r lives. When a man is dying they speak of him as
ascending Kina Balu and in times of drought they formerly practised a
curious and horrible custom, known as _sumunguping_, which the
authorities have now suppressed. When the crops showed signs of failing
the natives decided to despatch a messenger direct to the spirits of
their relatives and friends in the other world entreating them to
implore relief from the gods who control the rains. The person chosen
to convey the message was usually a slave or an enemy captured in
battle. Binding their victim to a post, the warriors of the tribe
advanced, one by one, and drove their spears into his body, shouting
with each thrust the messages which they wished conveyed to the spirits
on the mountain.

With the coming of day we pushed ahead at full speed. Soon we could
make out the precipitous sandstone cliffs of Balhalla, the island which
screens the entrance to Sandakan harbor. But long before we came
abreast of the town signs of human habitation became increasingly
apparent: little clusters of nipa-thatched huts built on stilts over
the water; others hidden away in the jungle and betraying themselves
only by spirals of smoke rising lazily above the feathery tops of the
palms. Sandakan itself straggles up a steep wooded hill, the Chinese
and native quarters at its base wallowing amid a network of
foul-smelling and incredibly filthy sewers and canals or built on
rickety wooden platforms which extend for half a mile or more along the
harbor's edge. A little higher up, fronting on a parade ground which
looks from the distance like a huge green rug spread in the sun to air,
are the government offices, low structures of frame and plaster,
designed so as to admit a maximum of air and a minimum of heat; the
long, low building of the Planters Club, encircled by deep, cool
verandahs; a Chinese joss-house, its facade enlivened by grotesque and
brilliantly colored carvings; and a down-at-heels hotel. Close by are
the churches erected and maintained by the Protestant and Roman
Catholic missions--the former the only stone building in the
protectorate. At the summit of the hill, reached by a steeply winding
carriage road, are the bungalows of the Europeans, their white walls,
smothered in crimson masses of bougainvillaea and shaded by stately
palms and blazing fire-trees, peeping out from a wilderness of tropic
vegetation. Viewed from the harbor, Sandakan is one of the most
enchanting places