114 
KINA BALU. 
and no amount of teaching in the art of making up a bird-skin will do him any good. 
Jack also goes with us as camp watch-dog. 
We started with all our porters but one, Kratas’s husband; we, however, met him, and 
abused him for not keeping up to time. As all porters in Borneo receive their wages in 
advance, they are expected to keep to their part of the contract, and I must say always do, 
for though I have paid dozens of natives in advance, I have never once been swindled; if a 
man cannot go he pays over his wages to a substitute. 
Our path led through a few rice-fields, then suddenly down a steep slope to the bed of 
the Panataran. The river was to be our highway, and a more trying, break-neck journey I 
have never made. The Panataran was fairly low, clear as crystal, and to us as cold as ice. 
The way was blocked by huge granite boulders, serpentine, and other rocky debris, some of 
the granite boulders being solid masses 15 feet high by 20 feet in length and breadth—as 
the Kadyans remarked, “ as big as houses.” TJp this stream we struggled all day, at times 
through pools of clear cold water up to our necks ; we were more often in the water than 
out of it. 
The sides of the mountain were very steep and inaccessible in many places, making it 
impossible to avoid the course of the river. In places huge landslips had filled the river, 
almost blocking its course. I also noticed a good deal of shale. We had our mid-day 
meal on a small level space, when it commenced to rain ; at this time all the Dusuns had 
kept well together. At 5 P.M., after traversing, if anything worse could be possible, a more 
trying country, I found myself drenched to the skin, with the Kadyans, the Chinaman, 
Billio, Sultan, and four Dusuns all in the same state, shivering and livid with cold, beside 
a large rock which afforded us no shelter from the steady downpour; the rest of the Dusuns 
far behind and Jack anywhere. By degrees the Dusuns began to arrive, but it was after 
dark before the last came in; Jack did not turn up that night. After opening a large 
waterproof sheet (used as a roof for our forest houses), which we propped up on sticks, we 
were able to put all the baggage out of the rain and change our dripping clothes. It was 
impossible to find wood for a fire, but we lighted our lamp and passed the night trying to 
sleep amongst the granite boulders in the course of the Panataran. Bain continued to fall 
steadily all night, and at times we were afraid the river would rise and swamp us out of 
our position. The next morning, after a meal of cold rice, the Dusuns again started up 
stream : about mid-day we arrived at a deep pool, flanked on both sides by precipitous 
rocks; this stopped all further progress, so we returned to a small level spot—out of the 
reach of floods—about a hundred yards down stream. Here, with the assistance of the 
Dusuns, we soon made a clearing in the forest on which to erect our house. After 
informing Sultan through my interpreter that he was a fraud, as he had promised to lead us 
to the summit of Kina Balu, which by this route anyone could see was an impossibility, 
the Dusuns returned with Billio to Melangkap and promised to call for us in a 
month. 
During the journey here I had noticed a good many species of birds that were new to 
me, so I was not so much troubled as I might otherwise have been by this failure to ascend 
Kina Balu. When I state that at this camp were collected some fifteen new species of 
birds, besides many new insects, I have now reason to congratulate myself at our then 
