INTRODUCTION. 
HE chief aim of my Eastern travels was, as the title of this 
volume proclaims, “ The Exploration of Mount Kina Balu,” in 
Northern Borneo. This great mountain had hitherto been visited 
by Messrs. Low, St. John, and Burbidge, for the purpose of 
botanical investigation—so for the zoologist it was as yet a virgin 
field. My primary object in undertaking these expeditions was 
ornithological; but I trust that my readers will not be over¬ 
burdened with accounts of Tropical bird-life, as I have endeavoured—I hope not in vain— 
to make this volume otherwise interesting. 
The success that attended these expeditions may be gauged by an examination of the 
Appendix, which contains an almost complete account of the collections, with descriptions 
of the new species obtained. 
Besides visiting North Borneo I spent several months in the interesting islands of 
Java and Palawan, and made an expedition into the State of Malacca, being absent from 
England nearly four years. 
The exploration of the mountainous interior of most tropical islands is by no means an 
easy task. In the first place, the means of communication are almost nil. After the level 
coast plains are left the slow-travelling buffalo is no longer useful, and man himself 
becomes the beast of burden; and of all beasts, he is perhaps the most difficult to manage. 
The highway Lorn the coast is generally up the river-courses, which are choked with 
boulders, and have to be crossed and recrossed as many as ten or fifteen times a day. The 
fords are often dangerous and at times impassable, owing to the deluges of rain which fall 
on the mountains. Progress is therefore slow indeed, and is at times brought to a complete 
standstill. Food can be procured only with the greatest difficulty, and the further the coast 
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