Borneo and the Poet

When Redmond O'Hanlon set out to rediscover the lost rhinoceros of Borneo, accompanied by the poet James Fenton, it was in the best tradition of nineteenth-century exploration. They were armed with backbreaking kit suitable to surviving two months in a steaming jungle of creeping, crawling and biting things; their heads brimmed with training provided by the SAS; and O'Hanlon himself had an encyclopedic knowledge of the region's flora and fauna. And yet they proceeded to have an adventure that neither O'Hanlon, his poet friend nor his guides were quite prepared for.