A trip to Mt. Penrissen, Sarawak
R. S. Shelford published this account in 1900 in the Journal of the S. B. R. A. S. (Vol. 33), describing a zoological collecting expedition to Mount Penrissen (4,800 ft) in the upper Sarawak River region, undertaken jointly with E. A. W. Cox of the Sarawak Government service. The article’s overarching thesis is that while the mountain yielded an exceptionally rich invertebrate fauna, its vertebrate assemblage was strikingly depauperate—a condition Shelford attributes to intensive indigenous gun-hunting rather than to any inherent biogeographical poverty of the region.
Summary
The narrative traces the expedition from its departure at Kuching on 5 May 1900 through the upper reaches of the Sarawak River to the village of Sennah, and thence up the mountain to successive camps at 2,500, 3,400, and ultimately 4,800 feet. Shelford devotes considerable attention to the logistical and ethnographic dimensions of the journey: the difficulties of poling heavily laden boats through gravel beds and rapids, the exchange of Malay crews for Land-Dyak polers at Segu, the architecture and domestic life of the Sennah village (stilted houses on a precipitous bank, women’s brass ring ornaments, the “Bok tumbis” beadwork hat), and the negotiations with the Orang Kaya over carrier labour. These passages situate the scientific work firmly within the colonial administrative apparatus of Sarawak, where a “formidable looking surat” from the Resident facilitated access to native labour.
The core scientific argument concerns the apparent paradox of a mountain that is entomologically rich yet faunistically poor in vertebrates. Shelford observed only two species of monkey, no game birds, and no pigs, deer, kijang, or pelandok, and he contrasts this unfavourably with the bird lists previously published by John Whitehead and Charles Hose from Mounts Kina Balu and Dulit in the north. He advances two explanations: first, that approximately 60 per cent of the Dyaks in the district were armed with guns and conducted prolonged foraging parties before every harvest feast; second, that the southern end of Sarawak may be inherently less faunistically rich than the northern regions. The invertebrate collections, by contrast, were so extensive that Shelford expressed confidence that no other Bornean mountain had been so thoroughly worked entomologically during a single stay.
The article closes with a commitment to return in October for a dedicated botanical survey, and the appended lists—fern identifications by Bishop Hose and bryophyte determinations by F. Brotherus—provide the taxonomic backbone for the flora. The expedition’s results were to be published in instalments in the Journal as each group was worked out by specialists.
Key Findings
- The summit of Mount Penrissen (4,800 ft) was described as a flat plateau approximately half a mile long by 200 yards broad, covered in pandanus and rotan with trees in all stages of growth; the final 300 feet of ascent required improvised ladders over a sheer sandstone conglomerate precipice (p. 6).
- Only two species of monkey were observed; no game birds were procured or seen; pigs, deer, kijang, and pelandok were “noticeable only by their absence” (p. 8).
- Shelford estimated that 60 per cent of the Dyaks in the district were armed with guns, and that huge foraging parties kept up “a constant fusillade on anything above the size of a thrush” before every harvest feast (p. 8).
- Three species of fish were captured in a mountain stream using Tuba (a plant-derived fish poison); reptiles and amphibians were “moderately abundant” (p. 8).
- Bishop Hose’s fern list (Appendix III) records Polypodium hirtellum Blume and P. obliquatum Blume as new to Borneo, the former previously known only from Java, Perak, Ceylon, the Philippines, and China (p. 25).
- The expedition ran from 5 May to 4 June 1900; the party comprised five Dyak collectors, Malay and Chinese boys, and a Chinese cook, conveyed in three boats (later supplemented by two lighter Land-Dyak boats) (pp. 1–2).
Conclusion
Shelford’s definitive historical takeaway is that the vertebrate poverty of Mount Penrissen is an artefact of human pressure—specifically the widespread availability of firearms among the Land Dyaks and their institutionalised hunting cycles—rather than a reflection of the mountain’s natural carrying capacity. He implicitly argues that the true faunal richness of southern Sarawak’s highlands remains masked by this anthropogenic depletion, and that a meaningful comparison with the better-studied northern peaks (Kina Balu, Dulit) is therefore impossible until the hunting pressure is accounted for.
Context
- Shelford was a naturalist operating within the Sarawak Government’s colonial administrative framework; the expedition was facilitated by official correspondence (the Resident’s “surat”) and relied on indigenous labour negotiated through native chiefs (Orang Kaya, Pengara), reflecting the typical colonial pattern of scientific collection embedded in indirect rule (pp. 2–4).
- The article draws on the taxonomic expertise of several external specialists—Mr. Ridley for phanerogams, Bishop Hose for ferns, and F. Brotherus for bryophytes—illustrating the collaborative, networked model of colonial natural history in which field collectors in Sarawak depended on metropolitan and regional authorities for formal identification (pp. 8, 25–26).