The North Borneo Herald. SATURDAY, 16th FEBRUARY 1924. TAMBUNAN THE PROJECTED BRIDLE PATH

THE NORTH BORNEO HERALD AND THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE

EDUCATIONAL SERIES BY BORNEO HISTORY

No. 4 - VOL.XLII. SANDAKAN, SATURDAY, 16th FEBRUARY 1924.

The North Borneo Herald.

SATURDAY, 16th FEBRUARY 1924.

   

TAMBUNAN

THE PROJECTED BRIDLE PATH

We have in Tambunan a place containing within its circle of hills scenery, associations and climatic conditions, which taken together are unexcelled anywhere in the Country.

Tambunan is regarded by many people situated in the furthest part of the Interior and as haunted by restless tribes. It is in fact about thirty miles from Jesselton as the crow flies, and it carries a population of some thousand of Dusuns who have terraced and irrigated their padi lands in the manner of the landed and far famed terraced rice fields of Java and Ceylon.

At present we go to Tambunan by railway journey of a hundred miles and  by a bridle path seventy miles, making total distance of one hundred and seventy miles, so that its advantages are far beyond our present reach. The bridle path from the railway terminus at Melalap begins  as a cart road, it soon becomes a narrow track, winding up and down, and losing itself in the Pegalan Valley. It climbs foot hills, overhangs precipices, crosses the stony beds of rivers, and emerges on the wide Keningau plain in one or two hundred square miles of rolling grassland and land a thousand feet above sea level.

After Keningau it traverses a series of interminable cross valleys, until at least it gives you glimpses of Tambunan plain as a sheet of pale green lying low in its framework of mountain peaks. It winds out upon the Tambunan plain past villages and palm trees, through terraced padi-fields and grazing lands.

Such is the route by way of Tenom and Keningau. The new route now being examined goes from Jesselton to Penampang, past the new District Office there, up the Putatan River bank, climbs the ridge dividing the Putatan and Tuaran Valleys, and out to Mount Bungkak, which is Dusun for the "solar plexus". It descends from the Crocker Range into the Tambunan plain. At present the exploring party in charge of Native Chief Thiasan is somewhere near the "solar plexus".

The construction of a narrow path is all that is contemplated at present. This will give a better outlet for the padi, tobacco and the cattle, and it will make Tambunan accessible to Chinese. They and the Dusuns have always been intimate and intermingle freely.

Tambunan plain is full of pleasant surprises. It holds the highest piece of level land of any size in the country, ideal for race and golf courses. Its elevation is about eighteen hundred feet above sea level, and its temperature are much lower than those at the Coast. It has elevation, climate, water, water, an abundance a variety of native food and a sturdy population. The Pegalan River flowing through the valley makes a constant murmur of running water, and its cataracts abound with fish-traps. Far away on one side is perhaps the best rhino hunting ground in the country. Snipe are common in the season. Wild duck are not unknowns. Tobacco is grown upon the hill sides, and the homely potato flourishes.

The terraces rice fields cover some two or three thousand acres of the plain and the water is led through them in countless little channels. There is a sound of many waters. In the plain lie the almost forgotten camps of Mat Salleh wars. Here he made his final stand, and the ruined camps of friend and foes are as grass grown as the old British camps at home. Looking northward you can see the pinnacles of Kinabalu shining in the sun.

The people are all farmers, with a shrewd taste for a tapei. Tambunan heads in the census list as the most populous district in the country. It and Ranau hold 28,000 people, more than 10 percent of the whole country. It is the great Dusun stronghold. Mr Maxwell in his census report writes that Tambunan has sent its quota of labour to the estates and is also the best recruiting ground for the Constabulary. If, he points out, in spite of fermented liquor, ignorance, infant mortality and scourges the up-country Dusuns when left to themselves can increase 12 percent in ten years, it is not too much to say that if these obstacles could be eliminated even partially, the rate of growth would vastly increase.

For all its present remoteness, Tambunan may yet prove very close. Motors would annihilate its distance and would put it in the category of an afternoon's spin. The crest of the dividing range would afford sites for a bungalow or two like this Gap, between Kuala Kubu and Raub. Indeed Tambunan may yet be North Borneo what Bandong is to Java and what Kandy is to Ceylon.

J.M.H

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