Atrip to Gunong Blumut
D.F.A. Hervey’s “A Trip to Gunong Blumut,” read before the Society on 13 October 1879 and published in JSBRAS Vol. 3, documents a January–February 1879 expedition up the Johor and Lenggiu rivers and overland to the summit of Gunong Blumut in the interior of Johor. Accompanied by Mr. Hullett, Principal of Raffles’ Institute, Hervey combined botanical collecting, geological observation, and ethnographic inquiry among Malay and Jakun communities to produce one of the earliest comprehensive accounts of this mountain and its surrounding country.
Summary
The expedition departed Singapore on 21 January 1879 by steam launch up the Johor River, reaching Kota Tinggi on the 23rd and Seluang on the 25th, before transferring to the Lenggiu tributary on the 27th. The river journey was hampered by a high flood—eight or nine feet above the previous year’s maximum—and by dense jungle growth that required constant cutting of fallen trees from the narrow stream (pp. 85–99). After entering the Teba River on the 29th and reaching the Jakun Pengkalan, the party went overland on the 30th, wading through flooded jungle for the first day and ascending a series of ridges on the 31st, reaching the source of the Lenggiu at Batu Setinggan on the 1st of February. The summit was reached on the morning of 2 February, after a steep climb through moss-covered forest, and the party descended by the 5th (pp. 100–109).
Hervey’s account is notable for its integration of natural history with indigenous knowledge. He records the Benuak creation myth in which the mountains of Blumut, Chimundong, and Bechuak are the oldest land, raised by the deity Pirman after the world was destroyed by a flood, and in which the first human pair emerged from a floating prahu of pulei wood (pp. 105–106). He also documents the Jakun legend of the tiger’s origin—born of a green frog that licked Baginda Ali—and a protective serapah (charm) that invokes the names of Fatimah and Moses (or Baginda Ali) as the tiger’s parents, which Hervey interprets as evidence of Islamic modification of an older native tradition (pp. 110–112). A substantial appendix compares his newly collected vocabulary of the bahasa kapur (camphor language) with the list published by Logan in 1847, confirming the persistence of this artificial speech among the aboriginal camphor-hunters of the interior (pp. 112–114).
The geological and botanical observations, while less systematic than those of a specialist, provide valuable early data: the summit consists of large granite blocks with stunted trees and rasau palms; the bed of the Lenggiu source stream is broken-up granite of quartz with mica; and the soil ranges from black mould to red clay and lateritic gravel (pp. 103–104, 107–109). Hervey identified two ferns on the summit—Dipteris Horsfieldii and what he believed to be Matonia Vectinata—both previously recorded by Wallace only from Mount Ophir, though his specimens were dwarfed compared to Wallace’s descriptions (p. 107).
Key Findings
- The elevation of Gunong Blumut was recorded at 3,190 feet by Mr. Hill’s aneroid, making it the highest peak yet measured in the Johor interior at that time (p. 89).
- The Benuak creation legend, confirmed by the Dato (Batin Lama) at Pengkalan Teba, identifies the Blumut group as the oldest land and the axis of the earth’s stability, with Gunong Ledang, Kap, Tongkat Bangsi, and Tongkat Subang as the northern anchors (pp. 105–106).
- The bahasa kapur vocabulary collected by Hervey largely corroborates Logan’s 1847 list, with minor phonetic variations, confirming that this artificial language remained in active use among camphor-hunters on the Sedili, Endau, and Batu Pahat rivers some thirty years later (pp. 112–114).
- The old Pahang–Johor boundary was identified at a dip in a ridge on the ascent, though it had since been moved further north (p. 104).
- The summit flora included Dipteris Horsfieldii and a species Hervey identified as Matonia Vectinata, both previously known only from Mount Ophir, suggesting a shared high-altitude flora across the Peninsula’s central range (p. 107).
- The Dato at Pengkalan Teba, who claimed to remember both Logan’s and M. Favre’s visits, provided a correction to Logan’s account of the Sayong River’s source, asserting that streams flowed in opposite directions from a common swamp rather than from a single hill as Logan had described (p. 101).
Conclusion
Hervey’s account stands as a foundational document for the physical and cultural geography of the Johor interior, demonstrating that the Blumut range was not merely a geographical feature but a cosmological centre for the Benuak and Jakun peoples. His definitive takeaway is that the mountain’s superstitious veneration, long noted by travellers, is grounded in a coherent creation mythology that positions the Blumut group as the primordial land from which all else derives, and that this tradition remained vividly alive among the Jakun elders he encountered. The article also implicitly argues for the continued value of the Society’s ethnographic and linguistic collections, particularly Logan’s unpublished Malay vocabulary and his earlier interior accounts, which Hervey’s fieldwork both confirmed and corrected.
Context
- The article was read at a meeting of the Johore Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (the precursor to MBRAS) and forms part of the early series of papers documenting the physical and cultural landscape of the Straits Settlements and their hinterlands.
- Hervey’s expedition built directly on the work of William Logan (1847) and M. Favre, both of whom had traversed the same interior country; Hervey’s account serves as a point of comparison and verification for their earlier observations.