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Cameron Highlands

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Cameron Highlands

The Cameron Highlands is a highland plateau in the state of Pahang, on the Malay Peninsula, situated at an altitude of approximately 1,432 metres in the Bertam Valley [1, p. 105]. Named after the Government surveyor William Cameron, who explored the region in the mid-1880s, the area has served as a hill station, agricultural zone, and tourist destination from the colonial period to the present [1, p. 101]. Its economic base rests on agriculture and tourism, both of which continue to expand and generate environmental pressures [1, p. 101]. The highlands also form the southern terminus of a route through the interior of Ulu Kelantan, linking the plateau to the East Coast Railway via the valleys of the Sungai Ber and Sungai Brok, where the Temiar people maintain traditional settlements [2, pp. 288–293].

Origins and the Question of Naming

The attribution of the name “Cameron’s Highlands” to William Cameron rests on a chain of geographical errors that persisted for decades. Cameron’s first expedition, beginning in February 1885, followed instructions to traverse from Waterloo Estate up Bubu to Gunong Chabang on the Raia, then east into Pahang and south toward Ulu Bernam or Selangor [3, p. 124]. During this crossing he discovered a plateau at approximately 4,500 feet elevation in Pahang territory, which he described as “a new and very interesting plateau of country maintaining for miles an average elevation of 4,500 feet on the rivers’ banks” [3, p. 124]. This was not the plateau that subsequently bore his name. The view from Gunong Challi, which Cameron ascended, of the Ulu Bertam is shut out by Gunong Irau and Gunong Batu Berinchang, proving he could not have described the area now called Cameron’s Highlands [4, pp. 2–3].

The confusion was compounded by subsequent expeditions. Leonard Wray’s 1888 expedition, published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1890, No. 21), mistakenly identified the Bertam as the Telom and reported finding Cameron’s camp and elephant tracks; the tracks were in fact made by wild elephants converging on the riverbank, and Sakai guides had deliberately misled Wray to please him [4, p. 3]. F. St. George Caulfeild’s 1904 expedition from Tapah repeated the error, mistaking the Sungei Ulam (a Sakai name) for the Telom and mapping a small area along the Bertam as “Cameron’s Land” [4, p. 3]. The intervening country between the Bertam and the true Ulu Telom was simply unknown; no maps existed, and the difficulty of overland travel meant the error went uncorrected for decades [4, p. 3].

The first Europeans to penetrate the Ulu Bertam above the Robinson Falls were H. C. Robinson and C. Boden Kloss in 1908, whose objective was Gunong Irau and who reached the slopes of Gunong Batu Berinchang [4, p. 3]. The pivotal 1922 expedition—comprising Robinson, Dr. H. P. Hacker (Medical Entomologist), W. M. Sands (Economic Botanist), J. B. Scrivenor (Government Geologist and Surveyor), and A. C. Twyford of the Survey Department—finally mapped the land above the falls, which they named “Tanah Rata” [4, pp. 4–5]. Scrivenor records the naming of Robinson Falls, Rhododendron Hill, Myrtle Hill, and Parit Falls during this trip [4, p. 4].

Cameron himself died in Singapore on 9 November 1886, having written from the General Hospital on 24 October that he was “suffering again from fever” [3, p. 126]. His letter of 9 April 1886 to C. V. Creagh, Assistant Resident of Perak, records that he had been “perched up 6,600 feet amidst the mists, rains and bitter cold for three months” in the mountains of Berang, Bil, and Giliting [3, p. 125].

Planning, Settlement, and the Garden City Model

The formal planning of the Cameron Highlands as a hill station began in the late 1920s. The 1929 preliminary general zoning plan, chaired by Charles Compton Reade following his official visit to Baguio in the Philippines, divided the highlands into the Southern Highlands and the Cameron Highlands, with the latter subdivided into service, village, administrative, residential, and recreation zones [1, p. 106]. The town of Tanah Rata, selected as the township site in 1931, was modelled on Baguio, whose layout had been designed by Daniel H. Burnham as a compact garden city for 25,000 to 30,000 people [1, pp. 105–106]. The 1931 re-zoning plan for the Northern Highlands designated specific areas for agriculture (Area A), armed services (Area D), a park (Area E), viewpoints (Area F), general administration (Area G), recreation and golf (Area H), schools and churches (Area I), a Brinchang Valley Reserve (Area J), and waterworks and catchment areas (Area K) [1, p. 107].

Scrivenor, writing in 1931, documented the area’s practical advantages as a hill station: abundant water, gentle contours, and a cool climate, set against its one great drawback—enclosing hills that shut out all views of the lower country [4, p. 5]. He contrasted this with Fraser’s Hill, which is perched on steep ridges with magnificent panoramas but a poor water supply [4, p. 10]. The Bertam at Tanah Rata is approximately 20 feet broad and contains no fish; the absence is attributed to the Robinson Falls acting as a barrier to upstream migration and floods sweeping downstream fish [4, p. 5].

In the post-independence period, planning documents reveal shifting priorities. The 1960 report made no mention of agriculture or agricultural tourism, whereas the Cameron Highlands Development Plan for 2003–15 called for increases in agro-tourism, eco-tourism, and cultural and heritage tourism [1, p. 108]. The 2016–2030 local plan proposes an aerial tram between Kuala Terla and Habu or an alternative road from Tringkap to Habu crossing the Mentigi Forest Reserve, both of which would damage environmentally sensitive areas including the Habu water catchment and Robinson Falls [1, p. 109].

Economic and Geological Character

Agriculture is the largest land use in the Cameron Highlands at 5,705 hectares, followed by forestry; approximately 80 per cent of tourists are Malaysians [1, p. 108]. Baker, writing in 1933, assessed the area between the Pahang and Kelantan boundary and the Sungai Blatop as “a very valuable extension to the Cameron Highlands area” suited to the same type of agriculture, noting it was “a wide valley with small areas of flat land, but in no sense a plateau” [2, p. 293]. The area between Kuala Betis and Gua Musang comprises roughly 200 square miles of reasonably flat land with excellent soil and good rail and river access, judged suitable for immediate agricultural development [2, p. 293].

Geologically, the granite formation of the Cameron Highlands continues down the Sungai Ledlad as far as its junction with the Sungai Blatop; below this point and throughout the Gunong Senjort area, granite predominates but with extensive outcrops of mica-schist [2, p. 293]. About a mile and a half below Kuala Brok there is a considerable area of brecciated granite, below which the granite is displaced by sedimentary rocks, mainly schists [2, p. 293]. Above Jeram Gajah the river bed is mainly quartzite, and the rapids are caused by huge boulders of vitreous quartzite [2, p. 293]. Tin oxide deposits are found freely in the bed of the Sungai Brok, and definite reports of tin deposits exist between Sungai Betis and the limestone range of Bukit Ayam [2, p. 293]. A Chinese-managed gold mine at Panggong Lalat, visited en route to Gua Musang, produces approximately 70 tahils (a traditional unit of weight) of gold per month [2, p. 293].

The forests traversed during Baker’s journey contained fair stands of meranti, merbau, terantang, medang, and seraya, with clumps of bamboo abundant everywhere [2, p. 293]. The ngeram tree, found along the river banks, was being carefully preserved in the state as its roots protect the river banks from erosion and its deep shade keeps back resam and undergrowth [2, p. 293].

The Temiar and the Interior Route

The route from the Cameron Highlands to the East Coast Railway traverses the previously unmapped interior of Ulu Kelantan, home to the Temiar, a subgroup of the Sakai peoples. Baker estimated the Temiar population of the area at approximately 3,000 individuals [2, p. 293]. The Temiar in these valleys are described as “a tribe apart,” and even to the unscientific observer very different from any of the other Sakai tribes [2, p. 289]. H. D. Noone, Government Ethnographer of the F.M.S. Museums Department, had described them as “Nessiots,” a primitive Indonesian stock who preceded the round-headed Oceanic Mongols [2, p. 289].

The long house at Penghulu To’ Jagor’s ladang (settlement) on the Sungai Ber accommodates at least 100 people grouped in family parties round five fireplaces, with no internal partitions [2, p. 290]. To’ Jagor, a fine upstanding man who speaks Malay easily, maintains a strict standard of fatherly discipline and prohibits blow pipes, considering that the upas poison used on the arrows causes sickness amongst those who handle it [2, p. 290]. His ladang is exceptionally well cultivated, growing hill padi (rice) as well as vegetables and ever-flowering shrubs in addition to the usual Temiar crops [2, p. 290].

The Jeram Gajah rapids mark a clear break in Temiar social organisation: above the falls, communities share freely and move between ladangs as one family; below, distinct parties keep severely apart with visible watchfulness [2, p. 291]. Baker observed that the Temiars showed an extraordinary desire to sample European medicines, and that the immediate efficacy of iodine on cuts or ammonia on stings caused an “almost embarrassing desire for medicines all along our route” [2, p. 289]. He noted their obvious happiness and good fellowship, with food and labour shared ungrudgingly, and concluded that “with him life is certainly not ‘nasty, brutish and short’” [2, p. 289].

Baker advocated that adequate reserves between Kuala Cherus and the upper ridges of the Ber be set aside for the Temiars’ use if they continued their present form of life, while expressing hope that they might be capable of development and “adding one more virile race to the many races of Malaya” [2, p. 293]. His companion, Mr. Blackman, a New Zealander, was struck by the resemblance in character between the Temiars and the Māori [2, p. 293].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on the Cameron Highlands reveals a progression from geographical clarification through colonial planning to contemporary environmental assessment. The earliest contributions—Maxwell’s 1926 reconstruction of Cameron’s expeditions and Scrivenor’s 1931 memoir—were fundamentally concerned with correcting the misattribution of the plateau’s name, drawing on Perak State archives, Federal Council Papers, and personal field sketches [3, pp. 122–128], [4, pp. 2–14]. Both authors were senior officers of the Malayan Civil Service with direct access to official records, and their articles reflect the administrative culture of the 1920s, in which the naming of geographical features after colonial-era explorers was standard practice and the “sanatorium” question was a live policy debate [3, p. 122].

Baker’s 1933 reconnaissance account represents a different register: a colonial field report in which ethnographic and geological observations serve the practical purpose of assessing land for agricultural settlement and transport infrastructure [2, pp. 288–295]. The expedition was explicitly commissioned at the direction of the Governor of the Federated Malay States, who identified the potential access route as a matter of administrative interest [2, p. 288]. The Temiars are evaluated in terms of their capacity for “development” within the colonial economic order, a framing that Baker himself partially subverts through his evident admiration for their social organisation [2, p. 293].

Weebers’ 2017 article marks a decisive shift in analytical framework, situating the Cameron Highlands within the comparative literature on Asian hill stations and connecting colonial garden city planning theory to its practical application in Malaya [1, pp. 101–111]. Drawing on National Archives material covering 1960 to 2030, the article identifies the central dilemma of the highlands’ post-independence development: the tension between economic dependence on agriculture and tourism and the environmental degradation both activities produce [1, p. 101]. As flat, gently sloping land became exhausted, new development moved onto steep slopes, triggering soil erosion, siltation, landslides, and flash floods [1, p. 101]. The article argues that no single masterplan has yet resolved this tension, and that the 2016–2030 local plan, while rhetorically committed to sustainability, contains projects that environmental groups warn will cause severe ecological damage [1, p. 109].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. R. Weebers (2017). Tanah Rata and the development of the Cameron Highlands, 1925–2030 JMBRAS 90(1): 101–111. Read on JSTOR
  2. A.C. Baker (1933). An account of a journey from the Cameron Highlands to the east coast railway and of a visit to the Temiar settlements in the valleys of the Sungai Blatop and S. Ber JMBRAS 11(2): 288–295. Read on JSTOR
  3. W. Cameron and W.G. Maxwell (1926). Cameron’s Highlands JMBRAS 4(1): 122–128. Read on JSTOR
  4. J.B. Scrivenor (1931). Recollections of Cameron’s Highlands and Fraser’s Hill JMBRAS 9(1): 2–14.