102 
KINA BALU. 
It required thirteen buffaloes to carry our baggage thus far, and therefore will take about 
double the number of Dusun porters; this number of men will, I expect, take a considerable 
time to find. Billio asked the Dusuns met yesterday if they would like to carry our baggage 
to their village, which they said they would do when they returned from the “ tamel.” 
To-day they arrived, but their ideas of the value of their services are beyond our means : 
their village is only a few miles distant, and they would not come to terms for less than six 
fathoms of trade-cloth per man, so they left. 
On our way here yesterday we met an old Dusun fishing in the river; to-day he called 
and offered to show us a shorter way to the mountain without going to Kiau. As the 
exorbitant demands of the Dusuns had quite blocked my way in that direction, I was glad 
to avail myself of the old man’s offer. When I asked Billio the old Dusun’s name, he told 
me he called himself Sultan. “ Sultan what % ” I asked. “ Only Sultan,” was Billio’s reply. 
This man had been thus named by Mr. Wittie. It is no uncommon thing for the Dusuns 
in the interior to ask Europeans to rename them; several times I have been asked by the 
Kina Balu people to visit their campongs in order to give their head man a new title-. 
They perhaps get this peculiar idea from the coast people, who are Mohammedans, and after 
they return from the pilgrimage to Mecca, add the title of Hadji, changing at the same time 
their name into an Arabic one. 
Sultan’s advice that we should not go to Kiau is of course easily understood ; he 
knows that we must have a quantity of trade goods judging by the amount of baggage we 
have brought, so of course he is anxious that his own tribe shall share the spoils, knowing 
that if we go on to Kiau they will lose all chance of securing anything. The old chap is 
fond of gin and seems quite happy, and was, I fancy, not much inclined to move. 
The country round about this village is very mountainous, and no view of Kina Balu 
can be obtained from the village. The hills have all been cleared at one' time or another 
up to the summits, so there is on them no collecting-ground for a naturalist. During a 
short walk to-day, however, the presence of several large red-coloured Doves ( Macropygict 
emiliana ), which flew about in patches of thick undergrowth, was sufficient to show me 
that I had already reached a new ornithological region, these birds not frequenting the 
coast. Sultan sent word to one of the campongs, called Melangkap, for porters to-day, and 
thinks that we shall get off to-morrow. 
8th.—A number of Dusuns came from Melangkap this morning to arrange for their 
wages. They agreed to carry our baggage to their village, which they say is a few 
hours distant from here and close to Kina Balu. After haggling for over three hours I 
left Billio to conclude the bargain, and took a walk. In the end the Dusuns agreed 
to carry double loads for three fathoms of cloth: one piece of trade-cloth did not cut up into 
three pieces of the required length, so the men who were to receive it refused to go; but 
after a prolonged haggle one box of matches per man, total value about one halfpenny, settled 
the bargain. Three women belonging to the house where we were staying also carried loads 
which I should not have cared to carry many hundred yards. In all my dealings with the 
Dusuns I seldom found them trouble much about the weight of their loads, but over the 
amount of their wages they would argue for several days, three or four needles often being 
sufficient to decide them. These people never agree to anything you may offer, always 
