the river, when we came to a close succession of rapids, 

 down which no raft could possibly have lived, we had, therefore, to 

 abandon the rafts and proceed overland until the rapids were passed. 

 About noon we came to a spot where another big stream united with the 

 one we were on and swelled it to twice its size and we once more set to 

 work to build rafts, bamboo being fortunately plentiful.* We camped 

 there that night and started early next morning. In the course of the 

 day we discovered that we had been following a tributary of the Tahan, 

 which had brought us back again into the main stream. This was a 

 serious matter to us, now that we could get no fire. We had to live 

 on the wild fruits of the jungle (Tempoi, Taban, etc.), eking that out 

 with a handful or two of uncooked rice steeped in a little water.f 

 Re-entering the Tahan meant that we had to go down as awful a succes- 

 sion of rapids and falls as any river in the Peninsula can show.^ There 

 was no alternative, however, and so by dint of carrying the baggage 

 round some twenty or thirty falls and with tremendous labour we 

 got our rafts safely down the Tahan in the course of the next two 

 days till we reached once more the Datoh's house near Kuala Tahan 

 at which we had stopped on our way up. 



We returned to Kuala Aring by the same route by which we 

 had started, Dolah, the Selangor Malay, who had the attack of 

 malaria, being so prostrated that he had to be carried across the 

 watershed from Sungei Sat to Sungei Durian. There my own feet 

 swelled up again. 



* Mr. Skeat had come down the main stream of the Tahan and the river he 

 mentions is the Tekn, where our camp was situated. — H. C. R. 



f I had besides a few protene biscuits and about a dozen small squares of 

 (lye's compressed food. When the rice began to fall short, I attempted to live 

 on the former alone, but grew so weak on this diet that on one occasion I reeled 

 and fell, cutting my fingers with a spear which I was carrying. The pressed 

 food was better, but, owing to the lnck of matches, I had to eat it raw and evni 

 then it soon gave out. — W. S. 



X As mountain streams go the Tahan River is not really very bad, except in 

 Hoods. The rapids are very numerous, but only one is dangerous. T descended 

 myself in a dug-out vvirli two Malays from Kuala Tekn to Kuala Tenok in one 

 day, and that too when the river was low, and the shingle reaches troublesome in 

 consequence. — II. C. R. 



