KINA BALK. 
103 
wanting more; "whether the value of goods divided amongst six of them is worth a 
halfpenny or not, as long as they think they have bested you they are quite satisfied. 
This they think clever, and in each village there are one or two men who are the chief 
spokesmen and do all the bargaining: these men are always called in, and if at the time of 
your visit they should happen to be elsewhere, the traveller will have to wait until their 
return, the rest of the villagers refusing to talk over matters in their absence. 
As there were not sufficient porters to-day, I could only send part of my baggage to 
Melangkap, with three of the Kadyans. These Dusuns are wonderful baggage-carriers : 
one of them carried a buffalo’s load, and twenty-one Dusuns have carried the loads of 
thirteen buffaloes. They tie up their loads with broad bands of cloth or bark, leaving 
loops to go over the shoulders and one round the forehead; the head band is used when 
going up-hill, when the head is bent forward, thus taking a good deal of the strain. The 
women always carry baggage in their paddi baskets, which are cone-shaped, made of the 
broad bases of sago leaf stems, neatly fastened with rattan to wooden hoops. 
9th.—This morning I was able to start with the rest of my men and baggage, but it 
was not until late in the day that we left Sinorob. Our guides led us down to the 
Panataran River, and continued for some distance along its course under a broiling sun. 
Both sides of the river were bordered with forest, and from one tree I noticed a most 
perfect natural flower-basket suspended on a long creeper, being a large collection of 
parasitic plants, including ferns and flowering orchids, which were dangling in mid-air. 
After leaving the river the course led over some steep hills which had been cleared from 
time to time for rice-growing; the heat was so great that several times I was forced to 
seek the shelter of the bamboo clumps. In about four hours we reached Melangkap. where 
the Kadyans sent on yesterday had found quarters in the house of one of our porters 
named Gamboie. They had not wasted their day, and had already commenced bird 
collecting, and I was delighted to find they had several specimens of birds belonging to this 
region which I recognized from their printed descriptions (among them being Ianthocincla 
treacheri and Buchanga stigmatops). 
The first thing to be done was to agree with our host about our rent, as I intended to 
make a long stay in this neighbourhood. I resolved to make Melangkap my headquarters, 
and leave all my stores there during my expeditions to the mountain. Gamboie is a 
widower, and is the father of a girl about four years old; part of the house belongs to him, 
and the rest to another Dusun who at present is living in his paddi-fields. So in the end 
I made both these men small presents, and occupied their house during my stay in 
Melangkap. 
The village of Melangkap is situated on a grassy slope facing the mountain, and 
consists of nine or ten houses, each house containing two or three families : the houses 
are built in the usual style, but have plank sides instead of attap or kajangs like those of 
the Bajows. 
When we arrived at the village, Kina Balu was completely hidden by the clouds, so I 
was unable to form an idea of its proximity, and it was not until the evening that I was 
gratified by a view of the mountain. It looked wonderfully near, the rocks, and water 
falling over the summit down the main buttress, being perfectly distinct; but at a glance one 
