160 
KINA BALTJ: SECOND EXPEDITION. 
they said, in the forest in the drenching rain without fire, food, or clothes. One told us 
that the situation made him feel inclined to “ amok. XVhen they arrived at the rock, 
half dead with the heavy loads, they were saluted with jeers and laughter by their more 
fortunate companions. This is the usual sympathy showed by the aborigines of Borneo to 
one another. It has never stopped raining all day, so we are unable to proceed, as I am 
told that the next shelter will take half a day to reach. 
27th.—The Dusuns returned to Kiau, leaving us and our belongings under the rock. 
They have no more food : our stock of rice is far too valuable, so sooner than waste it by 
feeding fourteen hungry men, I have let them go. During the night the Dusuns stole 
some of the Kadyans’ salt fish; with this I debit the Kuros. In front of the rock is a 
slender orange-tree, which Kuro says has grown from a seed planted by Tuhan Helow ; 
this tree has never been damaged by the Dusuns, who seem to look upon it with a sort of 
veneration. 
XXTien the Dusuns left we commenced making a clearing in the forest, where we 
erected a small house, which was roofed in with one of the waterproof sheets. The spot 
for this clearing was selected a short distance from the rock on a slope where we hoped 
to receive a little sunlight, as up to this we have been unable to dry our soaking-wet 
garments. The sun does not reach the place we have chosen before 9 o’clock, and the 
rock never. As the clouds shortly obscure the sun, and heavy rain generally falls soon 
after mid-day, our baggage is wet and is sadly in need of drying; but we are in such a 
sunless hole that this is impossible. We were unable to finish the house to-day, so had to 
pass another night under the rock. Buntar has been trying to dry some of our garments by 
wood fires; the result has been very little drying, but changing them into a dirty-yellow 
colour, besides half blinding and choking us with smoke. 
We are all in miserable spirits to-day, the humid surroundings making us both down¬ 
cast and damp. I have come to the conclusion that fifty new species of birds would hardly 
repay me for the miseries endured during the last few days. The Kadyans do not take 
even a real interest in birds, as now they are audibly repenting that they ever came, and 
no doubt quietly wishing that something serious would happen and cause our return to the 
more comfortable campong life; but my determination if possible to reach the higher 
altitudes is not for a moment shaken, it is only this miserable camp that depresses me. 
I often think how big the comfortably situated people in English homes sometimes talk— 
especially after a good dinner, when seated at peace with all the world before a comfortable 
fire, puffing away at a cigar—“ how they would like nothing better than to explore wild 
countries.” But, my friends, a few weeks on tinned food—perhaps hardly enough of that 
at times—cold and wet, want of society, and a hundred little annoyances would soon make 
you wish that you had never left your comfortable home. To be a traveller a man must be 
keenly interested in some pursuit, and that pursuit alone buoys him up. This is a kind 
of traveller’s lament written in my journal, below the rock, on a wet day in a gloomy forest. 
In front of the rock the forest is still tropical, the trees high and of vigorous growth, 
covered with creepers, parasitic ferns, and orchids. I am also interested in the birds, of 
which I have seen a good many. Kiau from this is TV.N.XV. 60°. The temperature is 
67° at 8 p.m. Rain as usual. 
