Poison in Paradise

Eton turns out prime ministers of various stripes and patches, but it also forges fine explorers. It seems to prepare its alumni perfectly for flying snakes, scorpions so large you can put leads on them and leeches in waving battalions; titanic drinking and dancing ceremonies (our explorer, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, suffers repeated blistering on the dance floor); the friendship of head-hunters; and for the exacting business of leading world-protecting, people-nurturing expeditions into the planet’s wild and vulnerable regions. In the school’s natural history museum, pupils can now see a parang, presented to Hanbury-Tenison by his tribal friends, its handle shaped like a hornbill, its razor-sharp edge responsible for hacking off more than 100 heads.

The Eden of this book’s title is the Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Borneo, which had only just been gazetted when the author heard of it. It’s the story of his 1977 expedition, which he has written about before (most recently for a small press in 2004); but here is the blockbuster version, a compendium of diaries and recollections.