Life in the forests of the Far East (vol. 2 of 2)

by Sir Spenser St. John

In February, 1858, Mr. Low and I again attempted the ascent of Molu, taking the Orang Kaya Panglima Prang as our guide, though neither he nor any one else knew more of the mountain than they had gathered during my former journey.

On the sixth day we reached the entrance of the Madalam without difficulty, and brought up for the night on a bank of gravel and pebbles, where there were traces of coal among the hard gray sandstone nodules, and broken quartz. All the country we had hitherto seen belongs to the Labuan coal measures, and the dip is steep, about 45°, and is to the east of north.

In the evening, heavy rain came on, when the river began to rise rapidly, and rush by us with a strong current. The men had pitched their tents on the pebbly bank, while we stayed in the boats; we had had a heavy day’s work, and our followers were so fatigued that they fell asleep immediately. The rain continued pouring down. About two hours after sunset I heard a shout, and found the water was overflowing the tents, and rushing down the opposite side of the river like a mill sluice, carrying along with it huge trunks of trees. With extreme difficulty we awoke the men, and it was a work of greater difficulty to keep them from getting into the boats before they were properly secured. I jumped out, and soon discovered the reason; the water coming from the lofty heights of Molu was icy cold; my teeth chattered so that I could scarcely give an order, and the river rose so fast, that very soon it was impossible to remain on the bank.

We none of us slept that night, our boats swayed to and fro in the angry waters which now rushed impetuously over the point, and knowing that we had but a small rope holding us, we feared every moment to see it part and find our boats dashed over a neighbouring fall. In the morning we observed by rough measurement that the water had risen twenty-four feet. As the river continued too rapid to be contended against, we employed next day in manufacturing strong rattan ropes. It took us five days more to reach our camping-ground at the foot of the mountain, a journey which in ordinary times might have been done in two.

We passed during our advance up the Madalam many curious and beautiful plants; among others, a very elegant little palm, with finely-divided pinnated leaves, and a stem about a foot high; it grew in tufts on the banks, within the influence of the rise of the waters. Mr. Low found also a beautiful climber with white flowers, in bunches, on the axils of the leaves, with a very fragrant scent; and also a curious rhododendron, with terminal single pale yellow flowers an inch and a half across on pendent branching stems, epiphytal in moss on many of the trees overhanging the water; but what I admired most was a rhododendron with large bunches of straw-coloured blossoms. It grew on the trees, and the flower, as it gracefully bent over us, looked both showy and beautiful. Here, too, Mr. Low discovered three new species of the areca palm, and was enabled to secure the seeds of two: one of them had a curious mottled foliage, another had a dark green stem, with white sheaths to the leaves, which were most delicately fashioned, the leaflets being linear, and not more than an eighth of an inch broad. I may further notice that at the mouth of the Limbang River grows in the marshes a beautiful fan-palm, which at a distance might, from its size, be mistaken for a fine cocoa-nut tree.

We reached the Batu Rikan in safety, and passed round it, through a small rivulet, improved into a sort of canal by the Kayans, above which we brought up at an old Kayan encampment on the left. We had here a good view of the range, which is a mass of limestone, and the ascent to the summit is at an angle of 70°; impossible to ascend over any other kind of rock than limestone, the water-worn surfaces of which usually present so many prominent points as to render these precipices practicable. The mountain appears to be covered with vegetation to the precipitous summit, and even on the almost bare rocks shrubs could be seen clinging to the crevices.

Round the base of the mountain are detached masses of limestone, much water-worn, with caverns and natural tunnels, with the ground around covered by the tracks of pigs and deer. At the base of the mountain the soil is a yellow loam, with many water-worn sandstone pebbles on its surface.

I do not intend dwelling on this expedition, as I only kept an account of the geographical features of the country, though Mr. Low has kindly placed his interesting journal at my disposal to refresh my memory. I will, however, briefly indicate the character of the mountain.

We left our encampment and struck through the jungle to a spot that a previous examination made me consider the easiest way to pass the precipices. The rocks looked like broken masses which had fallen from above, presenting sharp points and edges dangerous to our unshod men. It was climbing, not walking, our hands being as much used as our feet. We ascended about 800 feet, when we found ourselves on a sharp edge with a valley beyond, and then descended about forty feet by means of roots, and after a painful advance made preparations to pass the night there, as our men were lagging. We could, however, nowhere find a smooth place broad enough to set up our tents; so threw poles across the rocks and heaped boughs and leaves on them, and on sticks above spread our piled cotton tents.

We advanced next day over rather easier ground, and found more vegetable mould between the rocks; the trees were large, and among them I had seen on the previous day troops of reddish monkeys, equal in size to the small kind of orang-utan. We could find no water except such as could be obtained from squeezing the moss, or from the pitchers of two new kinds of nepenthes. It was on the third day that Mr. Low came upon them, after passing a deep gorge, and up a steep and fatiguing ascent over craggy cliffs, everything being covered with long wet moss. There were two kinds; the specimens, unfortunately, were lost by the men:—the first was shaped something like a claret jug, with a quadrilateral stem, and was of a pale green, except on the inside of the pitcher, which was purplish—the pitchers themselves were about ten inches long, and did not show the lower part in perfection except when full-grown. The next kind was growing half buried beneath the moss, and creeping closely along the stems of trees; its pitchers had a very peculiar mouth, with an edge like a frill. Its stem was rough with brown hairs, the leaves broad and short, and it was distinguished from all others we had yet seen, by the leaves, which are close above one another, giving off always to the right and left, and not on all sides of the stem as in the other species; they lie also very close; its stem was at most three feet long; the pitcher was about nine inches in length, not including the lid.