A trip to a source of the Sarawak River and Bengkarum Mountains
C.J. Brooks, a naturalist operating in the Sarawak borderlands, published this account in 1911 of a September 1908 expedition that traced the right-hand branch of the Sarawak River to its source, crossed the watershed into the upper Sambas basin, and achieved what he believed to be the first European ascent of Bengkarum Mountain. The article is simultaneously a travelogue of Dyak highland communities and a botanical collecting report, with the latter yielding several new taxa described in the Philippine Journal of Science.
Summary
Brooks departed Bidi on 21 September 1908 with eight Dyak coolies and a Malay mandor, following the main stream of the Sarawak River’s right-hand branch upstream through increasingly steep sandstone terrain. The route passed through the abandoned Krokong Dyak village on Gonong Tran—left desolate by a smallpox epidemic two years prior—before reaching the Chinese pepper-growing settlement of Tebang (Pangkal Gumbang). From there the party pushed upstream past a series of cascades to the Teringos falls, a cascade of over one hundred feet broken into two stages, and then continued along a cliff-face path above the river before a heavy storm forced a return to the Dyak house at Teringos (p. 42–43).
The watershed crossing led Brooks into the Sambas basin, where he encountered the large Dyak kampong of Kapot, a settlement of the Jaguay type whose inhabitants were the first white man they had seen. Here he observed the communal division of a fish catch into fifty-three portions, the widespread prevalence of scabies (corup) treated with turmeric, and the state dress of the Orang Kaya, including a high-crowned military cap with silver lace bestowed by the Dutch Government (p. 44–45). After a day’s rest and a failed attempt to secure guides—local Dyaks initially refused on grounds of Antus (spirits) and the mountain’s supposed unclimbability—Brooks pressed on via Gonong Trebong, a house perched on a narrow ridge at approximately 2,000 feet, where he documented the “sekardoo,” a large hollow wooden drum with a stretched hide that could be heard over twenty miles away and formerly served as a head-hunting alarm (p. 46–47).
The final ascent to Bengkarum was made from Kampong Temong, a Dyak house on a spur of the mountain, with an elderly local guide who proved invaluable. The summit, at 3,500 feet, is a broad, irregular plateau of sandstone roughly Y-shaped in plan, its surface worn into deep gullies and overgrown with jungle. Brooks collected ferns and insects on the slopes before mist closed in, and noted the presence of teardammar trees, Sphagnum ground cover, and a small fern on a submerged sandbank that proved to be a new genus (p. 48). The return journey via Siluas and Pankalu Babong included further ethnographic observations, including a Dutch police patrol escorting an escaped Malay prisoner from Sambas, and a head-hunting trophy still being ritually feasted upon at Pankalu Babong six months after its taking (p. 49–50).
Key Findings
- Bengkarum Mountain’s summit elevation was measured at 3,500 feet; the mountain is roughly Y-shaped in plan, with the ascent made from the base of the southernmost ridge (p. 48).
- The expedition yielded a new genus and species, Protolindsaya Brooksii Copel., collected at 3,500 feet on a sandbank in a small stream on the summit, published in the Philippine Journal of Science Vol. 5, No. 4 (p. 51).
- Two new Asplenium species (A. trifoliatum and A. fliceps) and a new variety (Plagiogyria pycnophylla var. integra, new to Borneo) were also described from this trip, all published in the same journal (p. 51).
- The Teringos falls have a total height of over one hundred feet, broken into two cascades approximately twenty feet from the top (p. 42).
- The “sekardoo” drum at Gonong Trebong was over twenty feet long, slung parallel to the hill slope, and reportedly audible at Gumbang, a distance of over twenty miles (p. 46–47).
- At Kapot, Brooks observed the communal fish division yielding fifty-three portions, one per family, with viscera distributed separately (p. 44–45).
Conclusion
Brooks’ definitive contribution is the first recorded European ascent of Bengkarum Mountain and the documentation of its summit flora, which produced a new genus and multiple new species or varieties for Bornean botany. The article also stands as a valuable ethnographic snapshot of Dyak highland communities in the Sarawak–Sambas border zone at the turn of the twentieth century, capturing material culture, subsistence practices, and the lingering effects of head-hunting rituals in a region under the overlapping influence of the White Rajah’s administration and the Dutch colonial government.
Context
- Brooks was a naturalist-collector operating under the patronage of the Sarawak government; his account reflects the contemporary administrative framing of such expeditions as both scientific and territorial in purpose, with the Malay mandor and Dyak coolies functioning as essential logistical infrastructure.
- The primary sources are Brooks’ own field observations and collections; the botanical determinations were published in the Philippine Journal of Science (Vol. 5, No. 4), indicating collaboration with Copeland, the leading fern taxonomist of the period.