Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 85/Through an unknown Corner of Pahang with H. Clifford in 1897
SKETCH MAP OF NORTHERN PAHANG
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Through an unknown Corner of Pahang with H. Clifford in 1897.
By F. W. Douglas.
A portion of the map on the border between the States of Pahang and Trengganu is still blank. It lies in a rough triangle, of which Gunong Irong, the source of the Tekal and Tembeling rivers (both northern branches of the great Pahang river), is the western apex, with Gunong Tapis, the source of the Kuantan River, the south-eastern point, and the mountainous range at the head of the Kemaman River, which flows in an easterly direction through the southern end of Trengganu, as the north-eastern point.
This area is still a terra incognita. It has occurred to me therefore that the following notes from an old diary may possibly be of interest and perhaps serve to stimulate some member of this Society to explore this region thoroughly. The triangle is marked on the accompanying map.
In 1897, Hugh Clifford (now Governor of Nigeria), who was then Resident of Pahang wanted to make a bridle-path connecting Kuantan, which lies on the east coast at the mouth of the Kuantan River, with Kuala Lipis, which lies some 200 miles inland up the Pahang River and which had then been selected as the temporary Capital for the State of Pahang. He and I accordingly set out from Kuantan on the 12th April, proceeding up the Kuantan River to its source, across the terra incognita and down the Tekal River and thence on down the great Pahang River to Pekan at the mouth.
We reached there on the 23rd April. Our journey therefore took 12 days, during which we travelled some 300 miles almost entirely by river. The following notes are taken from a diary kept during the trip.
1st April. Clifford wrote asking me to get guides for the journey, as no one had ever done the trip from the Ulu Pahang side. The only men I could find were not exactly ideal for the purpose. One was an opium-smoking waster, Bakar Tekal by name, who had been in the Ulu Tekal with gĕtah-hunting Dayaks, but who had not been down the river; the other was one Komeng Liar, half Sakai, who had been the guide for a party of raiders in 1896 from Kemaman (Trengganu) into Pahang and had helped some of Babman, the Orang Kaya Semantan's people, to escape. He was selected for our party simply as a useful man in the jungle.
8th April. Clifford walked over from Pekan and we started up river, spending Sunday, the 11th, at the Pahang Corporation's mine. The old mill at Jeram Batang was running for the last time prior to being moved to Sungai Lembing, where all the stamps were being concentrated. Derrick, the superintendent, entertained us royally. He took Clifford over Nicholson's & Willink's lodes and down the shaft. (Both these lodes are worked to this day).
12th April. We continued upstream in four dug-outs with 20 men. Slept on the Cheras. Clifford's boat filled during the night and he awoke in the water.
13th April. Stopped at a Sakai village, where we tried to get two men to join our party. Clifford fired off his best Senoi at them but they only bolted. Eventually, after an hour we caught two, named Chong and Bo'uk, whom we bribed with much tobacco to accompany us. These Kuantan Sakai have a peculiar way of making their blow-pipes. They split a piece of wood, bore out the half-sections and then bind the two pieces together with rotan and a covering of gutta-percha. The Patagonians of South America do the same, but I know of no other native tribes in this part of the world who make their blow-pipes in this way. Later they came down to my honse and gave a very good exhibition of shooting amongst my cook's fowls, and gave me a blow-pipe which is now in the British Museum.
We camped at Kuala Lipas that night and distributed the loads preparatory to walking next day. The worst of a rice-eating race is that they eat practically as much as they can carry. We therefore had to arrange to drop some of the men at the end of the second day's walk and most of the remainder as soon as we got far enough down the Tekal, or one of its tributaries, to raft.
Clifford was a Spartan in his methods of travelling. He arranged that we should live on curry and rice, tea and biscuits. Four chickens were allowed for curry; when they were finished, salt fish brought for the men was to be the only appetiser for the rice. I smuggled in a small flask of brandy–as my mother had made me promise never to travel without it,–two tins of sardines. and two of cocoa and milk. I may add that my Spartan companion was not above sharing these rare delicacies! Perhaps the most trying part, until one grew accustomed to it, was that the rice was cooked overnight, so a meal of cold rice confronted one at 6 a.m. and another at noon. We indulged in a hot meal only at night. However at the end of the trip we were all as fit as the proverbial flea.
14th April. Started walking up the valley of the Senandok, our "path" being the bed of the stream. The leeches were frightful. I had torn my breeches above the knee, an accident of which these jungle pests took full advantage; I removed 15 leeches from my legs. After ten o'clock our route took us up a very sharp incline and we had to pull ourselves up by roots. Some hornets (pĕnyĕngat) attacked us and caused a stampede. One found Clifford's nose and in a few minutes it was like a full-blown rose.
At 11.30 we reached the summit of Bukit Lada, which forms the divide between the Pertang on the Pahang side and the ulu Kemaman of Trengganu. According to the aneroid the altitude was only 700 ft., but judging by our exertions I suggested that some correction was required. We then descended the other side to the Sungai Besar and on lower again to the Sungai Babi, which in turn brought us to the Sungai Pertang, where we camped for the night. It is a fair sized stream; but we were above the bamboo country and so could not make rafts.
15th April. The path became a game track about five feet high through the jungle, following the course of the river down. We crossed and recrossed it no less than twenty-three times; by the afternoon the water was waist high; it was rather chilly work and still more so when it started to rain. We therefore stopped to camp.
To get the palm leaf (bertan) collected and made into an atap as quickly as possible we had a competition, the Kuantan Malays and the Sakai versus Clifford's servant from Pekan and mine, a Malay from Perak. The latter won easily. (I heard recently that this Perak Malay rose to be a District Officer under the Siamese in Kelantan, where eventually he died). We were cold and wet until Clifford remembered that it was the anniversary of his wedding-day and we sampled the brandy.
We found bamboos a little way below us, with which we made our rafts. Wan Ismail and all our men except six were then sent home early next morning by the way we had come.
16th April. Rafting down the river was a very pleasant change. The Pertang is a beautiful river with great deep pools, in which shafts of slate protrude, huge ngram trees overhanging the water. Our troubles however soon began. We struck a log-jam consisting of great trees piled twenty feet high and some hundred feet long, brought down by floods. Most of them seemed to have been there some time. The rock in the river here seemed to be granite (possibly Tembiling schist). The rafts had to be dragged over this; many bamboos were split in the process and had to be replaced. Just below we came to the Tekal River and we camped for the night at the junction of the two rivers.
17th April. The Tekal was a fine stream here, made the more imposing by a big rapid known as the "Jeram Jerami." This gave me my first taste of shooting rapids, and an exciting game it is too, when no one with you knows the rapids! This particular rapid ended in a steepish drop, which tilled the rafts almost upon end. However we negotiated it successfully. As we floated on down stream, we passed some sambhur (Rusa) drinking at the water's edge; they never moved as we went by—a sure sign that no human beings lived anywhere near.
We shot several rapids without mishap during the morning and were becoming fairly confident of our skill (or luck) in this somewhat thrilling pastime. A bad rapid, known as Jeram Tahan Badak, however, proved our undoing. There appeared to be a kink in this as we could not see the end. Clifford led, cach raft following at a few minutes' interval. The rush of water was terrific. As we swept round the corner, we saw Clifford and his raft high up on a rock; he and his party frantically gesticulated to us to keep to the left: S'man my leader, drove his pole in hard in front of my raft, hat to no purpose; the raft was on it at once and out he shot; he came out bobbing in front of us, while we swept on towards Clifford. 1 just managed to haul him up as we crashed on to the rock. We could do nothing to stop the third raft from the same fate. When we took stock we found we could make two whole rafts out of our bamboos, but, worst luck of all, we had lost our only remaining fowl—a white one, which we had carefully kept for the last.
18th April. (Easter Day).—Floated on down stream all day. Lost our cooked food at a rapid. The rafts became so knocked about they would scarcely float. There were no bamboos available for mending them, but we managed to patch one with a small meranti tree. Slept the night at Kuala Som.
19th April. We started early, getting along fairly well until we came to another bad rapid, Jeram Mena. Here Clifford came to grief. He and his raft upset; he lost everything except his cork mattress; all the rice was spoilt. We managed, however, to put together a small raft out of the wreck, on which we sent on two men to try and find the boat, which Owen, the District Officer at Kuala Tembiling, had undertaken to send up the river to meet us.
The rest of us spent some time diving to try and recover Clifford's revolver etc., but a wonderful rainbow appeared, with one end touching the place where all the things were sunk; the Malays thereupon ceased their efforts as they said the spooks had taken the things. It rained hard and we remained there cold and miserable.
20th April. Three dug-outs turned up at 8 a.m. and we pushed off on the final stage of our journey, glad to think that the end was in sight, but at the first rapid we all upset. At Kuala Tekal, where the Tekal joins the Tembiling River we found our boat. Further on down, at Kuala Tembiling, Duff and Owen were waiting for us at the house of Panglima Kakap, together with a huge curry. Scent had been sprinkled liberally over plate, spoon and fork, but our hunger made light of such trifles.
We left at ten that night following the great Pahang River down to Pekan, the Government station and residence of the Sultan, near the mouth, arriving there at 3 a.m. on the 23rd April.
All our time and compass survey records were lost and so far as I know, no one has been through that way since; that corner of the map therefore remains blank to this day. We established however the fact that the Tekal and the Tembiling Rivers rise from the same hill, although the latter runs north and then bends west before it finally runs south parallel to the Tekal.
We were particularly unlucky in finding the water in the Tekal at such a level as to make the rapids most difficult. It was my first real jungle trip. One learnt a great deal from Clifford, under whose guidance one realised what cheery companions Malays can be under such circumstances.
