158 
IvINA BALTJ: SECOND EXPEDITION. 
Gamboie, who is staying with us as interpreter, returns to Melangkap to-morrow. 
Several of the Kadyans are becoming fairly efficient in Dusun, and have managed to 
make Kabong understand that we wish not only to visit Kina Balu, but to spend at 
least a month near the summit. 
24th.—The Kiaus are a most agreeable disappointment. I expected to find them even 
more difficult to manage and more greedy than the Melangkaps : instead, I find them 
most business-like, and we soon settled the price in cloth that I am to pay them for their 
services. All Kabong’s household were soon enlisted, and the rest of the porters were 
easily obtained in the village. Kabong and Kuro are going as guides ; this is, of course, 
unnecessary, but being the headmen, it is best to submit to Dusun customs, though I gave 
them to understand they would have to carry packs like the rest of the party. Kuro is 
tall for a Dusun, also dirty for a Dusun, which implies a great deal. His family is very 
large, consisting of eight. Some of the infantile Kuros are covered to such a depth in filth, 
that it is at first somewhat difficult to make out what they really are. Most of the Dusuns 
bathed frequently when on the march; the Kuros never—in fact, they despise cold water. 
One day, for a joke, Kuro called out to one of his younger sons that we intended to wash 
him ; at the word “ manjo ” (wash) the urchin bolted, howling, into his home. Kuro still 
talks of Tuhan Helow (Mr. Low) and Tuhan Hingin (Mr. St. John), but he cannot 
remember them well, as it was exactly thirty years ago since those gentlemen visited Iviau. 
He speaks of these two gentlemen as the only two white men he ever took a fancy to. 
The Kiaus build their houses very quickly, the whole village assisting. Just now 
some forty Dusuns are busy pulling down Kuro’s house, and, judging by the rapidity with 
which they work, his new house will soon be finished. Nyhan brought in my first specimen 
of a fine reddish-brown Pigeon, Ccirpophaga badia, the Hadji a small black-and-white 
Flycatcher, Muscicapula maculata ; both these birds are well-known Himalayan species, 
but obtained to-day for the first time in Borneo. 
While taking a short walk early this morning, I saw a pair of the new Sparrow-Hawk, 
Accipiter rvfotibialis, but they were too high to shoot as they circled above us. The Kiaus 
have tied up their packs and are going to start to-morrow: they are better hands with packs 
than the Melangkaps, making the baggage up in a most suitable style for carrying on their 
backs. To-day Kabong has made me a blood-brother, which consists of my holding a 
chicken by the legs while he cuts its throat, collecting the blood in a bowl, which he 
afterwards drinks or mixes with his food. Later on I had to go through this ceremony 
with Kuro, he also gives me another chicken; these chickens are most acceptable, and I 
should have no objection to perform the same ceremony daily with any number of Dusuns. 
The Kiaus say they would have started to-day for the mountain, but they have no rice 
ready for the journey. We cannot see much of Kina Balu without walking to the top of 
the hill, when we are, it seems, quite close to the precipices of the highest part of the 
mountain; the valley below, through which the Ivinokok River flows, divides the Iviau 
spur from Kina Balu itself. As it rained half the day, the precipitous crags of Kina Balu 
were not often visible, the mists beating down on the village making it much colder than 
Melangkap. Kabong, besides being nurse, is more of a “ general,” I find, also acting as 
cook to this establishment. Fresh hill rice has a nice flavour, being, when boiled, brownish 
