An official appointment--A tour of inspection--Lost in the
forest--I find a philosopher--Lycurgus and his laws--A
contented mind is a continual feast--A night among the
tigers--On the Berumbum--I sleep with a serpent--The last
of many--Safe from trap and arrow--The coronation of King
Edward VII.
Having established a regular trade in forest products and attempted
something in the way of plantations, I felt a strong desire to explore
the whole country inhabited by the Sakai tribes to better estimate its
riches and at the same time to know more thoroughly the character of
this people of whom I knew only a limited number.
From the Bidor I passed into Sunkei Selin and Pahang, and when, in 1901,
I happened to be at Tapah I was offered the Government post of
Superintendent of the Perak Sakais.
The proposal was such as to gratify a little ambition of which I had not
really been conscious before. I therefore accepted it with great
pleasure, the more so as I felt flattered that the British Government
should repose so much confidence in an Italian.
My first official act was to make enquiries about a serious quarrel that
had taken place amongst the Sakais living in the plain, and that had
resulted in several deaths.
The fact was so uncommon and extraordinary considering the good nature
of the people, that it was quite worth the while of an investigation.
Two Bretak Sakais descended from the heights which bound Perak and
Pahang, and found hospitality in a family of those Sakais who are in
constant contact with strangers. Seeing them take some salt out of a
bamboo tube and eat it, the two guests asked to be allowed to taste it
in their turn. In whatever hut of the jungle savages, this desire would
have been anticipated but these others had learnt selfishness, as well
as other defects, in their intercourse with their neighbours, and simply
answered that salt did harm to anybody not accustomed to it.
This prevarication, which was equal to a refusal, offended the Bretaks,
as it was an infringement of the Sakai custom of sharing like brothers
all they possessed. They insisted upon their right and at last obtained
a handful of salt, given them grudgingly.
After the Bretaks had departed, the other men went to their traps and
brought back with them four big rats that were at once cooked and
abundantly salted.
It so happened, that one of the women,--who had been ill for some
time--ate two of them, thereby causing herself such a serious
indigestion that in a couple of days she was no more.
[Illustration: In quest of fruit and bulbs.
_p._ 91.]
The Sakais thought directly that her sudden decease must be owing to an
evil spell of the Bretaks who wished for a revenge for the reluctance
shown in giving them the salt. They quickly decided that the crime
should be punished by death and started off in pursuit of the supposed
culprits. As soon as they were within reach they attacked them with a
volley of poisoned darts. The others naturally defended themselves and
the conflict ended with three dead.
In the course of time the Government came to hear of the question and
bade the _pengulu_ (Malay chief) to make enquiries in order to establish
the responsibility. But he refused to interfere.
No sooner was I appointed Superintendent than I received orders to
interest myself in the matter, and an escort of armed soldiers was put
at my disposition for the arrest of those found guilty. But this way of
proceeding was not to my opinion, as I explained in my report. The fact
was quite an exceptional one and was the consequence of a deplorable
superstition. By imprisoning someone we should not have cured the great
evil of ignorance, but only have sown the seed of hatred against the
White Man, for the men who were taken prisoners could not live long in
seclusion and their untimely death would never be pardoned.
The British Authority being favourable to this my way of thinking I was
able to go alone and find out the rights of the case after which I
managed to obtain a complete pacification of all concerned.
* * * * *
I had been but a short time in my new office when I decided to make a
tour of inspection through the territory entrusted to my care and I
really do not remember any other of my travels so full of incidents and
emotional adventures. Two, in particular, will never be erased from my
memory.
I was journeying quite by myself, confiding perhaps too much in the
knowledge I had gained of the jungle, and the possibility of being lost
in the forest never entered my head.
And yet this is one of the greatest perils that can befall anybody, for
it may be a compendium of all the others.
He who is born and who grows up in the forest does not run this risk for
certain, because from a slight cut in a tree, a broken reed, a pendant
bough, the smallest sign that would escape the keenest of European eyes,
the native knows how to draw precise indications of the direction to be
followed. Wherever he goes, he never forgets to leave some trace of his
passage in order to find his way back without uncertainty and loss of
time. In this way the Sakais wander about the jungle with astounding
security just as if they were walking along a well-traced out path.
The same prodigious variety of woodland scenery that the forest offers
to the gaze gives it a certain uniformity in the mind of a white man.
The colossal trees that stretch away one after the other as far as can
be seen; the twining vines and creepers which cluster everywhere; the
huge bushes and flowering thickets; the dips and hollows in the ground,
and the little ponds over which the green of reed and rush triumphs
equally with bright floral colours. The European embraces all this in a
sole glance, in its entirety, but cannot discern, like the Sakai, the
difference that exists between this tree and that, this glen and the
other. And if the poor man be alone he will surely be lost; and if he is
lost there is very little chance of his ever getting out again.
* * * * *
Evening was fast approaching; the birds were singing their last songs
for the day, and in the first hour of a brief twilight breathed that
solemn calm which especially belongs to the forest when its more
innocent inhabitants are beginning to conceal themselves for the night,
and the ferocious beasts of darkness are not yet abroad in search of
prey.
It was getting late and I hastened to reach my cabin, but hurry as I
would it never came in sight. I could not understand this at all until
suddenly (with what dismay I will leave my reader to imagine) I
perceived that I had been following the tracks of a bear, believing them
to have been a man's.
Alarmed, I looked about me on every side, scrutinizing every part; I
advanced a little this way and that, then retraced my steps, anxiously
endeavouring to find out a clue to the right direction.
Alas! there was no mistaking the truth; I was lost in the depth of the
forest, and what was worse, at nightfall!
Little by little anguish parched my throat and drops of cold sweat stood
on my brow. What could I do? If I remained on the ground I should be
exposed to the fatal caresses of some wild beast, on the other hand if I
climbed up a tree (no very easy matter as I should have to find a
creeper strong enough to bear my weight) should I not be equally exposed
to the deadly clasp of a snake?
The darker it grew, the more my bewilderment and anxiety increased. I
began to hollo desperately, calling frantically for help with such a
piercing voice as I had never dreamt of possessing before. It was my
only and last hope.
Tired, hungry, thirsty and disheartened I continued to shout as loudly
as I could and at last it seemed to me that a human voice answered my
wild cries from a distance. Once more I bawled with all my might and
then listened. Yes, there was no doubt; someone had heard me, and with
the auricular acuteness of despair I turned towards the direction of
the sound and hurried forward.
It was not long before I came across a solitary hut that I found to be
inhabited by a family of six persons.
I narrated my perilous adventure and they gave me food (which was
certainly not intended for delicate stomachs) and water, and I, in
return, handed round some tobacco, then, tranquil as regarded the night,
with a sigh of relief I lighted my pipe, the ever faithful companion of
my travels, and began to chat with the old man, the head of the family.
I intentionally introduced the Sakais' dislike for work and asked him
the reason why.
Very quietly, and without the least hesitation, he replied:
"Why should we give ourselves the pain and fatigue of working like
slaves? Does not the earth give us, spontaneously, more than enough for
our need without tormenting it with implements?".
The argument was logical, but I smiled and remarked:
"It does not seem to me that the earth provides everything without
working it. When you want rice or tobacco you have to ask it from those
who cultivate it".
The old man quickly retorted:
"And what does that matter? We have the right of demand because both are
grown upon our soil. By cutting down our beautiful forest for
plantations we are deprived of game and fruit; by drying up our ponds we
have no fish to eat; by cultivating our land we are being continually
driven farther towards the mountains, in search of that food which
satisfied our fathers, but the stranger who comes amongst us beats the
path that we have traced with our feet. Is it not just then that we
should have some recompense, that certain of our needs should be
considered?".
[Illustration: In quest of animal food.
_p._ 91.]
"Povera e nuda vai, filosofia",[6] I muttered to myself, admiring that
old man, ignorant and bare, who in the rough, broken phrases of his poor
language solved with the greatest simplicity questions of civil rights
which a University professor would have found complicated and even
difficult. I continued however:
"But then if nobody came to you, treading your paths; if nobody
cultivated some strips of your forest, how would you obtain calico, and
tobacco and rice?".
With a shake of his head my humble host hastened to answer:
"Cannot man live without these trifles? Does not the forest supply us
with flesh, fish, and fowl? Does it not produce, for our use, roots,
bulbs, truffles, mushrooms, edible leaves and exquisite fruit? Do not
its trees provide us with shelter and their bark with a covering for our
bodies, when it is necessary? What more could one desire?".
I was nonplused! But noticing that my new friend was in the vein to
chat, a fact which I inwardly attributed to the effects of that same
tobacco, whose necessity he had just denied, but which he was smoking
with evident pleasure, I turned the conversation by asking why his
people were not be found in other parts of the Peninsula?
"We love our forest and our liberty too well ever to leave these
confines of our own accord" he replied placidly and in tones of
conviction, "and when, as sometimes happened in the past, our people
were forced to follow and serve their conquerors they brought little or
no profit to their masters because if they found a chance of escaping
back to their kindred they did so, and if not, in a short time they died
of broken hearts. As for our children, we would rather kill them
ourselves than let them go into the hands of our neighbours. Now that we
are protected by the _orang putei_" (he meant the British Government)
"we and our families live in more peace than before".
As though overcome by painful memories, he became silent and sad. After
a minute he went on in a dull voice, seeming to speak to himself: "Once
upon a time these parts were not so deserted, and populous, prosperous
villages were scattered over the forest. But our tranquillity and
well-being excited the envy of other tribes who wanted to subject us to
them and to make us work like slaves, so they came against us armed, and
pillaged, burnt and destroyed everything belonging to us. We were
dispersed and compelled to live in isolated huts erected in the most
inaccessible places in order not to attract the attention of other men".
He paused again and then added:
"We have nothing to lose now except our freedom which is more precious
to us than life itself, and for this we are ready to fight to the very
last even if our bodies are left on the ground for beasts and birds to
feed upon".
A fierce light kindled the old Sakai's eyes, which boded evil for anyone
who attempted to disturb the quietude of their present rambling life.
And I understood how much stronger these inoffensive people were in
their dispersion than when they were banded together in villages. If
aggressors should attack these solitary huts they would find their
owners prompt to meet the attack with all the ferocity of wild beasts
and even if nobody was saved from the massacre to report the terrible
news in other encampments, alarm would have been given by the sound of
fire-arms and cries. In consequence the other Sakais would immediately
destroy all signs of their habitation, and penetrate farther into the
forest which, for them, has no secret concealed. Towards night they
would creep among the tall grasses until they found the enemy that would
serve us a target for their poisoned arrows. However well their foes
might know the use of gun and revolver, they would be at a disadvantage,
for these weapons reveal the position occupied by those who shoot but
the fatal dart flies out of the darkness leaving the spot from whence it
comes uncertain.
Nothing could be more disastrous in the way of warfare than an attack
with poisoned arrows, in the midst of the forest, during the night. Your
men would fall right and left without having been able to defend
themselves in any way.
I afterwards got the old man to tell me something about their customs
regarding marriage and family organization.
"By thus living separate", he said "each family by itself, without being
subject to any chief or authority, save only that of the Elder (be he
father or grandfather), our peace is guaranteed. There are no quarrels,
there is no jealousy or bad-feeling, for all are equal, all live in the
same way and each one divides what he may possess amongst the others, so
that there is also no injustice".
I raised the objection that this perfect equality could not possibly
exist because the identical rights and duties in domestic economy could
not be applied in the same way to the hale and strong members of the
family as to the weak and sickly. But I had to repeat my idea in various
ways before the Sakai caught the meaning, then he exclaimed:
"Ah, I suppose you are speaking of some sort of deformity, or defect.
Amongst us it is so rare to find either one or the other that it would
be difficult for a Sakai to understand when you talk of men different to
him in form or robustness. If however, the Evil Spirit makes one of our
children be born deformed, or with a defect, he is treated with the care
necessary to his state but he cannot transmit his infirmity to others
because, first of all our customs compel him to lead a life of chastity,
and secondly, no woman of our tribe would consent to a union with him".
Oh, Lycurgus, I thought, thy wise laws have here, among savages, a less
brutal application. For one who dies loveless (and as the Sakais are not
given to strong passions, and are chaste by nature, this is not a very
great sacrifice) many are saved from unhappiness and a whole race
preserved from degeneration.
The old man having spoken of the Evil Spirit, I abruptly demanded who
this much feared being might be.
"He possesses all things", he answered, lowering his voice as if afraid
of being heard. "He is in the wind, the lightning, the earthquake, he is
in the trees and the water. Sometimes he enters our huts and makes
someone die; then we bury our dead very deep under the ground, leaving
to them food and their own property, and we fly from the spot, for it is
a dangerous thing to remain under the Spirit's gaze".
* * * * *
Finished our conversation, of which I have sought to give you a faithful
translation, although the Sakai had expressed himself in the short,
monotonous phrases peculiar to his tongue, that is scarce of words and
verbs, we prepared to follow the example of the other members of my
host's family who had gone to sleep during our quiet chat. But before
closing my eyes I repassed in mind the theories expounded by the old
forester, and I found in them such a just expression of rectitude, of
simple but strong logic, of spirit and intelligence that I could not but
admire and agree.
[Illustration: A half-breed Sakai.
_p._ 103.]
I asked myself if the philosophy of the learned was not inferior to that
of this savage, who considered existence as limited to the satisfaction
of material wants, without torturing himself about imaginary need, and
without consuming nerves, muscles, heart and brain in a daily struggle
for what he could dispense with? And I asked myself if in that perfect
inertness, in that immunity from all feelings of sensuality, hatred,
ambition or rivalry must he not be a thousand times happier than we in
civilized society who seek fortune and satisfy our caprices, our
follies, in the midst of excitement and strong emotions, living in a
continual fever of suspicion, jealousy and envy, accumulating perhaps
riches but withering up the soul which cannot enjoy even for a day the
supreme blessing of serenity?
Which is nearer the truth (I argued to myself), he who places himself in
report with Nature as one of her offspring receiving all the necessities
of life straight from her never-failing stores and thereby lowering
himself to the state of the humblest of her creatures, or we who worry
ourselves in building up a model of perfection, a mannikin, that every
one wants to dress up in his own way--with his own virtues or his own
defects?
"A contented mind is a continual feast". This adage was verified in the
person of the old Sakai. An enemy to progress of any kind he logically
conformed himself to his surroundings, and limited his desires to what
he was sure of obtaining.
But we who in our civilization hunger and thirst after progress, why do
we continually preach this proverb to our young, and illustrate it to
them on every possible occasion?
It is, perhaps, because on every hand we come across harsh
contradictions presented by those who, with all their study, try to
reconcile the true with the absurd in order to get the latter accepted
in homage to the former, and they make use of this maxim for their own
ends and to take advantage of others, whereas this savage, reared in the
maternal arms of Nature (that gives and takes, produces and causes
without either deceit or change) was in himself so satisfied with what
she provided and ordered that there would have been no need to make him
learn with his lips a precept that sprang spontaneously from his heart.
* * * * *
My kind reader will perhaps give a shrug of the shoulders at the mere
idea of my having the will to philosophize so soon after such a terrible
adventure. Well, I confess I did not feel inclined to do so after
another which was even more frightful still.
I had left my cabin in the afternoon to go and inspect the works of a
road which I was having made near a little Sakai village, situated at
the foot of a mountain. When I reached the spot I called out loudly, as
was my habit, to give the necessary orders; but nobody answered.
Wondering what it meant I descended to the group of huts which I found
empty and half destroyed. I supposed that Death had stricken one of the
inhabitants and that the others, according to their custom, had
abandoned their dwellings here to erect new ones far from the place
visited by the Evil Spirit.
The discovery vexed me and made me feel rather uneasy, for the sun would
soon be setting and no good could be expected of a several miles march
through the forest, alone, and without a light.
[Illustration: A meeting in celebration of king Edward VII's Coronation.
_p._ 104.]
I ascended with all haste to my previous position in order to find the
path I had come by. The sky was rapidly darkening with the frenzied
dance of heavy black clouds and it was not long before they opened their
flood gates and the rain fell in perfect torrents, accompanied by
dazzling flashes of lightning.
I pushed on as best I was able but under my feet rivers of water were
quickly formed, which cancelled all traces and made me lose my bearings,
whilst the fear of being again lost began to trouble me.
Only too soon I became aware that my inquietude was justified because,
in the meantime, night had fallen and neither the lightning nor my
matches were of any avail in showing me the way I ought to follow.
Then I was seized with that awful anguish I had experienced on the other
occasion and which has so direful an effect upon the spirit as to render
one incapable of even thinking.
I turned this way and that without any notion hardly of what I was
seeking.
I stumbled over the long grasses and more than once rolled down a hollow
full of nettles and thorns, which stung and scratched my face and hands
horribly. I scrambled out, however, almost directly, animated by a fiery
instinct of self preservation, and pulling out from my flesh the thorns
that hurt me most, I recommenced, blood-stained and unnerved, to grope
my way in the dark.
In one of my tumbles I felt a huge beast gallop over my body. What was
it? I thought it must be a wild-boar.
I remained there some time on the ground smarting and exhausted. My
strength and energy seemed to diminish every minute and the mad,
desperate thought flashed across my mind to not move any more but just
lie there under the rain to wait for death or daylight.
From the tall trees came peltering down upon me shells, husks and fruit,
the remains of a feast the monkeys were having upon the thick boughs
that sheltered them from the bad weather, and from afar came a low, dull
sound like the deep rumbling noise that often precedes Nature's
tragedies.
Life in the jungle had taught me what that fearful roar meant. It was
caused by the clamouring cries of thousands of wild beasts, rushing
forth from their dens and hastening towards the bloody convention which
every night they hold.
It gave me the force to make a supreme effort. I got up and staggered
forward, not knowing where I was going and trusting purely to chance.
But in the end I was obliged to give myself up for lost and every hope
of escaping my horrible fate forsook me. I could no longer shout but it
would have been useless, for the ever-increasing din would have
prevented others, and me, from hearing anything else. I managed to prop
myself up against a rock and with all the strength that was left me, I
clung to it with one hand whilst with the other I turned up the collar
of my thin, linen jacket and tried to cover my face.
Did I do this not to see the approaching danger and inevitable fate
which was fast overtaking me? I do not know; I only remember the act,
but not the thought that prompted it.
Anyway willing or not willing, I saw everything.
Close by, some big phosphorescent mushrooms illuminated the darkness
with their faint, ghastly gleams of light.
The tumult, the row, the trampling always seemed to get louder and
nearer. It was like the advance of an endless host of demons and evil
spirits.
Terrible crashes, furious roars, wild howls, and formidable feline cries
began to reach my ear distinctly. I could have sworn that all the
fiercest inhabitants of the forest had agreed to meet near me. Was this
conviction the effect of the terror which had taken possession of me or
was it a horrible fact?
Two burning orbs flashed through the night and an unearthly yell made my
poor body start once more, though stiffened as it was by horror.
A tiger was here, perhaps 50, perhaps 20 yards from me!
I feebly endeavoured again to hide my face; it would be preferable for
death to come upon me suddenly than to count the instants of its coming.
I backed myself closer under the rock, clinging to it with my left hand,
whose nerves, muscles and nails had turned into steel under the
supremacy of terror.
A few minutes of cruel, breathless suspense....
I felt dimly amazed at finding myself still alive: there were two tigers
and they were diabolically squalling out a love-duet. Who has not felt a
shiver run down his back when, snug in a warm bed, the mid-night
stillness has been broken by two amorous cats on the roof or in the
court that are putting their vocal powers and their hearer's patience to
the test? Imagine then to be frozen against a wet stone whilst a couple
of tigers express their sentiments of love in much the same language,
but in tones proportionate to their size!
In the fervour of their passion would they notice the dainty meal
prepared for them in my person?
Not far off the implacable _sladan_ was savagely bellowing. Was he too
bound for my place of martyrdom?
My slow torture, under the pale glimmer of the phosphorescent mushrooms
must have lasted for hours, but I no longer had the perception of time
or peril. Only the appalling fear of the flesh kept me grasping tightly
to the rock without making the slightest movement.
I did not know when the tigers went away or when the enormous multitude
of beasts of prey beat a retreat.
The first sensation I had of being alive was when the two heralds of the
morn, the _cep plôt_ and the _cep riò_ announced with their musical
notes the dawn of another day.
Then I stirred. My limbs were benumbed by that long immobility, and with
the cold which was all the more intense from the rain first and the dew
afterwards, both of which had drenched me to the skin.
I was shaking with ague and, weak from my long fast and the frights I
had passed through, I scarcely knew how to get away from that spot where
I had endured so many hours of agony, and yet it was necessary for me to
move as soon as possible.
The jungle was alive with gay voices; all the harmless, innocent
creatures, that populated its hospitable region, hailed the new day with
noisy acclamation, and their joy found an echo in me, for its
thousand-fold blessed light would show me my road to safety.
I afterwards learnt that my bad luck had guided me to a rock, close to a
spring of hot water, where the kings, queens, princes and princesses of
the forest were accustomed to hold their soirees!
* * * * *
I had to repose for some days before recovering from the physical and
moral shocks of that awful night and for some time afterwards I made my
faithful little Sakai accompany me on my tours of inspection round
Perak, as with him there was no fear of being lost.
[Illustration: Three types of tatooed Bretak Sakais.
_p._ 110.]
One day we got as far as the summit of the Berumbum where we passed the
night among some families that had taken refuge up there. I was
enchanted with the starry sky, the quiet air and mild temperature I
found upon that height and which made my thoughts fly across oceans and
continents to the sea which reflects my Liguria. Up there the nocturnal
silence is not rent by the blood-thirsty cries of wild animals, and
after having been lulled to sleep for so long by their distant clamour,
and especially after the strong emotions I had quite recently
experienced, that profound calmness was to me so full of sentimental
suggestion that instead of sleeping my spirit wandered into the past,
recalling with pleasure and sadness those evenings of sweet intimacy
once enjoyed in the bosom of my family, then a numerous one but now
reduced by death and other events.
When at last I fell asleep I did not awake till morning.
As soon as I had got up my young Sakai servant took the pillow I always
carried with me, and began to shake it, but he shrank back with a
frightened cry as a little snake of about a yard long, belonging to a
very poisonous class, fell from under it.
The dear little beast had slept upon the same pillow as I, perhaps to
prove to me that his sort is very much maligned and that if you leave
them alone to do what they like, without giving them any disturbance,
they will never think of biting you.
Ten Sakai families were encamped up there and I exhorted them all to
come down from that height of 5000 feet and occupy themselves in
agriculture, for the cold during the night is sometimes severe and the
poor things must suffer from it, as they have no clothes to keep them
warm.
But all my persuasions were fruitless.
I resumed my journey and it must have been about ten o'clock in the
morning when in the distance an old man who, as far as I could
understand from the half twilight of the forest, made me signs of
friendship.
I went towards him and saw that where he stood there had once been a
village but its now miserable aspect made it a strange contrast to the
riches of Nature with which it was surrounded.
The solitary inhabitant of that forsaken and dilapidated place offered
us some fruit and I asked him the reason of the battered huts and
general desolation. He told me with grief in his tones that the village
had been devastated by armed enemies. "Many of my brethren were killed
and many others were taken away as slaves and the rest have fled to
safer and more inaccessible parts, but I could not find it in my heart
to abandon this spot where I was born; where I grew up....".
This was indeed a strange sentiment for one whose people for the most
lead a roving life either from habit or from superstition!
* * * * *
Armed enemies! and who were they? For certain they appertained to the
scum of neighbouring peoples of which I have already spoken. Men who,
though encompassed on all sides by civilization, still remain
uncivilized; men who, shunned by their honest and laborious countrymen,
make the free forest a field for their vile passions, and now that they
can no longer give vent to their evil desires in depredation and
bloodshed, because of the severe measures taken by the Government,
continue to damage the poor Sakais in many odious and insidious ways
without always drawing down upon their heads the punishment they
deserve.
Who were they? Who are they? Delinquents by nature, such as are to be
found in most of our large cities; people born with savage instincts;
men who would rather pass their days in the midst of vice and open
corruption than live a life of honour and opulence.
None of these delinquents are to be found in thorough-bred Sakai tribes,
they may however be met with amongst the inhabitants of the plain where
there is a mixture of race, the result of those forced unions which were
the desperation of Sakai women when taken prisoners. In the children
born of these unions one can often trace the natural impulse towards
violence and robbery that they have inherited from their fathers.
I myself had a proof of this.
As Inspector I often used to pass from one encampment to another,
sometimes on the plain and sometimes on the mountain and I frequently
took these brief journeys alone as the paths were well trodden.
It so happened that one day I had stopped in the hut of one of these
half-breeds--where there were several real Sakais who had come from
their jungle home to exchange products--and on my return I was overtaken
by one of my good friends that offered to accompany me for a little way.
As we walked along together I noticed he proceeded with great caution
and kept looking about with suspicion. All at once he caught me by the
arm and pointed to a stick stuck into the ground just in front, from
which some leaves were dangling. As I did not understand his act he
advanced a step or two and showed me a well concealed trap, set with a
poisoned dart.
It had been fixed across the path and I should have assuredly fallen
over it, if my companion had not prevented me. He simply said that it
must have been prepared for game and soon after left me.
But later on I heard that he had not told me the truth in saying this
for the trap had been put there, on purpose for me, by the villanous
bastard in whose hut I had halted, and whose photograph I was afterwards
able to take and here present to my readers.
This man had not the least reason for resentment against me but he was
actuated by that spirit of hatred which induces all evil-doers to try
and get rid of those who may be an obstacle to their bad living and
knowing that I had the intention of passing his way again in a few days
he had placed the trap there in order to kill me. He was so contented,
however, with what he had done that he could not keep the secret to
himself, and his wife (a pure Sakai) upon hearing it, despatched my
friend to the ambush and so saved me.
If this had been discovered at the moment the wretch would most likely
have paid for his sin with his life.
From this episode it is easy to see the difference between a
thorough-bred and a half-bred Sakai; the former will risk life itself to
impede a crime that has been coolly premeditated by the latter.
* * * * *
Something of the same kind befell me on another occasion when I was
returning to my cabin by myself.
At Tapah preparations were being made for celebrating the coronation of
King Edward VII and I, as one of His Majesty's colonial officers, of
course felt interested in the proceedings and it seemed to me a right
thing that a representation of my friends the savages, who were under my
administration, should accompany me to town for the occasion. I had
therefore been round to as many as I could to tell them to be ready to
follow me whenever I gave them notice.
Towards evening I was going quietly along, rather tired with my long
march, and listening to the pretty good-night songs of the birds, when I
was suddenly hit in the abdomen by a poisoned arrow, shot by an unknown
hand. Aware of the terrible power of the forest venoms I gave myself up
for lost and so without doubt I should have been if fortune had not sent
me assistance. I was energetically squeezing the wound when one of my
faithful Sakais came up. Upon hearing what had happened, he exclaimed:
"This is the work of a _Mai-Gop_, because one of our darts would have
passed right through you, and besides none of us would harm you because
you are good to us".
The kind fellow sucked out my wound and knew by its reddish-black colour
that the poison used was a mixture of _legop_ and _ipok_ juices, most
deadly in its effect.
Hurrying me towards the village, in a few instants he had prepared an
antidote by mixing a pinch of lime and powdered charcoal together and
then wetting it with the urine of his little boy.
He washed the wound carefully with this strange lotion, making it
penetrate well in, and recommended me not to touch it.
I let him do as he would, as there was no better remedy to my knowledge,
although I had little or no faith in the mixture.
I suffered a great deal for some days, but at last the wound (which had
all the requisites for a fatal one) healed. Was this fact due to the
merits of lime, charcoal, or urine?
Let the disciples of Esculapius decide!
It got to be known not long after that I had been made the victim of one
of those ill-disposed individuals who come into the world with
criminality written on their brow.
But for one who has the compensation of devotion and affection from the
humble and good, is not the hatred of malefactors a thing to be proud
of?
* * * * *
So in the year 1901, I was invited by the British Resident (in my
quality of Superintendent of the Sakais) to take part in the festivities
in honour of King Edward the Seventh's ascension to the throne.
As I before said I had thought it would be nice to take with me a small
band of my forest friends and my desire was so well realized that when
the time came I gathered around me about 500 men, women and children,
belonging to different tribes, and with this troop of followers I
descended to Tapah.
Here the reception given to those poor inhabitants of the Jungle was
exceptionally kind, and they in their turn gladly did their utmost to
satisfy the curiosity they excited and were highly pleased at showing
the effect of their powerful poisons upon birds which they hit, with
remarkable dexterity, whilst on the wing.
The men displayed their skill in striking the bull's eye with their
darts, and in successfully climbing the greasy pole, and the women gave
proof of their musical talents by playing their _ciniloi_.
In this way they got a great many dollars and were overwhelmed with
presents and attentions by the English ladies and gentlemen, residing at
Tapah.
The women were invited to go to the stand reserved for the Authority and
came back with necklaces and strings of coloured beads, that they
admired with childish delight.
Not much less contented was I at the good impression my simple friends
made by their nice behaviour and modest manners.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: "Philosophy, poor and naked thou goest". This is a
quotation from the Italian poet Petrarch. _Translator's Note._]