their hearts’ content. After this we got an hour or two
of rest, and awoke at daybreak, when everybody was
astir. We found our breakfast ready, and our ponies
were saddled and at the door.
The men whom the Sultan had promised us as guides,
and a buffalo to carry down plants, were also waiting,
and “ Gelah ” was eager to accompany us by order of his
royal master. Breakfast over, we started off in excellent
sph’its up a gently rising path leading past a burial
ground, and beneath some of the finest Durian trees in
the island. A newly made grave ornamented with flowers
and the young flower-stems of the betel-nut palm, was
pointed out to us as being that of a man who had been
shot at the Istana in a squabble about one of the ladies
of the court. It appears that the man’s wife having died
he wanted to carry off a relation of his who now belonged
to the Sultana’s suite, and in the row which followed he
met with his death.
Our ride was a very pleasant one, and led us up through
several cultivated patches with here and there a belt of
jungle. Soon after leaving the Istana an aerides was
seen flowering very freely on the trees, also the ubiquitous
Dendrobium crumenatum, with pseudo bulbs four feet
in length, the flowers much larger than usual. Cyrnbi-
dium aloifolium was everywhere plentiful, clustering in
large masses on the boles of large trees in the clearings.
At an elevation of about 1000 feet we came to a village
and fruit grove, and here we stayed to rest awhile as the
sun was now very hot overhead, and a drink of cocoa-nut
milk proved very grateful. On the trees here I obtained
a greenish yellow flowered dendrobium, which proved
to be a new species very similar to the D. d’Albertisii of
New Guinea. At about 1500 feet we reached the skirt
of the old forest, and had to dismount and do the rest
of the ascent on foot. We had brought ropes with us,
and removing the saddles and other gear we tethered
the horses and buffalo to bushes in a little natural
meadow where they could make a good meal off the fresh
mountain grass. This was a great treat to them, as the
coarse herbage of the plains was at this season very dry,
and the horses in Meimbong were being fed on cocoa-
nut leaves owing to the dearth of other fodder. We
descended a gully, and crossing a little stream commenced
the ascent on foot, leaving a Sulu lad in charge
of our goods and animals. We had at first a rough
climb over tree roots and loose stones. In one place
the ascent was nearly vertical, and the boulders being
easily detached from the dry soil, it was dangerous
for our followers below. An areca palm bearing large
clusters of small scarlet fruit below a spreading crown of
dark green leaves was very handsome, and both ferns and
selaginellas were luxuriant in the shade. I collected
specimens of all I saw for scientific purposes. Pigeons
and paroquets and other birds were seen here on the
trees overhead, but although we shot at several and saw
them fall, the branches overhead were so dense that they
lodged there, and we could not induce any of our followers
to climb for them on account of the deadly tree
snakes, which are said to infest the place.
Our guides did not like the ascent, and tried to make
us believe that the point of the ridge was the top of the
mountain, but we insisted in pushing further up the ridge
and at length were rewarded by reaching the summit.
The air was very fresh and cool here, and by climbing a
low-branched tree we obtained splendid views of the surrounding
plains and hill tops and of the sea. We rested
here for some time. A strong-growing species of penta-
phragma, bearing pure white flowers in the axils of its