Among those who accompanied us to Marei Parei was a young lad, who was paid for his services in gray shirting and thin brass wire. As soon as he had received them, he cut off three inches of the wire, and began beating out one end and sharpening the other: it was to make a needle. His sister brought him some native-made thread; then with his knife he cut the cloth into a proper shape, and set to work to make a pair of trousers; nor did he cease his occupation till they were finished, and by evening he was wearing them. We were so pleased with our visit to the Marei Parei spur that we determined to move thither for a few days with our servants, and live in tents. In the meantime we continued our collection of Kiau words, which was difficult work with our interpreters. It has been thought that the tribes living around Kina Balu speak different languages, but we found, on the contrary, that the Ida’an, Dusun, and even the Bisaya, can converse freely with each other. We had with us, during our different expeditions, Bisayas from the river Kalias, opposite Labuan, an interpreter who had learnt the language from the people in the interior of Membakut, Malays who had learnt it at Kimanis, Dusuns from Tamparuli, on the Tawaran, and Ida’an from the plains of Tampasuk; and yet, after a few days, to become accustomed to the differences of dialect, all these men conversed freely with the Kiaus. If they are asked whether they speak the same languages, they will answer, “No,” and give as an example--“We say _iso_, when the Kiaus say _eiso_, for ‘no’;” but these are only localisms. I must add, that none of these people had ever visited the Kiaus until they accompanied us. In making vocabularies here we found the villagers very careless of their pronunciation: for instance, the word “heavy” was at different times written down, _magat_, _bagat_, _wagat_, and _ogat_; for “rice,” _wagas_ and _ogas_; for “to bathe,” _padshu_, _padsiu_, and _madsiu_, and indifferently pronounced in these various ways by the same people. Many years previously, when I was at Maludu Bay, I collected a few words of the Ida’an, and they were essentially the same as those of the aborigines of Tampasuk; and the Malays tell me that the Ida’an of the north-eastern coast speak so as to be understood by them, who have acquired their knowledge on the western coast. I may here observe that the same people are indifferently called Dusun and Ida’an. The term Dusun, the real meaning of which is villager, is applied to these northern inhabitants of Borneo by the Malays, while the Bajus generally call them Ida’an.