Life in the forests of the Far East (vol. 2 of 2)St. John, Spenser, Sir
History
Life in the forests of the Far East (vol. 2 of 2)
St. John, Spenser, Sir
Borneo -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Borneo; St. John, Spenser, Sir, 1825-1910 -- Travel -- Borneo
The next curious mistake I may notice, was made by Mr. de Crespigny;
he ascended the river Limbang as far as the river Damit. I have seen
a sketch map of his, and he places the mouth of that stream in north
latitude, 3° 48’, and the mountain of Molu to the north-east of it, in
latitude 4° 3’, whereas Molu Peak is a little to the westward of south
from the Damit, and nearly twenty-five miles distant in a direct line.
In drawing attention to these errors, I by no means claim immunity from
them in the map of the Limbang and Baram rivers which accompanies
this volume; but I think they will be found free from gross errors.
The course of the latter river was taken down by Captain Brett of the
_Pluto_, and observations of the latitude and longitude of the
town of Lañgusan were made by many of the officers on board. In my land
journeys, I had very inferior compasses, as I was unable to take with
me the valuable levels and other instruments obligingly lent me by Dr.
Coulthard, on account of their weight and size; but I used them as long
as I was in my boats, to lay down the position of the mountains; and
in order to enable me to correct my own errors, I put down the day’s
observations on a rough map every evening during the journey, except
after we had shot the cascade and wetted the paper too much to permit
it being handled roughly.
I may add, that of the whole party of nineteen, none after our return
suffered severely from the exposure and privations we had undergone,
and I believe the real reason was, that we always were dry at night.
For many years we trusted during our expeditions to the leaf huts the
natives are accustomed to construct for us and for themselves; but
although with sufficient time, and when good materials are plentiful,
they manage to make them tolerably watertight, yet they are never
so good as the simple tents we always took with us during our later
expeditions. With proper ropes and everything fitted to enable us to
raise these tents on cross poles in ten minutes, the two did not weigh
more than twenty pounds, and afforded comfortable accommodation for our
whole party of nineteen people, with all our baggage, and on occasions
our six guides took advantage of them also.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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