JOURNEY TO THE SUMMIT OF GUNONG BUBU.
Gunong Bubu is the most elevated mountain of the coast range of the State of Perak. Its highest summit lies about S. 17° E. of Thaipeng, distant, say, twenty miles as the crow flies. It is one of the series of nearly detached groups of mountains which form the coast-range, having their spurs and longest axes generally in a N.N.E. and S.S.W. direction. There is no record of any exploration of Gunong Buba. It is said that some Europeans have ascended it and made a collection of plants, but what the Reverend Mr. Scortechini and I saw of the flora, inclines us to think that some of the adjacent and lower summits could only have been reached. The mountain is not quite 5,600 feet high, but rendered very inaccessible by precipices of granite 1,000 feet high, which bar most of the spurs. At the request of Sir Hugh Low, I undertook its exploration, accompanied by the Revd. B. Scortechini as botanist, and Mr. C. I. Bozzolo, who had charge of the Malays carrying our baggage. We started from the mountain garden at Arang Para, which is about 3,000 feat above sea level—not a good point of departure, as we had to descend and then climb up again over several very steep spurs before we could reach even the foot of the range. The following is the journal.
May 20, 1884.—Started from the mountain garden at 9. A.M. on a course due south, descending a very steep slope along a mountain track used by Chinese sawyers. It soon began to rain heavily, which made the steep path so slippery that
