Your letters, with all their kind advice, are a great pleasure and
comfort to me, and many times I have received them when wet, tired,
and hungry in the jungle.
My best love to you, my own dear father.
From your loving
F r a n k .
VII.
In a letter to liis mother, June 26th, written at
Labuan, he says, “ although I have been in the Bornean
jungle for three months, I don’t smoke—only
once in a way a cigarette. When in the bush, my
dinner generally consists of American meat (when there
is any), a biscuit (cabin H. & P.), sweet potatoes, and
a pickle, the whole followed by a bottle of beer.
Sometimes we get a fowl; but to the Dusun fowl
Mark Twain’s remark on carving, I use a club, and
avoid the joints,’ would very much apply.” In another
letter he speaks of “ brandy merely as a medicine,”
and of the " treat ” afforded by some Swiss milk and
cocoatina which we had sent him. “ My dress when
travelling,” he says, “ as a rule, is a thick brown canvas
jacket and strong blue trousers, the ends turned
into my socks, tied round tightly with string, to prevent
leaches getting at m e ; but they attack one, in
spite of all one can do. I wear strong canvas shoes,
and a helmet, a waistbelt, and sometimes sword as well
as pistol. Behind me come my two followers, one
carrying my rifle and the other my shot-gun; then
six natives with rifles and bayonets; next two men
with picks, and in the rear the camp things and carriers.
But the camp things which I brought out are all
broken up. Nothing in heaven or earth can stand
the Bornean bush.”
On the same date he writes to his sister Helen (a
student in the Royal Academy schools), “ You had
KINA BTJLTJ, EEOM THE TAMPASSUK E IY E E : THE STEAM! YACHT, “ BOENEO,,>
AT ANCHOE.
better come out here and do some sketches for the
Graphic or Illustrated. There are hundreds of things
to.do, and nobody to do them. All is new and everything
picturesque. Kina Bulu would make a splendid
subject for a big picture, while near my house in
Kinoram there are some wonderful bits of hill and
river. There is one view from the outside of my
stockade which is simply lovely. The river is a rushing
torrent, and one can see up its course for miles right
away to the mountains, which tower up one above the
other away to Kina Bulu. The peaked one, like the
Matterhorn, which is 7000 feet,,I ascended lately with