LIFE IN THE WILDS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 April 1933, Page 6

LIFE IN THE WILDS

EXPLORERS IN BORNEO

STUDENTS’ INVESTIGATIONS. A thousand birds, 20,000 inlets, 350 rnamm’-ls, 500 plants and 50 reptiles are among the large collection recent-’y brought back by members of the Oxford University Exploration Chib, who -spent seven months in th e fastnesses 0 f Sarawak, Borneo. Not only is the British Museum-Ito benefit by the addition of many new specimens of wi’d life; the map of the country is also to ho corrected and largely amplified. In an interview, the leader of the expedition, All* T. 11. Harrisson, described some of t-h e remarkable incidents of th e L-om - , which was the mn-sc ambitious yet undertaken by the club. Mir E. A. Shackle-toil, a sow of the date Antarctic explorer, climbed 7950 ft. to Alulu, the highest mountain in Sarawak. He went accompanied hv native carriers, while the remaining seven members of the expedition -concentrated on separate investigations. Mr E. Banks and Air A. W. Moore-, •: -respectively, -a local official lent bv the Sa,,awak authorities and an Oxford undergraduate, climbed what i s the most difficult mountain in the country, Kalulong,' 5500 ft. Air, Harrisson who, with another undergraduate, acted as ethnologist, crossed the famous river Belagx and spent a month alone among the aborigines. “My arrival,” lie said, “seemed to upset -locail life- f°r the - whole time. As I moved from house to house normal -occupations ceased, and almost everybody became busy in making - and supplying porak, a, lethal drink made of .lice, which locks something like porridge.”

The natives were extremelv friendly and Mr E. H. -Hart’ey (B lli-01, Oxford) spent three weeks, -rear th p con- ( elusion of the tour, in a Kayan tribe’s home. He did everything the other natives did, was given the name of Batu Wan, “end was treated as a blood brother.” He witnessed the remnants of the ceremonies that form.'ir’y accompanied headdiunting expeditions. Air Hartley learned a great deal about the mythology of the tribe. For the first three months the .undergraduates were together, camps later being established on ' the river bank, 4000 ft. up, and on the far side- of a mountain range. • Oneo there was a deluge, said Air Harrisson, and the coolies’ huts in the river base were completely destroyed. “The expedition’s own hut,” Air Harrisson went on, built °n 12ft. [ piles and theSp were placed 30ft. above the river. Yet the floods came .into the hut and scorpions, centipede-* and immertsu spiders rushed through the place.” Observation posts were established in tree-tops, .100 to 180 ft, up. Sometimes the explorers sbent a night and two days in this-primitive fashion. After discussing the serious research and survey work undertaken .and acby h’-s ’party, Air Harrisson who celebrated his 2lst birthday at . a gathering attended by colleagues and j representatives l of 15 ]oc ] tribes, recalled the occasion when one of the men was injured on a mountain. He had to h,> carried down a sheer sid p and rushed to hospital, many ' nines away, bn the coast. On another occasion a antive, armed with a p-.ra.ng, ran ion a native, armed with a parang, ran amok, but before he was cble to do The expedition enjoyed fairly good health,, took many remarkable photographs. t"od where no white man had penetrated before and experienced the uninue .sensation of “receiving” Rus* sion, British and .'Jniericin concerts in the midst of the most primitive territories of an undeveloped continent.