LIFE IN THE WILDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21473, 22 April 1933, Page 13

LIFE IN THE WILDS

EXPLORERS IN' BORNEO

REMARKABLE INCIDENTS STUDENTS* INVESTIGATIONS A thousand birds, 20,000 insects, 350 mammals, 500 plants and 50 reptiles are among the large collection recently brought back by members of the Oxford University Exploration Club, who spent seven months in the fastnesses of Sarawak, Borneo. Not only is the British Museum to benefit by the addition of many new specimens of wild life; the map of the country is also to be corrected and largely amplified. In an interview, the leader of the expedition, Mr. T. H. Harrisson, described some of the remarkable incidents of the tour, which was the most ambitious yet undertaken by the club. Mr. K. A. Shackleton, a son of the late Antarctic explorer, climbed 7950 ft. to Mulu, the highest mountain in Sarawak. Ho went accompanied by nativo carriers, while the remaining seven members of the expedition concentrated on separate investigations. Mr. E. Banks and Mr. A. W. Moore, respectively, a local official lent by the Sarawak authorities and an Oxford undergraduate, climbed what is the most difficult mountain in the country, Kalulong, 5500 ft. Life Among Aborigines Mr. Harrisson who, with another undergraduate, acted as ethnologist, crossed the famous river Belaga and spent a month alone among the aborigines. "My arrival," he said, "seemed to upset local life for the whole time. As 1 moved from house to house normal occupations ceased, and almost everybody became busy in making and supplying borak, a lethal drink made of rice, which looks something like porridge." The natives were extremely friendly and Mr. E. H. Hartley (Balliol, Oxford) spent three weeks, near the conclusion of the tour, in a Kayan tribe's home. Ho did everything the other natives did, was given the name of Batu Wan, "and was treated as a blood brother." He witnessed the remnants of the ceremonies that formerly accompanied head-hunting expeditions. Mr. 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.

Once there was a deluge, said Mr. Harrisson, and the coolies' huts in the river base wore completely destroyed. "The expedition's own hut," Mr. Harrisson went on, "was built on 12ft. piles and these were placed 30ft. above the river. Yet the floods came into the hut and scorpions, centipedes and immense spiders rushed through the placo." Living in Tree Tops Observation posts were established in tree-tops, 100 to 180 ft. up. Sometimes the explorers spent a night and two days in this primitive fashion. After discussing the serious research and survey work undertaken and accomplished by his party, Mr. Harrisson who celebrated his 21st birthday at a gathering attended by colleagues and representatives of 13 local tribes, recalled the occasion when one of the men was injured on a mountain. He had to be carried down a sheer side and rushed to hospital, many miles away, on the coast. On another occasion a native, armed with a parang, ran amok, but before he was able to do any damage, was disarmed. The expedition enjoyed fairly good health, took many remarkable photographs, trod where no white man had penetrated before and experienced the unique sensation of "receiving" Russian, British and American concerts in the midst of the most primitive territories of an undeveloped continent.