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+Project Gutenberg's My Friends the Savages, by Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Friends the Savages
+       Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula)
+
+Author: Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+Translator: I. Stone Sanpietro
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #28189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FRIENDS THE SAVAGES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by A Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
+digital material generously made available by the Internet
+Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  MY FRIENDS
+  THE SAVAGES
+
+
+  BY
+  Captain G. B. CERRUTI
+
+
+  TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN
+  BY I. STONE SANPIETRO
+
+
+  NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS OF A
+  PERAK SETTLER (MALAY PENINSULA).
+  RICHLY ILLUSTRATED WITH
+  ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY
+  THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+  COMO (Italy)
+  TIPOGRAFIA COOPERATIVA COMENSE
+  1908
+
+
+
+
+  _Every copy of this work not bearing the
+  author's signature will be retained by him
+  as an infringement of his rights._
+
+  [Signature of author]
+
+
+
+
+  These notes, the fruit of much
+  sacrifice, I dedicate to the memory
+  of my dear ones.
+
+  The fond embrace of parents and
+  a sister, which for me was a sweet
+  augury at my departure, greeted me
+  no more at my return!
+
+  _Varazze, June 1906._
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This table of contents was originally at the end
+of the book but has been moved here for the convenience of users.]
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  Chapter I: Malacca and its contrasts--Devourers of
+    the soul and devourers of the body--The realization
+    of a poet's dream--Temptations--A call from the
+    forest--Auri sacra fames--Baggage--Farewell to
+    civilization                                            _Page_    5
+
+  Chapter II: My escort--By steamer to Telok Anson--The
+    other bank of the Perak--Towards the forest--First
+    news--Blood-letting in the swamp--Robbed and
+    forsaken--Revenge in due time--The Malay's
+    instigation--My little Sam Sam's fidelity--
+    Philosophical reflections under a heavy weight             "     11
+
+  Chapter III: A fearful nocturnal concert--Fire!
+    Fire!--A clearing in the forest--A general
+    flight--Masters of the camp!--Mortal
+    weariness--A morning greeting without any
+    compliments--A first meeting--In the
+    village--_Al�_ against the Orang-putei                     "     22
+
+  Chapter IV: New friends--Gold--An English official--
+    The purchase of my future treasure--Administrative
+    simplicity--England teaches!--The "sla pui"--Bitter
+    disappointment--The Sam-Sam--The poison of the
+    Savage and the venom of the Civilized                      "     31
+
+  Chapter V: Great Mother Earth--A dangerous meeting--
+    A living statue--Here or there?--An unrelished
+    supper--A dreaded immigration--A glance into
+    the past--A rape which was not a rape--A noble
+    task--Towards the mountain--Tiger-shooting--The
+    Sakais in town--Alloyed sweets--Musical tastes--
+    Hurrah for the free forest!                                "     42
+
+  Chapter VI: The great Sorceress--The forest seen from
+    above--A struggle for life--The crimes of plants--
+    Everlasting twilight--Births and deaths--Concerts
+    by forest vocalists--The "durian"--The "ple-lok"--
+    Vastnesses unexplored by science--Treasures
+    intact--Para Rubber--The Samaritans of the
+    jungle--The forest and its history                         "     59
+
+  Chapter VII: The snares of civilized life--Faust's
+    invocation--The dangers of the forest--Serpents--
+    A perilous adventure--Carnivorous and herbivorous
+    animals--The "sladan"--The man of the wood                 "     75
+
+  Chapter VIII: 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                              "     85
+
+  Chapter IX: The origin of the Sakais--Hypothesis
+    and legend--Physical character--Thick tresses,
+    gay flowers and troublesome guests--Hereditary
+    antipathy--The five senses reduced to two--
+    Food and drink--Tranquil life--Intolerance of
+    authority--Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law--
+    Logical laziness--A Sakai journalist--The story
+    of a mattress                                              "    107
+
+  Chapter X: The Sakai woman--Conjugal fidelity--A life
+    of labour--Betrothals and nuptials--Love among
+    the Sakais--Divorcement--No kissing--Chastity--
+    Bigamy--Maternity and its excesses--Aged before the
+    time--Fashion and coquetry                                 "    125
+
+  Chapter XI: A Sakai village--The "elder"--The family--
+    Degrees of relationship--Humorists disoccupied--On
+    the march--Tender hearts--Kindling the fire--A
+    hecatomb of giants--The hut--Household goods and
+    utensils--Work and repose                                  "    141
+
+  Chapter XII: Intellectual development--Sakais of the
+    plain and Sakais of the hills--Laziness and
+    intelligence--Falsehood and the Evil Spirit--
+    The Sakai language--When the "Orang Putei" gets
+    angry--Counting time--Novel calendars--Moral gifts         "    152
+
+  Chapter XIII: First attempts at industry--The story of
+    a hat--Multiplicity--Primitive arts--Sakai music--
+    Songs--Instruments--Dances--Ball dresses--Serpentine
+    gracefulness--An unpublished Sakai song                    "    172
+
+  Chapter XIV: The beliefs and superstitions of the
+    Sakais--Metempsychosis--The Evil Spirit--
+    Superstition among savages and ignorance among
+    civilized people--The two sources of life--The
+    wind--The Al� priest and physician--A scientific
+    vigil--Venerable imposture!-_Tenac_ and _Cintok_--
+    Therapeutic torture--Contagion--A Sakai's
+    death--The deserted village--Mourning--Births--
+    Fire--Intellectual darkness--The Sakais and
+    Islamism                                                   "    183
+
+  Chapter XV: Sakai arms--Shooting--Serpent
+    catchers--The Sakai and his poisons--_Toalang_,
+    _rengas_ and _sagol_--_Sl� dol_, _sl� plek_
+    and _sl� clob_--_Akar toka_--Ipok--An antidote--
+    The _labar_, _lampat_, _mas�_ and _loo_--The
+    _legop_--The Mai Bretaks--The preparation of
+    _legop_--Curious and superfluous ingredients--The
+    effects of _legop_--Strange contradictions--
+    Experiments--Poisons and antidotes--The settler
+    and science                                                "    202
+
+  Chapter XVI: Past and future geography--Mountains
+    and plateaus--An attempt at a census--Temperature--
+    Maladies and remedies--_Al�_ a quack.                      "    221
+
+
+
+
+AMONG THE SAKAIS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  Malacca and its contrasts--Devourers of the soul and devourers of
+  the body--The realization of a poet's dream--Temptations--A call
+  from the forest--Auri sacra fames--Baggage--Farewell to
+  civilization.
+
+
+From the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Siam the Malay Peninsula, once
+known as the Golden Chersonese, jets out into the Indian Ocean like an
+arm stretched forth to unite once more within its embrace the
+innumerable isles that belt its coasts and that have probably been
+severed from the mainland by the combined force of Time and Sea.
+
+In these surrounding islands, some as large as continents, others as
+narrow as reefs, over which civilization passes in squalls of cupidity,
+are concealed the strangest contrasts, for whilst around the shore human
+wolves disguised as civilized men are devouring souls, or (with due
+observance of the law) are usurping and stealing their neighbour's
+property and products, (the cleverest and most respected being he who
+best dissembles his rapacity or who knows how best to substitute
+unscrupulous shrewdness for industrial activity) not far off towards
+the centre of these scattered lands other men, in primitive ignorance of
+the law, are devouring their neighbours' flesh and skin or stealing
+their live bodies to serve as slaves.
+
+But such curious contrasts are not after all so very striking when one
+considers that to devour souls and to devour flesh are both natural
+instincts of Man!
+
+Around the coast of the Peninsula are many flourishing towns where every
+modern and up-to-date accommodation is to be found. These seaside
+resorts are thronged with a cosmopolitan population composed of
+tourists, business men, nabobs and adventurers. There life rolls on in
+the refined corruption of fashionable society amidst sports and
+amusements, scandals and intrigues, every race and every tongue
+contributing its share of good and evil. A motley crowd swarms their
+streets, presenting to the eye of an onlooker the picturesque spectacle
+that the contrast of costumes always produces. They are people of
+different colours, dress and education, attracted thither by the
+loadstone of wealth. The fortunate, the clever, the unscrupulous have
+already gained the victory in Life's struggles and now ride about in
+motor-cars of the newest types; the others look at them, most likely
+envy them, and work all the harder to get rich themselves. Will they
+succeed? The way, here is a short one but can only be successfully
+trodden by those who possess sound energy and blind confidence in their
+own brains and in their own muscles. It must not be thought, however,
+that the motor-car is a prerogative, in these parts, of opulent
+Europeans and Chinese for it is also a powerful auxiliary for those who
+are striving to make their fortunes through agricultural and mining
+speculations in the wildest regions of the Peninsula.
+
+But whilst near the sea the inhabitants and travellers can enjoy all the
+luxuries and conveniences of the 20th century, in the interior of the
+Peninsula, leading a nomadic life in the thick of the jungle, which
+covers the range of mountains from north to south, a primitive people
+still exists. All unconscious of the violent passions and turbulent
+emotions that disturb the tranquillity of their fellow-creatures
+(civilized in form if not in fact) at some miles distant from them, they
+live quietly and peaceably in their forest homes preserving intact their
+original simplicity and ingenuousness.
+
+The hot breath of our fagging life, that generates every sort of nerve
+complaint, has not yet reached their mountain haunts. On those wild
+heights the nerves rest; the affections are not tormented; love is pure
+and, for this, lasting; ambition neither perverts the mind, nor consumes
+the conscience; there are no honours or favours to arouse envy; no
+artificial boundaries to liberty or difficult problems about Capital and
+Labour; there are no rich and no poor, for in that blessed spot money is
+an unknown article and what is more--strange triumph of the Savage over
+the Civilized--every man is a brother to the other!
+
+Up there in the forest there are neither princes nor subjects;
+Governments nor Police; no Tax-gatherers, public meetings or strikes so
+that if Stecchetti[1] were still living he might have been sent among
+the Sakais to find the ideal place of which he was always seeking the
+address.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The 15th of June 1891 I landed at Penang (the Prince of Wales's Island)
+on my return from an exploring tour in the Isle of Nias. I was feeling
+rather worn out with the fatigues lately undergone so resolved to rest
+awhile on British territory.
+
+I had brought with me a rich and interesting ethnographical collection I
+found no difficulty in selling to the Perak Government that destined it
+to the Museum at Taiping, a small town where is the British Residence.
+
+During my well-earned repose I often heard speak of the Mai Darats, a
+tribe of Aborigines dwelling in the interior of the Peninsula and who
+were called by the name of Sakais by the Malays, a scornful appellation
+which signifies _a people of slaves_, and this insulting term is
+explained by the fact that formerly their neighbours carried on an
+extensive slave-trade by making them victims and also took advantage of
+their simplicity and good faith in many other ways, until the British
+Protectorate was established and these poor wandering tribes were put
+upon a par with more civilized races.
+
+I began to gather information concerning these wild men of the bush and
+learnt that they inhabited the unfrequented parts of the Perak and
+Pahang States, that they were a nomadic race and that they passed most
+of their time in the abstraction and preparation of vegetable and animal
+poisons in which art they were exceptionally expert and that they were
+equally skilful in shooting poisoned arrows. Some of my informants
+wanted to make me believe that they were exceedingly ferocious by nature
+and so superstitious that they would aim their deadly dart at whatever
+stranger ventured to approach them, believing him to be the messenger of
+some Evil Spirit and that afterwards they would make of him a dainty
+meal to comfort their insatiable stomachs.
+
+But knowing something of the previous relations between the Sakais and
+the people surrounding them I was put on my guard against certain
+exaggerated and prejudiced reports and felt strongly tempted to try and
+dissipate the vague mystery--that I somehow guessed was based upon
+self-interest--in which they wished to envelop the Mai Darats.
+
+The more they told me about them the more I felt attracted towards the
+Sakais, it seeming to me that a people so foreign to every light of
+civilization, so bold as they were described to be, so free from every
+regime or authority, must needs afford an interesting study to one who
+sought to know them at close quarters. Perhaps, when once I had overcome
+the, not always surmountable, difficulty of getting into their company,
+I might find amongst them a tranquil life and settle down in their midst
+as a planter or agriculturist for I was already convinced that I was
+unfitted for commercial enterprises in which very often scruples of
+conscience and uprightness are encumbrances.
+
+My brief sojourn in civilized society made me long for the freedom and
+peace which, may be, awaited me there; I longed to know intimately these
+people who, I reasoned to myself, must be exempt from corruption as they
+were so much hated by those who lived in its midst, and who were
+surrounded by so much mystery.
+
+There was, I must confess, another reason that helped to draw me towards
+the Sakai camps. I know not how the germ took root, but in my brain the
+conviction was always growing that in the heart of the Peninsula,
+already proved to be rich in metals, a gold vein might be discovered.
+
+The Virgilian _auri sacra fames_ took possession of me little by little,
+solved every remaining doubt, conquered all my hesitations and removed
+every obstacle.
+
+This impetus united with the longing for new adventures, for profound
+emotions, for a life far different in every respect to that I was then
+passing in a sphere of elegant slavery, imposed by ridiculous
+conventionalisms, decided me, and I packed up my baggage.
+
+Just imagine: a strong piece of tarred canvas to be converted into a
+camp-bed by means of four wooden pegs; a hat, four shirts and some
+woollen undervests, a few pairs of trousers and socks, some very light
+canvas shoes, and one or two khaki jackets as used by the soldiers in
+Africa.
+
+I did not forget though that it was very possible to catch some sort of
+illness and as in those parts a malady followed by death may be
+considered an involuntary suicide but never a homicide because.... there
+are no doctors to cure you, I also provided myself with a small stock of
+purgative lozenges, quinine, some antiseptic preparations and a
+bistoury.
+
+Thus having quickly arranged for my new journey and having supplied
+myself with such elements as would be useful to me under the
+circumstances, I added to them a large quantity of tobacco and coloured
+beads--two things that exercise a great power over savages--and bidding
+farewell to all the culinary delicacies adapted to weak digestions, and
+turning my back upon all domestic comfort, I started forth towards the
+Unknown.
+
+[Illustration: A group of Mai Darats, called "Sakais".
+
+_p._ 8.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: An Italian poet who wrote many humorous
+verses.--Translator's Note.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+  My escort--By steamer to Telok Anson--The other bank of the
+  Perak--Towards the forest--First news--Blood-letting in the
+  swamp--Robbed and forsaken--Revenge in due time--The Malay's
+  instigation--My little Sam Sam's fidelity--Philosophical
+  reflections under a heavy weight.
+
+
+The kind reader who peruses these poor pages of notes and memories,
+accustomed to hear speak of expeditions organised for the purpose of
+penetrating into inhospitable lands or into regions encompassed by all
+the terrors of the unknown, will perhaps think that I was jesting when I
+gave the inventory of my luggage in the last chapter and that from sheer
+vaunt I did not mention the support of some Geographical or Commercial
+Society and neither the tons of goods which would follow in my wake, nor
+the numerous waggons and armed battalion that had to escort me.
+
+No, nothing of all this, for to tell the truth I have always found more
+harm than good done by these etceteras to an explorer's equipment, and
+for this reason, even in my most arduous travels, I always set out, as
+it were, alone, confiding only in my own forces. And let me explain why.
+
+From the very beginning of my wanderings in countries populated by
+savages, to some of whom is attributed the most sanguinary instincts, I
+reassured myself by a logical conclusion which experience has shown me
+to be quite right.
+
+If the fierceness of wild beasts, I reasoned to myself, is nothing else
+but a paroxysm of fear why should we consider the fierceness of the
+savages caused by other motives? Man, however wild may be his state, has
+been endowed with intelligence although in some cases this intellectual
+faculty is possessed in the smallest possible degree. Let us then make
+him understand that he has nothing to fear from us and little by little,
+if our patience does not fail, he will grow more gentle and become a
+friend instead of an enemy.
+
+Therefore to-day, as well as in the past, I carefully avoid warlike
+preparations, brigandish masquerades or any escort of a prepotent or
+menacing appearance. I go ahead like a simple wayfarer, with a smiling
+face and friendly gestures, leaving my gun (which is indispensable in
+defending oneself from the attacks of wild beasts) slung over my
+shoulder.
+
+The first welcome, I admit, is far from being cordial, and there is
+always the risk of falling into a trap dexterously laid for big game and
+strangers or of being ably struck by a poisoned dart, but once a meeting
+has been obtained without any serious consequences accruing, it is not
+so difficult as it might be supposed to follow it up with a parley, for
+the feared (and fearing) individual is dumbfounded at the extraordinary
+double event of either not having killed you or of not having been
+killed himself, according to the law of reciprocity which for him is
+inviolable.
+
+Under the impression of this very strange fact he will not oppose
+resistance to a peaceable understanding and afterwards in order to
+ensure his friendship there only needs a quick intuition of the poor
+creature's superstitions, beliefs and susceptibilities and a spirit of
+precaution against offending his puerile vanity or of in any way
+provoking jealousy or mistrust.
+
+When he is persuaded that the presence of his undesired guest brings him
+no evil he will give you his full confidence and spontaneously accept
+you as a benevolent and powerful protector.
+
+The perils, I grant, are many and great, but greater still are those
+that lie in wait for an armed traveller. The savage may be terrified and
+overpowered by the massacres with which civilization asserts its
+tyrannical superiority but the venom of hatred has entered his soul and
+he meditates and prepares an ambush which sooner or later, without fail,
+will give him his revenge.
+
+The use of brutal force (that for me is a political error) is an
+enormous damage to the study of the customs, beliefs, and psychological
+peculiarities of the people with whom we are in contact, for they will
+back out of every enquiry or investigation, will either refuse to
+respond or will tell you lies, and this accounts for the contradictory
+reports that different travellers give about the same tribe or race.
+
+This, kind reader, is my modest conviction as, from their method of
+proceeding, it is also of the English, who are Masters in everything
+that concerns colonization.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My baggage being ready it only remained for me to find some carriers who
+would be useful to me, if not as guides to the country of the Sakais, at
+least as interpreters between me and its inhabitants.
+
+Penang is populated chiefly by Malays but numerous other races are
+represented there, especially Chinese and Indians. Without much trouble
+I succeeded in engaging the services of five porters: a Malay, an
+Indian, a Chinese, a Siamese and a Sam-Sam, quite a lad. Together they
+formed a little Babel which I congratulated myself would prove of great
+help in making overtures with the Sakais.
+
+All my followers, with the exception of the Sam-Sam, had faces which
+would have graced the gallows and I am sure that Lombroso[2] would have
+classified them without hesitation as born-criminals. But their
+forbidding countenances did not alarm me as it is well known that the
+basest villain becomes timid and servile when confronted by unexpected
+danger, and I was well aware that the dread of tigers, snakes, traps and
+poisoned arrows, the thousand mysteries of Death which the wonderful
+forest encloses amidst its countless trees, amongst the confusion of its
+thick interlaced creepers and under its soft moss and long grass would
+have converted these ugly-faced, crooked-souled individuals into docile
+lambs. I knew that once they had entered a land, to them not known, they
+would not forsake me, for the Oriental has faith in the European and
+will follow whither the latter leads, attributing to him rare qualities
+of courage and energy as well as a marvellous ability in overcoming
+obstacles and getting out of difficult positions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We left Penang on a coasting steamer and after going up the River Perak
+for about 60 miles we reached the little town of Telok Anson where we
+landed.
+
+It was too early in the morning, when, we arrived for me to present
+myself to the British Authority and as the local officials did not in
+the slightest way interfere with my free passage nor subject me to any
+sort of inquisitorial interrogations (which in other colonies and under
+other Protectorates I had been obliged to undergo) I gave orders for our
+immediate departure as I was anxious to commence our march as soon as
+possible.
+
+Having divided our load of provisions in equal parts we crossed the
+Perak on a pontoon and with a "_slamat gialat_" (pleasant journey) from
+the man on board we found ourselves upon the shores where my adventures
+had to begin.
+
+I was there, then, with my face turned towards a new land, and a thrill
+of joyous emotion pervaded me. What surprises were reserved for me up on
+the wooded mountains towards which we were bending our steps? What
+things, what habits would be revealed to me when I reached my goal?
+
+I was leaving behind me civilized company. I was isolating myself from
+educated society but I was not perturbed at the thought of the hardship,
+the sufferings, the dangers that lay before me. Vague and pleasant hopes
+smiled upon me from the Future. Of what nature were they? I could not
+tell.
+
+"Forward!" I said to myself and my carriers. And the march began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first day passed very well, in spite of the intense heat, and
+nothing occurred worth mentioning. It was growing dark and we had
+already done about 20 miles when we came in sight of a hut erected
+amongst some cocoanut and banana trees. We soon found that it was
+occupied by a Malay, with his wife and children, who had come there for
+the cultivation of rice.
+
+My request for hospitality, until the morning, was received with evident
+distrust, but the hope of coveted gifts in the end, got the better of
+Islamatic superstition in the soul of the Malay, and a covered corner of
+his humble residence was accorded me and my men.
+
+During the night I tried to make the Malay talk about the Sakais but I
+could not ask him any direct questions as it would have been a serious
+affair if my companions came to suspect that our way through the forest
+was entirely new to me and that I was ignorant of the place where our
+journey would end.
+
+I managed, however, to find out that quite recently some Sakais had
+ventured as far as there to exchange _rattan_ (Malacca cane) and rubber,
+for tobacco and rice. They had then departed, but the Malay did not know
+from whence they had come or whither they had gone. He believed that
+they could not be very far off as a few days before he had distinctly
+heard their call-whistles.
+
+For various causes I felt obliged to doubt the truth of what the man
+related, not the least of which being his ill-disguised desire to rid
+himself of our company as soon as possible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At day-break we started off again, following an almost untracked path
+which led us over miasmatic marshes swarming with insects. Our poor legs
+were attacked by a perfect army of leeches and subjected to a most
+inopportune and undesirable bleeding. From time to time we were
+compelled to stop and free ourselves from their tenacious hold. They
+seemed to prefer European blood to Asiatic and made me suffer more than
+my escort, perhaps because my skin being more tender they could better
+succeed in their sanguinary intent, but although my flesh smarted and my
+strength failed it was necessary to keep cheerful and pretend, every
+now and then, to recognize our whereabouts just as if I had passed the
+same way other times. I even assured my five companions that when we
+reached the Sakais there would be no more difficulties, and so urged
+them on the faster.
+
+I hoped that the farther we penetrated into the vast wilds around us the
+more I might depend upon the fidelity of my carriers as they would have
+to rely upon my supposed knowledge of the country we were entering and
+so would be less likely to beat a retreat. As we went along, however, I
+leading the way which. I did not know myself, I could not help noticing
+that they paid particular attention to every characteristic point we
+passed, cutting notches in the trees with their _parang_, or knives,
+after we had waded through a brook or taken a sudden turn in our course,
+but my mind was too much occupied with the duties of my self-assumed
+pilotage for me to attach any importance to the fact.
+
+The weather was fine all day so that we were able to go a long way
+before night fell. Not having come across any sort of refuge we were
+obliged to improvise one for ourselves and in about an hour we were
+resting from our fatigues whilst the little Sam-Sam served us with
+boiled rice, dried fish and certain capsicums which would have made
+cayenne pepper seem sugar in comparison! There being nothing better to
+eat I too had to take my share of the frugal repast.
+
+Sleep soon stole over us all, but I was somehow uneasy, for certain
+strange demands my companions made me had reminded me of the marks I had
+seen them making on the trees a while before, and my suspicions were
+aroused without my knowing exactly how to define them; therefore, with
+the excuse of writing, I determined to keep watch. Until about four
+o'clock in the morning I was able to resist the somnolence which
+weighed down my eyelids but at last, exhausted with so many hours'
+march, with the high tension to which my nerves had been pitched and
+weakened by the abundant blood-letting in the swamp, my body triumphed
+over my will and I also slept.
+
+At dawn the little wild bird, the _cep pl�t_, broke the silent air with
+its characteristic and shrill _ci ti ri�_. To him the smaller and tamer
+_cep ri�_ replied with a sweetly modulated solfeggio of extraordinary
+precision, and I awoke. At the same time I felt myself being roughly
+shaken and the voice of my little Sam-Sam cried into my ear:
+
+"Tuan lakas bangun samoa Orang suda lari" (Wake up quickly, sir; the men
+have all run away)!
+
+Ah, then, my misgivings had not been unfounded and it was Slumber that
+had betrayed me. I jumped up and looked around. There was nobody to be
+seen and nothing to be heard. I turned anxiously towards our heap of
+provisions and discovered instantly that the four rascals had made off
+with a large booty of my rice, tobacco, and matches, things that were
+very precious to me at that moment.
+
+What was to be done? Follow them? And if we did not find them? It would
+be loss of time as well as goods. The only thing to do was to treat the
+incident with philosophy, comforting myself with the remote hope of some
+day meeting with the scoundrels and of making them pay dear for their
+knavish trick. This hope, I may say in parenthesis, was not a vain one,
+for a year later I met my Chinese culprit at Telok Anson and not long
+after, his Malay confederate at Penang, on both of which occasions I had
+the satisfaction--without troubling the legal authority to intercede for
+or against me--of giving them a lesson in honesty that I dare warrant
+will have made them lose the gust of treating others as they had treated
+me.
+
+I was glad to find that the Sam-Sam boy had not deserted me for I had
+taken a kind of liking to him. He told me that the Malay who had
+accorded us hospitality had narrated to his countryman most terrible
+things about the Sakais, describing so many perils, and such ferocious
+treatment, which awaited those who risked getting into their midst, that
+even a man of dauntless courage would have shuddered. Nothing was said
+to me of this, but the man had informed the other three, who understood
+the Malay language, and between the four it was quickly decided to
+escape.
+
+The boy had heard it all but did not give me any hint, never thinking
+that the wicked project of robbing and abandoning me would have been so
+speedily carried into effect.
+
+I asked the only companion left me if he was disposed to be faithful to
+his engagement and to me, no matter where we went, or whom we met with,
+and he expressed his readiness to accompany me. The answer put me into
+better spirits and I made arrangements for continuing our journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We boiled enough rice and broiled enough fish to last us for two meals
+and then divided both in two parts. We each took our own share and
+wrapped it up in some leaves ready to eat when we made a brief halt on
+the banks of the many streams flowing through the forest.
+
+With the remaining provisions we made two bundles, as bulky as seemed
+possible to carry, but their weight surpassed our strength so we were
+compelled to sacrifice a large quantity of our victuals which we put
+into a sack and left in the hut, hoping that there it would not be
+damaged by the rain, and afterwards, still well-laden, we once more set
+off.
+
+Under the scorching rays of the sun and the weight of my burden I
+plodded on, philosophizing to myself--like a Boetius lost in the
+jungle--in order to draw some comforting conclusion out of this, my
+first, unpleasant adventure. But my philosophy soon took the form of
+certain meditations and comparisons that were not all serene. My
+thoughts flew to the heroes of the Bar-room and the Club to whom Sport
+means fatigue, boldness, development of the muscles, and sacrifice
+provided.... that every athletic exercise, however slight, be followed
+up by a tepid or shower bath, massage, or the rest prescribed by the
+hygienist or trainer. I thought of those so-called explorers who
+enlighten the civilized part of the world upon the habits and customs of
+the uncivilized part; those literary swindlers who travel in a Pullman's
+car or some other vehicle, equally convenient and comfortable, to a safe
+place, near the land to be explored, there to make notes of the vague
+reports and yet more vague "they says" that circulate about the
+Aborigines in question, and afterwards with the help of their fertile
+imagination turn these mere voices into startling facts, add a few
+extraordinary occurrences in the Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver style (in
+which they themselves always play the principal part) and then present
+their interesting writings to the public as a scientific and instructive
+volume. I was inclined to envy them their ability and to admire the
+ineffable good-nature of Society that pays the expenses for these
+triumphs of Humbug.
+
+[Illustration: At our approach the Sakais fled terrified from the hut.
+
+_p._ 25.]
+
+"Ah!" I went on grumbling to myself, and it seemed to relieve me to thus
+apostrophize them in their absence, "if you were only here now, you
+gentlemen of sportive tastes and you, illustrious explorers of wonderful
+lands and mysterious islands, how I should like to see your virtue put
+to the test: here in the forest from whose black depths a poisoned dart
+may at any moment fly towards you as a Messenger of Death or from
+whence a huge wild beast may, unexpectedly, rush furiously forth: here
+where one's steps may be suddenly arrested by the up-rising of a
+venomous snake. Who knows what an assistance to your fervid fantasy it
+would be to hear in the freedom of Nature's own menagerie the sinister
+hissing of the serpent, the bellowing of the elephant, the lowing of the
+_sladan_, the roar of the tiger, the grunt of the wild-boar, the squeal
+of the monkey, and the peevish notes of the cockatoo all blended into a
+formidable concert, the accompaniment being the rustling of reeds and
+climbing plants, moved more by animal life than by the air; the
+fluttering of leaves; the humming and buzzing of myriads of insects: the
+murmuring of the brooks: voices and sounds that announce to the
+traveller a continual increase of danger".
+
+But I must apologize to my readers for this digression. The jungle and
+its concerts often make one commit the sin of philosophy, and, in thus
+sinning, I had involuntarily forgotten you.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: An Italian celebrated for his psychological
+studies.--Translator's note.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  A fearful nocturnal concert--Fire! Fire!--A clearing in
+  the forest--A general flight--Masters of the camp!--Mortal
+  weariness--A morning greeting without any compliments--A
+  first meeting--In the village--AL� against the Orang-putei.
+
+
+Not having found even a trace of human habitation either on the second
+day of our march we were once more compelled to prepare a shelter for
+the night as best we could. We made two little alcoves of boughs and
+leaves, and having satisfied the cravings of appetite we lighted a fire
+on each side of our miniature encampment, piled up enough wood at hand
+to keep them burning, and settled ourselves down to sleep, or rather one
+of us had to sleep whilst the other watched, as we had agreed to take
+turns. In our ignorance we had calculated upon finding ourselves
+surrounded by a solemn nocturnal stillness in these remote regions; such
+calm quietness as one enjoys during the night on the Alpine and
+Appennine woods. We were soon made aware of our mistake, however, for
+the monkeys, frightened at the glare of the fires, raised a hubbub of
+protests, their shrill cries and chattering voices reaching to the most
+acute notes. Leaping up to the very highest branches of the trees they
+began to shower down upon us broken twigs, leaves, nuts and other
+fruits. They seemed to be holding a meeting overhead at which each
+one--and they were a multitude--tried to gabble out a speech and to make
+himself heard above all the others.
+
+Deeper and more ominous notes were not long wanting to complete the
+infernal chorus. From the dense, dark forest came the blood-curdling
+roars of tigers, panthers, and bears mingled with the loud bellowing and
+heavy stampede of elephants; we could distinctly here the cracking of
+boughs hurled to the ground in their furious course, and the crashing of
+bamboo, which with them is a favourite food. One might have said that an
+immense legion of demons had invaded the forest, because in its intense,
+impenetrable obscurity, only dimly lighted for a yard or two by the
+blaze of our fires, everything seemed to turn into life. Every creature,
+every reed, every leaf had a voice of its own; a howl, a rustle, a sigh
+that filled the night air with diabolical sounds. It was a fearful
+pandemonium; a mighty strife twixt victim and victor; an insatiable lust
+for blood; a ferocious manifestation of ferocious love.
+
+"Fire! Fire! let us put on fuel!" and we threw log after log upon the
+burning piles whilst thousands of sparks flew upwards and the bright
+flames cast a red glow around.
+
+But the great voice of the forest did not cease; it still spoke on in
+the roars and the bellows of the strong and in the yells and wails of
+the weak. It rose up against us, as though pronouncing a malediction
+upon the intruders, upon the profaners of those mysteries that, in the
+inmost recesses of the jungle, great Mother Nature celebrates during the
+night.
+
+For hours we remained there, in a state it is useless for me even to
+attempt to describe, and then as day-break approached the fearful
+clamour began gradually to die away. Evidently at the first streak of
+dawn the wild beasts had returned to their dens. The monkeys were the
+last to finish as they had been the first to begin, but what was their
+chattering and gibbering compared to that terrible chorus which, with
+freezing veins and paralized brains, we had been obliged to listen to
+all night?
+
+It has never happened to me to greet a friend with such fervour as I did
+the sun that morning. At its appearance a new concert commenced, but now
+it was with the pleasant harmony of the buzzing and humming of insects,
+blended with the gay singing of birds.
+
+It reanimated us and we began to stretch our poor limbs which, besides
+being stiffened and benumbed by the horrors of the past night, and the
+thick dew that had fallen upon us, had also been an unconscious prey to
+leech and mosquito.
+
+Comparisons are odious. Granted. But between a tiger and a leech, a
+panther and a mosquito, notwithstanding their affinity in the liking of
+human blood, believe me there is a great difference, and it was perhaps
+for this reason that we had not previously noticed the onslaught made by
+these lesser carnivora upon our appalled flesh.
+
+A few hurried mouthfuls and we were on the tramp again. Our sleepless
+night, and the strong emotions that had kept us awake, made us feel
+tired and listless, but the bare idea of being exposed to the same
+torment and fear another time, gave us courage and strength to press on
+as far as possible in search of some nocturnal refuge, more secure from
+the four-footed inhabitants of the land, before sunset should have
+enticed them from their lairs.
+
+Weary, and mechanically, we trudged along, anxiously peering in front of
+us for some opening in the thick foliage and closely packed trees, or of
+some other sign of human life.
+
+It must have been about three o clock in the afternoon--for my watch had
+stopped--and it had begun to drizzle, when we saw, at not a great
+distance from us, the everlasting twilight of the wild forest dispersed
+by the full light of day.
+
+Our spirits revived at the sight, for in all probability it meant a vast
+clearing for the erection of huts and, in consequence, the presence of
+fellow beings, however savage they might be.
+
+We advanced with alacrity and soon came out in a large open space closed
+in by the felled trunks of enormous trees and planted with Indian corn,
+yams and sweet potatoes.
+
+In the middle stood two cabins made of the strong branches and gigantic
+leaves of the plants and trees which had been cut down. We were just
+able to catch a glimpse of some men lying about on the ground, whilst
+some women were busily cooking monkey's, serpents, and colossal rats,
+and several younger men were preparing poisoned arrows.
+
+We took in the whole scene in a rapid glance for in an instant the dogs
+began to bark and their masters were thrown into a state of alarm. We
+stopped, and they saw us, saw _me_--a white man--and full of fright they
+sprang to their feet. Like lightning they gathered up their provisions,
+the women slung the children on to their shoulders and they all
+disappeared, over the stout fence they had erected round their dwelling
+place, with the agility and the speed of a troop of monkeys.
+
+I really think that if the head of the Medusa, instead of turning into
+stone those who looked at it, had given them wings to escape they could
+not have flown away faster than did those poor savages at the sight of
+me.
+
+I had only time to see that they were quite naked and that their skin
+was of a light brownish tint, but this for the moment satisfied me as I
+knew that at last I had come into contact with the May Darats in search
+of whom I had ventured there.
+
+But I was so thoroughly exhausted in every way that I had even lost the
+power of thinking about them or anything else.
+
+I, and my faithful follower, entered the abandoned huts where we found
+some hot potatoes (which were quickly devoured) and a curious stringed
+instrument that had been left behind in the hasty flight.
+
+Having taken the usual precautions for the night, too tired out to care
+for the dangers that might be menacing us, dangers that might prove
+worse than those we had experienced the previous night (for we knew what
+we had to expect from quadruped enemies, but were ignorant of how our
+biped foes would treat our presence in their domain) unmindful and
+heedless of everything, dizzy with the need of rest, I threw myself down
+on the rude floor and fell heavily asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards two o'clock in the morning (as far as we could judge) my
+Sam-Sam, who had been keeping watch, awoke me. It was his turn to sleep.
+Nothing had happened, as yet, to excite suspicion or inquietude and this
+made me hope that we should not receive any serious hostility from the
+Aborigines.
+
+By straining my gaze into the darkness of the forest I discerned that
+some fires were lighted not very far off, a sure sign that the Sakais
+were still near us. Was this a good or a bad omen? Day would without
+doubt bring the answer. And day soon came, gladly welcomed by all
+Creation save by those people and beasts whose deeds are better suited
+to obscurity.
+
+I was preparing a nice strong cup of tea to refresh my stomach and cheer
+up my spirits (for recent events had greatly depressed them) when
+something lightly whistled above my ear and glided over my head.
+
+I gave a violent start and taking off my hat discovered that it had two
+little holes in it, one on each side. At a few steps from me lay an
+arrow, which had just fallen there, after having perforated my
+head-covering and softly touched my thin locks. It was a hair breadth
+escape, in a true sense of the saying, for the sharp missile shot at me
+from the Sakais infallible blow-pipe had first been carefully poisoned.
+
+That unexpected and not very friendly "good morning" called me back to
+the bitter reality of my position, and warned me not to delay coming to
+an understanding with them at once.
+
+Prudence forbade my presenting myself in their midst because the colour
+of my skin, although well sunburnt, would have drawn upon me certain
+death. I was convinced that in their primitive superstition they would
+have believed me an evil spirit and as such would have speedily
+despatched me to another world. The only thing to be done was to send
+hither my intelligent Sam-Sam who willingly allowed himself to be loaded
+with tobacco, coloured beads, _sirih_ and matches and then sallied forth
+to make a truce.
+
+He was accorded an audience without any difficulty which fact was
+perhaps due to the similitude of his race with theirs but more probably
+to the gifts he carried with him.
+
+My ambassador was interrogated with eagerness and curiosity about the
+_orang putei_ (white man), and he told them that I had come laden with
+gifts and full of good-will towards them. But the Sakais would not hear
+of my approaching their new encampment and sent word that they would
+soon favour me with a visit.
+
+And they kept their promise without losing any time in making a toilet
+or getting into a dress suit. They were in three, two stalwart youths
+and a man of between forty and fifty, all armed with their _sumpitans_
+(blow-pipes).
+
+By means of the Malay language and the universal one of gestures, I
+explained to them that I did not mean them any harm, that on the
+contrary it was my desire to help them in whatever way I could and that
+I should like to live amongst them if they would let me, as I wanted to
+initiate some plantations in their part.
+
+They replied by first trying to dissuade me from taking up my abode with
+them, and then suggested that it would be better for me to go to a small
+village at a short distance off, whither they offered to accompany me.
+
+I thanked them and accepted the offer, telling them, as a recompense,
+where we had left our sack of provisions. I afterwards heard that they
+had succeeded in finding it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I felt so contented at having made the first step--which is always the
+most difficult--that notwithstanding the thoroughly exhausted state in
+which I knew myself to be, I re-commenced my journey with a light heart,
+escorted by the three Sakais and my Sam-Sam. But arrived at a certain
+point it was impossible for me to proceed.
+
+Besides the stiffness of my joints, my flesh was tingling and bleeding
+with the bites and stings of many insects. In order to prove my
+sufferings to my companions I showed my livid limbs to them and I saw an
+expression of pity pass over their countenances. It seemed to me a good
+augury for one who was joining their tribe.
+
+We stopped, and the Sakais quickly built up the huts, lighted the fires
+and afterwards ate some rice with us. We then lay down to repose for the
+night, but if Sleep closed our eyes I think Mistrust opened them and
+none of us enjoyed much slumber in the end.
+
+Early the next morning we continued our course and reached the group of
+cabins dignified by the name of village. Here the same thing took place
+as on the previous day. In spite of my being in the company of three of
+their own people, which I thought would have reassured them, at my
+appearance the huts were rapidly deserted amidst cries of terror.
+
+My three guides, however, managed to get into communication with their
+brethren and after a while led them to me without their making any
+resistance.
+
+I got their consent to let me settle down near them on the condition
+that I did not seek to enter their huts. The reason of this interdiction
+I learnt later on. It had been a prescription of the Al�, a sort of
+sorcerer, who believed, or made believe that my presence would have an
+evil effect upon a sick mother and her new-born babe.
+
+The Sakais, stimulated by my presents, built me a solid and pretty
+comfortable cabin near a rivulet and not far from them, and I installed
+myself there forthwith.
+
+The first day of our acquaintance it happened that I accidentally called
+them Sakais. They changed face and some of them protested angrily:
+
+"You are not good, because you insult us and call us bad names!".
+
+It was a dangerous slip of the tongue and I hastened to make my peace by
+explaining that I had heard the term used by the other people but that I
+knew they were really May Darats whose kindness and gentleness had
+often been abused by their neighbours, and in the future I meant to save
+them from being cheated and deceived by their former aggressors.
+
+This declaration calmed their resentment and I was able to begin a
+quiet, tranquil life amongst those simple, sincere beings, a life so
+calm and undisturbed that I have never had cause, then or now, to regret
+the civilized society from which I had voluntarily withdrawn myself,
+persuaded that if my character and habits incapacitated me for the
+dubious and not always straightforward transactions of the commercial
+world, the same moral qualities which impeded me from becoming a
+business man might find good ground for bringing forth fruit in the pure
+hearts and minds of a primitive people, who knew neither fraud, nor
+hypocrisy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  New friends--Gold--An English official--The purchase of my future
+  treasure--Administrative simplicity--England teaches!--The "sla
+  pui"--Bitter disappointment--The Sam-Sam--The poison of the Savage
+  and the venom of the Civilized.
+
+
+My strength and health, which had suffered in consequence of those few
+days' strain of muscle and nerve, soon returned to their normal state in
+that peaceful retreat upon the grassy banks of the stream that is an
+affluent of the Bidor.
+
+My friendship with the Sakais increased every day because little by
+little their suspicions concerning me were allayed and the curiosity
+with which they watched my every act was no longer mixed with fear. They
+did not attempt to run away when I bent my steps towards their rough
+habitations in spite of the Al�'s veto to my passage through their
+village and it was not a rare thing for my gifts of tobacco and _sirih_
+to be exchanged with pheasants and other game and sometimes even with a
+chicken. I found it easy to talk with the men and prized these
+conversations as a means of studying their characters and of learning
+their language, which is composed of short, strongly accented words. It
+was very seldom that I could find any sort of derivation from the Malay
+tongue in these terse syllables.
+
+At the same time that I sought to get upon a familiar footing with my
+new friends I did not forget one of the principal motives that had
+induced me to wander so far from the haunts of ordinary men, so one day
+I cracked a cocoanut in half and, cleaning it well out, I dipped the
+shell into the bed of the stream and drew it out again full of water and
+sand.
+
+I examined the contents with great care and found a few grains of gold
+in the alluvion! This was joy indeed, and mentally I bade goodbye to the
+life of a planter (although I had not yet begun it) and there on the
+spot decided to dedicate my time and energy to the gathering of gold
+which would be far the quickest way of making a fortune.
+
+All at once, however, an unpleasant thought crossed my mind and dimmed
+my bright hopes.
+
+In my chats with the Sakais they had told me that there was another
+_orang putei_ at Tapah. I endeavoured to discover who this person was,
+and what he was doing, in the little Malay town, but I was unable to
+obtain any information about him.
+
+Now the idea suggested itself that this white man could be no other than
+a British Government Officer to whom, from a feeling of delicacy,
+respect of the law, and as a means of avoiding future trouble, I was
+bound to explain what I wished to do before setting myself to work, as
+his permission would be necessary for the execution of my desire.
+
+My unfortunate experience of other colonial authorities inspired me with
+very little confidence in that of the English and nothing seemed to me
+more likely than to find myself expelled from the Protected States
+instead of having my petition granted.
+
+But on the other hand it would be very rash to commence work in earnest
+without legal authorization, so one day, accompanied by some Sakais to
+the confines of the forest, I betook myself to Tapah.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I could not help wondering to myself what sort of a gruff, bureaucratic
+functionary I should find to deny me my fortune. Who knew how my Italian
+enterprise would be judged on territory protected by H. B. M.?
+
+But calling up my courage I was introduced into the presence of a young
+and pleasant-mannered gentleman who received me with much politeness.
+
+He had already been informed that a white man was to be found amongst
+the Sakais and he had been greatly surprised, not understanding what
+attractions anyone could find in the midst of a people so ignorant and
+savage. He congratulated himself upon the opportunity of meeting and
+knowing me, was pleased to hear that I was an Italian and wound up with
+the stereotyped demand:
+
+"What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?".
+
+Encouraged by his kindness, but not without a little secret misgiving, I
+told him frankly what I proposed doing and related all particulars.
+
+Mr. Wise (for this was his name) listened to everything attentively, now
+and then expressing a word of sympathy or approval and finally, for the
+sum of a few dollars, made me the owner of the tract of land upon which
+I had fixed my mind.
+
+Thus it was that in the short space of an hour, without having to
+surmount any obstacles, and at an almost ridiculous price I became the
+legitimate possessor of a piece of ground that perhaps concealed a
+treasure in its bosom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I had never before been at Tapah I took advantage of the time spared
+in my business affairs to visit it a little and to form an opinion upon
+the expedients used in a half-desert Eastern country, scorched by the
+sun, populated by different tribes, infested by poisonous insects and
+terrible microbes, to say nothing of a host of wild beasts!
+
+Tapah is a modern little town, all villas and gardens. It rises white
+and coquettishly at the foot of green hills and its smiling panorama,
+although without the magnificent background of the sea, recalled to my
+sight the sweet vision of my native Varazze, one of the most beautiful
+gems that adorn the Riviera Ponente.
+
+It is the chief-town of a district counting 30,000 inhabitants amongst
+which about a thousand of diverse races and nationalities. It has two
+large streets lined with shops where Malays, Indians, and Chinese offer
+a varied and heterogeneous stock of goods for sale.
+
+It is divided in the middle by the big river Batang Padang which
+afterwards discharges itself into the Bidor, that too.
+
+As capital of the district it possesses a Post Office, a very large room
+where two Indian clerks perform their duties under the direction of an
+English Postmaster who has also to overlook the branch offices of the
+circuit.
+
+My attention was attracted by an unpretending edifice in front of which
+some Malay and Indian soldiers were seated. I was asking them what
+building it was when an Englishman came out and courteously told me that
+it was the Head Police Station of which he was the inspector.
+
+During a subsequent conversation I learnt that the Police Service was
+everything that could be desired as also that of all the other Public
+Offices and that Indigenes and Indians were everywhere employed under
+the direction of English chiefs. The number of clerks, as in other
+British colonies, was according to strict necessity; no extra posts were
+ever created for political or personal interest but when assistance was
+required there was never any difficulty in selecting local aspirant, as
+long as they had a sufficient knowledge of the official language.
+
+So I found that Tapah, the chief-town of the district, is under the
+direction of an Englishman, who is called the District Officer, and who
+performs all administrative and magisterial functions.
+
+Not much time lost here in the labyrinths of Bureaucracy! And yet I
+heard that both the District Officer and the Police Inspector who are
+under the control of the Authority residing in Taiping, capital of Perak
+but who in reality enjoy almost complete liberty of action, find the
+time not only to discharge all the various duties of their office but
+also to take recreation in a little football and cricket. It is said
+that sometimes the menservants too are called in to take part in these
+national sports and for an hour freely compete with their masters in the
+art of kicking and batting, returning serious and respectful to their
+proper places at the end of the game.
+
+Whilst I was passing the time pleasantly, talking with one and the other
+I saw a little party approaching that was the object of great respect
+from the bystanders.
+
+It was Mr. Wise the District Officer who had received me so politely a
+few hours before.
+
+He was on his return from a survey made in order to define the boundary
+of some land belonging to two Malays. Without donning any sort of
+uniform or insignia, this British delegate had known how to preserve
+all the solemnity and dignity of form due to the occasion, a virtue
+peculiar to the English who are always and everywhere the most rigorous
+observers of social and official etiquette.
+
+Mr. Wise kindly invited me to follow him the Club where he kept me in
+friendly conservation, answering all the questions I could not refrain
+from asking him in my desire to become better acquainted with the colony
+and its method of government.
+
+Now Mr. Wise is no more, but in him his country lost a model functionary
+for intelligence, solicitude and uprightness.
+
+He died at the very moment his future seemed to smile its brightest;
+when his fondest hopes were about to be crowned by matrimony with the
+young lady of his choice.
+
+Let me, through these pages, render to his memory the modest,
+affectionate homage of admiration and deferential friendship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That day, having made my peace with the authorities, I returned with a
+clear conscience to the quiet nook I had found in the vast forest; to
+that domestic corner reserved for me in Dame Nature's grand and wondrous
+saloon: to that rude home so far removed from the generality of mankind,
+but so close to the kings and princes of the animal kingdom, commonly
+called--wild beasts.
+
+[Illustration: A young Sakai with his inseparable blowpipe.
+
+_p._ 40.]
+
+Keeping tight hold of the receipt which had suddenly made me the owner
+of a possible gold mine, I alternately made castles in the air and
+meditated upon the simplicity of English administration that in a few
+short instants had conceded to me an extensive zone of land with which
+to do what I liked, without any need of setting in motion the intricate
+machinery of the bureaucracy; without any stamped legal forms, surveys
+and expensive reports; the presentation of birth certificate and that of
+British citizenship; without digging into the past and the future, into
+the state and position of one's family, etc. etc.
+
+And because everything that happens to one abroad recalls one's
+fatherland (a natural habit that neither distance nor time can change) I
+thought of my native country and of the complicated organization of its
+many bureaucratic departments that only too often clogs the boldest
+Italian enterprise and raises an insurmountable barrier before creative
+and inventive genius compelling it to seek elsewhere its fortune.
+
+From my heart I longed that Italy might before long be liberated from
+these toils which hinder the free expansion of its young and vigorous
+forces.
+
+One thing had particularly struck me during my intercourse with Mr.
+Wise. The fact of my being an Italian was no obstacle to my request
+being favourably received. This surprised me, for under other
+governments I had seen that foreigners were considered anything but
+necessary to the colony and after having opposed, more or less openly,
+the intruder's initiative, the Authority seized the slightest pretext,
+that offered itself under a decent aspect, to send the new-comer back
+over the frontier for fear that their digestion might suffer from his
+presence.
+
+England on the contrary does not search into, nor care for, the origin
+of those who bring energy or any other useful quality to her colonies.
+In her dominions she only aims at reaching the highest point of
+prosperity, she desires only the accumulation of riches, and whoever
+promises well to further her interests, becomes an appreciated
+collaborator, be he Italian, German, Portuguese or Turk.
+
+England never repells talent or aptitude from an absurd prejudice of
+Chauvinism. Considering the length and breadth of her possessions she
+may well say that the world is her tributary, no wonder then that she
+avails herself of the hands and brains of every one who knows how to use
+them well, instead of confining herself exclusively to the merits of
+those born on British soil.
+
+In this broad way of seeing and treating things--which proves the
+tranquil and perfect consciousness the English nation has of its own
+strength--I believe lies the secret of its colonial success.
+
+The well-known satire according to which it is impossible to find in the
+world a rock or strip of land, however barren or sterile, without an
+owner, for the simple reason that an Englishman is always prompt to
+unfold and hoist the Union Jack there, is in reality the highest and
+most just homage that can be paid to the spirit of enterprise that
+characterizes this people. Where others only see sand and reefs, not
+worth the trouble of cultivation, the Englishman discovers some
+productive germ that with his indefatigable energy brings forth a
+thousand fold. Nor is Colonial work, industrial activity and commercial
+thrift disturbed by bureaucratic sophistry or immoderate fiscal
+pretentions, that so frequently suffocate the most promising and
+audacious undertakings in other places.
+
+Colonial success very often depends upon the ability of its
+administrative body in directing all available force to this one end:
+the increase of its wealth. Bureaucracy is a cancer which paralyzes all
+life and motion that it finds within reach of its tentacles.
+
+Old England has understood this for a long time, ever since, from the
+island once fruitless and barren, she spread her wings and flew to the
+conquest of the World's markets.
+
+When will certain other nations comprehend that antiquity and past
+glory, instead of offering the precious fruit of experience, has
+brought upon them a palsied decrepitude?
+
+When wilt thou understand this, my Italy, risen as thou art to the third
+maturity of thy civilization and glory?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I set myself at once, with a good will, to the extraction of gold, and
+engaged the services of a few Malays and Chinese coolies, who were
+expert enough, to assist me in my work.
+
+The method we followed was a very primitive one. We filled some round
+wooden bowls with the water and sand, then by gently stirring the mass,
+particles of tin and gold were separated from the sand and went to the
+bottom. This deposit carefully gathered up was passed into other bowls
+full of water, into which we threw a well-pounded leaf of the _sla
+pi�_.
+
+The juice of these leaves possesses a chemical property which I cannot
+explain but it draws up to the surface the sand still sticking to the
+metals, leaving them quite pure.
+
+But the yellow tempter was not at all profuse in his favours and the
+golden metal came in very small quantities. I did not lose courage,
+however, and persevered for a long time without any change of luck. I
+even tried to trace out the auriferous bed from whence the waters of the
+stream transported the metals. I made innumerable attempts to find it,
+but in vain, and the day came when I was constrained to confess to
+myself that alluvial mining for me was a failure.
+
+After all my hopes and dreams it was a melancholy confession to make but
+it was evident that I must turn in another direction if I wished for
+fortune, so I settled my account with the workmen and dismissed them.
+
+At their departure my Sam-Sam who had become in the meantime a robust
+young man, begged me to let him return to his own part, saying that
+there was a young Sakai willing to take his place in my service.
+Although very sorry to lose the faithful companion of that never to be
+forgotten journey through the forest, I could not refuse his request and
+let him do as he wished.
+
+It was with real pleasure that I fell in with him again some years after
+when I was travelling through the interior of Kedah and he too evinced
+great joy at the meeting.
+
+He told me that what he had earned from me had been the means of making
+his fortune, for with it he had bought a piece of ground and some oxen,
+and now kept himself, his wife and two children, by agricultural work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I have said, the gold was very scarce. After the coolies had left I
+tried to persuade the Sakais to take their post, which would have saved
+expense in gathering it, but every effort was useless for these people
+do not and will not understand what works means, or the pleasure it
+gives, beyond that of preparing poisons.
+
+Poison is the principal topic of conversation with them and their only
+boast is the discovery of new or more deadly mixtures. The children
+listen to these discourses with lively interest and pay anxious
+attention to the experiments made by their elders in this primitive kind
+of chemistry, and in this way the passion is propagated from father to
+son and so it will continue until the breath of civilization reaches
+that far-off spot and those good, simple men learn that, in the struggle
+for life, civilized persons no longer use poisons that kill the body,
+but those which are much more terrible and without an antidote, such as
+envy, calumny, hatred and luxury, which destroy the mind and soul.
+
+These are the venemous elements that my forest friends do not yet know,
+those poor savages who extract their poisons from the _ipok_[3] and
+other, trees to defend themselves against wild beasts and to procure
+them food in their wild abode.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 3: The _ipok_, known in science by the Javenese name of
+_upas_, is a tree that affords a very baneful poison as explained in the
+chapter upon poisons.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  Great Mother Earth--A dangerous meeting--A living statue--Here or
+  there?--An unrelished supper--A dreaded immigration--A glance into
+  the past--A rape which was not a rape--A noble task--Towards the
+  mountain--Tiger-shooting--The Sakais in town--Alloyed sweets--
+  Musical tastes--Hurrah for the free forest!
+
+
+My gold mania was transient. My spirit was very soon liberated from its
+thrall and I turned with alacrity to the study of a more practical and
+satisfactory enterprise.
+
+In that brief period of uncertainty I had somehow felt convinced that
+fortune (if indeed fortune was reserved for me) would have to come to me
+through the ground. But in what way?
+
+I often accompanied the Sakais in their visits into the thick of the
+forest where they were in the habit of going in search of poisons, and
+sometimes I would even go by myself. During these excursions I tortured
+my brain with the everlasting question of how to initiate a new line of
+work and gain.
+
+One day the forest itself answered my puzzling query!
+
+There were extensive woods of rattan, and other magnificent reeds which
+are called in England Indian and Malacca cane; there was resin oozing
+copiously from the trunks of the trees. What more could be desired?
+
+I began gently to make my Sakais comprehend how much I should like to
+gather these products and transport them to where I might exchange them
+for other articles that we were without. It was of no use to speak to
+them of money because they had not the smallest idea of what it meant.
+
+At first they responded roughly that they did not care anything at all
+about the matter, for, as I before said, the Sakais from habit and an
+innate spirit of independence will never hear of submitting themselves
+to any regular, ordinate labour. Knowing, however, with whom I had to
+deal, and divining what a great amount of patience would be necessary to
+bring them round to my way of thinking, I began to distribute gifts,
+especially tobacco, freely and frequently amongst them, only mentioning
+my wish occasionally, as if by chance. And my prodigality had its
+reward.
+
+One day I saw them returning from the forest abundantly laden with the
+products I wanted.
+
+It was a good beginning and was followed up by a constant supply. I
+stored up the bamboo and gum and when I had accumulated enough I went to
+the coast to sell my merchandise coming back well provided with tobacco,
+iron, coloured beads, matches, salt, rice padi and maize. These things I
+dispensed amongst my friends and they, seeing the good result of their
+fatigue in the form of articles which excited their cupidity, ended by
+keeping me plentifully furnished with the goods in question.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The new branch of commerce, which I had started, required a good deal of
+energy, but I let no grass grow under my feet and went frequently to
+Tapah in order to open up a sale for my products.
+
+It was on my return from one of these journeys that something happened
+to me worth relating.
+
+Only a few hours of daylight remained when I set out from Tapah for my
+forest habitation. I was carrying with me six nice loaves and a piece of
+venison that I had bought in town and I thought with keen appreciation
+of the savoury supper I should have that night.
+
+I hurried along as fast as possible in order to traverse the 2 miles of
+highroad and the other of woodland track, which lay before me, ere night
+fell. In spite of the 30 miles already done that day my legs continued
+to serve me well and I walked rapidly on with a bent head, full of
+thought.
+
+At a sudden turning of the path I raised my eyes to scrutinize the way.
+About 50 yards in front of me I saw a dark and confused mass slowly
+moving. Thinking to meet with a party of coolies from a neighbouring
+mine, who were perhaps going for provisions, I advanced for another 40
+paces, then stopped short and was fixed to the spot. The formless mass
+had taken the shape of nothing less than an enormous tiger!
+
+There was no fear that step or gesture of mine would attract its
+attention for at the sight I had become petrified, like Lot's wife! In
+that atom of time, which seemed to me a century, I could not even think,
+but across the deadened faculty of my mind flashed a warning I had
+recently received from the Sakais: never make a movement in the presence
+of a tiger, and never look it straight in the face.
+
+[Illustration: Towards the mountains.
+
+_p._ 52.]
+
+The first part of this injunction was instinctively obeyed for I
+remained there rooted to the ground, utterly unable to stir even if such
+an imprudent idea had suggested itself. My senses were so paralyzed by
+the unexpected encounter that I did not entirely realize my position and
+had only a vague perception that when those fierce eyes once rested upon
+me the end of the world would have come, as far as I was concerned.
+
+Sideways I saw that the huge beast, which had been sniffing the ground,
+to find out what animal had lately passed by, now raised its head and
+looked slowly around with an indolent but suspicious air.
+
+After a painful vibration, some of my muscles became rigid. The monster
+cautiously advanced; it was certainly preparing to pounce upon me! I
+could hardly resist the impulse of looking towards it. All my nerves
+were quivering with anguish as if in a supreme protest against the
+imminent slaughter. Already I felt the terrible creature's hot breath as
+it opened wide its greedy jaws; already my trembling flesh felt the
+fatal touch of its death-dealing claws--one instant--two....!
+
+With a quick, irrepressible motion my eyes turned in its direction.
+
+The tiger was leisurely crossing the path and disappeared into the
+forest without taking even the least notice of me! Why, it was almost a
+personal offence!
+
+But although the blood began to flow once more through heart and brain,
+and Life--which had been momentarily suspended--again ran through all my
+being, filling the veins and relaxing muscles and nerves, I did not then
+think of the slight offered me by the animal's indifference, for with
+renewal of life had come an atrocious spasm of horror and of fear.
+
+In those few seconds a drama, full of strange sensations, awful
+impressions, and maddening effect had been enacted within me!
+
+After the first moment of relief, and whilst I was still stretching and
+rubbing my limbs, a serious problem presented itself for solution.
+
+On entering the forest the tiger had gone the very way I had to go
+myself. What had I better do? It was impossible for me to retrace my
+steps, for my previous tiredness had increased to a singular degree
+after my fright. It was equally impossible for me to think of stopping
+where I was. And to penetrate into the forest following in the
+creature's wake, would it not be like going to seek the ghastly end from
+which I had just so narrowly escaped, thanks perhaps to the tiger's
+defective sense of smell?
+
+And yet, after having carefully pondered which course to take I was
+obliged to make my decision in favour of the one that seemed the most
+insensate of the three.
+
+My cabin was not very far off. I should only have to quicken my pace, by
+making a supreme effort, in order to arrive before it got dark.
+
+And the tiger? But might I not have met a dozen of them on my road from
+Tapah? And besides, who could say that the one I had seen was really
+gone towards my home? It would indeed have proved a curious
+predilection, especially after the affront just received!
+
+So armed with these subtle reasonings, with which I sought to persuade
+myself, I left the tragical spot where, according to the brief agony of
+my feelings and the likelihood of procedure, I had been torn to pieces
+and eaten by a wild beast, and I continued my homeward journey.
+
+How the faintest sound startled me! A falling leaf; a blade of grass
+moved by an insect; a snake or a lizard gliding out of my path; the
+squeal of a monkey; the fluttering of a bird's wings as it flew up to
+its perch, all subjected me to spasmodic thrills.
+
+I always had in my sight that dreadful beast with gaping mouth, and
+cruelly glittering eyes. The horrible vision gave new vigour to my body,
+extraordinary suppleness to my legs and--wings to my feet.
+
+Kind reader, who knows how many times in your sitting-room or perhaps in
+somebody else's even dearer to you--_honi soit qui mal y pense_!--you
+have found yourself in front of a tiger, leopard or panther whose
+brindled and glossy skin you have admired; who knows how many times you
+have absently played with its head, still ferocious-looking, in spite of
+its glass eyes and red cloth tongue; who knows how often you have toyed
+with its fangs and claws whilst you were persuing a pleasant thought or
+inebriating your spirit with the soft tones of a certain voice!
+
+Well, have you ever tried to imagine what emotions you would experience
+if quite unexpectedly those glassy eyes should become animated; if that
+ugly mouth should open wider; if those white fangs should gleam with
+life; if those splendid claws should be stretched out in the act of
+lacerating you: if that magnificent skin should once more be
+incorporated and rise up to face you?
+
+I confess the truth when I say, that the dainty supper I had brought
+with me from Tapah, lost its flavour for me that evening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A report of my flourishing trade and the news that gold was to be found
+at the bottom of the little river which flowed past my humble dwelling
+soon spread outside the Sakai region. The consequence was quite an
+invasion of our tranquil village.
+
+This immigration greatly alarmed the poor Indigenes who cannot easily
+forget how they were once treated by those not of their own race.
+
+They still remembered with terror how the strangers had plundered their
+villages, carrying off everything they could lay their hands upon, even
+their young men and women to serve as slaves and concubines.
+
+The majority of these poor victims, torn from the unlimited freedom of
+the jungle, unused to any sort of work that was not voluntary, and
+faithful to their traditions and superstitions did not long survive
+their separation from kin and tribe. The others, who managed to adapt
+themselves to their new conditions, as a matter of course, had their
+primitive simplicity corrupted, and little by little learnt the vices
+and habits of their masters. For this they were considered by their
+brethren as inferior beings and were looked upon with grave suspicion,
+when, taking advantage of the first occasion that offered itself, they
+fled back to the forest. Although by their return to their own people
+they foreswore their past moral and material bondage they could not help
+bringing with them some of the depravity they had seen, or endured, in
+their exile which clashed with the customs and sensibilities of the pure
+type of May Darats, remarkable for their sincerity and integrity.
+
+In this way, by degrees, the original Sakai race diminished whilst new
+clans sprang up around them, formed of those who had been, and continued
+to be, in contact with comparatively civilized people, who knew their
+languages and their craftiness, notwithstanding which they frequently
+became their dupes under the show of good-feeling and cordiality.
+
+The British Protectorate came as a blessing to the Sakais because it
+officially abolished slavery and shortened their neighbours' talons,
+that had grown a little too long.
+
+But in spite of the vigilance exercised by their white protectors the
+others still found the means of depredating and imposing upon these good
+but ignorant creatures. Instead of devastating their rude homes and
+arbitrarily taking possession of everyone and everything they pleased,
+they soon established another system for achieving their end.
+
+They supplied them with goods of the very worst quality, charging them
+at the highest prices, and as these consisted principally of tobacco,
+salt, iron, _sirih_ and pieces of calico they lasted no time, and had to
+be frequently replaced. As a matter of course this fraudulent manner of
+trading made the poor Sakais' debts amount to fabulous proportions and
+then their swindling creditor dictated the conditions he best liked: the
+man had to follow and serve him or if there was some woman in the family
+he preferred, he would carry her off either to keep for himself, or
+privately sell to another.
+
+To better succeed in their roguery they depicted the white man as an
+incarnate devil, never tired of doing evil, who had come there for
+nothing else but to ravage their land and disperse its inhabitants. The
+_orang putei_ was described to the credulent Sakais as the most terrible
+and cruel enemy that one could possibly imagine.
+
+Thus the real persecutors of this primitive people were regarded by them
+as true friends, whilst the relation of imaginary and fantastic perils
+distracted their minds from the more practical dangers of this false
+friendship.
+
+By instilling in them fear of the white man there was less chance that
+the wretched individuals, whose good faith and domestic affections had
+been abused and outraged, would appeal to a British magistrate for
+justice, believing him to be a worse enemy than the actual one, and if
+sometimes a complaint was brought before this functionary through a
+third party, a most distressing scene ensued.
+
+The victim, under the influence of his injurer's glance and presence,
+would acknowledge whatever misdeed, debt, and even crime was attributed
+to him, responding to the demand if what his accuser said was true,
+with the invariable and laconic words: "What he says is true".
+
+I may here cite a case in which I took an active part when I was the
+Superintendent of Sakais under the British Government.
+
+One day a family of these Sakais who have dealings with other races,
+rushed wildly into my hut, crying desperately. The parents, sobbing,
+told me that a Chinese, to whom they owed a great deal, had seized and
+led away their daughter.
+
+I set myself to find the blackguard and after some difficulty succeeded.
+I rescued the girl and restored her to her relations and then sent in a
+report of the incident to the Magistrate. A case for abduction was made
+out, and the English law does not jest on such matters. The Chinese
+declared that as his debtors could not pay him his due he had agreed, if
+the girl consented, to take her as his wife or servant, and so cancel
+their debt towards him.
+
+Whilst he spoke he never took his eyes off his accusers. The father and
+mother of the young woman were interrogated and although they were in my
+presence they replied, after a momentary hesitation:
+
+"What he says is true".
+
+The girl was then asked if she had followed the Chinese of her own free
+will or if violence had been used in taking possession of her and she
+too repeated like an automaton:
+
+"What he says is true".
+
+Nothing availed to get other words than these out of the poor wretches'
+mouths, nor the magistrate's clever cross-questioning, nor my entreaties
+to tell the whole truth. I re-called to their memory the pitiful state
+they had been in when they ran into my house, crying and invoking
+justice. It was all in vain; but fortunately for them the legal officer
+himself was convinced that the Chinese--who stood by with a sarcastic
+smile upon his lips--was guilty, and closed the process by condemning
+him to six months' imprisonment.
+
+[Illustration: A forest shooting-box.
+
+_p._ 54.]
+
+I made up my mind to go to the bottom of the affair if only to discover
+why the Sakais, by nature so far removed from falsehood, had denied the
+truth.
+
+My investigations proved that the Chinese had threatened to revenge
+himself by utterly destroying the whole family if they made any
+complaint about his way of proceeding, and had also terrified them by
+stories of the inhuman tortures to which they would be subjected by the
+British magistrate if they spoke against him.
+
+The confession came too late because, if they had spoken in time the
+scoundrel would have had a much heavier sentence.
+
+From this simple episode one can understand what an amount of energy,
+boldness, and resolution the English Authorities need in order to
+liberate the poor Sakais from the moral tyranny that still oppresses
+them. But the British Government is quite equal to the task it has
+undertaken, and there is no reason to doubt that before long it will
+have reduced to impotency these dregs of Society who creep in amongst
+the Sakai tribes, that are far removed from civilization and justice,
+there to work out their wicked schemes and practise their crafty wiles.
+
+I have written the word "dregs" on purpose, as of course peoples in a
+collective sense cannot be held responsible for the bad-doings of a
+small number of their countrymen, and I wish it here to be distinctly
+understood that when I speak of the villainous acts and thievish
+propensities of these latter (who being too well-known and despised in
+their own place, to be able to succeed in their base tricks go elsewhere
+in search of victims) I do not mean to offend, or cast a slight upon
+Malays, Chinese, or Indians in general.
+
+On the contrary, I have the highest esteem and respect for all three,
+especially those who faithfully follow the ways of Progress, and have
+certain virtues peculiarly theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After this rapid glance into the past it is not difficult to understand
+with what inquietude and uneasiness the Sakais saw their little
+settlement invaded by those they feared.
+
+The new-comers, though, no longer found such a credulous and frightened
+people as they had been accustomed to on other occasions. Their
+calumnious stories of the white man (whose vigilant and not very lenient
+control troubled them a great deal) made little or no impression. They
+knew the white man by now, he had been among them for some time and they
+had even come to look upon him as a good protector.
+
+So by mutual agreement we let our unwelcome visitors choose their sites
+and erect their huts, allowing them to enjoy the ecstasy of a vigorous
+abuse of the humble Sakai village and everything they could find within
+reach; then one fine morning, to their infinite wonder, we left them to
+their own devices and betook ourselves to the heights from whence flowed
+down the little river Bidor. This sudden change of locality did not
+cause me any serious sacrifice as the spot where we had been living was
+not very healthy owing to the frequently stagnant condition of the
+stream and, apart from hygienic motives, I was not altogether sorry at
+being thus compelled to seek new quarters as I was anxious to get well
+acquainted with the whole district, studying its products and its
+fitness for colonization, hoping in the end to succeed in inducing the
+Sakais to abandon their nomadic life for one of honest work, in the
+field of agriculture. Besides so teaching my good friends the value and
+the nobleness of labour I should have a useful occasion myself for
+employing latent energy.
+
+We selected a beautiful place in the forest for our new encampment, and
+the men set to with a good will to cutting down the splendid timber and
+luxuriant climbers within the circle drawn out for the clearing. The
+thick interlaced boughs and bushy underwood were alive with reptiles,
+and our advent, with the noisy and destructive blows with which we broke
+the drowsy stillness of the air, brought an indescribable panic in that
+little centre of animal life.
+
+Our huts were quickly raised and we were soon able to resume our
+habitual occupations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some time passed without our camp being disturbed by any sort of
+incident when one day a tiger was seen to stealthily approach our
+clearing and snatching up a dog in its mouth, it fled back into the
+forest, the poor little beast yelping pitifully as it was being carried
+off.
+
+The fact was a graver one than the mere loss of the dog would have made
+it seem because if the animal had been constrained to commit such an
+audacious act by the pangs of hunger, it would most probably return
+again, and who could say that there would always be a dog ready for its
+meal? It is however well known, that this dreadful feline creature does
+not devour its prey all at once but invariably leaves a part of the
+flesh sticking to the carcass, reserving the picking of its bones for
+the following night. Therefore there was a good chance of speedily
+liberating ourselves from our ferocious enemy, if the Sakais had not
+regarded the tiger with superstitious respect, for a reason which I will
+explain later on, a vague belief in metempsychosis that also has the
+effect of making them fond of their domestic animals.
+
+I had the greatest difficulty in convincing my ignorant companions that
+the tiger must be killed if we wished to remain in peace and safety. It
+was a long time before I could overcome their reluctance and terror at
+my proposal.
+
+At last they consented to let me rid them of their dangerous friend and
+built me a small house up one of the trees we considered to be in the
+best position. Armed with a first class _Martini_ I took my place there
+with two or three Sakais.
+
+What I had expected came to pass: at dead of night the beast returned.
+We could see it crawling cautiously through the high grass. I took
+careful aim and fired. The sharp report was instantly answered by a
+fearful roar, and the formidable creature, after giving a tremendous
+jump into the air, once more disappeared into the darkness of the
+forest.
+
+The Sakais were awed and dismayed by the thunder and lightning of my
+gun.
+
+We could still hear the furious laments of the wounded animal so we
+thought it advisable not to stir from our posts until morning.
+
+At the first streak of day, as the groans of the evidently fallen tiger
+had not ceased, some of the men went to ascertain its refuge whilst I,
+with my loaded rifle, kept myself prompt to defend them in case of an
+unlikely attack.
+
+The beast was soon found, stretched out on the turf In spite of its fury
+it was unable to move as one or two of its legs had been shattered by my
+lead.
+
+I finished it with another shot. Its skull now displays its beauties at
+the Ethnographic Museum at Rome.
+
+Not much later on I was obliged to repeat the same sport.
+
+Another tiger had stolen a dog, and we had found its half-eaten body.
+Knowing that the rest would be devoured within a few hours by the same
+beast of prey we made a little shelter of leaves and branches up a tree
+close by and remained there to await his majesty.
+
+At nightfall he punctually arrived and was received, according to his
+merit, by my rifle. My shot did not miss its mark and he rushed off
+howling with pain and rage. All night long the forest echoes were
+awakened by his horrible cries but towards morning we managed to trace
+him out and he too was finished by a second shot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the year 1898 the ever increasing solicitude of the Sakays had
+enabled me to accumulate a considerable quantity of Malacca cane,
+rattan, resin and orchids which I had made up my mind to take to Penang
+for sale.
+
+But I wanted to indulge myself in the pleasure of conducting with me
+some of my friends, the savages, that they might for the first time see
+a modern town.
+
+It was no easy matter to prevail upon them to follow up my desire but
+finally I persuaded five of them to come with me as carriers.
+
+Keeping always along the banks of the Bidor we descended as far as the
+Perak which we crossed in order to do a part of the journey in train and
+then board one of the steamers that ply between Telok Ansom and the
+island of Penang.
+
+During the voyage I noticed nothing particular in my companions beyond a
+great wonder, not unmixed with fear, when they felt themselves
+travelling upon water.
+
+They observed everything with grand curiosity, and were immensely
+interested in the noisy movement of the ship's engines and its steam
+sirens.
+
+Arrived at Penang, where I met with numerous friends, they soon became
+the centre of attraction.
+
+Dainties of every kind were pressed upon them, and they were offered
+loads of the finest sweetmeats and white sugar. They accepted it all
+without enthusiasm but threw away the sweetmeats as soon as they had
+tasted them. When I asked them why they did so they replied that there
+was something not perfectly sweet in their flavour and they feared that
+whatever it was would do them harm.
+
+The gifts which they seemed to appreciate the most were cigars, tobacco
+and white sugar.
+
+My five Sakais divided their presents with each other, putting away some
+for the dear ones at home, and I often noticed that in the midst of the
+bewilderment which those simple souls must have experienced at being
+surrounded by people and things so totally new to them, they never
+seemed to forget for a moment the beloved persons they had left behind
+in the jungle.
+
+The Town-Band gave a concert and I accompanied my proteg�s to hear it.
+The bass instruments with their deep notes jarred upon the acoustic
+sense of the poor fellows and visibly inspired them with terror. They
+stopped their ears with their fingers and gave clear signs of the
+unpleasant feelings they were suffering from. But it was quite different
+when they heard the higher-toned instruments, especially those of wood,
+as the flute, the clarionet and the oboe. The pure, vibrating notes gave
+them intense enjoyment judging from the pleased expression of their
+countenances and their singularly brilliant eyes.
+
+I also took them to a Chinese theatre, but the skill of the yellow
+artistes did not find its way to the Sakai heart and after having
+witnessed the spectacle for a few minutes they frankly declared that
+they were not at all amused.
+
+Their artless natures and simple affections remained unpolluted by the
+seductions of civilization. Nothing was wanting to content them: they
+were caressed by the English, received heaps of gifts and lived without
+the slightest fatigue, yet they were not happy. I saw them change humour
+and become more melancholy hour by hour. The distractions with which I
+tried to cure their home-sickness tended only to increase it.
+
+The third day of our sojourn at Penang they implored me so earnestly to
+let them return to their families that, impressed by their sickly looks
+and disconsolate air, I promised at once to grant their desire.
+
+This promise put them into better spirits and their good humour was
+quite restored when the steamer left the harbour at Penang and bore us
+towards the river Perak. No one would imagine the transformation that
+had taken place in my five fellow-travellers.
+
+Four days of town-life had told upon them physically and morally. They
+were tired and disgusted with everything. Accustomed, on an average, to
+walk twenty miles a day, at Penang, after strolling through a few
+streets, they had been weary. Exposed to privations and hardships in the
+Jungle (often owing to their own improvidence) they were soon nauseated
+with the ease and abundance offered them in the city.
+
+Where the climate, the charms of the place and the security from wild
+beasts were all calculated to captivate their fancy and render them
+contented, the poor Sakais drooped and pined for the vicissitudes of
+their wild life in the woods where comfort was unknown and food was
+sometimes scarce. Their thoughts, their very souls were always back in
+the remote forest, in that enchanting wilderness whose magic spell
+blinded them to its mortal perils and inconveniences. Up yonder there
+was perfect liberty of action; up yonder there were their families!
+
+That sudden transition from a primitive existence to the progress of
+many centuries had been a severe shock to them. In the same way that an
+abrupt change from profound darkness to the most dazzling light, or from
+the temperature of the pole to that of the equator, inevitably produces
+grave disorders in the organism if it does not actually prove fatal, so
+the turning of a savage into a citizen at a day's notice incurs a
+dangerous risk.
+
+The popular idea amongst us that anyone can quickly habituate himself to
+the luxuries and commodities of modern life finds a check when applied
+to primeval people like the Sakais. They may observe, enquire, and seek
+to understand--as far as their intelligence permits--everything they see
+around them; they remember well all they have heard and seen, and will
+mimic and describe it in their poor, strange language to their relations
+and friends; they carry with them presents which are a tangible record
+of their travels; they explain to the others how the houses were
+protected from wind, sun and rain; they will teach how to imitate the
+engine whistles, the roar of the steam flowing out of the open valves,
+and the hollow sound of that mysterious monster, the motor-car, but
+their enthusiasm and affections are firmly fixed upon their native
+forest, wondrous in its riches and allurements.
+
+Though it may bring to its lovers death and suffering it is always the
+best beloved of the savage and only a very slow, patient and--to
+them--imperceptible introduction of civilizing elements in their midst
+will be able to weaken this attachment for savage surroundings and turn
+those treasures of affection and fidelity to a more useful and logical
+end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  The great Sorceress--The forest seen from above--A struggle
+  for life--The crimes of plants--Everlasting twilight--Births
+  and deaths--Concerts by forest vocalists--The "durian"--The
+  "ple-lok"--Vastnesses unexplored by science--Treasures
+  intact--Para Rubber--The Samaritans of the jungle--The
+  forest and its history.
+
+
+To speak of the forest without having seen it, and after having seen it,
+to describe its marvellous beauties, are equally impossible tasks.
+
+When Art shall have re-produced faithfully the magnificent harmonies of
+colour, voice and outline peculiar to the jungle, it may be said that
+there are no more secrets of beauty for it to penetrate, because nowhere
+else has Nature been so profuse in bestowing her multifarious tints or
+has manifested Life with such triumphal glory of fecundity; nowhere else
+can be found such a prodigious variety of forms and attitudes or such
+ineffable multiplicity of sounds.
+
+Like a paean of love the forest breaks forth from the bosom of its
+great Mother and rises eagerly, passionately towards the sun, its
+Benefactor.
+
+Were it possible to soar on high and look down upon that wide verdant
+sea, its infinite gradations of green, enlivened here and there by the
+audacious brightness of a thousand wondrous flowers, we should have
+under our eyes the most complete, artistic and suggestive representation
+of life and its struggles.
+
+The gigantic trees shoot up straight towards the sun, each one seeming
+to strive to outstrip the other; but a thick and even more ambitious
+undergrowth of plants twine round their trunks and enclose them in a
+tenacious embrace, then twisting, and creeping, amongst the spreading
+boughs, reach and cover the highest tops where they at last unfold their
+several leaves and flowers under the sun's most ardent gaze.
+
+The tree, thus encircled and suffocated by the baneful hold of the
+climbers, lacks light and breath; the sap flows in scarce quantities
+throughout its organism and it languishes under the shade of the close
+tendrils; swarms of insects increase its agony by making their food and
+their nests of its bark; reptiles make love within the hollows of its
+trunk and at last the day comes when the lifeless giant falls with a
+frightful crash bearing with it the murderous parasite that is the
+victim of its own tenacity, which first raised it to bask in the
+sunshine and then caused it to be crushed under the rotten weight of its
+former supporter.
+
+These are furious embraces of envy and jealousy; phrenzies of egotism in
+the vegetable kingdom: strange expressions of formidable hate and love,
+of oppression and vengeance.
+
+All these myriads of plants are invaded by the irrepressible mania to
+ascend as high as possible and to receive the first, the most burning,
+perhaps the most pernicious, but the most liberal kiss of the sun. And
+they all hasten to arrive as though fearing to be superseded in the
+ascent as much by the colossal tree destined to brave centuries--if its
+massive roots are not ruined by its minute foes--as by those slender
+growths of a month or a day.
+
+"Higher still! Always higher!" the green-leafed multitude seem to cry,
+"Excelsior!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun never penetrates under this tangled mass of vegetation except
+where an opening has been made by the hands of the savages or by the
+work of lightning and hurricane.
+
+In the dim light of its damp atmosphere the interminable rows of tall
+straight trunks, some stout and some slight, assume the oddest shapes
+which can appeal to the observer's phantasy. Now they are colonnades,
+adorned with pendant festoons stretching away into the distance; now
+they are mysterious aisles of monster temples; now they are the
+unfinished design of some giant architect whose undertaking was arrested
+by a sudden, mystic command. However fruitful may be the imagination of
+the artist he would here always find fresh and superb inspiration from
+the enthralling sight of Nature's virginal beauties.
+
+The stagnant waters of the ponds, round which the frogs croak and the
+leeches crawl, are plentifully strewn with water-lilies, reeds and other
+aquatic plants.
+
+On the hoary trunks of ancient trees whole families of orchids have
+insinuated themselves into little clefts in the bark, and flower there
+in the brightest of colours: red, purple, blue and also white.
+
+Everywhere there is a joyous exuberance of life and vigour. Each day
+begins or ends the cycle of time destined to the vegetable inhabitants
+of the jungle, because as there is no regular round of seasons the
+plants and flowers finish their course according to the short or long
+existence prescribed them by natural laws, and one continually sees
+dried and withered leaves and flowers falling to the ground whilst
+others open and blossom in their stead. Those that die to-day afford
+nourishment to the new-born generation and in this manner there is a
+ceaseless renovation of the various species without any need of a
+gardener to prepare the soil.
+
+The exuberance of animal life is in equal proportion, as there is
+abundance of food for all.
+
+A deep and uninterrupted buzz fills the air; it comes from the cicadas
+whose monotonous note wearies the ear, and from hornets and bees of
+every description that keep up an incessant hum as they suck Juices from
+the plants or dive their antenn� into the ripe fruit or perhaps into
+some carrion lying near. The bassoon-like sound never ceases a single
+instant and tells the listener how innumerable are the populations of
+insects which live and generate their sort under the shade of their
+jungle retreat. Other inexplicable noises--far off crashes, mysterious
+sounds that chill one's veins, howls that make one shiver--for a sole
+moment break the noon-day silence. What is their origin? Nobody can say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The different animal sounds to be heard in the forest follow a rule
+which knows no exception.
+
+The day is hailed by a full concert warbled from the throats of
+feathered songsters. This morning hymn rises in all its innocent purity
+to the skies whilst the fierce protaganists of the past night's bloody
+tragedies slink off to their dens and leave the field free to the more
+gentle herbivorous animals.
+
+[Illustration: The durian tree.
+
+_p._ 64.]
+
+But at noon, when the sun is casting down its hottest rays upon that
+vast emerald palace of life, gay voices are hushed and the forest echoes
+only with the drowsy buzzing of insects.
+
+As evening draws near the birds once more begin to chirp and trill, they
+salute the setting sun and fly away to rest. Then the monkeys commence
+their screeching and chattering and soon after the owls and other night
+birds take their turn, making the now dense darkness more terrible with
+their harsh, sinister cries. Little by little as the night deepens,
+bellows, roars and howls resound upon every part in a slow crescendo
+until they are fused into a general and appalling uproar which could not
+be more awful if the gates of Hell were to be opened on Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am not an artist and still less a scientist but as a simple observer I
+like to take note of all that is worthy of notice and that is possible
+for me to transmit in an intelligible form.
+
+Having depicted, to the best of my ability, the characteristics of
+forest life, I think it will be well--setting aside its magic charms and
+manifold wonders which would make a poet even of one who has no tendency
+for poetry--to describe, in a more practical way, some of its products.
+
+I will begin with the durian, or _sump�_, the fruit of which is unknown
+in our country.
+
+It is a very large tree, growing to the height of 40 or 50 metres and
+distends around it a huge pavilion of rich branches, covered with little
+leaves.
+
+It is to be found sometimes singly and sometimes in clumps and is the
+only tree that the Sakais show any interest in multiplying, and this
+cultivation, if we may so call it, is done by them almost
+unconsciously, not from any sentimental feeling but rather from the
+effect of a sentiment and a superstition.[4] It produces a most
+extraordinary quantity of fruit, the exquisite flavour of which it is
+difficult to match. It has been calculated that every tree bears, on an
+average, about 600 durians but some have even reached the enormous
+figure of 1000.
+
+If one were treating of berries or nuts this would not be so remarkable
+but each fruit of the durian weighs about two kilograms and is as large
+as a child's head. For this reason it is a dangerous thing to stand or
+pass under one of these trees when the fruit is quite ripe as so heavy a
+ball falling from a height of forty or more metres would suffice to
+split open one's head even if the long prickles with which it is covered
+did not make it more to be feared.
+
+The Sakais are quite greedy over durians and Mr Wallace writes that its
+delicate flavour is so exquisite it would well repay the expense and
+disturbance of a journey Eastward on purpose to taste it.
+
+This assertion of the English writer may be somewhat exaggerated but for
+my own part, I must say that I have never tasted anything more
+delicious. But not everyone can enjoy or appreciate this strange fruit
+for the disgusting smell that distinguishes it and that is apt to cause
+nausea to a weak stomach.
+
+Imagine to have under your nose a heap of rotten onions and you will
+still have but a faint idea of the insupportable odour which emanates
+from these trees and when its fruit is opened the offensive smell
+becomes even stronger.
+
+When mature, that is to say in the months of August and September, the
+durians fall to the ground and are eagerly gathered up by the natives,
+who at the period of their ripening, leave the women and children, the
+old and the sick in their villages and encamp themselves in the forest
+around these precious trees.
+
+The outside of the durian is ligneous and is covered with strong
+prickles of nearly an inch long. The interior consists of a great many
+small eggs each one being wrapped in a fine film which, when broken,
+reveals a pulp of the consistency and colour of thick custard. A big
+seed is embedded in the centre of each egg, almond-like in size and
+form, although not so flat.
+
+I cannot describe in any way the flavour of this fruit which the real
+Sakai calls _sump�_. I can but repeat that it is exquisite and far
+superior to any sweet dainty prepared by cook or confectioner. There is
+nothing to equal it, and in eating one does not discern the least smell
+as the disagreeable stench comes from the husk alone and the worse it
+is, the more delicate is the taste of the pulp.
+
+This fruit is too perishable for it to be exported to far countries even
+if there was any chance of its finding favour in European markets, in
+consequence of its horrible smell, which does not however protect it
+from the voracity of the monkeys and their rodent companions--especially
+the squirrels--that manage, in spite of its formidable prickles, to make
+a hole in the husk and nibble out some of its contents leaving the rest
+to rot inside.
+
+To my knowledge the durian is not subject to any malady which might
+effect the annual quantity of fruit to be gathered, this depending
+entirely upon whether the wind has blown violently, or not, during the
+time it was in flower.
+
+This King of Trees, as it is called by the Sakai, will grow and prosper
+nearly to the height of a thousand metres, and its fruit is preserved by
+pressing it into large tubes of bamboo after the seeds have been picked
+out.
+
+The Sakais frequently exchange these original pots of jam for other
+articles equally prized by them, such as tobacco and beads.
+
+Another fruit, so delicious that it may almost be said to rival the
+durian, is the _pl� l�k_.
+
+The tree on which it grows cannot be ranked amongst the giants of the
+forest. It has big and long leaves something like those of the orange
+but whilst on the top they are a glossy black in under they are of a
+still glossier green.
+
+The fruit, that ripens between September and November, is the size of a
+peach but it is covered with a very thick husk (nearly black outside,
+and a rusty red inside) after the sort of our walnuts. The pulp is
+divided into a lot of quarters each one enclosed in a very thin skin. It
+looks like snow-white Jelly and in fact melts in the mouth at once,
+leaving only a little kernel. The flavour is sweet and exceedingly
+pleasant.
+
+The husk is utilized by the Sakais for producing a dye with which to
+paint their faces and also for making a decoction as a remedy against
+diarrh�a and pains in the stomach.
+
+The Sakais are immensely fond of this fruit as indeed any European,
+accustomed to the finest sweets, might be, the more so as it never does
+any harm or brings about an indigestion, even when eaten in large
+quantities.
+
+Besides these two grand lords of the forest I will also mention the _ple
+pra_, a colossus that, modestly, but without avarice, supplies the Sakai
+with excellent chestnuts.
+
+It is impossible, notwithstanding my desire, to describe the many other
+trees and fruits which form the richness of the forest, as it would take
+too long. Further on, in a chapter dedicated to poisons, I have named
+some of the most dangerous in this respect, but between those that are
+the ministers of Death and those that are the means of Life to the
+simple jungle-dweller, there are countless species to which it would be
+difficult to assign a particular class.
+
+Many of these latter are regarded by the natives with distrust, perhaps
+without any reason, but from who knows what strange belief transmitted
+from father to son? And in the heart of the forest who is there to study
+and make experiments upon such leaves and fruits in order to ascertain
+if they are perfectly edible?
+
+I, for instance, am of opinion that the fruit of the _gi� � ba a_ could
+be safety used and to a great extent.
+
+It is like a little pumpkin, green outside and yellowish-white inside. A
+kind of oil is extracted from its pulp which, when cooked, is not of a
+disagreeable taste and does one no harm. But the _gi� � ba a_ is a
+creeper and it is among these parasites that poisons abound and this is
+why the fruits obtained from them are used with reluctance and if
+possible, avoided altogether.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Treasures not to be imagined are still hidden in the profound recesses
+of the Malay forest; priceless treasures for medical science and for
+industry.
+
+Could the former but discover the exact therapeutic and venomous virtues
+of some of those plants, many of which are quite unknown to botanists,
+what innumerable new and potent remedies might be found to enrich the
+pharmacopoeia of civilized people!
+
+Agriculture, in all its varied branches, could here find incalculable
+treasures of fertility!
+
+Without counting the rice that gives a wonderful annual product, the
+Indian-corn that gives two harvests a year and the sweet potatoes that
+give three, there is the yam, the _sikoi_,[5] the sugar-cane, coffee,
+pepper, tea, the banana, the ananas, indigo, sago, tapioca, gambier,
+various sorts of rubber, gigantic trees for shipbuilding, and so on.
+
+The Para Rubber, from which is extracted our gutta percha grows
+marvellously well in the Malay soil and requires very little attention
+or expense.
+
+There is the _rami�_ whose fibres will by degrees supplant the silk we
+get from cocoons, or mixed together will form an excellent quality of
+stuff. It is a herb with long, fibrous stems which when well beaten out
+and bleached become like a soft mass of wool. After being carded it can
+be spun into the finest threads as shiny and pliant as silk itself.
+
+[Illustration: The Durian.
+
+_p._ 65.]
+
+This plant flourishes to a great extent in Perak and its stems may be
+cut off twice a year. It only needs to be cultivated, for industry to be
+provided with a new and precious element. In fact there are few who do
+not know that the greater part of Chinese silk stuffs are woven with the
+_rami�_ fibres, but its utility might have a much larger extension if it
+were made an object of study by those capable of drawing from it
+profitable results.
+
+Very few lands, I think, have been so favoured by capricious Nature as
+the Malay Peninsula where she seems to have taken delight in bestowing
+her treasures of flora and fauna as well as underground ones, for
+several gold and tin mines are being worked, whilst lead, copper, zinc,
+antimony, arsenic and many other metals are constantly being found,
+besides some rich veins of wolfram, although a real bed of the latter
+ore has not yet been discovered.
+
+If once the still lazy but honest forces of the Sakais could be utilized
+by turning them towards agriculture, all this natural wealth might be
+sent to the World's markets and a sparse but good people, susceptible of
+great progress, would be gradually civilized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Para Rubber, referred to above, constitutes one of the greatest
+riches of the Malay agricultural industry.
+
+Both soil and climate are very favourable for its cultivation in the
+Peninsula, so much so that a tree attains the maturity necessary for the
+production of this valuable article in four years, if special care and
+attention is given it, or in five or six if left to its natural growth
+(as in Ceylon), whilst in other places it takes eight and even ten
+years.
+
+Not many years ago the British Government had a limited space of ground
+planted, with seeds brought from Brazil, as a simple experiment. The
+result was encouraging enough to induce the Institute of Tropical
+Researches--initiated under the auspices of the Liverpool University,
+with the object of developing Colonial commerce--to make plantations
+which in one season yielded no less than 150,000 pounds of gum.
+
+About three years ago 60,000 acres of land were planted with Para
+Rubber, the Government providing the seed at a very low rate.
+
+It is calculated that each acre contains from 125 to 250 trees according
+to the quality of the ground and its position.
+
+These plantations continue to increase with surprising rapidity and it
+may be said, at the present day, that four million trees are to be found
+in an area of 200,000 acres.
+
+When one considers that each tree renders, on an average, from 5 to 6
+pounds of gum, and that that of Perak--chemically proved to be pure--is
+quoted on the market at 6/10 per pound--whilst the best produced by
+other countries does not exceed 5/7--one can form a pretty correct
+estimate of the enormous sum derived from the Para rubber of Perak.
+
+It was generally supposed that this valuable tree would suffer if it
+surpassed a thousand metres in height but in the Malay Peninsula it
+grows and nourishes even higher than 1,600 metres, especially the
+so-called _ficus elasticus_ and India-rubber.
+
+The British Government is doing its best to increase this cultivation,
+and "its best" in this case really means "the very best" because besides
+concession of land, and the providing of seed at a low rate, the
+Government aids this industry, in which so many millions are invested,
+by the making of fine, wide high-roads as well as by maintaining
+railways for the conveyance of goods, fixing a minimum tariff for the
+transport.
+
+Perhaps some one will accuse me of being too partial in my remarks upon
+the work done by the British Government in this its remote Eastern
+Protectorate, but having assisted for many years in the ever increasing
+agricultural and commercial development of the peninsula, and having
+seen the steady conquest civilization has made by means of the most
+practical and surest methods--such as the patient training of the
+natives to the love of work, and the prompt and conscientious
+administration of justice--I cannot but admire the enlightened and
+benificent activity displayed by the English in those parts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Closed this parenthesis about the plantations, which are now spreading
+far and wide over the forest (the wood-cutter's hatchet continually
+clearing new tracts of land for agricultural enterprises), I want you to
+return with me to the jungle which is still almost untrodden and where
+Nature reigns supreme over the thick tropical vegetation.
+
+Having already spoken briefly and in a disorderly way of the riches
+which are here gratuitously offered--not the riches of Midas and
+Pymalion, because mother Nature does not refuse food to her children
+even if they are profaners of that wonderful temple of her fecundity--it
+is right that I should now draw your attention to two great friends of
+travellers in the forest. One is the bamboo and the other a creeper
+called the "water vine".
+
+The bamboo, known to us only as one of the plants least considered in a
+large, well-kept garden, or as a polished walking stick, as the legs of
+a fancy table of uncertain equilibrium or as a tobacco box ably worked
+by Chinese or Japanese fingers, in the free forest becomes a colossal
+inhabitant. Its canes, at first tender and supple, grow to such a size,
+and so strong as to be used for water conduits. It is a vigorous and
+invasive plant that covers the surrounding ground with new shoots
+whilst in under its long roots spread out and suck up all the vital
+nutriment to be found in the earth around.
+
+To one who lives in the forest, the bamboo is as necessary as food
+itself. It provides light, solid huts; it makes the blowpipe, arrow and
+quiver; it serves for carrying water and preserving fruit; it forms a
+safe recipient for poisonous juices; it is bottle and glass, and finally
+supplies the native cooks with a saucepan that only they can use because
+they have the knack of cooking their food without burning the bamboo. I
+have often tried to do the same but the result has always been that pot
+and pottage have been burnt together.
+
+The bamboo has also a secret virtue of incalculable value to the thirsty
+wayfarer, overcome by the heat of a tropical sun: it is a perfect
+reservoir of water.
+
+By boring a hole just under the joints of each cane more than half a
+litre of clear water, not very fresh, but wholesome and good, gushes
+out. It is rather bitter to the taste and serves to restore one's forces
+as well as to quench one's thirst.
+
+The water-vine also acts as a Samaritan in the jungle. Like all the
+others of its sort this climbing plant closes some giant king of the
+forest in its cruel embrace (thus depriving it of its strength) and then
+falls in rich festoons from its boughs, swaying and rustling with every
+breath of air.
+
+By making a cut at the extremity of one of the sprays that hang down
+towards the ground, a fresh, drinkable water flows out.
+
+It is superfluous, perhaps, to add that this grand necessity for the
+traveller on foot may be obtained from other sources: the streams that
+are to be found trickling along here and there, and the huge leaves that
+upon drying up secrete a certain quantity of rain water within them.
+
+So the jungle gives to eat and to drink, with wonderful abundance and
+variety, but woe to him who does not know her well, for she also
+proffers Death in a thousand unsuspected and seductive forms!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How many times in the solemn, languid hour of noontide, when bird and
+beast were drowsing from the heat, I have stood in the shade and
+interrogated the forest upon its first violators and their descendants!
+But my demands remained unanswered; in its superb grandeur it does not
+interest itself in the tragic vicissitudes of animal or vegetable lives,
+it makes no records, on the contrary, it quickly cancels all traces of
+past events.
+
+I have vainly asked: from whence came those who have found shelter and
+solitude in the obscure depths of its wooded hills? How many centuries
+have they dwelt in those lone, wild parts? I have asked if that shy and
+dispersed tribe was not the remains of a once great and strong people
+eclipsed by a younger, stronger, and more savage race? Sometimes
+watching, with admiring eyes, the strange architectural forms taken by
+the massive trunks and graceful vines, fantastic but always majestic, I
+have asked the forest if it had not arisen upon the ruins of some long
+ago and lost civilization and if those same forms were not an
+inexplicable evocation of the gigantic creations of vanished genii of
+which I seemed in imagination to catch faint glimpses?
+
+But the forest remained mute and kept its impenetrable secret.
+
+Only here and there, groups of trees, lower than the surrounding ones,
+and between them spaces of ground, which had evidently once been
+clearings and were not yet totally re-covered by jungle growth, gave
+proof of Sakai nomadism even in other ages. No other sign of the past,
+and my query, perhaps absurd, repeats itself. Am I before the savage
+infancy of a people, or the spent senility of a race, lost sight of in
+the course of centuries? If the latter, would there not be some relic
+left of its existence; a fragment of stone or concrete substance
+inscribed with the figures of its period? Is it possible that everything
+has been buried from the sight of modern man, under the rank luxuriance
+of grass and bush? Or is it not I who vainly dream under the impression
+of the forest's mute grandeur and the thousands of voices that to-day
+awake its echoes and to-morrow leave none behind?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: In another chapter, wherein I describe the superstitions
+and beliefs of the Sakais, I have spoken of the custom they have of
+depositing food, tobacco, etc., on the tombs of their dead for a week
+after they have been buried. Naturally everything, not devoured by beast
+or insect, rots upon the spot and the seeds of the fruit find their way
+into the ground. For this reason many new trees spring up in groups,
+obtaining their first alimentation from the dissolution of the corpse.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The _sikoi_ grows on high mountains and the women have to
+take great pains in cleaning it before it is cooked. It is a grain
+something like our millet and has good nutritive qualities.
+
+The Sakays mix it with water and make a sort of "polenta" cooking it, as
+usual, in their bamboo saucepans. It is a favourite dish with them when
+eaten with monkey flesh, rats, pieces of snake, lizards, beetles and
+various other insects which would be of rare entomological value to any
+museum that possessed them.
+
+Ignorant of the repugnant compound, that gave such a savoury taste to
+the _sikoi_, at the beginning of my sojourn with the Sakays, I ate it
+with relish after seasoning it with a little salt, an article not much
+used amongst my mountain friends. But when I came to know what
+ingredients gave it flavour I refused it, as kindly as I could not to
+offend their susceptibilities, because my stomach rebelled against the
+mess.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+  The snares of civilized life--Faust's invocation--The dangers
+  of the forest--Serpents--A perilous adventure--Carnivorous
+  and herbivorous animals--The "sladan"--The man of the wood.
+
+
+The young man who incautiously ventures into the mysterious parts of
+Drury Lane--where vice and crime have a classical reputation--or strolls
+through the old Latin Quarter of Paris (where some of the streets are
+anything but safe to pass through), or who finds himself, for whatsoever
+reason you will, in one of those questionable labyrinths still existing
+in the most civilized Italian cities, would certainly not run less risk
+than in facing the dangers of the forest. The dart, the trap, the attack
+of beast and reptile may be, with courage and calmness, averted or
+parried, but the evils which menace man, under the hypocritical
+euphemisms of Society (ever ready to vaunt its impeachableness) injure
+not only the body but, what is worse, the spirit.
+
+Those who succumb to the latter are ofttimes induced to lament that
+death does not come swift enough to kill their flesh, after their souls
+and intellects have been long since slain and consumed.
+
+In the thick of the jungle the spirit rises and wanders free; there are
+no restraints or limits to its flight. It is inebriated by the simple
+and serene joys of living; it is pervaded by a current of new, potent
+energy that makes one feel--alone, in Nature's realm--either immensely
+great or infinitely small; exquisitely good or miserably wicked.
+
+It is not prudent, when travelling in the forest, to let philosophy make
+us linger long on the way, but there are some moments in which one's
+inner life is so intense, in which thought and sentiment are so
+impetuous that that fleeting atom of time is in itself sufficient to
+mark an indelible epoch in the existence of men. Who knows but what if
+Mephistopheles had lead Faust into the virgin forest, and there left him
+free to his speculations, if the famous invocation would ever have
+escaped from the fevered lips of the doctor?
+
+But... what is this hissing? It is not the spirit that denies; it is a
+snake I have disturbed along my path and that has not found my
+philosophizing over pleasant (like you, perhaps, kind reader) and so I
+will cut short my digression.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The forest abounds in reptiles. There are innumerable varieties of
+serpents, big and small, venomous and harmless. It may almost be said
+(especially towards the plain) that every bush and every tree has one of
+these inhabitants.
+
+The commonest species are the _tigi ril�_, the _tigi pa�_ and the _tigi
+dol�_ but the most feared are the _sendok_ and the _bima�_.
+
+[Illustration: Cooking in a bamboo saucepan.
+
+_p._ 72.]
+
+As a rule none of these snakes will assail a person unless they have
+been molested. They remain either rolled up close to a tree or lazily
+swinging from one of its branches, keeping hold of it with its powerful
+tail and so it is necessary to proceed very carefully and to look
+attentively both up and down in order not to disturb them.
+
+The serpent, when stumbled against, hurls itself as quick as lightning
+upon the unhappy offender, encircling and suffocating him with its coils
+and biting him with its sharp fangs even when they are not poisoned.
+Like all other animals it becomes ferocious and seeks to kill from fear.
+He who disturbs it is a foe to be vanquished.
+
+But if you pass him without being afraid and without hurrying, with a
+slow gliding step, taking care not to move your hands or arms, it will
+let you go on your way and take no notice of you.
+
+And this I can affirm from experiments I have myself made upon the
+terrible _sendok_.
+
+One day I was able, in this way, to pass quite close, almost touching
+one of these most venomous reptiles. He never moved as I crept by but he
+did not lose sight of me for a single instant. I am quite sure that if
+my inward fear had betrayed itself by the slightest gesture, I should
+have been a dead man.
+
+Sometimes I have succeeded, very, very gently, in placing upon it a
+stick about two metres long. Well, the horrid serpent just lazily
+unfolded its coils and softly slipped from under it. Very different
+would have been the result if I had put the stick upon its head roughly!
+
+From this you will see that danger from snakes is much less than one
+might believe from the thrilling adventures narrated by friends (between
+a roast chestnut and a sip of wine), as they are snugly gathered round a
+cosy fireside, adventures which they have read in the fabulous pages
+written by one of those story-tellers who gull the respectable public
+with the loveliest or the most terrifying descriptions of places, men
+and beasts of which they scarcely know the name.
+
+Serpents are always attacked and beaten down with sticks, except the
+very large ones, that are taken by lassoes as I will explain in another
+chapter. It is a quick and simple means of getting free, in a few
+minutes, of a venomous enemy which it never fails to do when fear does
+not make the eye and the hand miss its aim, precision in the blow being
+all that is needed.
+
+Not very long since I had an adventure with one of these reptiles which
+threatened to be my last. I was quietly strolling in the forest and had
+with me neither weapon nor stick. My thoughts were far away but a
+rustling sound and a loud hiss brought them quickly back and arrested my
+steps. A large, venomous snake was right in front of me! Erect, with
+open mouth and protruding tongue, the embodiment of hatred, it was
+there, prompt for an assault. My case was desperate and only a miracle
+of _sang-froid_ could save me. Fixing my eyes steadily upon those of the
+serpent, very gradually and with the slowest possible movement I bent my
+knees and crouched down towards the ground, where, in an equally slow
+and methodical way I groped for some sort of stick with which to strike
+my adversary. Having found what I wanted, I drew myself up in the same
+cautious manner and with a sudden, rapid gesture I hit the beast with
+all my might. Fortunately for me, my blow told and I had an addition to
+my collection of jungle foes.
+
+The traveller in Malay who is not a thorough alien to timorous feelings
+would do well to never leave his comfortable post in the railway
+carriage between one place and another or at least to keep within a safe
+distance of the forest, for although its perils have been greatly
+exaggerated there are some, all the same, that require a stout heart and
+firm nerves.
+
+When there is no big game to put your courage and your pulse to the test
+there is always a troop of smaller animals that make game of you and
+prove your force of resistance. A rat bites your heel whilst you are
+asleep; the leeches suck your blood; all sorts of insects sting you.
+These little annoying incidents irritate flesh and spirit and may be the
+cause of feverishness, but a dose of quinine and a compress over the
+wound soon have a good effect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is not sufficient to bravely face bodily danger, support physical
+pain and endure with grace the mortifications inflicted upon one's flesh
+by the more minute inhabitants of those regions, for the jungle also
+exacts certain moral virtues which civilization does not always
+appreciate or admire, nay, on the contrary, that it often laughs at.
+
+The great Sorceress, for whom one feels a strange nostalgia after having
+once known her magnificence and her horrors, kills the man who is not
+temperate in his habits.
+
+Moderation in eating is the first consideration for prolonging life in
+the forest. The stomach must never be overladen and no strong drinks
+must be used.
+
+By following this method of living and allowing myself very rarely even
+a glass of wine I managed to keep in excellent health in 1889 when an
+epidemic raged violently in the island of Nias and made sad havoc
+amongst the natives.
+
+The human organism, especially that of a European, is beset by numerous
+inconveniences which may generate illness; the burning sun, that seems
+to cook one's brain; the cold nights and heavy dews; the violent storms
+that quite suddenly break over your head, and the food that must be put
+up with even when it is not actually hygienic.
+
+For all this a strict regime, based upon moderation, is indispensable.
+
+It is true that in my forest cabin I have an assortment of the best
+wines and whiskies, notwithstanding the improbability of being able to
+offer a glass to my friends, but those bottles remain well corked,
+waiting for their legitimate owner to feel indisposed, when a draught of
+their contents will restore his lost strength without resorting to
+medicine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The greatest dangers in the jungle are those which cannot be met with
+impunity; those that render every defence inefficacious when a man is
+taken unawares.
+
+I speak of the tigers and panthers that are very numerous and audacious;
+of the bears, that do not act so jocosely here as in our streets and
+menageries but vie with other wild beasts in blood-thirstiness; of the
+rhinoceros, the elephant, the terrible _sladan_, the wild dogs that,
+fierce as wolves, wander about in large packs.
+
+A dissertation upon the tiger and its like does not seem to me a
+sufficiently interesting subject for my readers who will have seen, who
+knows how many, at the fairs and museums and will have learnt their
+character and habits from Natural History books or from the description
+(not always correct) of someone who has only set foot on the land where
+they live. I must, however, make special mention of the _sladan_, the
+only survivor of an almost extinct fauna.
+
+This animal belongs to the herbivorous class but is more ferocious than
+any of the carnivorous species. It does not kill from hunger or for
+self-defence, but for the mere sake of killing.
+
+It is a sort of buffalo or bison with two very solid, strongly planted
+horns on its thick-set head. This animal possesses such vigour and
+agility as to enable it to attack victoriously all other wild beasts.
+Only the elephant sometimes succeeds, with difficulty, in mastering it.
+
+Its den is in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the forest and
+by day and by night it scours the neighbourhood, rending the air with
+its awful roars. One is never sure of not meeting it, and to meet it
+either means to kill it or to be killed.
+
+It is very fond of the tender shoots of sweet potatoes and for this will
+often visit the crops cultivated by the Sakais who, for fear of this
+dreaded enemy, do not plant very much. Generally, though, the _sladan_
+devastates the potato fields during the night.
+
+The ferocity of this beast surpasses that of all others, for whilst the
+lion, the bear and even the tiger and panther have been known to show
+some feeling of respect, gratitude or fear, the _sladan_ never exhibits
+one or the other. It would almost seem that in him is concentrated all
+the hatred of a race of animals, fast dying out, against every living
+creature whose species is still destined to remain in the world.
+
+And yet quite close to the haunts of these champions in savagery, always
+on the look out for blood and carnage, live other quiet and harmless
+animals. I will say nothing of the wild boar (that in comparison with
+the _sladan_, might pass for a lamb) of the wild goat or of the deer
+which are in great numbers, but there are little rodent quadrupeds of
+every sort, size, and fur, besides perfect crowds of monkeys of
+different kinds. They belong to the herbivorous order and go about by
+day in search of food, hiding themselves when the first shades of night
+call forth from their dens the heroes of nocturnal tragedies.
+
+A garrulous population of birds enliven the forest; they are
+insectivorous, granivorous, and omnivorous but all are beautiful in
+their rich and wonderful variety of colour. Amongst these the pheasant
+for its oriental plumage and the cockatoo for its querulous voice are
+remarkable as the largest.
+
+A gay concert is given in honour of the dawning and the dying day but
+long before the birds of prey have unfolded their wings and soar, like
+phantoms, through the darkness, the pretty carol-singers hush their
+warblings and hide themselves from the horrors of the night.
+
+A collector of butterflies would go into ecstasies over the splendid
+varieties that flutter and flit in the air, and the countless multitude
+of different insects would be well worth special study; amongst the
+latter are verified the most curious mimetic facts that ever the
+unprejudiced mind of a man of politics could imagine!
+
+And yet, in the midst of so many contrasts, in the midst of so many
+dangers which exact exceptional presence of mind and strong nerves, life
+in the forest is full of charm and allurements.
+
+The spirit is strengthened and elevated by this continuous warfare, open
+and pronounced, so unlike those depressing struggles against narrow
+minds, and tiger-hearts, which distinguish town-life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is very rare that one meets a man in the Malay forest. You may walk
+on for weeks without encountering a soul. I happened once, though, to
+fall in with one who was a primitive being in the strictest sense of the
+term.
+
+[Illustration: Trap for reptiles and rats.
+
+_p._ 86.]
+
+I was trudging along one day with my Sakai servant, when at the foot
+of the hill (Chentok) I saw a little cot and wished to visit it.
+Inside I found a man. At seeing me he caught up his blow-pipe--a
+miserable-looking instrument--and his poisoned darts, and was about to
+run away. I hastily made my companion offer him a few cooked potatoes
+and a little maize which he accepted without saying a word and began to
+devour ravenously.
+
+In those brief moments I took stock of the poor creature. He was
+painfully thin; his skeleton could be clearly seen under the unadorned
+skin; his sunken eyes gleamed with mistrust and inquietude from out of
+his fleshless face, and his long black hair lay in tangled masses round
+his neck.
+
+I had before me the true type of a wild man of the wood, less vivacious
+and less loquacious than his brother, the ape.
+
+I gave him some tobacco, that he eagerly crammed into his mouth and
+then, keeping fast hold of his weapon he hurried off, without uttering a
+single syllable, although I asked him many things in his own tongue.
+
+Neither did he in any way express satisfaction, or gratitude for what he
+had received but vanished mute, contemptuous and silently into the
+thickest part of the jungle.
+
+My little Sakai was not so surprised as I at this strange person and his
+way of proceeding, because he had seen him before and could tell me
+something about him.
+
+He was known by the name of _Al� Lag_, or the sorcerer. He had no wife,
+no children, no friends, and lived quite alone, far from everyone,
+wandering about the forest, feeding upon wild-honey and the fruit he
+found upon the ground. If he happened to catch some game he would light
+up a bit of fire and seem to cook it but in reality he ate it raw.
+Sometimes he came across a settlement when he would enter the first hut
+which lay in his way, and by gesture more than by word, would ask for
+food and after having obtained it, started off again.
+
+The good Sakais pitied the poor vagabond and had often tried to make him
+stop with them as a brother or a guest but he always resolutely refused
+whatever proposal they made him and they were of opinion that not even
+old age would have any effect upon the misanthropy of this poor
+inoffensive being who isolated himself so obstinately from all his kind.
+
+I thought to myself, is the poor fellow wise or mad in thus seeking to
+live alone as Nature produced him, in the unlimited liberty of his
+native jungle where he is secure from delusions and sorrows?
+
+Men, little less savage than he, feel compassion for him as he passes
+by. Nobody would dare to laugh at or injure such a harmless soul and so
+he is allowed to ramble from hut to hut undisturbed, his eccentricities
+and his odd behaviour being his safeguard.
+
+It is not always so amongst people more advanced in civilization!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  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 pl�t_ and the _cep ri�_ 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._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  The origin of the Sakais--Hypothesis and legend--Physical
+  character--Thick tresses, gay flowers and troublesome
+  guests--Hereditary antipathy--The five senses reduced to
+  two--Food and drink--Tranquil life--Intolerance of
+  authority--Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law--Logical
+  laziness--A Sakai journalist--The story of a mattress.
+
+
+Paolo Mantegazza, the scientific poet writes:
+
+"Man is eternally tormenting himself with unanswered questions: Where
+did our species first come from? When did this life first begin?
+
+"This is his real original sin, as it is also the source of his true
+greatness. He is but a single link in an endless chain; he is but one
+imperceptible moment enclosed by a Past which he does not know and a
+Future which he will never see. But he feels the need of looking back
+and asking: where did we begin? And of looking forward, asking: where
+shall we finish?".
+
+I, too, have often made much the same demands, not about myself, for I
+have no inclination for metaphysical reflections, but about the Sakais
+who have unconsciously given me a difficult problem to solve: who are
+they? From whence did they come?
+
+There is absolutely nothing that speaks of them, and in the absence of
+positive fact we can only fall back upon mere hypothesis, more or less
+probable, until an accurate investigation with regard to the origin of
+this primitive people may present us with a convincing theory.
+
+But in order to make these studies it would be necessary to live in
+their midst (and not many could adapt themselves to the various
+inconveniences of such a life) because the live Sakai never abandons his
+native forest and to have a dead one for the purpose would be next to
+impossible, as he who attempted to carry away a corpse would expose
+himself to serious danger, there being no greater sacrilege, according
+to the idea of these bushmen, than that of touching a dead body or of
+digging up the ground where a skeleton lies.
+
+Therefore there does not seem to be any near chance of arriving at a
+definite conclusion upon the subject.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is generally believed that anciently a people, called Benuas, not
+willing to submit themselves to the laws imposed upon them by the then
+flourishing and civilized India and fearing to fall into slavery,
+advanced through Indo-China till they reached the Malay Peninsula. Here
+also they found themselves pursued and surrounded by civilization, so,
+instead of settling round the rich and smiling shores, they turned
+towards the forest and encamped there. This version of their immigration
+would account for the Sakais not having the least idea of the sea which
+they never mention, not even in their legends or superstitions.
+
+Shunning-all contact with the other inhabitants of the country they had
+chosen as a refuge, they concealed themselves in the jungle, thus
+preserving their independence and the purity of their race.
+
+Some centuries later, in an era of fanaticism, invasions were made upon
+them with the object of converting them to Mohammedism but the only
+result was fire and bloodshed and after each conflict the surviving
+Sakais fled further into the forest (into those parts which had never
+been before explored) or to the natural strongholds of the far off
+mountains.
+
+If this hypothesis holds good then the Sakais must be a very ancient
+people. It is an accepted fact that as far back as the 8th century
+Arabian merchants traded with the inhabitants of the Peninsula and that
+a very remote intercourse existed between these and Hindostan, and
+although there is no substantial proof, no analogies of language,
+customs or creed upon which to base such a conjecture, neither, as yet,
+has anything been proved to the contrary whilst many primeval
+superstitions prevalent amongst the Sakais are still to be found in
+other tribes living in proximity with believers in Buddha and Brahma.
+
+Another legend, sustained by the Kurumbus themselves, would make one
+suppose that the Sakais belong to that people, once grand, but now
+broken up and dispersed. In fact, even at the present time, there are
+many popular songs amongst the Malays in which the Kurumbus and Sakais
+are mixed up together.
+
+Dr. Short, in his ethnological studies of India, describes certain
+characteristics and habits of the Kurumbus, inhabiting the forest, which
+perfectly coincide with those to be met with amongst the Sakais.
+
+I refer to those regarding physiognomy, structure, and stature, the
+primitive mode of cultivating corn, the choice of food, and the
+improvidence shown in eating, with the consequence that deficiency
+follows upon excess.
+
+Naturally these points of similarity are no proof that the two peoples
+are of the same origin but they give to the question a certain
+argumentative value.
+
+What seems to me sure is that the Sakais have nothing in common with the
+Malays or with the various other races that surround them. This may
+perhaps be owing to the contact the latter have with each other, the
+result being a modification of customs, traditions and purity of blood.
+I find, however, many traits which connect them with the Mongolian and
+Caucasian races (Indians and Semitics) and there is much in them which
+resembles other peoples living in Indo-China and India.
+
+It must be understood, though, that I speak only of the Sakais of the
+hills and not those of the plains who have in a great measure lost the
+characteristics which should distinguish them through their mixing with
+Kampongs, Malays and Chinese Ghedes.
+
+But let us now leave aside all the vague suppositions that for several
+reasons I have felt bound to mention (not the least of which being
+perhaps the need we all feel of investigating our neighbour's past), and
+let us rather examine the Sakai as he is in the 20th century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evidently he has not perceived the passing away of nineteen or more
+centuries because they have left no inheritance for him.
+
+The Sakai, then, is somewhat short in stature but sufficiently hardy and
+well-formed, except in the lower limbs which render him slightly
+bow-legged.
+
+The cause of this trifling deformity is to be found in the habit they
+have, from their earliest childhood, of sitting upon their heels, as it
+were, thus leaving the knees wide apart.
+
+This posture, however, is not a particularity of the jungle inhabitants
+as I have frequently seen Italians in the same position, but the latter
+lean their shoulders against a tree or wall for support so that there is
+less strain upon the legs.
+
+When they are eating or listening to something that interests them the
+Sakai men and women will remain for whole hours in this attitude without
+showing any fatigue whatever.
+
+Their feet are rather large and properly arched. The big toe is well
+separated from the others and is very strong.
+
+The muscles of their arms are not much developed and sometimes these
+members are too long in proportion to the rest of the body. Their hands
+are also very long and slender. The chest muscles, on the contrary, are
+very well developed owing probably to the continual habit of climbing
+trees, rocks, rifts and the like in search of food or for any other
+motive that their nomadic life may make necessary.
+
+Altogether the figure of the Sakai does not reveal any large amount of
+vigour perhaps because he is usually thin and is what might be termed
+pot-bellied, owing to the sort of food he eats and the cold he suffers
+during the night, but he is much more robust and taller (the average
+height of an adult is a little past one metre and a half)[7] than the
+other tribes and races around him who are in close reports with
+civilization. This fact would almost make one believe that civilization
+is detrimental to the physical development of an individual.
+
+These Aborigines are endowed with wonderful agility, as may be seen when
+they clamber up certain clefts that we should judge impossible of ascent
+and also when they spring from one part to another with a nimbleness
+that might excite the envy of our best gymnasts.
+
+They have not much muscular force, as I have said, but they are second
+to none in enduring fatigue, especially in the case of long marches, to
+which they are well accustomed as every day they walk about 20 miles,
+carrying upon their shoulders the by no means light product of the
+chase, together with the various roots and bulbs they find in the
+forest, as well as their inseparable blow-pipes and well-filled quivers.
+
+They also resist very well the privations to which they are sometimes
+subjected by their own improvidence. All that they bring back with them
+they will eat at once, be it animal or vegetable food, and when they
+cannot finish it up by themselves they invite people from another
+village or tribe to come and help them devour it, laughing at every idea
+of domestic economy that I have vainly tried to impress upon their
+minds.
+
+But are they wrong, after all? They know for certain that the forest
+will not leave them to starve and when there is no more rice, durian,
+mangosteen etc., it is never difficult to catch a pheasant, monkey, rat,
+serpent or even a wild boar.
+
+Were they acquainted with Italian operas their favourite lines would
+certainly be:
+
+    Non curiamo l'incerto domani
+    Se quest' oggi n'� dato goder.[8]
+
+and their choice would be appropriate, for where else could the Borgias
+be so well remembered as in a land famous for its poisons?
+
+The Sakais' skin is of a colour between light and burnt ochre, the tint
+getting darker as they grow older (in consequence of their long exposure
+to the sun), at which period the whole body becomes rough and wrinkled.
+The children are of a much lighter colour until they begin their life in
+the open air.
+
+[Illustration: Another.
+
+_p._ 113.]
+
+The woman, as a type, differs very little from the man. She is rather
+shorter as is the case with all the pure and mixed Mongolian races.
+
+As a girl she has a rounded form and is not without grace. As long as
+she is healthy and blooming she may be considered a beauty.... in the
+forest, but she soon gets faded because of the fatiguing life she leads
+and also because of her early marriage, for she is already a wife when
+our girls are at the beginning of their teens.
+
+The boys are generally healthy, sturdy little fellows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai's head is regular in form and size like that of the Mongolian
+race; the cheek-bones, however, are less prominent than those of the
+Tartars and the eyes are wider open and less oblique.
+
+The forehead neither retreats nor protrudes and is high and spacious
+enough. The nose is large and slightly flattened at the root. The facial
+angle measures pretty much the same as that of the Chinese.
+
+The mouth, well-cut and not too large, with rather thick lips, would be
+beautified by two rows of sound regular teeth if the latter were not so
+blackened by the constant chewing of tobacco, betel-nut and sirih.
+
+The chin is sharp.
+
+All the features, in fact, are very marked and the jaws are a little
+projecting but the countenance is not an unpleasant one and wears an
+expression of frankness and goodness that soon wins sympathy.
+
+The head is covered with a rich, crisp growth of very black hair but few
+hairs are to be seen on the face or body. Those rare ones, whose
+appearance would be rapturously hailed by our youths as the forerunners
+of a possible mustache or beard, are plucked out by the Sakais in their
+spare time!
+
+A great many ladies would be highly contented to possess the beautiful
+tresses that the Sakai woman generally has, but whilst amongst us an
+artistic arrangement of the hair is an attraction which often makes us
+forget the lesser charms of the face, the raven locks of these women
+sometimes cause a feeling of disgust.
+
+They do not take the least care of this splendid ornament bestowed upon
+them by Nature; when they do not let their hair hang dirty and
+dishevelled upon their shoulders they just tie it up badly with a strip
+of many-coloured upas bark (a remedy against migraine) stick in some
+roughly carved combs and hair-pins (amulets against the malignant spirit
+of the wind) and adorn it with fresh flowers.
+
+But alas! under that bow of natural ribbon, under those combs and
+flowers there is a tiny world of restless inhabitants and the poor
+primitive Eve is obliged to scratch her head furiously now and then.
+
+And not less furiously does the man also scratch his though he takes
+much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to
+divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes the
+parting.
+
+Frequently both the men and the women rub into their heads the finely
+pounded root of a plant to which they attribute the virtue of softening
+their rough, luxuriant locks and of destroying the inmates.
+
+Even the men sometimes wear combs and hair-pins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cleanliness as the reader will have understood from the example given
+above is not the highest quality of the Sakai any more than it is of
+other primitive peoples. Hygienic practices march alongside civil
+progress. The bath, as a pleasure or a necessity, is quite unknown to
+them, and those who dwell amongst the mountains have the greatest fear
+of water. The foaming torrents and noisy cascades that dash down the
+ravines have inspired them with terror and as they have no notion
+whatever of being able to keep afloat, they are afraid to venture near a
+stream, however quietly it may flow, unless it is shallow enough for
+them to see the bottom.
+
+[Illustration: A Sakai beauty.
+
+_p._ 119]
+
+Not only have they no idea of swimming but they are equally ignorant of
+any other means, of remaining on the water's surface. They have no
+canoes of any kind and when they want to cross from one shore to the
+other they either throw a huge tree into the river to serve as a bridge
+or they walk on round the bank until they find a fordable point and can
+reach the opposite side by jumping from stone to stone.
+
+I am glad to say that my lectures upon cleanliness have not been
+completely fruitless for many of the young people make their ablutions
+now from time to time, especially the females, and come to me asking for
+soap. Though not a great step towards progress this is always better
+than nothing. The old people, of course, do not regard the bathing
+innovation with kindly eyes. They are always filthy to a repugnant
+degree, begrimed with ashes and earth from lying about round the fire,
+day, and night; the smell that emanates from them certainly does not
+invite one to approach them.
+
+But their fathers and their grandfathers never washed themselves and so
+it is their duty to follow their questionable example.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The five senses with the Sakais are practically reduced to two for
+whilst they are very quick in hearing and seeing, the same cannot be
+said of smelling, feeling and tasting.
+
+The acuteness of the two first is due to the continual need they have,
+in the forest, of keeping the ear and the eye open. To be on their guard
+against enemies they must either hear or see them.
+
+The weakness of the smelling faculty may be explained by the bad way the
+Sakai men and women treat their noses, boring holes through them large
+enough to pass a little bamboo stick, which they wear, partly for
+ornament, and partly as a charm, against I do not exactly know what
+danger. And not only this, but they are in the habit of playing a sort
+of flute with their nose, stopping up the right nostril with leaves, so
+it is easy to comprehend what little sensibility this unfortunate
+appendix of the face can have.
+
+Owing to their almost complete nudity their skin is not very susceptible
+to touch for it is hardened and toughened by the effects of sun, rain,
+cold and dew which makes it as weather-beaten as that of any old salt's;
+besides this they are accustomed from childhood to be stung by insects
+and nettles, to be pricked and scratched by thorns and brambles, and to
+be cut by the dry stiff blades of the long grasses of their native
+place. Habit is second nature.
+
+Their deficient sense of taste results from the practices mentioned
+further on.
+
+[Illustration: Another Sakai beauty.
+
+_p._ 119.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sakai cookery does not require much study or experience.
+
+The vegetable food they have at their disposition consists of: sweet
+potatoes, yams, maize, sikoi, different bulbs and tubers that they find
+in the forest like we do truffles, many edible leaves and all sorts of
+fruit, mushrooms, _nanka_, _guaccicous_, _gu� pra_,[9] etc. Rice is an
+imported luxury which they use when they can get it.
+
+Here are the necessaries for a variety of dishes, but the Sakais know no
+variety in the culinary art and with the exception of the fruit, the
+yams and potatoes that are cooked under the hot ashes, the whole lot is
+put, with a little water, into cooking-pots made out of large bamboo
+canes, and boiled up together into a kind of paste with pieces of
+serpents, rats, toads, lizards, beetles and other similar delicacies to
+give it flavour.
+
+The monkey, deer, wild-boar, wild-sheep and any other big game caught in
+traps they just burn at the fire without taking the trouble to skin the
+animal, and then they eat it nearly raw.
+
+They season the meat with salt, when they have any, which is not often,
+and with a capsicum that sets your mouth on fire. The use of this
+capsicum, and the continual chewing of tobacco, and betel has ruined the
+palate of the Sakais, and left them with little power of relishing.
+
+Fish is rarely seen at the board (I use the word in a figurative sense
+as the thing it signifies does not exist for them) of the mountain
+tribes for the double motive that they have no fishing tackle and their
+fear of the water makes them avoid it as much as possible. Nevertheless
+when there is a dearth of other food they will throw in some beaten
+_ple-pra_ and the fish, of a fair size, that rise to the surface to bite
+it are deftly hit by a knife, the Sakai seldom failing in his mark.
+
+To the simplicity of their cooking corresponds the still greater
+simplicity of their drinks which are--of the singular number.
+
+The inhabitants of the forest drink nothing but water but this they
+require clear and fresh. Should it not be perfectly pure in colour and
+taste they will not drink it. They always seek a spring to satisfy their
+thirst and supply their families with the necessary liquid.
+
+Sometimes, when I was first living amongst them, I happened to stoop
+over a torrent or stream to drink some water but my companions protested
+vehemently declaring that it might do me a great deal of harm.
+
+They are afraid of poisons in every shape and form as they are also of
+contagion and would even be frightened if in drinking they were to touch
+their bamboo bottles and glasses with their lips. They are very clever
+in pouring the contents down their throats without letting the
+receptacle come in contact with their mouths, an accomplishment which we
+should not be able to achieve until after many damp trials.
+
+It might almost be desired that our civilization would imitate this
+hygienic custom of the savages. How many infections the less! How much
+fewer the microbes that poison the blood of our poor people!
+
+The Sakais do not drink milk, not only from the difficulty in obtaining
+it but also from a strange prejudice which I have never succeeded well
+in understanding.
+
+Once they are weaned they never swallow a single drop of milk.
+
+Neither do they drink alcoholic beverages for the simple reason that
+they have not got them and do not know what they are.
+
+If they should ever come to taste them and procure them easily will they
+not crave for them like all other savages?
+
+As soon as the Sakai's frugal meal is finished he fills his mouth with
+tobacco, or if he has none, with sirih.
+
+[Illustration: Resting from work.
+
+_p._ 123.]
+
+This is composed of a leaf or two of betel--a plant that possesses a
+certain narcotic virtue--smeared with lime and rolled up round a little
+tobacco and a piece of areca nut. Both men and women chew these quids
+with great relish, spitting out the juice from time to time.
+
+The old people, whose want of teeth makes mastication next to
+impossible, put the ingredients into a bamboo and pound them until they
+are reduced to, what they consider, a delicious paste.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young Sakai reaches the height of his vigour at about eighteen years
+old, after which he has a brief stationary period, followed by a rapid
+falling off that I think must be caused by his being continually exposed
+to the inclemency of the weather.
+
+The woman begins to decline soon after her first confinement. From the
+age of 13 to 15 she becomes a wife and in two years from that date she
+is but the ghost of her former self. Thin, and with a wrinkled skin, not
+even a shadow remains of her youthful freshness and the attractive
+points she had as a girl.
+
+But what does this matter to her? Her husband is faithful to her, with a
+fidelity that knows no hypocrisy; she is happy and is proud of her
+maternity; she can still dance and strike chords upon her _krob_,
+modulate a plaintive ditty on her _ciniloi_ and sing whilst she beats on
+her bamboo sticks an accompaniment that tortures well-tuned ears. For
+the rest, if her beauty soon fades, her ugliness does not create the
+least feeling of disgust amongst the Sakais of the masculine gender, who
+have aesthetic ideas peculiarly their own.
+
+It is enough to say that the ugliest of the female sex are the prettiest
+and the most admired.
+
+I am speaking in earnest.
+
+They, as well as the men, are in the habit of painting themselves in
+grotesque stripes and hieroglyphics, in imitation of medicinal plants,
+the principal colours used being red and black. Sometimes they add a
+little white but very rarely yellow.
+
+When I tell you that these strange designs are not only the
+manifestation of coquetry or vanity but that they are also made to
+frighten away the Evil Spirit you may well imagine how they each try to
+arabesque their skin in a more horrible way than the other, in order to
+look uglier and be more admired.
+
+How many, even in civilized places, would like to adopt such a mode of
+winning the admiration which their forbidding features cannot command!
+
+One of these artistic creations cannot last more than a day. It is
+carefully scraped off and replaced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai's life is tranquil and serene. He does not pass much of his
+time in the hut because every morning he goes off into the forest in
+search of game and vegetable food. He is accompanied by his boys who
+either practise with their blow-pipe or with a pointed stick dig in the
+ground for roots and bulbs, or they catch insects and reptiles to fill
+the baskets they carry on their backs.
+
+When the Sakai is not out hunting, or visiting friends and relations in
+other villages, he remains quietly in his hut sleeping, smoking, chewing
+a nice quid or in preparing poisons and poisoned arrows.
+
+He is good-tempered and good-hearted, and never quarrels with his wife.
+I have never heard of one of these savages beating his wife or children,
+or of ill-treating them in any way and neither of using violence with
+any one else unless with a declared foe or one who has offended his
+sentiments and superstitions.
+
+One day I ordered a child to do something, I don't remember what, and he
+answered me impertinently with a curt _neay_ (no). I turned to his
+mother who was present and told her that the boy ought to have his ears
+boxed.
+
+The woman gave me a look of mingled wonder and irritation, then said:
+"You are a bad man if you would hurt my son when he did not mean any
+harm!".
+
+Yet in spite of this kind of reasoning and the clemency shown towards
+children (which would make a pedagogue of the educational rod system
+commit suicide) the Sakais are honest and respectful to their parents
+and the old; they are affectionate in their family and, poor savages!
+are still a long way off from such a degree of civilization as to cut up
+a cross wife or a troublesome lover into pieces and send them in a
+mysterious valise to take a sea-bath or in a butcher's sack to take a
+fresh water one in a convenient river.
+
+But the answer given me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval
+were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom
+that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never what
+others command.
+
+In fact, even taking him as a guide or travelling companion it is always
+wise to let him have his own way without interfering at all. He will
+rest, eat, smoke, and walk on just as he chooses and if you contradict
+him in his desire he will turn his back upon you and abandon you in the
+midst of the forest.
+
+Every act of his life reveals and marks this mania of independence. I
+will quote a rare case. Should a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law not
+be able to agree in consequence of the difference in their characters no
+tragic scenes or petty quarrels occur; the young couple merely take up
+their scanty belongings, destroy their own hut and march off to build
+another at a sufficient distance to avoid troublesome contact or the
+possibility of further misunderstandings and discord.
+
+It is so: nobody will submit to the will of another and even when
+settling some particular question unless they are all of the same
+identical opinion the matter has to be abandoned.
+
+Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law love their fathers-in-law and
+mothers-in-law well enough and _viceversa_, and they all respect each
+other and can live peaceably together, but no one can impose his own
+will without determining a strike.
+
+They put into practice the same simple remedy when there is not very
+good harmony in the conjugal state. A man and woman cannot exactly agree
+as husband and wife? They cheerfully divorce themselves instead of
+poisoning their existence by continual altercations and the reluctance
+they both feel at doing what the other wishes.
+
+How much regarding the human spirit civilized people have yet to learn
+from savages! Do you not think so, kind reader?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai is commonly believed to be lazy by nature. This is an error,
+for their so-called laziness is nothing but the result of the
+circumstances amidst which they live.
+
+Once their daily food is provided and they have prepared a good supply
+of poisons and darts what remains for them to do in the depth of the
+forest, where there is no thirst for riches (because unknown to them),
+for honours (of which they have no idea at all), or for power (which
+their individual independence repudiates)?
+
+[Illustration: Manufacturing poisoned arrows.
+
+_p._ 123.]
+
+There is no race for wealth, position or fame in their parts, no
+struggle for life which amongst us is the inexhaustible source of
+progress as well as the incentive to crime and corruption.
+
+The desire expressed by Henry IV that each one of his subjects might
+boil his own fowl in his own pot is more than realized amongst the
+Sakais.
+
+They do not cook their fowls because they are only reared as a means of
+barter, but it seldom happens that they cannot enjoy a choice bit of
+monkey, snake, deer or wild boar, which they like much better. If (a
+very strange case) somebody should be without, he goes to the nearest
+hut, enters without speaking, and sits down without being greeted. Some
+food is placed before him that he devours without being invited to do so
+and then departs as he came without any one saying a word beyond perhaps
+(in an excess of courtesy) a muttered "_abor_" (meaning "very good" and
+used as "good-bye" by the Sakais), from the visitor as he leaves.
+
+The Sakai does not understand the reason of working when there seems to
+be no need, but what he finds strictly necessary he does with alacrity
+and good will. Whatever they have to do they all work together, the head
+of the family, the elder, the young men, the boys, everyone gives a hand
+to the best of his capacity. When they have finished, the oldest of the
+company lie down to doze and chew tobacco or sirih, the other men squat
+themselves about to chat and prepare poisons or make blow-pipes and
+arrows, whilst the children play and the women busy themselves over the
+cooking.
+
+The terms of indolent and lazy as erroneously applied to these savages
+might be used with the same force in speaking of many who live in the
+vortex of civilized society.
+
+We frequently see, amongst us, inexhaustible treasures of energy
+displayed when ambition or pure need demands it but when one or the
+other has been satisfied, or the necessity for such continual effort no
+longer seems imperative, or either the desired point has been attained
+or the future has been fully assured, then little by little energy gives
+place to a longing for repose.
+
+As I have before said, the Sakai never provides for the morrow. His work
+begins and finishes with the day. Give him some tobacco and in his
+happiness he will stay awake all the night to smoke or chew it.
+
+He works only in proportion to the urgency of the moment and then throws
+himself down to rest upon the ground, because beds and chairs are
+unknown to him, and it is not always that dried leaves and grasses are
+used as a substitute for the former.
+
+The evolution of our society has brought us on the contrary to this
+curious condition: he who does not work at all and consequently has no
+honest fatigue to rest from, lies upon a soft feather bed, there to
+restore his strength wasted in fast living and dissipation, whilst....
+But I had better stop or I may be mistaken for a dangerous class
+agitator!
+
+I will only say this: that could the Sakai look into some of our houses
+and palaces he would make haste to return to his own forest and if he
+were obliged or knew how to write his impressions he would certainly
+commence: "The men of the West are effeminate, lazy and indolent".
+
+But he would do wrong to generalize for they are Western men who have
+conquered his forest.
+
+I will conclude this chapter by confessing a remorse. Out of pity for
+these poor creatures sleeping on the cold ground, huddled together to
+keep each other warm, I, one day, gave a hair mattress to a Sakai
+family.
+
+All of them took their places on it and slept soundly, but in the
+morning their bones ached so much that they gave me back my mattress in
+a hurry and without a single word of thanks.
+
+And I could not blame them for this.
+
+[Illustration: Boys practising shooting.
+
+_p._ 127.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 7: A little more than five feet. Translator's Note.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Let to-morrow take care of itself If to-day is ours to
+enjoy.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The latter is a sort of acorn which keeps good for a long
+time. When pounded into an oily paste it is not altogether disagreeable
+to the taste.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  The Sakai woman--Conjugal fidelity--A life of labour--Betrothals
+  and nuptials--Love among the Sakais--Divorcement--No kissing--
+  Chastity--Bigamy--Maternity and its excesses--Aged before the
+  time--Fashion and coquetry.
+
+
+Woman, who has been compared to nearly every sort of animal that flies,
+creeps, swims or runs by poets and others of chivalrous sentiments,
+amongst the Sakais is simply a woman. In speaking of her those good sons
+of the East neither calumniate the dove nor the gazelle, and they do not
+slander the tiger and the snake but when they are inclined to praise her
+charms they do so with affection and brevity And this is not to be
+wondered at when one considers that the female sex in the jungle,
+although not beautiful to our taste (but very much so according to the
+Sakay criterion) is good, laborious and incorruptible. These three
+virtues, if they were better known in our parts would spare poor,
+suffering humanity a great deal of prose, as well as poetry, without the
+least damage to Art.
+
+It is for this reason that the savages in the Malay States have always
+considered, and still consider, the Woman as the faithful companion of
+their life and as the mother of their children. They have never imputed
+to her the sin committed by Eve, which in other countries, where ever so
+little of Sacred History is known, has made her the butt of every
+insulting, sarcastic and opprobrious term. They have never discussed, as
+at the Macon council, the probability of a woman having a soul or not;
+what little is necessary to harmonize with their own they have
+recognized without any argument and they have found it in the care and
+affection shown towards her dear ones and in her unswerving
+faithfulness.
+
+Amongst these uncivilized people there are no chivalrous traditions, it
+is true, but neither have their women been driven to seek emancipation,
+because, sharing with perfect equality the rights of the men, none
+remain for them to claim, and they have no wrongs to revenge!
+
+[Illustration: Boys practising shooting.
+
+_p._ 127.]
+
+The men, for their part, never dream of what Demosthenes said of the
+corrupt Athenians of his time, words which are repeated and acted upon
+by some of our leading men in this the twentieth century: "We marry a
+woman to have legitimate children and to possess a faithful housekeeper;
+we keep concubines and pay harlots for our convenience and for the
+enjoyments of love".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I say, among the Sakais the one sex is not the slave of the other.
+They live in perfect harmony. The male is considered the head of the
+family, although there is nothing to be administered or directed and the
+female shows herself sufficiently deferential towards him, but the
+custom does not exist among them that one should passively submit to a
+will with which his, or her own does not agree.
+
+The man provides food by hunting in the forest, fishing, gathering fruit
+and cultivating a little land around; the woman helps him in the work of
+agriculture, sometimes follows him into the jungle, prepares his meals
+and attends to other domestic duties. She looks well after her children
+and is very jealous of them. When they are too little to walk she straps
+them to her back with long strips of bark, resting their legs upon her
+hips.
+
+This burden does not prevent her from moving about and working. If they
+go for a long march the parents take turns in carrying the child.
+
+As soon as a boy reaches the age of six seasons (6 years) he passes from
+his mother's to his father's guardianship and under the latter's
+guidance begins to make trips into the forest where he catches insects,
+picks up fruit and bulbs, learns, little by little, to handle the
+blow-pipe and to take part in the hunting and fishing as well as to
+distinguish poisons and assist in their extraction.
+
+This is the educational period of the little Sakai.
+
+The girl, on the contrary, remains with her mother and is taught to help
+in household (?) work, doing her part with a good will and cheerful
+temper.
+
+She goes with her mother to plant and pull up potatoes and yams, to
+gather fire-wood, and fill the bamboo buckets with water; she learns to
+cook and take care of the little ones.
+
+Quite early she begins a life of great activity. Her arms are still weak
+and she can scarcely lift some of the weights allotted her, but they
+gradually become nerved for heavier ones.
+
+Her fatiguing duties always increase, and yet as a little girl, a
+maiden, and also a woman she accepts it all with a light heart and is
+so contented with her hard life that I have often heard one of these
+good, laborious creatures declare that she was completely happy. How
+many ladies in civilized Europe and America would be prepared to make a
+similar avowal?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At about 15 years of age, when our girls are still in short dresses and
+are not always dignified by the term "young lady", the female Sakai is
+generally a wife.
+
+From her infancy a baby-girl may be betrothed by her parents to some boy
+of another tribe. But if when the time comes to unite in matrimony the
+two young people engaged from babyhood, one no longer likes the other in
+the quality of a life-partner, they exchange a quiet _gne_ (no) and the
+engagement is at a complete end.[10]
+
+Neither one nor the other is offended at this refusal for they are of
+full accord that it is better not to be bound together unless the desire
+is mutual, as heartache and suffering would be the sure result.
+
+Wonderful philosophy, in all its simplicity, that liberates the little
+Sakai world from an enormous number of martyrs, and sensational crimes.
+
+The girl is left free in the choice of a husband. Of course advice is
+readily given her, favourable or otherwise to the suitor, but nobody can
+compel her to wed a man she is not inclined to.
+
+This total absence of coercion is no marvel, however, for in the forest
+there are no fortune-hunters, dowries being unknown, and there are no
+Dianas to join in the chase after a rent-roll. There is no ambition with
+regard to title, position or lineage because all are equal. They are
+human creatures, made in the same form and invested with the same right
+of living. There is no difference of blood amongst them for it is always
+red.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young Sakai that wishes to form a family, accompanied by some near
+relations (grandfather, father or brothers) leaves his own village and
+goes to a more distant encampment.
+
+It often happens that hunger, dusk, or some other circumstance
+determines this Pilgrim of Love and his companions, to stop at one hut
+rather than another.
+
+They enter, as is their custom, without saying a word; they sit down on
+their heels and eat what is offered them.
+
+In the meantime the young man looks about him and carefully eyes the
+girls, should there be any and if there is one that pleases him he
+points her out to one of his companions who immediately rises and tells
+the fortunate damsel what his relative desires.
+
+The young woman, when she does not utter a curt _gne_, murmurs, "_Eh!
+eh! ngot_" (Yes, I am willing), a phrase which seems a hiccough but is
+not.
+
+Then the gallant youth draws near the girl and offers her a necklace of
+glass beads, and, if he has any, some brass wire to make bracelets,
+receiving in exchange from his future bride a quid or two of betel.
+
+Without any delay the father of the girl and that of the young man, or
+some one who represents them, commence the more prosaic part of the
+business, that is: they decide upon the sort of presents that the
+bridegroom must give the parents and sisters of his spouse on the
+wedding-day, to compensate them for the girl he is taking away.
+
+They discuss if the gifts must consist of only one earthen-ware
+cooking-pot (an article of luxury in the jungle where bamboo utensils
+are in common use) instead of two, and if a pair of _parangs_
+(woodcutter's knives) should be added; then there must be some coloured
+beads, brass wire and perhaps even a piece of bright coloured calico.
+
+These very important matters being settled, the wedding-day is fixed,
+after which the affianced couple part without either tears or sighs, the
+young man returning with his relations to their own habitation.
+
+The great day comes.
+
+The bridegroom accompanied by all the men of his family and by some of
+the women, betakes himself to the far-off hut of the bride, carrying
+with him the promised gifts.
+
+There is a large gathering of Sakais from every part, because joys and
+pains, plenty and famine are equally and fraternally shared by them.
+
+The Elder gets up and says in a loud voice:
+
+"Hearken! hearken, all you who are here assembled: they who were at a
+distance are now together; they who were separate are now united".
+
+The bridal couple then take each other tenderly by the hand, and some
+rice is presented to them upon a leaf. The woman takes up a few grains
+and puts them into the mouth of her husband and then they both partake
+of that light, symbolical repast from the same leaf. The nuptial
+ceremony finishes here, without the intervention of _Al�_ or any sort of
+ecclesiastical or civil authority. How they are to be envied!
+
+A banquet immediately follows and the company cram down everything that
+they find eatable. The _menu_ consists of every sort of edible article
+known in the Sakai cuisine, and when they have stuffed themselves to
+their utmost, they dance, sing and draw from their instruments the
+sharpest notes that ever rent the human ear whilst the furious beating
+of bamboos give out the sound of wooden bells. Terminated in this way
+the wedding festival, the newly-made husband and wife return, with the
+relations of the former, to their own group of huts, where a new one, a
+nest of love, has been prepared for them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Love among the Sakais never becomes a passion or a delirium. It is a
+quiet calm sentiment, a physiological necessity such as the good soul of
+Schopenhauer interpreted it, to the great scandal of a certain class of
+lovers.
+
+Men and women are united from a feeling of cordial sympathy, by a
+spontaneous act of their own wills which would never suffer the least
+restraint.
+
+No personal or family interest suggests or determines the important
+step. The only thing that may be said to inspire love (and bring about a
+marriage) in the jungle is that supreme and inviolable law of nature for
+the conservation of the species.
+
+But what is to be admired in the unions of these good, simple people is
+the fidelity which follows them throughout life.
+
+The Sakais are not, I repeat, very ardent spirits, nor are they
+excessive in sacrificing to Venus perhaps because sensual satisfaction
+arrives when physiological development imposes it, instead--as too often
+happens in civilized society, with great damage to morality and race--of
+after a long and wearisome vigil, always waiting for financial
+conditions to permit the formation of a family.
+
+It is a fact to be noted that neither the men nor the women feel drawn
+toward other than their rightful partner, which naturally contributes a
+great deal in maintaining faithfulness between the two.
+
+Sometimes, but very rarely, one may find a couple whose difference of
+character renders cohabitation impossible.
+
+There are no scenes of fury, no violent quarrels and, still less, no
+reciprocal blows.
+
+The two interested parties merely declare that his or her heart suffers
+too much from a life of such perpetual misunderstandings and they decide
+to part good friends, hoping to find better luck next time.
+
+They will then separate with the best and most sincere wishes for each
+other's future happiness.
+
+The woman only takes away with her the youngest of her children who have
+most need of her care, leaving those over six years of age to the
+father, and she returns to her own place where she is affectionately
+received.
+
+She often finds another husband, even in the first days of her
+separation; her new companion adopts her little ones and considers them
+as his, after which the relationship with their real father is annulled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Divorce, as is here seen, is performed without the intervention of
+others. The Sakais are as free to marry as they are to part when they
+find that they cannot live in peace and quietness. They attribute to the
+heart the same impulse of union as of separation. It is then Sentiment
+that takes the form of Law amongst them and regulates their acts. How
+much it is to be deplored that a similar law is not recognized in
+civilized countries, where that imposed by legislature creates so many
+unhappy beings and provocates so many tragedies and so much infamy.
+
+[Illustration: Sleeping children.
+
+_p._ 135.]
+
+And yet, in spite of this facility in obtaining a divorce, there are
+very few who recur to it, a circumstance that ought to have weight with
+those persons who fight furiously against a measure so conducive to the
+real defence of the family, defence in the sense that its condition and
+functions would be improved without the crushing and suppression of
+those rights (by a prejudice that is made to pass as a religious
+precept) which the soul itself asserts.
+
+Nowadays the holy state of matrimony is viewed by the majority with
+sceptical diffidence, almost as an abyss that swallows up freedom,
+energy, scruples of honour, morality, will and every kindliness of
+sentiment that has survived the shipwreck of many hopes and illusions.
+
+Among the Sakais no such feeling prevails. The men voluntarily bind
+their own existence to that of a woman and sanctify their new state with
+the sincere virtues of fidelity and chastity.
+
+But--these virtues belong to savages and I am a savage to speak of them!
+
+Let me then, briefly finish up the argument. Divorce cases are rare
+because they are almost exclusively based upon incompatibility of temper
+or persistent sterility.
+
+Neither the man nor the woman can reconcile themselves to stay without
+children; if their union is without fruit there is no longer need for
+them to live together.
+
+In an exceptional case it sometimes happens that the two parties do not
+agree over a divorce, in which circumstance the decision is left to the
+Elder who pronounces a sentence without the possibility of appeal.
+
+The immediate consequence of an annulled matrimony is the return of the
+presents given by the husband to the family of the wife. The latter at
+once abandons the tribe to which she belonged after her marriage and
+becomes a stranger to those who, a short time before, were her closest
+relations.
+
+This is not the end of a love-dream but the calm and reasonable decision
+of two beings who, finding that their characters do not agree and that
+they no longer feel pleasure in each other's company, are not
+sufficiently cruel towards themselves and their better or worse halves
+(as the case may be) as to simulate and continue a union which renders
+them unhappy.
+
+In our parts the question of divorced people's children serves as a
+weighty argument to the opposers of divorce and gives to its partisans a
+difficult problem to study. To the Sakais the solution is easy enough.
+The age of the children decides with whom they have to remain, and those
+left to the father's charge are taken care of by the womenfolk around,
+who from a pure impulse of maternity and without any hope of reward,
+treat them with motherly tenderness. It is as though their mother was
+dead and their natural female guardians become the sisters or mother of
+the father. In default of these close relations the man is free to
+contract a second marriage at once, his term of mourning being condoned.
+
+Any way, the little ones always become the object of affectionate
+interest to all the women of the village.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai people do not kiss each other. They know neither the kiss of
+Judas nor that of Romeo. They express their sympathy and love by some
+rough fondling or the scratching of each other's nose, neck or chin.
+
+Yonder, in the jungle, there are no poets, novelists, dramatists or
+painters; a new (and original) field would here be opened to the
+excellence of their arts. Can you not imagine, kind reader, how
+irresistible the effect would be if, at the most passionate point of
+their love scenes, instead of "their trembling lips meeting in a
+thrilling kiss" the hero and heroine were to furiously scratch each
+other's noses?
+
+Although, now and then, in the interest of true Art, it might be a good
+thing for some of our pseudo artists to go to that distant land in
+search of strong inspirations that would, at least, increase the glory
+of common sense in civilized places, I would certainly not advise them
+to emigrate into the Malay forest for it would be like condemning them
+to death by starvation as there they would find no sort of tool or
+material with which to do their work. There are no suicides, murders,
+robberies, adultery, coveted legacies and suppressed wills, forgeries,
+lost women and illegitimate children, there are no alcohol drinkers,
+opium eaters etc.
+
+It would be utterly impossible for even a "Sherlock Holmes" to satisfy
+the cravings of appetite if he had been created in those parts.
+
+But let us return to my good friends the savages after this involuntary
+ramble.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais manifest their love and gallantry by scratching nose, chin or
+neck but when they want to express a milder sentiment, such as sincere
+affection or friendship, they do so by a smile, at the same time
+embracing each other.
+
+I have sometimes noticed both men and women, when far from their other
+halves, indulge in a few caresses and a little nose-scratching, as also
+young men not engaged, but I can affirm with the fullest certainty that
+these demonstrations of tenderness go no further; they finish where they
+begin.
+
+It may seem strange, but it is true. Both sexes are in continual
+contact. In the cold nights they will all sleep close together to keep
+themselves warm and yet nothing wrong results from this promiscuous
+proximity.
+
+As I have already said, chastity is a natural virtue among the Sakais,
+and even that which relates to legitimate love is veiled in a coy
+mystery. Neither the male or the female are given to sexual caprices.
+
+If a young man should happen to be in love with a girl before he can
+handle his blowpipe with dexterity and profit, or is able to procure the
+wedding presents prescribed by habit, he will perhaps persuade his
+sweetheart to meet him in the forest.
+
+It is extremely seldom that any harm comes to the girl through such an
+appointment, because it is not in their character to give way to lust,
+but should this occur, and the fact become known, a marriage is arranged
+without any loss of time. The woman who will not consent to a matrimony
+with her lover or who is known to have been on intimate terms with more
+than one young man is held in great disdain by the rest of her people.
+
+There are very few spinsters to be found in these tribes but those who
+do remain in the single state owe it to some moral or physical defect.
+Such persons live with their nearest relations.
+
+Polygamy is never thought of by the Sakais but bigamy is not an absolute
+exclusion although it very rarely takes place because as soon as a woman
+sees that her husband is enamoured of another she is the first to
+propose a divorce and no recriminations follow her suggestion.
+
+"Your heart" she says "suffers with me, when with her it would be glad.
+Well, then, let us separate for I feel that I could not live happily
+with another wife of yours".
+
+Should a woman, however, be contented to share the nuptial bed with a
+rival you may be quite sure that the very best harmony would reign in
+that _menage � trois_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai women are born with the instinct of maternity and will never
+renounce nursing their own babes unless scarcity of milk or a weak
+constitution compels them to do so. These exceptions are, however
+extraordinarily rare and they are at the height of their pride when
+their little ones are drawing life and strength from their breasts.[11]
+
+There are very few cases of complete sterility or excessive fecundity
+amongst them. Hardly ever does a woman have more than four or five
+children.
+
+She nurses and takes care of them with great tenderness, delighted at
+seeing them grow strong and healthy.
+
+Children are weaned at from seven months (reckoned roughly by the moon)
+to two years of age (two seasons of fruit) but generally when they are
+about a year old (one season).
+
+The first food given to the baby is a well-cooked pap made with a
+certain bulb and the tender leaves of a little plant whose names I do
+not remember.
+
+When the little fellow has become accustomed to his new food (whether he
+likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name
+that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event
+of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, or
+of pronouncing it badly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The good-heartedness and maternal kindness of the Sakai woman is
+extended even to young animals that have been deprived of their mother.
+They will adopt them and bring them up with the same care they bestow
+upon their own children or human orphans.
+
+One day a she-boar was caught in a trap, and, as a matter of course, was
+cooked and eaten, but soon after a litter, belonging to the victim, was
+found and the tiny beasts, only just born, were taken and nursed by the
+women of the village.
+
+I once saw a big boar that followed a Sakai tribe with wonderful
+docility even allowing the children to play tricks upon it; it had been
+brought up by the women.
+
+I have also seen rats, that have been reared by these foster-mothers, go
+backwards and forwards from the hut at their will, and I remember that
+one night when I had taken shelter in one of these cabins and had
+selected a particular corner for my night's rest, the dark lady of the
+house, without raising any objection to my choice, warned me that during
+the night a rat would return to repose in the same spot and begged me
+not to do any harm to the poor thing, as he was one of the family, but
+to call her if it gave me any disturbance.
+
+In fact I was fast asleep when some warm fur softly caressed me, and
+waking up I understood that the dissolute rodent--almost bigger than a
+cat--had returned home in the small hours, just as if he had been
+provided with a latch-key.
+
+I hastily called the woman who tenderly took it up and carried it away
+to sleep with her.
+
+It was an adopted child!
+
+Is not this the acme of maternal feeling? And does it not approach
+foolishness?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The birth, and subsequent suckling, of her first child put an end to the
+grace and bloom of a Sakai woman.
+
+[Illustration: A child being tattooed.
+
+_p._ 140.]
+
+She fulfils with incomparable zeal the functions confided to her by
+Nature, but as she has, at the same time, to attend to the heavy duties
+allotted her by man she becomes over-worked and worn-out with excessive
+fatigue.
+
+When thirty years old she looks almost as old and withered as one of our
+hard-worked countrywomen does at fifty, and the poor creature cannot in
+any way conceal this premature falling off because of--the extreme
+lightness of her attire.
+
+"The tailor tree of our great father Adam" has no leaves for the
+inhabitants of the jungle, for both male and female only wear a strip of
+bark (well beaten to render it flexible) wound round the body and
+fastened on the hips.
+
+That worn by the men never exceeds four inches in breadth, but the women
+use lists of from six to eight inches wide. Another piece of bark-cloth
+is passed between the legs and tied, in front and behind, to this belt.
+
+The women, although daughters of the forest, are not without a certain
+amount of coquetry and will often decorate their girdles with flowers or
+medicinal and sweet-smelling herbs, but they never think of making a
+chaste veil of large leaves with which to cover those parts of their
+persons that ought to be kept secret from the public gaze.
+
+The costume that they are wearing in the photographs was prepared by me
+in order to present these ochre-coloured Eves to my readers in a more
+decent state, or rather, a little more in accordance with what civilized
+society requires, because "to the pure all things are pure" and in my
+opinion the perfect innocence in which these women go about naked is
+preferable to that consciousness of their natural form which leads so
+many of our society ladies and other females, to resort to artificial
+means that they may deceive their admirers, and gain a name for beauty.
+
+The men, too, are even to be envied, for in the total absence of
+nether-garments their better-halves can never claim "to wear the
+trousers" as sometimes happens amongst us.
+
+Necklaces are very much worn by Sakai girls and women. They are made of
+beads (which are considered the most elegant) serpents' teeth, animals'
+claws, shells, berries or seeds.
+
+The men, instead, finish off their toilet by loading their wrists with
+bracelets. These are of brass-wire, bamboo or _akar bat�_ which it is
+believed preserves them from the fever.
+
+Their faces are always disfigured by coloured stripes or hieroglyphics.
+
+They have not the custom of wearing rings through their noses but only a
+little bamboo stick that is supposed to have the virtue of keeping off I
+don't exactly know what sort of malady or spirit.
+
+The mother bores a hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a
+porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly,
+without closing. Afterwards she passes through a light piece of this
+reed.
+
+The same operation is made upon the ears, which from being generally
+well-shaped, become deformed, as the hole through the lobe has to be
+very large. It is not sufficient to pierce the tissue with a quill; a
+little bamboo cane has to be at once inserted; the day after a larger
+one is substituted and so on until it is possible to hang from the ears
+pendants made of bamboo and ornamented with flowers, leaves and perhaps
+even cigarettes.
+
+A strip of _upas_ bark twisted round the head bestows the finishing
+touch to the Sakais' toilet. Happy people! They have no tailor's,
+dressmaker's or milliner's bills to pay!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 10: _Gne_ would be pronounced in English as _neay_.
+_Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 11: In chapter XIV speaking of the superstitions of this
+people I have mentioned those which refer to the birth of a child and
+the strange ideas they have concerning this event.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+  A Sakai village--The "elder"--The family--Degrees of
+  relationship--Humorists disoccupied--On the march--Tender
+  hearts--Kindling the fire--A hecatomb of giants--The
+  hut--Household goods and utensils--Work and repose.
+
+
+A real village, such as we understand it to be, does not exist among the
+Sakais, but I have been obliged to make use of the word for want of a
+better one to explain the meaning. Each hut is some hundreds of yards
+distant from the other so that altogether a village covers an area of
+from twenty to forty miles. Nearly always the boundaries of village
+territory are marked by secondary water-courses (the true Sakais never
+encamp near a navigable river) which give their names to the people
+living round the shores.
+
+Only the width of a brook or torrent divides two of these settlements
+that I have called villages, therefore the distance is much less than
+that lying between the two extremities of a single village.
+
+And yet, beyond being on neighbourly and friendly terms, they have
+nothing to do with each other, for one Sakai tribe does not like mixing
+with another and will not recognize any tone of authority, or receive
+any word of advice unless proceeding from a close relation, and even
+then it must be given in the form of fatherly counsel or affectionate
+exhortation otherwise the person to whom it is addressed would probably
+leave his own people, not to have further annoyance from them, and go to
+live among his wife's kinsfolk.
+
+The inhabitants of a village are all one family, belonging to the first,
+second, third and even fourth generation for they are all descended from
+the same old man, who is called the "Elder" and who is regarded with
+esteem and consideration by everybody.
+
+It is he who acts as magistrate or arbitrator in any dispute or quarrel
+(that very rarely takes place) amongst his offspring and the sentence
+pronounced by him is rigorously respected. It is he, too, who selects
+the spot for a clearing when, as often happens, the Sakais change their
+place of encampment, forming their village in quite another part of the
+forest.
+
+Besides this he has nothing else to do, unless he is still able to work.
+
+The Elders of the various villages are upon a perfect footing of
+cordiality and never incite to or permit the shedding of blood, or even
+a conflict between their tribes.
+
+If upon the death of an Elder there happens to be two or more brothers
+still living the oldest one succeeds him, and should any
+misunderstanding eventually arise between them, or should the number of
+those composing the village become too great, the other emigrates to a
+far off corner of the forest, followed by all the families which are, in
+a direct line, closely related to him, thus forming the nucleus of a new
+Sakai village which never exceeds a few hundreds of inhabitants.
+
+In the plains, however, a great many families may be found living
+together in the same village, sometimes even to three thousand persons.
+
+But it is not here that one is able to study and observe the habits and
+customs of the genuine Sakais.
+
+Notwithstanding the practice of living in groups, one family isolated
+from the other, fraternity of race is very profoundly felt and if
+to-morrow a common danger should be menaced they would all unite like
+one man to resist and overcome it, besides being always ready to help
+each other in time of need.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many degrees of relationship are recognized by the Sakai.
+
+The male and female children of the same father and mother are
+considered, as with us, brothers and sisters, but also the sons and
+daughters of brothers (who among us would only be cousins) are classed
+the same and call all their uncles "father".
+
+That established for the descendants of females is quite different, and
+this is natural because the girls of one village marry into another.
+
+The children of a woman are supposed to bear no relationship to those of
+their mother's brothers and very little attention is paid to that which
+exists between them and their uncles.
+
+Sisters' children are considered brothers instead of cousins, and the
+aunts are all called mothers, even when they live in other villages.
+
+The wives of brothers call themselves sisters and are known by the name
+of "mother" by their nephews and nieces but sisters' husbands have no
+claim to relationship, other than that of cordial friendship.
+
+Grandchildren give the title of "father" also to their grandfather and
+great-grandfather and that of "mother" to their grandmother so that
+these two words which have such a sacred significance to us, to the
+Sakais are but common appellations.
+
+No tie whatever exists between the parents of the husband and those of
+the wife and neither between the latter (the father and mother of the
+wife) and their sons-in-law. They are only upon simple friendly terms.
+
+Humourists who are fond of exercising their wit upon the eternal
+mother-in-law question would find no ground for their jokes among this
+people.
+
+The daughter-in-law, on the contrary, recognizes her husband's parents
+as her own father and mother.
+
+This does not, however, prevent her from still feeling and cherishing a
+fond affection for those who are nearest to her in blood and who were
+the authors of her being.
+
+She goes very often to see them and is welcomed with great joy. At
+parting they give her good wishes and advice.
+
+"Go, follow thy husband!".
+
+"Take care not to fall by the way!".
+
+"Abor!".
+
+"Abor!".
+
+As far as I know there are no other relations acknowledged by the Sakais
+who dwell on the forest heights, beyond these I have mentioned and even
+these are reduced to four names: father, mother, sister and brother. It
+is very difficult, though, to get information about the bonds of
+kinship.
+
+Judging from the youthful age at which they marry and have children and
+assuming that the greatest age which they reach is that of 60 years old
+(a calculation purely by guess as it is impossible to ascertain
+precisely) it may be said that every village is populated by the second,
+third, fourth and even fifth generation of the same people.
+
+[Illustration: A primitive method of lighting a fire.
+
+_p._ 147.]
+
+In fact, establishing the date of his first paternity at 16 years old,
+it is evident that at 32 a Sakai may be a grandfather, at 48 a
+great-grandfather and at 64 a great-great-grandfather.
+
+The closer and more direct the relationship the stronger is their
+affection.
+
+The tenderest love that a Sakai can bestow is poured out upon his son,
+especially when the child is little, but gradually, with the passing of
+years, and the formation of new families around, the warmth of this
+attachment somewhat cools down, perhaps because there is no longer any
+need of his care.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kind reader, I have introduced you (as best I could) to my good friends
+of the Malay forest; I have made you know their virtues and their
+defects, their habits and their family ties and now I should like you to
+follow with me the little tribe marching from one end of their territory
+to the other in order to fix upon a new dwelling-place.
+
+The long procession moves along without any order whatever. Everybody
+carries something that they did not want to leave behind in the
+abandoned village. The very little children are fastened to their
+mother's backs, the others caper merrily round the women, and the old
+people walk slowly on, sometimes leaning on their sticks.
+
+All the men and the youths are armed with their deadly cane and poisoned
+arrows.
+
+Several dogs--not unlike little setters--escort the company and give the
+alarm when danger threatens. With them, in friendly intimacy, are
+monkeys, squirrels and tame wild-boars, while fowls cackle in the
+dossers where they have been put for fear of being lost in the jungle.
+
+This is an emigrating tribe. Are they then taking a long journey that
+they are so well provided with food?
+
+Such a supposition would be erroneous. Those fowls, boars, squirrels and
+monkeys are not a reserve stock of provisions for the travelling Sakais
+but are their friends and companions, brought up by them with kind care
+and which are considered as a part of the family.
+
+A Sakai never eats an animal that he has reared; it would seem to him to
+commit a crime. He uses the fowls, however (which are a trifle smaller
+than those in Europe) as a means of exchange for tobacco, rice and other
+articles but he would never eat one himself unless reduced to the verge
+of starvation.
+
+How different to civilized persons who breed animals and poultry on
+purpose to devour them, who fatten fowls in coops, cruelly convert
+cockrels into appetizing capons, peg geese to the ground that their
+liver may supply an extra dainty for the table and protect the poetic
+love of pigeons in order to cook their little ones!
+
+Oh, yes! we protect animals, even the birds that fly wild in the woods,
+we surround them with attention, we make laws in their favour, why? for
+what? That we may have the pleasure of eating them!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A halt is called. The Elder, assisted by some of the men inspect the
+site to see if in its vicinity there are any sort of flowers or birds of
+ill-omen. If any such are discovered the journey is continued but if
+there are none they begin at once to kindle a fire.
+
+[Illustration: Felling a tree.
+
+_p._ 147.]
+
+A little bamboo reed is taken and a hole made in it through which is
+passed a towy substance found upon palm-trees and known by the name of
+_lulup_ among the Malays. Round this reed is wound two or three times a
+long piece of very flexible Indian cane and he who has undertaken to
+light the fire now holds the two ends of the latter, and pressing the
+bamboo hard with his foot, pulls first one and then the other, sharply
+and rapidly.
+
+The violent friction soon brings about combustion for the larger reed is
+heated to such a point that the tow ignites. Leaves and dry grasses are
+thrown on and the Elder watches the smoke.
+
+If this goes up in a straight column the position is good, otherwise it
+is not a suitable one.
+
+The decision having been made in this manner, work commences in right
+earnest and a febrile activity pervades the spot.
+
+The men carefully observe in what direction the trees are inclined, and
+with a small axe (that cuts into the wood wonderfully well) they begin
+to chop round the roots of the smaller ones.
+
+This done they attack one of the superb giants of the forest. With
+primitive, but not for that less practical, ladders made of bamboo, they
+ascend the tree they mean to fell, and after having planted some stout
+poles around it they construct an ingenious platform some yards from the
+ground.
+
+Up there they again make use of their little, but terrible hatchet,
+which is pointed in shape and marvellously resistant. It is of a
+moderate size, scarcely measuring 8 inches in length, 4 in breadth and 2
+in thickness. Firmly fixed on a pliant bamboo cane the blows given by it
+have marvellous force.
+
+The Sakais of the mountain obtain this instrument (which is never used
+by them as a weapon of offence or defence) from their brethren of the
+plain who, in their turn, get it from the Malays by bartering.
+
+When the preliminary work has been finished the huge tree is attacked
+(upon one side only) and its wood is soon reduced to chips under the
+terrific strokes which are repeated in rapid succession.
+
+In the meantime nimble youths climb up the trunk and near the top tie
+two stout and very long Indian canes, letting the ends dangle to the
+ground. As soon as the tree gives the slightest sign of vacillation the
+men hurry down, grasp a rattan upon each side and with all their might,
+rhythmically and simultaneously, pull the vanquished colossus towards
+the other trees whose roots have been already recised.
+
+The enormous tree, for a while, seems to withstand all their efforts,
+then begins to bend and sway, shaking as though seized by a fit of
+trembling; it totters for a minute or two and at last crashes down with
+awful violence, in its fall hurling to the ground the nearest ones that
+have been prepared on purpose, and these in their turn knock down those
+which are behind.
+
+Everybody has fled to a safe place but are deafened for a time by the
+loud noise of falling trunks, broken boughs, the crackling of leaves and
+the snapping asunder of the thick masses of foliage that the creepers
+have woven amongst the branches. The turmoil is indescribable. Reptiles,
+birds, squirrels, insects frightened at the unexpected disaster are
+moving wildly about in search of shelter, filling the air with their
+cries and buzz.
+
+Through the gap made in the green roof of the forest the sun enters
+triumphantly and illuminates the prostrate forms of the gigantic victims
+(lying about like Cyclopses fulminated by the ire of Jupiter) that ever
+and anon still give convulsive starts at the breaking of some huge bough
+in under that can no longer bear their tremendous weight.
+
+The opening has been made; it must now be cleared out. The work
+continues with feverish haste; all take part in it.
+
+[Illustration: An elevated residence.
+
+_p._ 149.]
+
+One after the other trees are stripped and maimed and, with miracles of
+strength and ingenuity, are pushed away as far as possible in order to
+make with them a solid and reliable enclosure all round.
+
+Before night comes, in the space thus prepared, rise groups of temporary
+huts, and large bon-fires burn.
+
+Following the method here described, the Sakais in a few hours succeed
+in clearing the forest for several miles round.
+
+The next day they begin afresh and go on until the clearing is big
+enough to contain the number of huts necessary, separated, as is the
+use, two or three hundred yards each one from the other.
+
+These are immense breaches which are opened in the forest but the latter
+also is immense and does not suffer from this raid upon its land, the
+less so because with its amazing power of fecundity it will soon have
+covered anew with vegetable life the abandoned village of the wandering
+tribe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hut (_dop_) of the Elder is the centre around which all the others
+are erected.
+
+To defend themselves against wild beasts and other animals, as well as
+against the humidity of marshy ground, the Sakais of the plain often
+build their huts either up a tree or suspended between stout poles.
+
+But on the hills there is no necessity to do this and the rude
+habitation is constructed on the ground with green branches and leaves,
+the roof and walls being of such poor consistency that they do not
+afford the very least protection. Wild beasts, as a rule, never venture
+into open spaces and besides are kept afar by the glare of the fires but
+the inclemency of the climate on those heights would render a more
+substantial residence desirable for comfort.
+
+There is no furniture or other sort of household goods in the Sakai's
+_dop_. His bed consists of dry leaves and the same bark they use for
+their waist-cloths, strewn upon the ground. Some of them possess a
+coverlet, worth only a few pence, but for which the poor creatures have
+paid its weight in gold by means of articles given in exchange. The
+majority have not even this.
+
+The hearth is placed in the middle of the hut and is made of four pieces
+of wood surrounding and closing in a heap of earth.
+
+Three stones placed upon this serve to sustain the cooking-pot.
+
+As I have said, they have no tables, chairs, stools or cupboards, and
+also the inventory of their kitchen utensils is very short: one or two
+earthen-ware pots (when they have not these they use bamboo canes for
+cooking), a couple of roughly-made knives, a few basins composed of
+cocoanut shells, and some bamboo receptacles which officiate as bucket,
+bottle and glass. The ladle with which they distribute their food is
+also of cocoanut shell.
+
+Their plates are... banana or other leaves, adapted for the purpose,
+that are thrown away after they have finished eating.
+
+At the top of the hut are hung the blow-pipes, and well-filled quivers.
+They are kept there for a little heat to reach them, this being
+considered essential to the efficacy of the poisons.
+
+Above these, twined amongst the green, are preserved strips of bark for
+a change of... dress when required, together with the Sakais' musical
+instruments which are never forgotten.
+
+[Illustration: A tree-hut.
+
+_p._ 149.]
+
+Such total poverty of shelter and chattels I think must be explained as
+cause and effect of the nomadic life these people live (although I
+should not know how to define the former from the latter) as well as the
+result of their indolence and the excessive simplicity of their wants.
+
+If once the continual migrations, from one point of the forest to the
+other, could be prevented the huts would certainly be improved both in
+construction and adornment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Round the hut a piece of ground is prepared for the cultivation of
+potatoes, yams and maize, but the harvest is very scanty, and the whole
+is frequently destroyed by the visit of a _sladan_. Here, too, the
+good-wife devotes a part of her time to fowl-breeding.
+
+She, like all the Sakais, sleeps at her pleasure in the morning. As soon
+as she gets up, with the help of her daughters she prepares the morning
+meal and serves it out as she thinks proper without the slightest remark
+being heard as to the quality or quantity of the food given to each.
+
+After breakfast every one goes about their own business; the men
+shooting, searching for poisons, or setting traps; the women and girls
+gathering tubers, bulbs and mushrooms, or catching insects, lizards and
+frogs, whilst the old people no longer able to go to the forest remain
+behind chewing tobacco or _sirih_ and looking after the children.
+
+Sunrise and sunset keep each other company!
+
+Towards noon all who can, return to the village, those who cannot, after
+having eaten in the forest, squat themselves on the ground to rest. It
+is the solemn hour of silence and repose, observed by man and beast.
+
+Only when the sun, from being right overhead, has begun to decline
+westward is the interrupted work or march resumed. At the first sign of
+twilight, which is very brief, the Sakais may be seen hastening back to
+their huts, on their return from labour or from other villages, where an
+abundant meal and ineffable peace awaits them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+  Intellectual development--Sakais of the plain and Sakais of
+  the hills--Laziness and intelligence--Falsehood and the Evil
+  Spirit--The Sakai language--When the "Orang Putei" gets
+  angry--Counting time--Novel calendars--Moral gifts.
+
+
+Intellectual development amongst the Sakais of the hills is very limited
+and as a consequence requires little or no study but much more is to be
+met with amongst those of the plain for two reasons which I have already
+explained: one their traffic and consequent intercourse with more
+civilized races; and the other the mixture of blood from their parents'
+concubinage with strangers, thus destroying the purity of their own.
+After the establishment of the British Protectorate and the abolition of
+slavery in the Federated Malay States the Sakai men and women returned
+to their native places, the latter taking with them the children born of
+their masters and the former entered into business relations with their
+quondam owners by the exchange of forest products for trifles of little
+or no value.
+
+This explains why in the tribes dwelling on the plains we meet with
+certain cunning and malicious intents which are in strange contrast with
+their primitive ingenuity and sincerity. But although in comparison to
+their brethren of the mountains they might and do pass for artful, they
+themselves are continually cheated and deceived by their more skilful
+neighbours who barter inferior qualities of tobacco, iron, calico and
+other trash, worth nothing, for real treasures in rattan, cane, rubber,
+poisons, fruit and fishing gear which the Sakai of the plain is very
+clever in making.
+
+Notwithstanding this sharpening of their intellect due to sojourn
+amongst their more astute neighbours or to the inheritance of
+insincerity, theirs by birth when born in exile, they are not yet
+capable of understanding what profit they might make by exciting
+competition between their covetous barterers, and the latter, each one
+for self-interest, are very careful not to open the eyes of those who
+are so ready to let themselves be cheated. Moreover, the ill-treatment
+to which they were once subjected, and the imperfect knowledge they
+still have of what the British Protectorate means, renders them timid
+and too much afraid of these rapacious merchants to dare resent, in any
+way, the prepotence which damages them.
+
+In spite of the corruption which has infected them from their
+companionship or relationship with corrupted people the Sakai of the
+plain still preserves some of his original goodness and uprightness.
+Only too well it may be said that once he has rid himself of these moral
+encumbrances which leave him defenceless in the hands of the
+unscrupulous he will have taken a new step towards civilization but
+there will be two virtues the less in his spiritual patrimony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai who has taken refuge in the hilly part of the forest in order
+to escape from the influences of Civilization which may now be said to
+beset him on all sides, still preserves and defends the original purity
+of his race.
+
+His intellectual development is inferior to that of his brother living
+in the plain because he keeps himself alien to everything that might
+effect his physical laziness and the utter inertia of his brain.
+
+He lives because the forest gives him abundant food, and he lives idly,
+immersed in innumerable superstitions that _Al�_ (the sorcerer) enjoins
+him to always preserve intact.
+
+If, quite suddenly, a change should come in the life and conditions of
+these Sakais they would never be able to adapt themselves to a different
+regime until after extreme suffering and sacrifice had strewn the new
+path with many victims.
+
+And yet, in spite of all, I believe him to be endowed with a fair amount
+of intelligence, dormant for the present, but susceptible of development
+when once awakened and with great patience he has, by slow degrees
+(almost imperceptibly) been taught to overcome his strange fears and to
+lose those curious ideas concerning life which the old forest
+philosopher revealed to me.
+
+I say "almost imperceptibly"--as for some years I have been doing
+myself--that no suspicions may be raised and that _Al�_ may have no
+cause to rebel against the introduction of modern sentiments by
+outsiders who insinuate themselves into the tribe, persons whom he does
+not view with benevolent eyes, especially if they are white. This sort
+of priest obstinately opposes every element of progress and obliges his
+people to do the same.
+
+[Illustration: Preparing the supper.
+
+_p._ 151.]
+
+I have my reasons for believing in the latent intelligence of the
+mountain Sakai as I have noticed in him a great facility in imitating
+sounds, movements and even the way of doing things and also of learning
+and remembering what he has been taught or has seen. I have perceived in
+him, too, a pronounced rectitude of judgment and a remarkable sharpness
+of observation when his superstitious terrors do not throw a veil over
+his mind.
+
+But he is incorrigibly lazy and will not engage in any kind of work that
+requires fatigue unless it be by his own spontaneous will. The spirit of
+independence within him is so profound and indomitable as to induce him
+perhaps to renounce a benefit to himself for fear of obtaining it
+through satisfying the desire of another.
+
+He is also very touchy; a harsh word or an impatient gesture is enough
+to offend him.
+
+In compensation he is hospitable, generous, sincere and averse to
+falseness and intrigue. If sometimes he tells a lie he does so from the
+dread of an imaginary or possible evil which might otherwise befall him
+or his, as for instance when somebody he does not know asks his name or
+seeks information about his place of abode. In such a case the Sakai,
+with something like childish impudence, will give a fictitious name or
+information quite contrary to the truth because he is convinced that
+every stranger brings with him an evil spirit to let loose upon the
+person or place he seeks, and that by not saying the truth he tricks
+both the man and the spirit that cannot injure him as he is not the
+person declared.
+
+As can be seen, this their way of reasoning does not lack a certain
+ingenuity which leads one to think that the poor things' brains might be
+educated to more agility in thinking and understanding.
+
+Unfortunately the means are very scarce for making new impressions upon
+the grey matter enclosed in the bony case of their thoughtless pates.
+The first difficulty to be met with is the incredible poverty of their
+language which impedes the communication and development of an idea.
+
+I endeavour to remedy this deficiency by employing English words and
+phrases because this is the official language in the Protected Malay
+States, and the British Government wishes to make it popular.
+
+The Sakais catch the meaning and make use of the terms the same as they
+often learn a word in Italian or Genoese that I sometimes utter when
+speaking to myself.
+
+I remember well, one day, that in a moment of irritation about something
+that did not go right, I exclaimed "_Sacramento_" (I apologize to those
+who know what a naughty word it is).
+
+My little servant boy who was present looked at me frightened, then
+began to cry and darted away as if mad, although he had nothing to do
+with my bad temper.
+
+Well, what do you think? Now it has passed amongst the Sakai boys that
+when the _Orang Putei_ gets angry he says "_Sacramento_!". And they
+repeat the oath with all the emphasis and air of a trooper, yet I had
+not taught them it nor should I have wished them to learn the
+exclamation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai language is, as I have said, very poor indeed, so much so that
+it is impossible to form a long phrase or keep up the most simple
+conversation because there are no means of connecting the various words
+one with the other.
+
+An idea is expressed by a single word or perhaps by three or four
+together so that it requires a great deal of practice, attention and
+also a special study of the mimicry which accompanies and explains these
+terse vocal sounds, to enable one to follow out the thought.
+
+[Illustration: A group of Bretak boys.
+
+_p._ 156.]
+
+Their vocabulary is soon exhausted for it is composed only of those
+words which are strictly necessary to make known their daily wants, the
+necessity of defence and their superstitious feelings. They refuse to
+adopt any of those expressions that their brethren of the plain have
+learnt from other races, considering them as impure and perilous as the
+people themselves. This is an implacable application of the maxim
+"_timeo danaos et dona ferentes_" by folks who do not understand Latin
+and who ignore the existence of the Greeks but who know thoroughly well
+their stranger neighbours.
+
+It is therefore vain to seek among the Sakais those poetical metaphors
+and that flowery, figurative style of speech which is attributed by us
+to all Orientals without distinction.
+
+I am not a student or professor of glottology, contenting myself with
+being able to speak one or two languages without troubling my head over
+their origin, so I dare not judge upon the affinity more or less remote
+of the not too sweet Sakai idioms with others, but there seemed to me
+such a marked difference between the Malay and Sakai phraseologies that
+I should have declared them to be absolutely distinct one from the
+other.
+
+However, the recent studies of the German, W. Schmidt, and the more
+profound ones of the Italian, A. Trombetti, have proved that all the
+tongues spoken by the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula as well as
+those to be heard in the neighbouring isles are in connection with each
+other.
+
+The most part of the words used by the Sakais are of only one syllable,
+polysyllables being very rare, and the way in which these accents are
+shot out from the lips would make a foreigner decide at once that the
+best method of translating their talk would be by a volley of shots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the curious and the studious I have here added a short list of the
+words commonly used amongst the Sakais but as their language is totally
+exempt from every rule of orthography I have tried as well as I can to
+give a phonetic interpretation of the same.
+
+
+  Arm                    -- _glahk_
+
+  Arrow                  -- _grog_
+
+    " (poisoned)         -- _grog mahng tshegrah'_
+
+    " (not poisoned)     -- _grog pe' m tshegrah_
+
+
+  Bamboo                 -- _annahd'_
+
+  Banana                 -- _tellah'e_
+
+  Betelnut               -- _blook_
+
+  Bird                   -- _chep_
+
+  Body                   -- _brock_
+
+  Born                   -- _egoy_ (_alphabetical sound of_ e)
+
+  Blow-pipe              -- _blahoo'_
+
+  Brother                -- _tennah'_
+
+    " (elder)            -- _tennah' bop_
+
+    " (younger)          -- _manang se ne_ (_e sounded as in_ met, men)
+
+
+  Child                  -- _kennon_
+
+  Cigarette              -- _rock�_
+
+  Come soon              -- _hawl aghit_ (_a_ as in _father_)
+
+  Cover                  -- _tshenkop_
+
+
+  Day                    -- _e eah top_
+
+  Dead                   -- _daht_
+
+  Death                  -- _daht_
+
+  Dog                    -- _chaw_
+
+
+  Ear                    -- _garetook_
+
+  Earth                  -- _in noos_
+
+  Evening                -- _danwee_
+
+  Evil                   -- _ne' ghne' e'_ (_alphabetical sound of_ e)
+
+  Eye                    -- _maht_
+
+
+  Father                 -- _abbay'_, _abboo'_, _appah'_
+
+    " (in-law)           -- _tennah' amay_
+
+  Fear                   -- _sayoo neot_
+
+  Female                 -- _knah_
+
+  Fish                   -- _kah_
+
+  Flute                  -- _tshinelloi_
+
+  Foe                    -- _pay kabaad_
+
+  Foot                   -- _jehoo_
+
+  Forest                 -- _dahraht_
+
+  Fowl                   -- _poo_
+
+  Fruit                  -- _pla'_
+
+
+  Good                   -- _bawr_
+
+  Good-bye               -- _abbawr_
+
+
+  Hail                   -- _tayho oontoy_
+
+  Hand                   -- _tahk_
+
+  Harm                   -- _ne'_, _ghne' e'_ (_like_ evil)
+
+  Head                   -- _kovey_
+
+  Heart                  -- _noos_
+
+  Hen                    -- _poo_
+
+  Hill                   -- _loop_
+
+  Hot                    -- _baykahk_
+
+  Hunger                 -- _chewahr_
+
+  Husband                -- _care lore_
+
+  Hut                    -- _dop_
+
+
+  Illness                -- _nigh_
+
+
+  Leaf                   -- _slah_
+
+  Leg                    -- _kaymung_
+
+  Lightning              -- _bled_
+
+
+  Malay                  -- _my gope_
+
+  Male                   -- _crahl_
+
+  Man                    -- _sing no_
+
+  Mandoline              -- _krob_
+
+  Mangosteen             -- _play semmetah_
+
+  Many                   -- _jeho e_
+
+  Medicine               -- _penglie_ (ie _as in_ lie)
+
+  Moon                   -- _ghecheck_
+
+  Monkey                 -- _dak_
+
+    " (with long tail)   -- _raoh_
+
+  Mouth                  -- _eneoong_
+
+  Morning                -- _pawr_
+
+  Mother                 -- _amay_, _kennen_, _kenung_
+
+    " (in-law)           -- _tennah abbay_
+
+  Mountain               -- _lot, loop_
+
+
+  Night                  -- _sin oar_
+
+  No                     -- _pay neay'_
+
+  Noon                   -- _dahjis_
+
+  Nose                   -- _moh_
+
+
+  Old                    -- _din grah_
+
+  One                    -- _nahnaw_
+
+
+  People                 -- _my_
+
+  Plain                  -- _barrow_
+
+  Pond                   -- _tebbahov_
+
+  Poison                 -- _chingrah_
+
+
+  Quiver                 -- _lock_
+
+
+  Rage                   -- _roh_
+
+  Rain                   -- _mahny_
+
+  Rat                    -- _hay loy_
+
+  Rice                   -- _bah_
+
+  River                  -- _tayhoo_
+
+
+  Season                 -- _moosin_
+
+  Sing                   -- _jeoolah_
+
+  Sister                 -- _kaynah_
+
+    " (elder)            -- _taynah kaynah_
+
+    " (younger)          -- _mennang kaynah_
+
+  Sky                    -- _sooey_
+
+  Sleep                  -- _bet bet_
+
+  Slumber                -- _n' tahk_
+
+  Snake                  -- _teegee_
+
+  Sorcerer               -- _ahlah_
+
+  Spirit                 -- _ghenigh nee_
+
+    " (Evil)             -- _ahtoo_
+
+  Star                   -- _pearloy_
+
+  Storm                  -- _poss_
+
+  Sun                    -- _mahjis_
+
+
+  Thunder                -- _nghoo_
+
+  Thunder-bolt           -- _nahkoo_
+
+  Tiger                  -- _mah moot_, _mah noos_
+
+  Tobacco                -- _bahkoo_
+
+  Tree                   -- _jehoo oo_
+
+  Two                    -- _nahr_
+
+
+  Valley                 -- _wawk_
+
+
+  Water                  -- _tayhoo_
+
+    " for drinking       --   "  _engot_
+
+  Wedding                -- _ba' kaynah_
+
+  Wife                   -- _kay el_
+
+  Wild boar              -- _loo_
+
+  Will, wish, want       -- _engot_
+
+  Wind                   -- _poy_
+
+  Woman                  -- _knah_, _caredawl_
+
+
+  Yes                    -- _aye ay._[12]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This poor language that seems to be composed of short coughs does not
+even lose its roughness in song, if I may so term the musical (?) sounds
+that proceed from the Sakais' mouths, because real songs they have none.
+They are accustomed, however, to improvise something of the sort in
+which they always allude to facts of the day but as there is nobody to
+collect these fragments of extemporaneous ballads they disappear from
+the world of memories as quickly as they have been put together.
+
+It is for this that all my endeavours have been in vain to find amongst
+them some song transmitted from father to son which by referring to an
+event more or less remote might serve as a clue to the legends or
+history of this mysterious people. But nothing of the kind exists and
+not even in talking can they narrate anything farther, back than three
+or four generations. They could not tell you if the sun and the forest
+were in existence before their great-grandfather lived. One cannot
+wonder much at this, though, when it is known that these poor
+inhabitants of the wildest parts of the jungle can scarcely reckon
+beyond three and have no means of counting time.
+
+With them the first three numbers are not followed by a series of others
+which always increase by one but from _neer_ (three) it is rare that
+they pass to _neer nahn�_ (three one) jumping instead to _neer neer_
+(three three), and by this addition they express number six. They use
+the words _neer neer nahn�_ for seven and then jump again to _neer neer
+neer_ which means nine.
+
+When a birth, a death or any other event takes place which requires the
+exact period of seven days for the accomplishment of certain ceremonies
+according to their habit, the Sakai takes a strip of reed or rattan
+(splitting it into parts to make it flexible) with which he ties two
+groups of three knots each and a single one apart. Every day he undoes
+one of these knots and so knows when the time prescribed is finished.
+
+If you ask him whether it would not be better for him to learn to count
+at least as far as seven, a number that for one thing or another is
+frequently necessary in his life, he answers you invariably:
+
+"We know nothing. Our fathers did so and we too will do the same without
+being too fantastical".
+
+Thus we see that the saying: "My father did so", may be an inveterate
+enemy of arithmetic whilst it establishes a close relationship between
+those who in civilized society put it into practice and the savages
+dwelling on the heights of Perak.
+
+The Sakai renounces all attempts at counting more than nine, and his
+total abstention from commercial persuits permits him to spare his brain
+this fatigue.
+
+[Illustration: Two more solid huts.
+
+_p._ 166.]
+
+Returning from a day's shooting, if they have had luck, my good friends
+do not trouble themselves much over counting the heads of game they have
+brought home. They will perhaps begin by placing their victims in groups
+of _neer_ (three) until they amount to three threes but should the
+number exceed nine they simply declare them to be _jeho e_ (many) and do
+not care about knowing anything more precise as they are satisfied at
+the fact that they, and any of their relations who like to partake of
+the feast, can live upon game until it is all finished.
+
+Many times I have amused myself by asking a prolific father or mother
+how many children they had. My friends would get as far as three but
+then becoming confused would beg me to count them for myself, and their
+offspring had to pass in front of me whilst they called each by name,
+for example: _Roy_ (boy) _No_ (boy) _Taynah_ (girl) _Po lo_ (boy) _Tay
+lep_ (girl) _Betah_ (girl).
+
+Counting them upon my fingers I would tell the parent or parents that
+they were six, to which they agreed with:
+
+"If you say they are six, they are six".
+
+It is more difficult still for the Sakais to count time. They imagine
+pretty nearly what hour it is by the position of the sun overhead or
+from the various sounds which come from the forest announcing, as I have
+already said, morning, noon, and evening, and during the night the
+_crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ of the wild beasts' roaring proclaim the
+hours before and after midnight.
+
+The shortest measure of time that the Sakais understand is that employed
+in smoking a cigarette.
+
+They observe, although not with much precision, the phases of the moon
+that they gladly greet at her appearance but they do not feel any
+curiosity in knowing where she has gone and where she remains when they
+do not enjoy her soft light at night and during their dances.
+
+The flowering of certain plants and the ripening of certain fruits gives
+the Sakai a faint idea of the longest period of time they are capable of
+imagining and which is about equal to our year. The seasons, which
+cannot here be recognized by diversity of temperature, are distinguished
+by the gathering and storing away of those fruits that supply them with
+food at regular intervals of time, such as the _durian_ season, that of
+the _bu� pra_, the _dukon_ and the _gi� blo lol_.
+
+I think it would be quite impossible to find out the right age of a
+Sakai. Sometimes after the birth of a child its parents will cut a notch
+in the bark of a tree every time the season when he was born returns.
+But these signs never continue very long because even if the father or
+mother have not been compelled to abandon their tree-register to follow
+their clan to another part of the forest, after the third or fourth
+incision they easily forget to keep up the practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When as often happens a Sakai has to undertake a journey of more than
+three days as in the case of seeking a wife or of making a large
+provision of tobacco for all the encampment, both he and those left
+behind have recourse to a novel calendar in order to remember how many
+days he is absent. They pick up some small stones or little sticks and
+dividing them into threes the traveller carries away a half with him
+leaving the rest with his family. At the end of every day those at home
+and the one who has departed throw away one of these stones or sticks.
+When the little stock is finished the Sakai is sure to return because he
+knows very well that any further delay would be the cause of grave
+apprehensions and anxiety to his dear ones which he is eager to spare
+them.
+
+Some of them adopt the same system on this occasion as when counting the
+days of traditional ceremonies, that is by the tying and untying of
+knots in a strip of _scudiscio_.[13]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amongst those Oriental peoples not yet civilized the Sakais are the
+least known, and yet I firmly believe that they could surpass the others
+in intelligence--as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral
+qualities--if they were to be made the object of assiduous care and
+benevolent interest.
+
+Once these poor jungle dwellers could be brought to have full confidence
+in their white protectors, it seems to me that the best thing which
+could be done for them would be to induce them, by degrees, to dedicate
+themselves to agriculture.
+
+But their aversion to any kind of labour cannot be overcome by coercive
+means or evangelical preaching. They would rebel as much against one as
+the other for they wish to be absolute masters of their own will and
+their own conscience. And this liberty of thought and action must be
+left them whilst very slowly and with great patience, by force of
+example and gentle persuasion, they are made to understand that by doing
+what we want they are giving us a pleasure which will be largely
+compensated with tobacco and with the numerous trifles that are the joy
+and vanity of savages.
+
+He who would dream of redeeming them from their present ignorant state
+by treating them arbitrarily and thereby hurting their feelings and
+insulting their beliefs would find his undertaking not only fruitless
+but also dangerous because he would be immediately considered an enemy
+and the _Al�_ would not fail to incite vengeance upon him in the
+troubled spirits of the tribe.
+
+I think the method most promising in its results is that which I myself
+have proved. I slipped in amidst them, living the life that they live
+and respecting their opinions and superstitions, at the same time
+seeking indirectly to cure them of their natural laziness.
+
+The Sakais are nomadic for two reasons: first, because when they have
+exhausted, by their prodigality, the edible treasures that the forest
+soil produces for them without need of toil, in the tract of land within
+reach of their settlement, they change their residence to a fresh
+quarter where this uncultivated product is for a long time in
+superabundance; secondly, because when somebody of their number dies
+they believe that an evil spirit has entered their village and that to
+free themselves from its malignant influence it is necessary to fly to
+another part.
+
+Well, more than once I have made a point of sleeping in a hut lately
+visited by death to show them how absurd the idea is. At first they
+stood afar, looking at the forsaken spot and believing that I, too, was
+dead, but afterwards finding, to their immense wonder, that I was still
+alive and well, they began to doubt their own superstition and to build
+their huts a little more solid so that they might be of greater
+durability.
+
+Overthrown in a definite manner one of the motives of their wanderings
+the other would cease to exist from the moment they were taught to work
+the ground. With this scope in view, from time to time, I make a
+distribution of padi or maize and am glad to see that little by little
+the miserable plots once rudely sown with corn are now becoming ample
+fields.
+
+Like the old philosopher I found in the forest, the other Sakais have
+never thought, or rather let themselves think, what a boon it would be
+for them to grow the things they like best, around their huts, instead
+of feeling obliged to get it from others, and they evidently shared his
+dislike to torturing the earth with iron, for before my advent and
+sojourn amongst them they simply burnt the pith of the trees and plants
+they felled and into the bed formed by the ashes they cast
+indiscriminately bulb and grain, covering up both with their feet or
+with a piece of wood, and afterwards they took no more care of it.
+
+But this pretence of cultivation was nothing less than a greedy caprice
+and did not in any way help their domestic economy. The products of the
+planting which had cost them so little fatigue was deemed surplus food
+and they would eat up in a few days what might have lasted them for
+months, inviting friends even lazier than themselves (who had not taken
+the trouble so much as to imitate this rudimental mode of agriculture)
+to take part in the gorging feast.
+
+It would be a real blessing to those Sakais who have already begun to
+cultivate their fields, to work with me in the plantations I am making,
+to help me in gathering in jungle produce and to apply themselves to
+some simple industry, if a few good-hearted, thrifty families of
+European agriculturists were to come and dwell amongst them. In this way
+my forest friends would make rapid and immense progress for they have
+already shown their aptitude and ability and the British Government
+would in a very short time have a flourishing colony by thus bringing
+them into direct contact with a wholesome civilization consisting of
+kindness, rectitude and honest work without their losing any of their
+characteristic integrity through the contaminating influence of spurious
+evolutionary principles.
+
+It is true that the wide dominions of England claim an immense amount of
+care and energy but her rulers display sufficient activity and wisdom
+for the need and would have no cause to regret, but rather rejoice, if
+they were to extend their beneficence to the far off worthy tribes of
+Sakais now wandering over Perak and Pahang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Returning to the character of my no-longer new friends I must really
+repeat that we should be fortunate if we could find similar traits in
+many of the persons belonging to civilized society.
+
+Whether I am prejudiced by the sympathy I feel for this people amongst
+whom I live, and who have granted me hospitality without any limit, I
+will leave you to judge, kind reader, you who have the patience to
+peruse these modest pages written, not from an impulse of personal
+vanity, but in all sincerity, and whose only aim is to do good to the
+poor Sakais, unknown to the world in general and slandered by those who
+know them and who are interested in preventing any sort of intercourse
+with other outsiders besides themselves.
+
+Nobody has ever been to teach the Sakai to be honest and as no kind of
+moral maxims are known by them it stands to reason that this honesty
+which speaks in their looks, words and acts depends upon their natural
+sweet temper and their way of living.
+
+The real Sakai recoils from everything approaching violence and never
+assaults a fellow creature unless he believes himself or his family
+seriously menaced or badly treated.
+
+[Illustration: A young man procuring food with his blowpipe.
+
+_p._ 169.]
+
+Paolo Mantegazza has written that the nature of a weapon indicates not
+only the technical ability of a race but also its degree of ferocity.
+All those arms which serve to make suffer instead of to kill are certain
+signs of cruelty.
+
+Well, the Sakai inflicts no suffering upon his foe. The terrible poisons
+with which he tinges his fatal arrows cause almost immediate death, and
+his sole motive for killing is to rid himself of one whom he thinks will
+do him harm, but should his enemy run away before he can hit him he
+would neither follow nor lay an ambush for him. He might almost take as
+his motto the celebrated line by Niccolini:
+
+    Ripassi l'Alpi e torner� fratello.[14]
+
+Even if their gentle, peaceable characters did not disincline them for a
+deed of crime, if their indolence and lack of passionate feelings were
+not safe-guards from evil-doing the entire absence of incentive power
+prevents them from committing a guilty action. Why should they rob when
+their neighbours' goods are also theirs? When everything is everybody's,
+be it a rich supply of meat, fruit, grain, tobacco or accomodation in a
+sheltered hut? And why should they kill anybody?
+
+For pure malignity? Because there is no other reason to prompt such a
+wickedness. They have no excuse for jealousy, even if they were capable
+of entertaining it, for when two young people are fond of each other no
+pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their
+affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical
+respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his
+blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous
+desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature
+couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a
+woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) or should they have met
+with somebody else that they like better, no demoralizing
+love-intrigue, or guilty flirtation is the consequence; they simply
+announce their change of feeling to their conjugal half and if the
+latter still cherishes a sincere attachment for the faithless partner in
+wedlock he or she will hasten to make the other happy by giving up all
+claim upon the loved one and they agree to part upon the best of terms,
+as also they do when by chance they are reciprocally tired of one
+another's company. The fact does not give rise to drama, tragedy or
+Othello-like fury.
+
+Now tell me under what impulse can the Sakai become a criminal?
+
+He is honest and sincere from the kindness and indolence of his
+character, because of the free life which is his, and the society of
+people like himself, not because he fears being punished or has any hope
+of a prize in Heaven.
+
+Will not this strange fact induce some genius of the State to meditate
+the subject, there being full proof that the alliance of Prison and Hell
+does not succeed in eradicating the seeds of corruption and crime in
+civilized nations?
+
+This innate honesty of the Sakai is especially revealed in the manner he
+respects whatever engagement he has, of his own accord, assumed.
+Mistrustful in dealing with others, violent and apparently overmastering
+from the vivacity with which he speaks and gesticulates, as soon as the
+bargain is fixed he will keep it faithfully to the very letter.
+
+In conformity with the custom that both the Sakai of the hills and his
+brother of the plain have of not providing for the future, he will
+consume even beforehand his share of the exchange agreed upon, but all
+the same he will perform his duties towards the other with the most
+scrupulous punctuality.
+
+Many times I have intentionally left outside my cabin such articles as
+would excite in the Sakais a desire of possession, but upon my return I
+have always found them intact and in their right place. My habitation is
+always open, even when I am far away but I have never missed a single
+object.
+
+A little from habit, a little from the virtue I have frequently
+mentioned, and a little, very likely, because he is too lazy to be
+otherwise, the Sakai is a just and upright man. He has a great respect
+for the old, seeks their advice, and--what is much more--follows it; he
+has a deep sense of gratitude, is unselfish, open-hearted and
+open-handed, and ever ready to do a service to those who belong to his
+own village. And this exclusiveness is one of the curious contrasts that
+may sometimes be noted in human nature.
+
+Meeting upon his road a person who is evidently suffering and has need
+of aid, if he does not recognize in him, or her, one of his own tribe he
+will pass on with indifference and grumble out cynically: "All the worse
+for them". But if the same person were to make an appeal to his charity
+on the threshold of his rude home, he or she would receive hospitality
+without being known, and in the event of an accident or any other
+misfortune which has occasioned grief or trouble to a kinsman, however
+distant, he will share in their affliction, and do all he can to relieve
+them in their distress.
+
+After all this, that close and continual observation permits me to
+affirm, may I not ask the public, or at least those who have followed me
+in my rambling notes until now: might not this type of savage be held up
+as an example of perfection to many of our acquaintances in the
+civilized world whose boundary line of honesty is where it ceases to
+bring profit, who scorn the thought of gratitude for a favour received
+as being inconsistent with their "spirit of independence" and who never
+lose an occasion for exemplifying the tender brotherly love of Cain?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 12: The author of this book has given the pronunciation of the
+above words according to the sounds and rules of Italian and it has been
+a difficult task to present them in a sufficiently orthoepical form for
+English readers to understand, for the reason that all the vowels and
+many of the consonants are so differently articulated in the two
+languages.
+
+Where _a_ is followed by _h_ it should be pronounced as in _father_; by
+_w_ as in _all_; by _y_ as in _may_. The consonants _g_ _k_ and _n_
+which precede certain words and which would be mute in English must be
+very lightly accented with the same sound they have in the
+alphabet.--_Translator's Notes._]
+
+[Footnote 13: The _scudiscio_ is a very large fungus that grows upon
+trees. It is easily broken into strips which the Indigines use for tying
+up things and for putting round their necks to protect them from fever.
+The Sakais call it _tennak kahr�h_ that means literally "the root of a
+stone".]
+
+[Footnote 14: Go back over the Alps and we shall be brothers again.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  First attempts at industry--The story of a hat--Multiplicity--
+  Primitive arts--Sakai music--Songs--Instruments--Dances--Ball
+  dresses--Serpentine gracefulness--An unpublished Sakai song.
+
+
+Primitive, like their language and their agriculture, are also Art and
+Industry among the Sakais.
+
+They make blowpipes, arrows and quivers from bamboo, strings from
+twisted vegetable fibres, ear-rings and ornamental combs for the women.
+Now, under my direction, they have begun to plait mats with dried
+grasses, as well as bags and even hats, using for the latter the fibrous
+part of the pandanus, and copying one of Panama which I gave them as a
+model. I cannot give an estimate of the time and patience I spent over
+this new branch of industry.
+
+The first time I mentioned such a thing to the women I had the
+unenviable success of making them laugh heartily. And I laughed with
+them, remarking however, that as they were so good and clever they would
+have no difficulty in accomplishing the feat if they would only set
+themselves to try.
+
+Vanity is the great spring of a woman's soul that cannot resist the
+charm of flattery. This is proved by History from the time of Eve to our
+days and I myself proved it when I again spoke on the subject of hats.
+The laughter was not so loud and soon ceased altogether. At last the
+women answered me, with an annoyed and discontented air, that my
+insistance vexed them. Then I knew that the fortress was about to
+capitulate and re-doubled my attacks.
+
+The day of surrender was near.
+
+A girl, accompanied by a group of inquisitive, mocking companions,
+presented herself at my hut bringing with her something in the shape of
+a hat which was meant to be an imitation of mine. It was full of knots,
+puckers and other defects.
+
+The little artist was very confused and mortified but I praised her work
+a great deal and after showing her the mistakes she had made I gave her
+several bead-necklaces.
+
+In a few days the hats multiplied. The other girls and the women, seeing
+the presents I had given their companion, felt offended and devoted
+themselves with fury to the manufacture of the head-covering I desired,
+improving the form so much as to obtain an exact copy of the pattern
+one.
+
+When some were finished they brought them to me and throwing them on the
+ground with a gesture of scorn cried:
+
+"There! take your hats!". But a generous distribution of beads soon made
+their good-temper return.
+
+Thus I was able to start this new industry by flattering the vanity of
+the Sakai females ("oh, Vanity, thy name is Woman" even among the
+savages) and the goods produced, after having been awarded a silver
+medal and a diploma at Penang were the object of general admiration at
+the Milan Exhibition of 1906.
+
+It is some time now that I have got the men to work in iron. I provide
+them with the raw material and it is really a wonder to see how well
+they manage to make knives without possessing any of the tools used in
+the trade.
+
+When they understood the necessity of a very fierce fire for reducing
+the metal into such a state as to enable them to make it take the
+wished-for form, they attempted to put together a sort of bellows and at
+length succeeded in the following way.
+
+At the bottom of a very big piece of bamboo, they cut a hole into which
+they inserted a smaller one, joining and fixing them together with gum
+that the air might not escape from the wrong part. Then at the extremity
+of a thick stick they fastened a bunch of leaves and grasses large
+enough to pass with difficulty into the bamboo tube. By working this as
+a piston the air was expelled from the lower bamboo cane and kindled a
+bright fire.
+
+After the iron has taken the form required, whilst it is still red-hot,
+they throw it into a bluish-coloured mud which smells of sulphur and
+leave it there to temper.
+
+In fact the metal tempers and becomes very hard but I could not tell
+anyone what properties this slimy earth contains or how the Sakais came
+to know its value in connection with iron. I only know that they have to
+dig very deep in the ground before getting at it, a thing that is not
+either easy or agreeable owing to the lack of necessary implements.
+
+Steel being a very scarce article amongst my good friends they have
+learnt to make great economy with it using it solely for the blades of
+the knives and for other purposes. They mix the two metals with
+surprising skill.
+
+This is the boldest and most intelligent step that the Sakais have made
+as yet in the field of industry.
+
+[Illustration: Dancing.
+
+_p._ 176.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Art which expresses elevated thought and refinement of spirit, in
+whatever form it manifests itself, is at its lowest ebb among the Sakais
+and especially representative art, although it is curious to notice how
+much more they prefer (I speak of the male sex) this latter to that of
+sounds. Music may procure some moments of bliss to those who yield
+themselves to its charms but it is transitory and, with them, leaves no
+reminiscence for the performer or the listener; on the contrary
+representative art remains and can also give satisfaction to the self
+love of the artist. It is limited to some rough designs and still more
+rough incisions on the blowpipes, quivers and the women's combs and
+their earrings.
+
+Bamboo is the principal material used in making their hunting
+requisites, their personal ornaments and their domestic utensils.
+
+The combs are large and their teeth vary from 2 to 4 in number. Across
+them are carved, more or less deeply cut, various signs, some of an
+angular form that display a pretty correct geometrical precision and
+others in curved lines, all of which are intended by the several artists
+to represent birds' heads, snakes or plants. Sometimes this intention is
+expressed sufficiently clearly; at others there is need of
+interpretation.
+
+The plants reproduced in this way are always medicinal or those to which
+superstition attributes some virtue, so that the primitive art is in a
+great measure due to the desire of possessing an amulet.
+
+The same designs are repeated on the ear-rings, blowpipes and quivers.
+The Sakais are very proud of these incisions and he who has the most
+upon his weapon enjoys a certain fame. As a natural consequence this
+makes him somewhat jealous of his finely decorated cane, much more so
+than he is of his wife, that for her part gives him no motive for
+cultivating the yellow demon's acquaintance.
+
+Up to the time I am writing the Sakais' artistic genius has not passed
+this limit, unless we reckon the horrible paintings upon their faces and
+bodies, but this branch of art--it may seem irreverent, though none the
+less true, to say so--brings to the mind dainty toilet-rooms and cosy
+boudoirs in other parts of the world, in the very heart of civilization,
+where its devotees think to beautify (but often damage) Nature.
+
+Oh! what a chorus of silvery voices are calling me too, a savage!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais like music but nearly always the notes are accompanied by a
+dancing movement, sometimes lightly as if to mark the time, but at
+others they kick their legs about so furiously, at the same time
+twisting and writhing their bodies in such a strange series of
+contortions that an uninitiated looker-on would surely receive the
+impression that they were suffering from spasmodic pains in the stomach,
+whereas in reality they are only imitating the wriggling of a serpent.
+
+The woman is particularly fond of dancing and with it she measures the
+cadencies of her own songs and gives point to the words themselves
+whilst her companions repeat a sort of chorus which completes the
+musical passage.
+
+[Illustration: Playing the "ciniloi".
+
+_p._ 178.]
+
+It must not be thought, however, that song as it is known among the
+Sakais is the melodious sound we are in the habit of considering as
+such. With them it is an emission of notes, generally guttural ones
+which are capriciously alternated without any variety of tune and which
+in their integrity fail to express any musical thought.
+
+The women sing with greater monotony, but more sweetly, than the men.
+Often they join in groups singing and dancing, and this, I believe, is
+the gayest moment of their lives and to this honest pleasure they will
+abandon themselves with rapture, forgetting the fatigue of the day. Then
+feminine coquetry triumphs before the other girls and the young men.
+
+When night falls the air becomes cool, and even cold later on. Having
+finished their evening meal the old folk and the children stretch
+themselves out to sleep round the fire which is always kept lighted. The
+women sit about weaving bags, mats and hats, their work illuminated by
+flaring torches composed of sticks and leaves covered with the resin
+found in the forest. To the extent permitted by their poor language they
+chat and jest among themselves, laughing noisily the while.
+
+The young men are scattered around preparing their arrows for the next
+day's hunt, dipping them into the poisonous decoction when it is well
+heated.
+
+It is not long before work gets tedious to the girls. They jump up and
+daub their faces in a grotesque manner. With palm leaves they mark out a
+space of some yards square that has to be reserved for the dancers, and
+then commences the women's song to which is soon added the stronger
+voices of the men. At times the chorus is accompanied by an orchestra of
+those instruments that the Sakais know how to play.
+
+They will take two bamboo canes of six, eight or more inches in
+diameter, being careful to select a male and female reed. These they
+beat violently one against the other, the result being a deep note with
+prolonged vibrations which awake the forest echoes but not the old
+people and the children who are sleeping.
+
+There is also the _krob_ a very primitive kind of lyre that consists of
+a short but stout piece of bamboo on which two vegetable fibres are
+tightly drawn. The plectrum used by the player is equally primitive
+being a fish-bone, a thorn or a bit of wood. The sound caused by grating
+the two strings is more harmonious than one might suppose.
+
+But the Sakais possess besides a wind instrument that claims more study
+both in the making and the playing.
+
+It belongs to the flute family and, of course, is made of bamboo. Like
+all its brothers in the world it is open at one end, with three or four
+holes on the top side.
+
+Before playing it the performer carefully stops up one of his nostrils
+with leaves and then applies the other to the first hole into which he
+gently blows with his nose. From the instrument issues a sweet,
+melancholy note. By leaving all the holes open a clear _sol_ (G) is
+obtained; by shutting them all a _mi bemolle_ (E flat); the first hole
+gives the note _mi_ (E) and the second _fa_ (F).
+
+The _ciniloi_[15] (for so it is called) is not artistic to the eye and
+loses all its poetry when one sees its owner blowing his nose into it
+but the notes emanating from it breathe a vague sense of melody and
+sadness not entirely unpleasant.
+
+Some of the Sakais are quite masters of this instrument and the women
+too prefer it to the _krob_. They seem to find extreme delight in
+sending forth those long sustained and plaintive sounds as though lulled
+by a dream, or absorbed in some pathetic thought.
+
+On festive occasions when the solemnity of the entertainment increases
+in proportion to the noise made, there is a full orchestra. The choruses
+bawl, the bamboos deafen one with their loud noise like that of huge
+wooden bells, the _krobs_ sob desperately at the way they are treated
+by the plectrum, the _ciniloi_ whistles and laments, and all without any
+fixed measure of time or modulation of tones, in a confusion of sounds
+so discordant as to recall a very, very faint echo of the infernal
+nocturnal concerts of the forest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The orchestra prompt and the singing begun the female dancers advance by
+twos and threes into the open space confined by palm leaves. Their
+features are incognizable so disfigured are they with stripes and daubs
+in red, white, black and sometimes yellow.
+
+Their ball costume is exceedingly simple. They just lay aside the girdle
+of beauty or chastity which they ordinarily wear and present themselves
+to the public as Eve did to Adam; or like so many brown-skinned Venuses
+with variegated masks.
+
+They are however, profusely adorned with flowers.
+
+The first time I saw a similar sight I was struck with surprise but then
+remembering the cut of some of the evening dresses worn by our Society
+ladies I came to the conclusion that comparing the clothes with which
+the latter and the Sakai women are habitually covered there was nothing
+to be said about the difference made in the toilet on grand and festive
+occasions.
+
+But to return to the dancers. They hold in their right hands a bunch of
+palm leaves and begin their performance with curtsies, skips and the
+contortions I have spoken of; then follows an undulating movement of the
+flanks as they hurry forward, something in the same position as
+"cake-walk" dancers, lightly beating the leaves in their hand against
+others of the same kind they have fastened on their right hip.
+
+The dance is a continual exercise of the joints and muscles, but its
+swaying motion is not without grace and displays all the seductive
+beauty of the girls whose freshness has not been destroyed by love and
+maternity.
+
+A little innocent vanity may be found in this Terpichorean competition
+because every movement, every jump and contortion receive the greatest
+attention and are followed by admiration and applause, when worthy of
+the demonstration, from those who have danced before or have to do so
+afterwards.
+
+The men sometimes take an active part in the dance but their steps and
+their movements are always the same as the women's.
+
+The strange thing is that they take the serpent as their model of
+gracefulness and elegance and seek to copy as closely as possible the
+flexibility of its body and the gliding motion peculiar to that reptile.
+
+A malignant person would perhaps find here the subject of a witty
+sarcasm thinking that in the forest serpents in the guise of women dance
+alone but with us, if we wish to dance at all, we are obliged to embrace
+them!
+
+These dances will often last until dawn, just as it is at our own
+evening parties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Neither song, nor dance, nor the sound of those primitive instruments
+ever take the character of a religious demonstration.
+
+Only on the nights enlivened by bright moonlight, whilst dancing in the
+open air, their impromptu songs contain a greeting to the shining orb
+that presides over their festivity and with its silvery rays enhances
+its enjoyment. But in this there is nothing to suggest a special cult.
+
+[Illustration: A trio for Sakai instruments.
+
+_p._ 178.]
+
+Over yonder they do not dance with any intention of intrigue in their
+minds, or with the pretext and hope of meeting young persons of
+opposite sexes in order to kindle the fatal spark that will lead them to
+matrimony; there they dance for the pure pleasure of dancing, for
+sincere, hearty enjoyment without any other scope or desire, because, as
+I mention in another place, the young men and maidens of the same
+village being all relations, marriage is not permitted between them; the
+wives must be chosen from a different tribe. This wise custom was
+evidently established to exclude consanguineous unions (with their
+degenerating consequences) and perhaps also to consolidate the brotherly
+ties between people of the same race.
+
+I think if Mantegazza had ever been present at one of these dances of
+the Sakai girls, he would have added another beautiful page to his
+_estasi umane_ ("Human Ecstasies") because at these little festivals,
+whether they are held in the hut or outside, one never sees pouting
+faces, frowning brows or any other indication of preoccupation or
+passion. Everybody is merry and their delight can be read upon their
+countenances (notwithstanding the frightful way they are besmeared with
+paint), and shines in their eyes; happy are the women who blow into the
+flute or grate the _krob_ or beat the bamboo sticks; happy are the girls
+that dance; happy are the youths who join in the chorus. It is an
+innocent amusement for innocent souls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To finish off this chapter I here give a very free translation of a
+song, whose words I was able to catch and remember, which came from the
+lips of my dear friends upon my returning among them after a long
+absence:
+
+"O'er mountains and rivers you have passed to come amongst us as a
+friend, as a friend who will not hurt us, and behold we are here to
+meet you bearing with us all that the forest has yielded us to-day.
+
+"The clear and beautiful mountain announced the good news and now you
+have returned to us who rejoice at seeing you again".
+
+The form was not so but I have given the thought exactly, a thought, as
+you see, full of affection and with a very faint perfume of poetry about
+it. You will not accuse me, therefore, of being too optimistic when I
+affirm that the Sakai, in spite of his semblance to a wild man of the
+bush, savage, suspicious and superstitious as he is, is susceptible of
+rapid intellectual progress whenever the right means are used in his
+favour, and towards that end.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 15: Pronounced _chinneloy_--_Translator's Note._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  The beliefs and superstitions of the Sakais--Metempsychosis--The
+  Evil Spirit--Superstition among savages and ignorance among
+  civilized people--The two sources of life--The wind --The AL�
+  priest and physician--The scientific vigil--Venerable imposture!--
+  TENAC and CINTOK[16]--Therapeutic torture--Contagion--A Sakai's
+  death--The deserted village--Mourning--Births--Fire--Intellectual
+  darkness--The Sakais and Islamism.
+
+
+The good notary Chirichillo, born in the fervid fancy of Ippolito Nievo
+firmly believed that the many tribulations of his modest life would be
+compensated one day by God, and that this recompense would be a second
+birth, when he would relive in another person, under another name and
+under a luckier star.
+
+Although less learned and although they have but a vague intuition of
+the idea relating to the soul immortality, the Sakais do not refuse the
+theory of reward or punishment hereafter. According to them the spirit
+freed from the body wanders about in the air and often, in a transitory
+way, retakes a corporal form in the shape of certain animals (more
+especially the tiger, for which reason the terrible beast is respected
+as almost sacred by them) or it takes refuge in certain herbs which thus
+acquist healing properties.
+
+In no case will a Sakai willingly kill, wound or lay a trap for the
+animals he thinks consecrated by the indwelling of a spirit, this is so
+true that even whilst preparing one of the usual traps for catching big
+game he will turn himself towards the thickest part of the forest and
+murmur, �this is not for thee� to warn the tiger to be on his guard. And
+should one happen to be caught it causes real grief to the Sakai who you
+may be sure would give it back its liberty at once if he had not found
+it dead or did not fear to be killed himself as soon as it was free. The
+Sakai does not believe in the natural death of a person but attributes
+the decease to the spell of the Evil Spirit who is continually on the
+watch to play his wicked tricks. So ready is he to do harm that he even
+slips into the little holes made in their darts thus carrying death
+where they strike, otherwise the poison would not have the force to
+kill.
+
+This is the superstition that inspires every sort of terror in the
+inhabitants of the jungle and which renders it so difficult to approach
+them and so dangerous to disturb the serenity of their simple minds. The
+wind, the thunder-storms, the violent hurricanes that frequently invade
+the forest, bringing destruction and fear in their course are the
+vehicles used by this Evil Spirit to declare open warfare against the
+frightened savages.
+
+When the clouds begin to gather thick and ominously, and first with a
+distant roar and then with the fury and the voice of a hurricane, the
+wind sweeps fiercely on, howling and whistling over the great green sea
+that is quickly strewn with wreckage; when the colossal champions of the
+forest are struck by lightning and the fall of their huge branches and
+gigantic trunks increase the general uproar, whilst the boom of Heaven's
+artillery thunders around their huts, then the trembling Sakais throng
+together. They paint themselves in a manner to scare the devil himself
+(which is however their intention) and shoot out from their blow-pipes a
+volley of poisoned arrows, directed against the tumultuous messengers of
+the awful Being they fear; the women, keeping their children close at
+their side as if to defend them, throw pieces of burning wood into the
+air, and beat their big bamboo sticks till the noise is insupportable,
+at the same time screaming to the wind:
+
+�Go away and leave us alone! We have not harmed thee, so do not harm
+us!�.
+
+So they implore and imprecate, turning themselves into the ugliest and
+fiercest creatures they can, to frighten the evil spirits that they
+believe have come against them on the outspread wings of the storm.
+
+To the wild cries, arrow shots and loud noise of the bamboos, the
+mothers add an exorcism. They burn locks of their little ones' hair and
+disperse the ashes to the wind whilst the _Al�_ energetically spits.
+
+And in civilized Italy is there not a superstition very like this of the
+poor savages? I refer to the odd custom still observed in the country,
+or at least in some of the villages (and which not so very long ago was
+put into practice also in towns) of trying to arrest a heavy thunder
+storm, by the tocsin, the deep noted ringing increasing the general
+alarm amongst the timid of the place. The women too, will go to the door
+and rattle together the shovel and tongs just as their Sakai sisters
+beat their bamboos, and olive branches (that previously have received
+the priest's benediction) are burnt with incense that the smoke may
+rise up to appease the fury of the elements just as over there locks of
+the children's hair are burnt for the same purpose.
+
+These are superstitions that vary a little in form but are exactly
+equivalent in the substance and show how much remains in us of primitive
+ignorance and how our boasted civilization is still bound to the antique
+customs and childish beliefs of the uncivilized, over whom we sing the
+glory of our own triumph.
+
+The Sakais also admit the existence of a Good Spirit but precisely
+because he is good, so much so as never to reveal himself, they do not
+deem it necessary to bother him. To the Good Spirit the Sakais oppose in
+their mind, the Evil Spirit exercising his empire upon the souls of
+their ancestors. To him they make many and different exorcisms and
+supplications, with the hope not to be molested by him after death if
+they keep good. Such a belief may be considered as a kind of
+demonclatry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To learn thoroughly the beliefs of a people still in a savage state, and
+who are totally without any written guide to their faith, would be
+indeed a difficult undertaking. First of all they always fear that a
+stranger, particularly if white, brings with him a whole legion of bad
+spirits, and secondly because they are extremely jealous of their
+superstitions and are afraid of incurring evil by revealing them to
+others.
+
+It must also be considered that the Sakais (like all the other peoples
+to be found on the same level of intellectual development) have ideas so
+fragmentary and undetermined about religious matters that they are quite
+incapable of giving an explicit description of their spiritual feelings
+and convictions. It is only by living amongst them for a long time in
+confidence and familiarity that one can obtain any correct knowledge,
+and even then only by intent observation of facts which pass under one's
+eyes, as it is useless to attempt to get an explanation or ask
+questions, for the Sakais, truthful as they are by nature, would most
+certainly tell you a falsehood for the reasons alluded to in another
+chapter. Superstition always prevails over veracity when treating with
+persons not belonging to their race.
+
+Wilken so writes in his book _Animism_: "With all the peoples in a
+primitive natural state nearly every daily event, every illness, every
+misfortune, every phenomenon, when not attributed to the souls of their
+dead, has a special spirit as the author. Lakes, seas, rivers, springs,
+mountains, caverns, trees, bushes, villages, towns, houses, roads, air,
+sky, the ground in under, in short all nature and the principal things
+they see, are, in their opinion, populated by supernatural beings. I
+need hardly say that not all the innumerable spirits in whom they
+believe have the same importance in their minds and therefore are not
+all venerated to the same extent. In the animist's cult fear reigns over
+every other sentiment, such as gratitude, trust, devotion, etc., and the
+spirits that inspire the most fear are those invocated with the most
+fervour; in this way the bad spirits are installed in the place of the
+good ones".
+
+We see then that the Sakais form no exception to this summary
+description of Mr. Wilken's.
+
+They believe that only their sorcerers have the faculty of beholding
+spirits which satisfactorily explains to them the strange fact that they
+are always invisible to other eyes. For the rest, though, the Sakais,
+like all those on the same par in intellectual capacity, do not trouble
+their heads at all over whatever natural phenomena.
+
+He feels deep veneration for the sun and water as being the two great
+sources of Life; he venerates also the moon and the stars without
+however applying any sacred rites to this sentiment but they do not care
+in the least to know of what these luminaries are composed, where they
+come from or where they go when they are not in sight. When the day
+arrives for the Sakai to put such questions to his brain he too will
+enter triumphantly into the vortex of civilization, impatient to find
+out the reason of everything he sees around and above him.
+
+From force of habit he does not wonder at the change of day into night
+and the different phases of the moon but he is seized with great terror
+when an eclipse of the sun or moon takes place. He weeps and despairs,
+making horrible noises to put to flight the accursed spirit that is
+devouring one or other of the heavenly bodies, and as soon as the
+eclipse in over, he seems mad with joy that the _mahgis_ (sun) and
+getcheck (moon) have got the better of their enemy.
+
+He is equally overcome with fright at the appearance of a rainbow, or at
+a shock of earthquake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais have no idols of any kind, but they have great faith in the
+amulets which they make themselves by incising upon their combs and
+hair-pins (as before written) the form of certain plants, fruits, leaves
+and roots that they are fully persuaded are possessed of prodigious
+virtue.
+
+In fact when a storm is approaching and the wind begins to agitate the
+forest, before commencing their usual invocations, both men and women
+hasten to stick in their hair all their combs and hairpins with the firm
+conviction that the wind, blowing upon these miraculous carvings will
+lose its power to do them harm.
+
+[Illustration: Trap for big game.
+
+_p._ 184.]
+
+Here it must be observed that, apart from the superstitious character of
+the fear the Sakais (especially those of the hills) have of the wind,
+this terror may be said to be almost justified.
+
+The impetuous currents of air coming from below often bring amongst them
+the germs of various infections and in particular malarial fevers.
+
+The poor natives in their ignorance of this, when they see their dear
+ones fall ill and often die after the wind's raging believe that it has
+brought into their village and left there, an invisible enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Al�_, sorcerer, physician, and magician of the local superstitions
+does all he can to keep unshaken the belief in spirits and exorcism. He
+fulfils the functions of his two-fold office with all the ignorance and
+the deception which is possible to him; ignorance, because he shares
+with the others a sincere terror of the Evil Spirit, and deception
+because he makes the others think that he can see the dreaded Being and
+has a certain power over him by means of words and gestures.
+
+He is, upon a close and vigorous analysis, nothing but a vulgar swindler
+who obtains some sort of advantage by his artefices and succeeds in
+over-ruling his own people by giving advice which is often sought and
+always followed.
+
+The _Al�_ is generally the son of an _Al�_, a circumstance that might
+lead someone, who is fond of similar studies, to make accurate
+researches in order to ascertain if imposture should be considered as a
+hereditary disease.
+
+When the Evil Spirit, notwithstanding the cabalistic signs and
+mysterious words that proclaim the _Al�'s_ prerogative in resisting and
+defeating him, has overcome and killed him, the corpse is not buried but
+is placed in an upright position between the roots of a tree not very
+far from his late residence. For seven days continual watch is kept over
+it and it is provided with food, tobacco and betel.
+
+An old tradition, which I have managed with difficulty to piece together
+from fragments unconsciously dropped now and then, pretends that _ab
+antiquo_ a covenant was made between the tigers and sorcerers that after
+one of the latter had been dead a week his soul should enter a feline
+body.
+
+If a son of the deceased _Al�_ wishes to succeed to his father's
+dignity, he must, at the end of the seven days established, go alone to
+keep watch over the corpse, taking with him a sort of incense-pan in
+which he burns a great quantity of perfumed resin in honour of the dead
+(an honour that is most opportune for his own nostrils!). He passes the
+night in this way, or it is believed that he does, for nobody sets
+himself the task of spying his actions or of learning something about
+the night's proceedings fearing that evil would overtake him in
+consequence.
+
+Whilst still engaged in this sanitary act, the tiger, animated by the
+soul of the defunct sorcerer, presents itself to the man who is
+engrossed in his scientific vigil and feigns to spring upon him to tear
+him to pieces. But he continues to keep alight the sweet-smelling resin
+and does not betray his inward perturbation or give the slightest
+movement of fear, which would, without emission, cost him his life. Then
+the terrible scene changes; the wild beast suddenly disappears and
+encircled by a soft light two beautiful fairies come forward to teach
+the new _Al�_ the occult science of his chosen ministry including
+cabalistic words and medical art. The two elves then become the familiar
+spirits of the sorcerer who is in this manner consecrated.
+
+No witness is allowed to be present. No profane eye may see those two
+good spirits.
+
+If it happens that the aspirant never makes his return it is immediately
+decided that he showed he was afraid and had been eaten up by the not
+too fatherly tiger. It would be, at least, a sure proof that he had
+watched that night in the forest!
+
+The succession of a son to his father in the office of _Al�_ is not
+obligatory but all the Sakais wish it to be so as otherwise the soul of
+the dead man would always remain in the body of a tiger and treasures of
+wisdom and power would be lost to the tribe he had belonged to.
+
+Not all the villages have the fortune to possess an _Al�_ of their own
+who--by the way--does not differ in his domestic life from any of the
+poor mortals around him. He has a wife, and children, makes poisons,
+chews tobacco and _sirih_, sleeps and goes out shooting. Those
+settlements that have no _Al�_ in their midst go in search of one in the
+nearest encampment and the physician-priest responds quickly to the
+invitation by hastening to the spot indicated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There being no ritual in the Sakai ceremonies, the simple functions of
+the _Al�_ are very limited.
+
+He has to mumble in an unintelligible manner mysterious words (the
+meaning of which he does not know himself) when a poisonous mixture is
+being boiled in order to render its venomous virtue more efficacious. He
+makes exorcisms against the evil spirits when the wind arises or a heavy
+storm breaks or he is called to visit a sick person.
+
+In the latter case duties are merged in those of the physician's for
+whilst preparing some remedies with herbs possessing medicinal
+properties (of which he knows very few out of the multitude that grows
+in the Malai forests) he proceeds to exercise the authority reposed in
+him, according to the Sakai beliefs by attempting to cast out the evil
+spirit from his patient.
+
+This act is called the _tay nak_. He first asks the sufferer where the
+pain is, then making a sort of brush with some palm leaves he holds it
+in left hand. The right he closes loosely and lays it on the place that
+aches, puts his mouth to the opening left through the lightly closed
+fingers and begins to pull in his breath as hard as he can. Sometimes he
+is able in this way to draw out the demon which has caused the illness,
+from the patient's body into his hand and drives it away by
+energetically beating it with the brush.
+
+The sorcerer is aware if the spirit has come out by a very pale light,
+which only he can see, though!
+
+But if the malady is a serious one this cure fails, a sure proof that
+the spirit is one of the most dreaded class and must therefore be
+heroically fought by means of the _chintok_, as follows.
+
+The village in which the afflicted person lives is closed in by numerous
+traps, and planted all round with poisoned arrows so that nobody can
+come near, even if someone were to succeed in crossing that original
+_cordon sanitaire_ without any fatal consequence he would most certainly
+be killed inside it as it is feared that another evil spirit may be
+imported by an outsider, in aid of the one they are trying to get rid
+of.
+
+Over the body of the infirm they form a canopy of medicinal herbs; the
+_Al�_ and the company present paint themselves in the most horrible
+manner possible and as soon as it is quite dark (any sort of light is
+absolutely forbidden) they dispose themselves around the invalid and
+begin to madly beat their big bamboo canes. Their frenzy and the noise
+they make cannot be described; it makes one shudder, and the sound can
+be heard several miles off.
+
+[Illustration: Abandoned because of contagious disease.
+
+_p._ 193.]
+
+But it is intended to heal the poor wretch in the middle who, if he does
+not succumb to the violence of his disease, has a good chance of dying
+from the torture endured.
+
+The diabolical concert lasts until the garrulous harbingers of the sun
+announce the dawn but is repeated after sunset for seven days during
+which period only the men are permitted to go into the forest in search
+of food.
+
+If on the seventh day the patient is still alive he is left in peace
+unless a relapse should render another night of music necessary, and if
+he dies it is believed that the malignant spirit would not depart
+without taking the soul of his victim with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most frequent illnesses to which the Sakais are subject are
+rheumatic complaints and very heavy colds which not rarely turn into
+severe bronchial and pulmonary ailments. Both are due to the cold at
+night against which they take no pains at all to protect themselves.
+Their huts shelter them from the rain but not from the air.
+
+Some contagious skin diseases are also prevalent amongst them.
+
+Directly somebody is seized with this malady a tree is selected at some
+distance from the settlement up which a little bower is hurriedly made
+and the person attacked is placed there and left with a little food at
+hand. Next day the relatives go to see if he or she is living and call
+out their demands, in a loud voice, a long way off. If there is a
+movement or an answer they go nearer and throw up some food but if there
+is no sign of life they hasten back and leave the corpse to decompose in
+the bower that now serves as a sepulchre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No rites whatever are performed at the death and burial of an
+individual.
+
+When the sufferer has breathed its last all the people in the village
+unite in making grand lamentations. They cry, moan and howl worse than
+at the proverbial Irish funeral, they blacken their faces with charcoal
+and daub it with other colours to frighten away the bad spirit whilst
+the family crowd round the dead body and let their tears flow freely,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Alas! Look at us, don't leave us! Who will take care of us now! Who
+will defend us? Thou has departed before us and we shall follow thee".
+
+The first moments of grief over they quickly destroy the hut visited by
+Death, then taking up the corpse they carry it into a thick part of the
+forest.
+
+Here a grave is dug, from five to six feet deep and the body is placed
+in it, sometimes lying on its back, and sometimes in a sitting posture
+but always with its face turned towards the west. Some tobacco, betel
+and personal objects of the deceased are put near and then it is covered
+up with the ground. Sometimes these articles are strewn on the top of
+the grave and sometimes too instead of interring the corpse it is laid
+upon pieces of wood placed horizontally across the branches of a large
+tree, close to the trunk.
+
+But whether buried or not, for seven days the dead person's relatives
+carry water, fruit, tobacco and sirih to the spot, over or under the
+last resting-place of their lost one, taking care to always keep a
+bright fire burning within the vicinity.
+
+It is however with fear and trembling that this duty is performed and
+they regularly implore:
+
+"Here is thy portion, but don't hurt us!"
+
+[Illustration: Tomb of a woman.
+
+_p._ 194.]
+
+Finished the seven days mourning the memory of the dead fades, only
+awakening afresh when somebody passes by the burial place when they
+deposit there a part of whatever they have with them, game or fruit.
+
+For the sake of truth, though, I must say that the grief of parents for
+a child is not so soon cancelled, for I have seen some moved to tears at
+the remembrance of one who had been dead perhaps for many seasons.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The immediate consequence of a Sakai's death is the forsaking of the
+village by all the survivors for fear that the evil spirit which has
+bereaved them of a kinsman may do the same with another.
+
+Then follows the march in search of a desirable spot, as I have already
+described. Taking the children and the little domestic goods they
+possess upon their shoulders they troop away seeking suitable ground for
+the erection of their new huts. The Elder, as head of the immense
+family, gives the signal for stopping where he thinks best and if there
+is an _Al�_ in their midst he consults with him about the choice of
+position.
+
+When the site seems favourable a fire is quickly lighted and if the
+smoke goes up straight they settle there otherwise they continue their
+wanderings for the Sakai thinks that his whereabouts will be betrayed if
+the smoke is dispersed in the forest and that it will serve as a guide
+to some bad spirit--eager to do harm--that will cast its fatal influence
+over the company fleeing from the cruel spell of another.
+
+Once the decision is made, with wonderful rapidity trees, and bushes are
+cut down and the huts are raised.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As in civilized countries. Death amongst the Sakais exacts an exterior
+manifestation of mourning, with this difference perhaps that with them
+it is much more sincere because they have not the comfort of a long
+expected and coveted legacy to make it a farce.
+
+All ornaments have to be put aside; ear-rings, bracelets, necklaces,
+nasal sticks, flowers, tattooing etc, for a period of time determined by
+the Elder but generally for not less than six months.
+
+Those in mourning are rigorously prohibited to sing, play, dance, marry
+and even (quite a Lenten sin) to eat fish and meat on the some day.
+
+The Sakais observe all these prescriptions with the greatest strictness
+and are scandalized should any of them be infringed before the appointed
+time. Whoever violates them is judged a heartless being and if a woman
+loses all the consideration that was hers before.
+
+The duration of mourning varies according to relationship. That for a
+father or a mother is the same, but it is shorter for brothers and
+sisters and for little children there is none at all.
+
+In this respect the Sakais are not dissimilar to their civilized
+fellow-beings who measure their grief by the black clothes they wear and
+at the demise of a baby, notwithstanding its parents' desolation, make
+the church-bells ring out the liveliest tunes.[17]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a little Sakai opens its eyes to the light of this world no
+religious ceremony greets its arrival.
+
+The woman who is about to become a mother separates herself from the
+rest of the family and retires by herself to a hut apart, where the
+floor is very high. Nobody assists her at her confinement because there
+is perhaps no other event in the existence of a Sakai so involved in
+tenacious and perilous superstition as is that of birth. Her own husband
+and the father of the new-born babe dare not cross the threshold of the
+hut or make the acquaintance of his child until a long time after, that
+is, until it has got some strength.
+
+[Illustration: Grave of a Sakai man.
+
+_p._ 194.]
+
+It is always feared that by entering the cabin the smell of the child
+may be carried into the forest by means of which the Evil Spirit would
+be able to trace it out and do it some mischief. And for the same reason
+the newly-made mother dare not have contact with any of the adults who
+go into the jungle to hunt or for other purposes, but has food and water
+taken her by the children.
+
+It is superfluous to add that for a given time before and after a
+confinement the presence of a stranger in the village is not tolerated,
+worse still if he is a white man.
+
+The _Al�_, seconded by all, both males and females, is inflexible about
+this, asserting that it would be the death of the babe, and it is a
+prudent thing to accept the veto with a good grace and to obey the
+sorcerer's orders without hesitation. Sometimes a stranger is not even
+allowed to look upon a woman who is in an interesting state, as it once
+happened to me.
+
+Another time upon arriving at a village where a child had been born a
+few hours before, I was flatly refused hospitality, some Sakais
+preferring to accompany me a long way off and there erect a hut for my
+use on the formal understanding that I should not for any motive
+whatever attempt to approach the settlement. Had I not kept to this
+condition I should probably have been killed.
+
+One cannot reason with terror.
+
+The hut in which the poor woman is fulfilling the noblest of Nature's
+missions is jealously guarded by day and by night.
+
+Woe to the unfortunate individual who is found loitering around it if he
+is not one of the village!
+
+The floor of the hut does not touch the ground that the odour of
+excrements may not penetrate into the earth and proclaim to the Evil
+Spirit: Here a babe is born!
+
+The mother herself, with extreme caution places everything of this sort
+in vessels of bamboo which she hangs high up on the bough of a tree.
+
+There the torrid sun quickly dries it all up and the smell emanating
+from it being diffused in the upper air the spirit cannot find out the
+sick woman or her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as the period of gestation commences neither the woman nor her
+husband must eat the flesh of monkey or serpent in order not to transfer
+to the unborn child the tendencies of a quadruped or reptile.
+
+They must also abstain from eating fish and meat on the same day and are
+obliged to be very careful not to enter a hut whilst it rains, this
+being always a very bad omen but especially so when an increase is
+expected in the family.
+
+Another very bad sign is when the _cep plu�_ sings near the encampment.
+The Sakais consider it quite as unlucky as the grating screech of the
+night owl (birds kept in awe by the Sakais as being in familiarity with
+the Evil Spirit) on the roof of a house, or the spilling of salt is
+believed to be in many countries we know.
+
+A few days before her confinement the woman picks up some leaves of the
+_baka�_ which have fallen to the ground and makes a decoction with them.
+She drinks a little every day, continuing the cure even after
+child-birth. I do not know the wherefore of this but the women seem to
+think it exercises a particular effect upon them at this period.
+
+Immediately the child is born its mother takes the fruit of the _bu�
+kaluna_ and squeezes out a few drops into the little thing's mouth.
+
+I have never been able to understand the reason of such a practice but
+believe that it is inspired by some superstition or hygienic rule of the
+natives.
+
+The fruit of the _bu� kaluna_ is sweet but has also a rather tart
+flavour.
+
+After seven days have passed the newly made mother leaves the hut and
+makes abundant ablutions that have the same character and scope as the
+religious duty imposed upon the Israelite women; that of respect for
+elementary hygiene.
+
+From this moment the wife may return to her husband but she is not
+allowed to go into the forest and is obliged to wear upon her stomach a
+hot stone, which serves her as a cure and exorcism.
+
+She returns to her faithful mate but she does not abandon her child
+whose separation from all other human beings, including its own father,
+cannot last for less than six months.
+
+The birth and death of a Sakai, as here seen, is devoid of every rite or
+ceremony, as in the case of matrimony or divorce and do not require even
+the intervention of the _Al�_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fact of their being strictly forbidden, when kindling a fire, to
+lift their eyes from it until the wood has been well ignited and smoke
+proceeds from it would suggest the idea that there is either a
+superstition attached to this operation or that fire is also an object
+of veneration with them. But this concentration of the gaze may be
+simply a precaution (become a habit) not to retard the act of combustion
+by distraction of thought.
+
+The only thing in connection with this custom I have succeeded in
+ascertaining is that the Sakais have no particular cult for the Sacred
+Fire like the priests of Baal the Brahmins in India and the Vestals of
+Rome but appreciate it as a means of cooking their food, preparing their
+poisons, of warming them during the night and of keeping wild beasts far
+from their huts. And I was convinced of this the first time I gave them
+matches and taught them their use.
+
+Their wonder was mixed with satisfaction but had there been any
+pronounced religious sentiment they would have rejected the modern
+innovation and continued the old method of making fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have here given a rough idea of the superstitions and beliefs of the
+Sakais as best I have been able to understand them from close
+observation and words inadvertently let fall now and then. They may be
+briefly summed up thus: a supreme terror of Evil spirits; a vague
+principle of the soul's transmigration (a strange degeneration from the
+primitive conception of the Pythagorean theory).
+
+The people of the jungle are still under the thick shade of cerebral
+inertia. They have not yet seen the swift, bright light of a first doubt
+flash across the darkness of their brain giving to it a shock of
+unsuspected vibrations. As yet no glorious Prometheus has arisen amongst
+those primitive creatures far whom the discouraging counsel of the
+Italian poet might seem to have been in part written:
+
+    Meglio oprando obliar, senza indagarlo,
+    Quest'enorme mister dell' universo![18]
+
+The Sakais have no real religion; they only have fear for everything
+they do not understand or cannot. And yet in the practice of morality
+they are much more forward than other uncivilized and even civilized
+peoples.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 16: Pronounced _tay nak_ and _chintok_.--_Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 17: A custom in Italy when a little child is buried.
+_Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 18: Better by work to forget, without studying it,
+              This tremendous mystery of the Universe.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+  Sakai arms--Shooting--Serpent catchers--The Sakai and his
+  poisons--TOALANG, RENGAS AND SAGOL--SL� DOL, SL� PLEK and SL�
+  CLOB--AKAR TOKA--Ipok[19]--An antidote--The LEGOP--The Nai
+  Bretaks--The preparation of LEGOP--Curious and superfluous
+  ingredients--The effects of LEGOP--Strange contradictions--
+  Experiments--Poisons and antidotes--The settler and science.
+
+
+The Sakai possesses only one weapon: the �_bla�_� (pr. blahoo) called
+�_sumpitam_� by the Malays.
+
+This reveals the peaceful character of these forest inhabitants who
+never seek adventures or commit aggressions.
+
+[Illustration: Quivers and poisoned arrows.
+
+_p._ 203.]
+
+The strong ugly knives which he procures from his brethren of the plain
+or manufactures for himself, and the little hatchets I have already
+described, are not for him arms in the exact meaning of the word but
+are simply instruments necessary for those living in the jungle. He
+employs them for cutting down bamboos, creepers and trees and for
+preparing food, but very likely he would not know how to use them for an
+assault or in defence.
+
+His weapon in this case is always the _bla�_ (blow-pipe) which he
+carries about with him constantly even if he only goes just outside his
+hut.
+
+It is a cane of bamboo from two metres and a half to three in length not
+very large in diameter but perfectly round, especially inside. At one
+end there is applied a mouth-piece similar to that of a trumpet.
+
+Having introduced a dart the Sakai puts the cane to his lips and first
+drawing a very long breath he then blows into it with all his might. The
+little arrow flies out with the greatest velocity reaching to the
+distance of 40, 50, or 60 metres.
+
+It is a pea-shooter but with the difference that the projectiles shot
+out are deadly in their effect, particularly so when in the hands of
+persons who, like the Sakais, seldom or never fail to hit the mark.
+
+This dangerous weapon, which at first might be mistaken for a toy, is
+ornamented with designs lightly incised in the cane. It is kept with
+great care and when not in immediate use it is slipped into a bamboo of
+a larger size (this too decorated with incisions) which serves it as
+sheath.
+
+The arrow is a little stick made of very hard wood of about 12 or 14
+inches long and not much bigger than a big knitting needle. At one
+extremity is fixed a tiny cone made of palm-pith that stopping up the
+tube, receives the impulsion of the air blown into it so violently.
+
+The other extremity finishes in an exceedingly sharp point (sometimes of
+bone or metal well inserted into the wood) contrived in such a mode
+that when the dart strikes an object the point breaks off and remains
+there. The force of penetration is however so great that the body of a
+man standing 30 metres off may be pierced through without its being
+broken.
+
+No animal, except pachyderms, can challenge with impunity the Sakai's
+arrow. It is always, and for all, a terrible messenger of Death, either
+in the precision of aim, the violence with which it hits, or the poison
+it inoculates.
+
+In the same way as the aborigenes of Australia throw their boomerang
+with inimitable dexterity and security, the Sakai manages his blowpipe
+with a cleverness it is impossible to imitate or learn. The Malays, who
+have studied to make themselves masters of this weapon, are but poor
+shooters compared to their forest neighbours.
+
+Together with the _bla�_ the Sakai always carries with him his _lok_
+(quiver) suspended from a girdle of bark, called _b� gnan_ (pr. bo
+nean).
+
+This quiver is also composed of bamboo measuring from 3 to 7 inches
+round and 13 or 14 long. It is very rare that the darts are placed in it
+without being first enclosed in thin reeds, known by the name of _dam�_
+which preserve the points and prevent the poison from being rubbed off
+as well as saving it from getting damp, when it would lose its force. In
+its turn the quiver is enclosed in the _tchenkop_, a covering of ratan
+or palm-fibres woven so intricately as to render it water-tight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With his blowpipe ready the Sakai penetrates into the forest, creeping
+softly among the tall grasses and bushes. No rustling, no crackling of
+dry leaves denounces the presence of the man who advances cautiously
+under the broad green roof, casting keen and restless glances towards
+the branches of the trees. His ear catches the faintest flapping of
+wings. From time to time he utters a cry like that of a bird or a
+monkey, and quickly a feathered biped, moved by curiosity descends from
+a higher to a lower bough; a monkey swings itself down in answer to the
+call, or a pretty little head with a sharp nose and bright eyes peeps
+out of a hollow in the tree.
+
+[Illustration: Blowpipes, quivers and poisoned arrows.
+
+_p._ 203.]
+
+Very slowly and quietly the Sakai crouches down, lifts his blowpipe and
+fixing his eyes upon the black mark he has made at the end of the cane,
+he takes a long and steady aim.
+
+The bird and the monkey 30 metres above him are trying to provocate
+another cry from the voice they heard before; the squirrel looks puzzled
+and uncertain but neither of the three suspects the mortal danger that
+awaits them from below.
+
+The Sakai blows into his _bla�_, the dart flies out with a slight whiz
+and perforates the victim's flesh. There is a cry and a fall, then the
+sportsman runs to pick up his prey.
+
+Sometimes a wounded bird will fly away from the spot where it has been
+hit, but the savage knows perfectly well the infallibility of his
+poisons which will bring it to the ground in a few minutes, so he
+follows the way it has taken.
+
+Something of the same sort may also happen with a monkey. Although it is
+usually cowardly enough to let itself fall a dead weight as soon as it
+is touched (so breaking all its bones) it may by chance cling to the
+bough upon which the Sakai shot it, but if the arrow itself does not
+succeed in killing it, the poison never fails to do so and nothing can
+save it from the fatal effect. The monkey holds on convulsively but the
+_legop's_ influence cannot be resisted, there is a brief struggle
+against death and then the animal is precipitated heavily to the ground.
+
+The Sakai runs to pick it up but perhaps is arrested by seeing an
+enormous boa constrictor twisting itself round the crushed body of the
+little beast.
+
+But at this sight the hunter does not despair. He observes the
+surrounding trees with great attention and discovers that the one upon
+which he had found the monkey has a large hole beneath, where the huge
+reptile has taken up its abode.
+
+He hurries away to let his comrades know, for a boa constrictor excites
+the spirit of gluttony amongst the Sakais.
+
+They instantly and unanimously resolve upon its capture and accompany
+him to the scene.
+
+Guessing nearabouts the length of the serpent they cut down a very
+strong bamboo cane that if not longer is not shorter than the reptile
+and at the end they fasten a stout piece of rattan ably folded into a
+noose.
+
+Terminated his repast the boa retires to his den and settles down for a
+little nap that will help his digestion.
+
+This is the right moment: two men, with great caution approach the
+hollow, keeping in their hands the knot made of the Indian cane. Very
+gently but with a rapid movement they lift up the snake's head and slip
+it through the noose. The snake gives a shake but it is too late. At a
+sign from the two who have disturbed its slumber, the others pull hard
+the bamboos that they are holding in their hands. The noose is pulled
+tighter and the boa constrictor fights furiously to get free. But the
+more it resists the closer the knot becomes. The struggle between captor
+and captured is not soon finished. The monster pulls, jumps, writhes,
+sometimes giving such sudden springs as to make the tenacious Sakais run
+here and there to keep their equilibrium and to stay out of its reach.
+
+[Illustration: Shooting poisoned arrows through the blowpipe.
+
+_p._ 205.]
+
+Often they strive so for more than an hour but at last the serpent is
+suffocated and is reduced to a lifeless mass. Then its victors carry it
+triumphantly to their village where it makes a banquet for almost all
+the inhabitants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais would find but a scanty result from their hunting and
+shooting-, and their own lives would not be sufficiently protected if
+the forest did not provide them with an inexhaustible and infallible
+means of dealing death with their blowpipes and darts.
+
+There is such a rich and varied quantity of plants growing in the jungle
+which produce poison, that Man has the choice of using the one he deems
+more adapted for this or that particular need.
+
+The Sakai is enthusiastic over his poisons, so much is he engrossed in
+the science that it takes with him the post of a besetting. Like a
+maniac which always speaks of his strange fancies, so this poor savage
+speaks all day long of his poisons, and studies their qualities.
+
+And they provide him with all the necessaries for his primitive
+existence for he utilizes them in shooting, fishing, and in setting
+traps for big and small animals, they are a defence for himself and the
+whole village where he lives, besides furnishing him with the means (by
+barter) of obtaining tobacco, rice or any other article that cannot be
+found in the forest.
+
+All his best intellectual faculty is consecrated to the research and
+preparation of poisons because it must not be thought that he uses one
+instead of the other indifferently. Those with which he is most familiar
+are each used as the occasion may require.
+
+Just as a gun is not loaded with the same sized shot when shooting small
+birds and partridges, the Sakai does not waste his strong poisons when a
+weaker one would be equally effectual.
+
+His selection of one rather than the other is frequently regulated by
+the state of the atmosphere (damp being pernicious to venomous
+productions) and sometimes by the phases of the moon.
+
+These plants are herbaceous, arboreous and often creepers, but not all
+those that grow in the forest, nor even those known to the savage for
+their efficacy, are yet in the knowledge of Science.
+
+This is a very great pity as I fear that these medicinal treasures,
+which may contain miraculous properties, will be inevitably lost if a
+scientific study of this wild jungle produce is not quickly initiated.
+
+The fever of colonization has attacked the forest and here and there it
+rages; for certain it will not be a long time before that vast extension
+of tropical vegetation with the extraordinary fertility of its soil will
+give place to plantations of Parah-rubber, gutta-percha, coffee, sugar,
+rice, tobacco, etc.
+
+For this reason I shall be very pleased to give what aid I can to the
+cause of Science by means of notes, collections and specimens of paints
+and animals not yet thoroughly known or studied, should anyone feel
+inclined to respond to the offer before it is too late. Such help would
+seem to me a sweet chain of thought, linking the mind of the colonist in
+the remote depths of the Malay Forest, to the Mother Country and that
+civilization from which he has withdrawn himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The "_giu u toalang_" is one of the colossal trees of the Jungle for it
+reaches from 40 to 46 yards in height. It may be said that its whole
+organism is poisonous because its deadly properties have the same force
+in the juice under the bark as in the leaves, when they are rubbed or
+broken. If this sap finds its way under the skin, in contact with the
+flesh or blood-vessels it has a quick and mortal effect. It seems to me
+that even the smell might produce fatal consequences but of this I am
+not sure, although it is a certain fact that it makes one feel very ill
+and the indisposition can only be cured by keeping the patient in a high
+temperature.
+
+Almost the same poisonous power has the "_gi� u rangas_", a tree of
+more modest dimensions, and the "_gi� u sagol_" smaller still. It is
+dangerous to touch the leaves of these two plants because they bring
+about a severe irritation of the skin, covering it with pimples and
+little bladders, that itch intolerably, whilst the body becomes
+swollen. And yet the temptation to scratch must be resisted or
+ulceration follows with the probability of gangrene. When one is able
+to renounce the momentary relief procured by rubbing or scratching the
+inconvenience passes in a couple of days.
+
+The _toalang_, _rengas_, and _sagol_ are to be found scattered profusely
+over the forest but the Sakai does not interest himself in their
+venomous properties because he finds that those of which he already
+knows the secret fully satisfy his wants in promptness and effect. On
+the contrary he wages a continual war against these noxious plants
+beating them down and destroying them wherever he comes across them. He
+is very careful, however not to touch them with his hatchet but chops
+down one of the giants growing near which bears them to the ground in
+its ponderous fall.
+
+As soon as the dangerous trees are down the trunk and branches of their
+involuntary assassin are pulled away and they are left on the spot for
+one or two months to dry, and when completely withered they are burnt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is also a large and varied number of plants in the forest whose
+leaves are very dangerous. I will mention for an example the _sl� dol_,
+_sl� plek_ and the _sl� clob_ the leaves of which, if eaten, may
+engender fatal consequences according to the Sakais.
+
+In some the poisonous qualities are located only in the roots. Of the
+_legop_, which belongs to this class I will speak further on, for now I
+will only name the _akar tob�_.
+
+This root is first well pounded and then left to soak in some water for
+a few days after which the venomous liquid is thrown into a pond and a
+perfect massacre of big and little fish follows, all of which may be
+eaten without doing any harm to the persons.
+
+What sort of poison this is I cannot say for it has never been made the
+object of special study. I have proved its utility in destroying insects
+and particularly the larva of mosquitoes and the little worms that ruin
+fruit and vegetables.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _ipok_ called "_upas_" by the Malays and "_antiaris toxicaria_" by
+botanists is a tree which supplies a poisonous juice to the Sakais of
+the plain. It is a colossus of the forest, and belongs to the nettle
+family.
+
+It has broad, shiny leaves something like those of the magnolia, and
+numerous species are to be found in the Malay Jungle.
+
+When the season is not too damp and there is a full moon the Sakais make
+some deep cuts in the bark of this tree and place some bamboo tubes
+around it in order to catch the sap which flows out abundantly. This
+juice has a gluey, resinous appearance and is white or yellow according
+to whether it is extracted from the trunk or from a young bough.
+
+[Illustration: A branch of the poison-tree "Upas".
+
+_p._ 210.]
+
+Then, whilst still in the thick of the forest, they light up a fire and
+boil the liquid during which process the _Al�_, who presides over the
+work, mutters the magical words without which the poison would not have
+the desired force.
+
+It is not taken from the fire until it presents the aspect of tar, in
+thickness and colour. Finished to boil, some lemons are squeezed over it
+and after throwing in red arsenic and other drugs it is all stirred up
+together and the mixture is ready for use.
+
+The substances added to the _ipok_--with the exception of the
+arsenic--are not toxical but are only the expression of Sakai
+prejudices.
+
+The flesh of animals killed with arrows dipped in _ipok_ are perfectly
+eatable after being cooked a little, but the precaution must be taken of
+cutting away for about an inch round the wound which turns purple
+immediately from the action of the poison.
+
+An antidote against _ipok_ poisoning is found in the juice of a climber
+called _lemmak kapiting_. By energetically rubbing the wound with this
+juice all baneful effects of the _ipok_ are checked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I believe that it is amongst creepers that the most powerful poisons
+must be sought.
+
+The Sakai is on confidential terms with the _gi� u legop_, _gi� u
+labor_, _gi� u lampat_, _gi� u mas�_ and the _gi� u loo_, but the
+_lampon_ and _broial_ are not forgotten either.[20]
+
+The roots of these two plants yield poisons that are amongst the most
+terrible of those which abound in the forest.
+
+It seems to me that the only difference passing between these creepers
+is in the intensity of virulence, but not in the nature of the venomous
+substances, and it is just for this that the Sakais favour the _legop_
+and make it the centre of their primitive chemical studies because it
+furnishes them with the strongest and most fatal of poisons.
+
+This parasite, as soon as it is long enough, clings to one of the superb
+vegetable kings of the forest, twining round it with a tenacious hold.
+
+Its trunk is from 2 to 4 inches in diameter and gives vigorous life to
+about 5000 feet of its offspring.
+
+The _legop_ leaves are green, smooth and glossy, similar in form to
+those of the lemon, but they are larger. They are covered longitudinally
+by prominent nervures.
+
+The fruit borne by this dangerous plant is of the size and form of a
+small orange, slightly depressed at the stalk and the opposite part. It
+is very black and hard to break, a hammer or its substitute being
+necessary to disclose its contents which consist in a great number of
+little seeds embedded in a scanty pulp.
+
+All the Sakais extract and prepare poison from the _legop_ but there is
+a tribe living in the most remote parts of the forest, severed from all
+intercourse with civilized beings, and in consequence pure barbarians,
+who are renowned for their ability in the preparation of the same, and
+whose products are considered much superior in strength.
+
+[Illustration: Extracting poison from the "Upas" tree.
+
+_p._ 210.]
+
+It is the Mai Bretak tribe to whom all the other Sakais have recourse,
+carrying with them a large tribute of the goods usual in exchange. This
+speciality mixed with _ipok_ is the Essence of Death in drops. The
+minutest particle that enters the blood means imminent extinction of
+life. The sentence is irrevocable for no remedy is known with which to
+avert it. The utter impossibility of saving a creature that has fallen a
+victim to this terrible poison has given rise to a superstition among
+the Sakais that an evil spirit hovers over, or goes into the mixture
+when it is being prepared and for this they do not set themselves to the
+work without taking numerous precautions.
+
+_Ipok_ is extracted and condensed (under the exorcism of _Al�_) in the
+presence of, perhaps, all the village but no women or girls may assist
+at the preparation of _legop_ lest the invisible enemy should do them
+some injury. (The spirit is evidently a woman hater!).
+
+The man who prepares it may not eat fish or meat on the day fixed for
+the important operation and once he has begun it he must remain fasting
+until he has finished. He is scrupulously attentive not to expose
+himself to the steam escaping from the bubbling liquid and often (here
+superstition comes to the aid of cleanliness and hygiene) has to wash
+his face and hands. But even all this caution is not sufficient and he
+is considered as a sick person for some days.
+
+The earthenware pot or bamboo used for the purpose must be new, nothing
+must have been cooked in it before, and nothing after. Directly the
+_legop_ has been poured out it is thrown away because contaminated.
+
+The perfect newness of these vessels serves to increase the power of the
+poison.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A couple of days before the Sakai wishes to prepare the deadly mixture
+he goes in search of the creeper, which having found he uncovers its
+roots and to assure himself that he has not made a mistake, he tries if
+it has the bitter taste natural to it. Secure upon this point he digs
+up a nice lot and then fills up his dosser with two sorts of bulbous
+plants which secrete a glutinous substance but whose name and quality I
+have never found out. This done he rambles about the forest until he is
+able to find two kinds of wasps or bees (whichever they are); one is
+very big and black the sting of which causes a high fever, and which
+generally has its nest on the ground; the other is little and red,
+stings like a nettle and has its nest under the leaves of a tree.
+
+If he has in store some teeth of the _sendok_ snake, or of any other
+equally venomous, he now returns to the village, otherwise he looks for
+one, kills it and possesses himself of its fangs.
+
+Having thus all the necessary ingredients, the Sakai begins to pound the
+roots into a paste. This mass he then puts into a tube stopped up by
+leaves which lets pass a liquid but not a substance. Keeping this
+primitive filter suspended over the receptacle to be used for boiling,
+he slowly empties some water into it which soaking through the paste
+becomes of a brown colour before it reaches the vessel beneath.
+
+Terminated the filtering process he takes the two bulbous plants and
+squeezing them in his hand he sprinkles as much of their juice as he
+thinks fit, into the same vessel. The serpent's teeth and the bees are
+then pounded, they too, and cast in with all the rest which is at once
+placed on a slow fire. When the mixture begins to boil the Sakai skims
+off the impurities floating on the surface and adds a little more
+_legop_ if it seems to him necessary, taking great care, meanwhile, not
+to breath or to be enveloped by the fumes rising from the pot.
+
+[Illustration: Root of the poisonous creeper "Legop".
+
+_p._ 212.]
+
+The poison is lifted off the fire as soon as it has got to the
+consistency of a syrup and is of a dark reddish colour, the darts are
+dipped into it and its virulence is put to the test without waste of
+time. If the proof is satisfactory the thick fluid is poured into bamboo
+receptacles, covered with leaves, and a piece of deer-skin fastened over
+them with a band of _scudiscio_ and finally the vases are collocated in
+the driest corner of the hut, from whence from time to time, they are
+carried near the fire to prevent that their contents should lose force
+through humidity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now the question is this: do the ingredients which the Bretak Sakai
+believes indispensable in this concoction augment the virulence of the
+_legop_?
+
+I am inclined to doubt it a great deal as I do not think those two
+plants containing the glutinous juice are poisonous, or at least very
+little so, but that they are added merely to give denseness to the
+mixture or else from a false supposition of the indigenes.
+
+And less still can serpents' teeth or crushed wasps have any influence
+in increasing the power of this poison, which is in itself intense.
+
+Evidently the Sakais, well aware of the lethal effect of a bite from a
+serpent, think that by introducing into the wound, by means of their
+dart, a tiny portion of the organ which determines this effect, an equal
+result will follow.
+
+He neither knows nor imagines that the tooth exercises a simple
+mechanical action in consequence of which the little reservoir of
+poison, being compressed, lets a drop fall into the wound produced by
+the bite.
+
+But there is nothing to be surprised at in this because in history we
+learn that the superstitions and sorceries practised by more advanced
+races than the Sakais offer the most curious documents in proof of such
+odd reasoning.
+
+It is enough to remember that in the time of Augustus the jaw bone of a
+female dog, which had been kept fasting, and a quill plucked from a
+screech-owl were required for the enchantments of Canidia, _ossa ab ore
+rapta jejunae canis, plumanque nocturna strigis_. And yet it was just at
+that period Rome had inherited from Greece the Philosophy of the
+Epicureans and that of the Sceptics and was maturing the poem of
+Lucretius Carus!
+
+And quite recently has it not been narrated by Parson Evans, of Wales,
+how he had been badly treated by a spirit because he had forgotten a
+fumigation during one of his enchantments?
+
+If there has been so much imposture or hallucination amongst advanced
+peoples (or supposed to be such) we cannot reproach the poor Sakai for
+his ignorance if in all good faith he thinks that a pinch of pounded
+bees and serpents' teeth increases the virulence of the _legop_ poison.
+Does he not also believe that the mysterious words muttered by the _Al�_
+give greater force to his murderous preparations?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As to the effects of the _legop_ strange and contradictory versions are
+given.
+
+Some affirm that the smallest possible quantity brought into contact
+with the blood, causes instantaneous death; others declare that it is
+not sufficiently powerful to kill a man or a beast if the quantity
+inoculated is not in proportion to the size or if they are strong enough
+to resist it.
+
+It is my opinion that both these assertions are exaggerated.
+
+One day I asked a Sakai if he thought it possible to kill a man with
+_legop_.
+
+He replied that nearly every day animals of double the bulk and strength
+of a man were killed in the forest, and that the poison supplied by this
+creeper speedily fulfils its mission. As a proof of this he related that
+once he was standing near a Javanese who had been guilty of violating a
+woman. This man was hit by a poisoned dart and died almost immediately.
+
+Without appearing in the least to doubt the fact I begged him to show me
+the exact spot where the dart entered the poor fellow, and where it came
+out, and from his indications I could convince myself that the dart
+having penetrated under the shoulder blade had passed through the heart
+from part to part and had been arrested in its course by the muscles of
+the thorax.
+
+It was therefore clear to me that death was due to the passage of the
+dart through the victim's body and had nothing to do with the poison in
+which the missile had been previously steeped. To my knowledge no
+recognized studies have ever been made to ascertain the true force of
+_legop_, so one is free to calculate it at its maximum or minimum,
+especially when its susceptibility to atmospheric changes is considered.
+
+When the weather is dry it carries death on the wing of the arrow, but
+if it should be wet, or damp, the poison becomes moist and remains on
+the surface of the wound (where it can be easily rubbed off) instead of
+penetrating with the dart into the object aimed at.
+
+And this was the disillusion of one who wanted to try its effects on a
+dog. The poor beast howled with the pain but did not present any symptom
+of poisoning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Science alone can pronounce accurately upon the toxical qualities of the
+_legop_ and I am always ready to assist it with my modest experience.
+
+Wishing to solve every doubt and also to find out an antidote to this
+poison I sacrificed many innocent creatures, but I will relate the
+pitiful end of only two.
+
+I selected a fine fowl full of healthy vigour and taking one of these
+poisoned darts I made a wound of not more than a half an inch long upon
+the upper part of its leg.
+
+For a minute after it moved about slowly without even noticing the
+wound, then it stopped as if overcome by a strange sense of stupor, but
+soon began to peck the ground.
+
+Two minutes and a half later it opened and shut its beak and let its
+tail and wings fall limply on the ground. Another half a minute and with
+its legs bent under, as though sitting, it sought to raise and shake its
+drooping head. For an-instant it succeeded but the poor member wagged
+without energy (as happens to us when in travelling we get sleepy but
+have no place to repose ourselves) whilst its eyes now shut, and now
+wide open wore an expression of unconsciousness.
+
+About the fourth minute the animal was seized with violent convulsions
+and at the fifth it was quite dead.
+
+I made the same trial upon a middle-sized dog, wounding this also upon a
+leg in order not to touch a vital part.
+
+At first it seemed quite insensible to what I had done but after three
+or four minutes had passed it got very inquiet and sniffed the ground
+and everything that was around as if to find out what was the matter,
+turning round its head from time to time towards its thigh which it
+evidently felt was the seat of its uneasiness. It gave a jump, a
+prolonged shudder and then lay down.
+
+Once it feebly barked but when it made a second attempt it entirely
+failed. The cry was not one of pain but seemed to be a sound emitted
+under the impulse of profound bewilderment.
+
+[Illustration: Branch and fruit of the poisonous creeper "Legop".
+
+_p._ 212.]
+
+Its head rested for a moment upon its fore-legs but was soon lifted up
+as the animal rolled over on one side of its body which had the
+appearance of being paralyzed. Its eyes became fixed, expressionless.
+The body shivered and gave little starts but the head remained
+motionless, lying heavily on the ground, and the eyes in their glassy
+stare revealed the absence of all perception of the senses rather than
+pain or mortal anguish.
+
+At this point I turned my attention to its heart which was beating
+quickly and violently. It stopped an instant, then continued but very,
+very weakly whilst the whole body began to take a rigid form.
+
+A quarter of an hour after the inoculation of _legop_, the dog was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If I do not mistake, the first and almost immediate effect of this
+poison is upon the nerve centres. For certain the blood remains
+unaltered, or at least no change is visible and the flesh of animals
+killed with _legop_ does not lose any of its flavour nor is there any
+danger in eating it.
+
+But I dare not speak with any precision about the nature of certain
+venomous products because where the vast field for scientific research
+begins, the unpretending labour of the colonist, who collects, refers
+and describes, finishes, leaving to the chemical student and the
+physiologist the task of drawing from the information given, those
+results which may be for the good of humanity in general.
+
+The poisonous flora of the forest is not limited to trees and climbing
+plants; it extends also to countless herbs, to an infinite variety of
+fungi, berries, flowers and tempting fruits.
+
+The realm of poison is known but very little. It still reserves the
+greatest surprises for the scientist who wishes to explore it. And
+because provident Nature in every manifestation of its fecundity has the
+habit of putting different qualities in contrast I think that amongst
+such an abundant vegetation of dangerous plants there may be another,
+perhaps less plentiful but which would serve to oppose the deadly
+effects of the first.
+
+The Sakai knows no antidote except those I have mentioned: the _lemmah
+kapiting_ and the one empirically prepared with quicklime and urine.
+Neither of them, however, can be warranted as genuine articles, so in
+this field Science would have everything to discover.
+
+The great Sorceress, the great and incomparable Malayan Forest, offers
+wonderful treasures to the world, some of which give charms to Life and
+others conceal the snares of Death.
+
+It is for the _homo sapiens_ to distinguish this from that and to make
+himself the master of their secrets as he has done with Electricity,
+thereby making it the means of illumination, motive power, and the
+alleviation of many physical sufferings.
+
+This forest, which would have answered to all the criminal exigencies of
+the Borgias as regards poisons, is still a waste land, notwithstanding
+its extraordinary riches.
+
+Let Science tell us of the immense treasures there produced for the
+welfare of Mankind.
+
+[Illustration: Preparing "Legop" poisons.
+
+_p._ 214.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 19: The _i_ is almost an _e_ and the _a_ in all these words
+are pronounced as _ha_. _Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 20: The professors, A. Benedicenti and G. B. De Toni, of the
+Camerino University have published the result of their studies upon the
+roots and some juice extracted from the _broial_ which I sent them for
+the purpose in 1902. I think, however, that the conclusions of these two
+scientists would have been in favour of a greater and quicker effect of
+this poison if, in spite of all my care, the samples had not suffered
+from the change of climate and, very likely, been exposed to dampness.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  Past and future geography--Mountains and plateaus--An attempt at a
+  census--Temperature--Maladies and remedies--AL� a quack.
+
+
+Thirty years ago, even in our best geographies, very little mention was
+made of the Malay Peninsula.
+
+Something was said about its coasts and a scanty product of tin,
+antimony and coal but there was not a single word about the wide stretch
+of land far from the shores, partly unexplored and partly inhabited by
+savages, beyond stating that a chain of mountains ran the whole length,
+beginning at Kedak and Kelantan and terminating at the extreme end of
+the peninsula, so dividing it almost in the middle.
+
+But a geographer in our days would have to write a great deal more, for
+the interior of this country is no longer a deep inviolated mystery, and
+its aspect has proved very different from what studies, made at a
+prudent distance, had led us to imagine.
+
+The high mountains (the Berumbun reaches 6530 feet in height) present to
+the gaze scenery which would satisfy an artist. Some of the tops are
+covered with a rich, wild vegetation, some are rugged or have sharp
+peaks from which torrents of sparkling white foam dash down the narrow
+dark crevices with roaring fury.
+
+From those superb masses extend a series of plateaus like so many
+terraces which the more they descend the more they unfold the
+fruitfulness of the soil, irrigated by smooth rivers and rills.
+
+There, where mountainous fertility ceases, one to the east and the other
+to the west, lie the plains of Pahang and Perak whose industrious hands
+guided by civilized ideas are carrying on a work of redemption from
+abandonment and malaria by the extension of cultivation and sanitary
+principles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The forest--the territory of the Sakais--covers the central part of the
+Peninsula. On the outskirts live those less savage because of their
+contact and dealings with the Malays, Siamese, Chinese and Indians, by
+whom they are surrounded. The others press always closer on towards the
+mountains at the same rate that civilization approaches them, fixing
+their abode at an elevation of not more than from 1500 to 2000 feet. I
+have found some, but a very rare case, at a height of 4000 feet.
+
+It is true that up there, there are not so many dangers to be met with,
+for wild beasts (with the exception of an occasional bear) and serpents
+do not frequent the heights but the cold is too intense to be well
+supported by individuals who do not wear clothes and who do not build
+houses to protect themselves from the inclemency of the weather.
+
+[Illustration: Poisoning the arrows.
+
+_p._ 214.]
+
+The tract of land inhabited by the Sakais is, at a rough guess,
+comprised between 3� 50' and 5� 50' North latitude and 101� and 102�
+East longitude (Greenwich). But for such an extension they are very few
+in numbers because in the year 1903, passing from one village to another
+in 25 days, I could not count more than 6800 persons camping round the
+durians at the ingathering season.
+
+Reckoning the women left behind because of a recent confinement, the old
+and infirm and the little children I do not think that altogether they
+can be many more than 10,000 souls. It is truly the case to say: "_rari
+nantes in gurgite vasto_!".
+
+It would be impossible to take a real census of the Sakais owing to
+their distrust of everything they do not understand and the difficulty
+their nomadic life presents.
+
+The climate where they live, although damp, is good, for the thick
+foliage of the forest and the breezes that often hail from the mountains
+mitigate the heat of the sun's rays.
+
+There are no alternations of seasons as in temperate zones but only the
+distinction of dry and rainy ones, the former being determined by the
+monsoon blowing from the east, and the latter from that coming from the
+west.
+
+It is not unusual for the heat at noon to surpass 40� (centigrade) but
+to the torrid temperature of the day follows a cold night and the hotter
+the day is, the colder the night. From 40� it easily falls under 20�.
+The Sakais who possess no garments, or rugs and whose huts are very open
+and airy, sleep all huddled together (to keep each other warm) round a
+large fire but they frequently suffer from these variations of
+temperature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I have before mentioned severe colds are very prevalent among the
+Sakais against which they have no efficacious remedy so that it often
+happens for a simple attack of influenza to turn into a serious
+bronchial or lung affection and finally result in consumption.
+
+Neither the _tenak_ or _cintok_ is of any use then; the evil spirit
+never leaves hold of his prey.
+
+Cases of fever are very rare and these few must be attributed to the
+wind which ascends from the plain bringing with it germs of infection.
+It is extremely seldom that a woman dies in child-birth, but a great
+many succumb to senile decay at about 60 years of age.
+
+Both men and women are very subject to a cutaneous disease which covers
+the body with large blotches of a lighter colour than their skin, giving
+a repugnant appearance to the poor wretch so afflicted. But it is
+neither a serious nor a contagious illness, nor does it excite amongst
+the jungle-dwellers that loathing which it would with us because this
+discoloration does not prevent them from getting married and having
+children as healthy as other peoples'.
+
+Sometimes one of them is struck down by an infectious disease for which
+they know no remedy or cure. The sick person is at once isolated from
+all the rest and is almost entirely abandoned in order to check any
+propagation of the malady.
+
+I have never noticed any illness which might be considered as peculiar
+to the people themselves or the region they inhabit but I have been able
+to establish the fact (from a special study made by me as to the causes
+of death among the Sakais) that the victims of wild beasts and serpents
+are on a very low average.
+
+It is quite an extraordinary thing for anybody to lose their life in
+this way if they have not by some imprudence brought death upon
+themselves.
+
+I only remember, perhaps because it took place not long ago, that a
+young woman incautiously wandered away from her hut one evening, as it
+was getting dark, and was attacked by a panther which fastened its teeth
+into her lower jaw. Hearing her scream the husband rushed out just in
+time to kill the animal and save his poor wife's life, but she, of
+course, remained deformed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The pharmacopoeia of these foresters, freed from all superstition, is of
+truly primitive simplicity and only contains vegetable remedies. A
+decoction of the root _tenak celes_ is an excellent purgative. A
+poultice made of its leaves pounded with lime and _sirih_ and applied to
+the forehead is intended to cure headache.
+
+The _sla delok_ (a bitter leaf) serves in the place of our worm powders
+for children.
+
+Another leaf (the _sl� po�_) is used for curing dysentry.
+
+They have also several other medicines (whose virtues are kept secret by
+the _Al�_) for complaints of the stomach or that may be used at will
+without any precise knowledge of the illness needing treatment.
+
+The gum extracted from the _singret_ is employed for stopping decayed
+teeth and is also rubbed over the cheek during a fit of tooth-ache to
+preserve it from the air, without putting on bandages.
+
+The Sakai makes great use of charcoal powder in his medicinal
+preparations, dressing sores, wounds and the bites of animals with it.
+This might make one suppose that he either knows or divines the
+disinfecting properties of charcoal. He also makes it a means of defence
+against the invasions of ants which change their direction when they
+find the black line across their way.
+
+The water in which a piece of charcoal, made from bitter wood, has been
+for a long time infused, is according to them a first-rate remedy
+against debility of the organism and coughs.
+
+The _Al�_ wisely acting for--his own good, reserves for himself the
+prerogative of mixing certain pharmaceutical specialities which make
+the patient recover if the indisposition is merely a passing one, but
+help to kill him if the conditions of his health are serious.
+
+He always keeps prompt some plasters prepared from herbs, either of a
+soothing or irritating nature, in case of fractures, sprains, or
+dislocations caused by accidental falls.
+
+But it is scarcely worth while to discuss the merits of these
+cataplasms, for the Sakai, who is the first person interested in the
+question, acknowledges and admits their healing virtues.
+
+All the world is akin, and the much respected _Al�_ of the forest is
+nothing less than an uncivilized colleague of those charlatans,
+inventors of miracles, who by the sale of powders, lotions, medicinal
+waters and ointments make their fortune in the midst of civilized
+society, often deceiving science and common sense by means of well
+placed advertisements.
+
+One is an educated and the other an uneducated quack.
+
+
+
+
+My notes finish here. They are wanting in order and art but not in
+verity because above all I have dedicated this writing to the truth,
+prompted by feelings of gratitude and good will towards my kind friends
+the savages. I have wished to illustrate the customs and character of a
+people very much calumniated, amongst whom I have found strong and
+devoted friendship free from every taint of jealousy or self-interest.
+
+Sixteen years of a tranquil, laborious life have I passed among the
+Sakais and still to-day I feel a pang of home-sickness thinking of that
+wonderfully fertile land and its good and simple inhabitants.
+
+If my words have been clear to you, dear reader, you must have remarked
+that in those savages are to be found real treasures of uprightness,
+honesty and common sense. And the first seeds of these virtues were sown
+by nobody for they bud and blossom in their souls as spontaneously as
+from the bosom of great Mother Nature the marvellous multitude of flora
+rises up towards the sun, seeking light and heat.
+
+It is not so amongst us. Civilization teaches virtue: sermons preach it;
+moralists condense it into precepts and aphorisms; historians honour it
+in the ancients in order to inspire it in the moderns; laws, and the
+menaces of Hell, want to impose it. And yet, notwithstanding all this,
+it cannot flower well for too often it is fettered by the frenzy of
+"getting ahead" and by the spasms of passions which in the superb
+majesty of the forest, and under its sublime influence, are neither
+known nor understood. Here one works serenely, undisturbed by the fear
+that others will rob you of your profit.
+
+I mention the fact but leave others to draw the conclusion because if I
+arrived at that which would seem most logical after the premise, I
+should be called a worse savage than those I have held up to public
+admiration and if I arrived at any other I should be accused (and with
+reason) of contradiction.
+
+I will instead declare that, in spite of certain discouraging proofs, I
+firmly keep my faith in human progress, believing that Science will one
+day succeed in lessening the grand anguish accruing from the incessant
+and cruel "struggle for life".
+
+My chief reason for illustrating the virtues and defects of the
+little-known Sakais is to present them more closely to the attention of
+England, that, by delivering them from the contempt and able trickery of
+other races, might easily lead them to civilization and at the same time
+form important and lucrative centres of agricultural product in the
+interior of the Peninsula.
+
+It is without the slightest idea of boasting that I state I have always
+remained among the Sakais alone and unarmed, in my work as a colonist.
+In this way it was possible for me to overcome hostility and mistrust,
+winning confidence and affection from one of the most uncivilized of
+peoples. And the fact gives me the greatest satisfaction for it
+demonstrates in a modest, but not for that less eloquent manner, that
+armed expeditions however fine and imposing in appearance (according to
+taste) have not the practical or lasting value of peaceful, friendly
+overtures. Civilization which pretends to impose itself by violence,
+slaughter and sackage only sows hatred. The pretended saviours become
+oppressors, and having begun by force they are compelled to resort to
+force if they wish to keep the dominion which a ferment of hatred,
+little by little, is undermining.
+
+Therefore no arms, no missions (tending to substitute one terror for
+another) but only patience and calmness are necessary for the conquest
+of those simple souls and to subsequently teach them, through example,
+to devote themselves to work. They must be made to feel that
+civilization is useful, the inspirer of good and not an insidious
+injurer.
+
+What can savages think when they are subjected to depredation and
+bloodshed by those who, with these measures, have come to them to
+proclaim the principles of respect for other people's property and the
+inviolability of human life?
+
+It is indeed a great pleasure to me finding that to-day the Sakais no
+longer distrust civilization and some of them, especially the younger
+ones, do not refuse or shrink from work as they once did and neither do
+they oppose such an obstinate resistance to those innovations which I
+too had a part in introducing among them.
+
+I leave it to my readers to judge if I am guilty of vanity in thus
+expressing my contentment.
+
+And now I have finished.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This errata prepared by the author/translator is
+included for historical and archival interest only. All the changes
+specified by this errata have already been implemented in the etext.]
+
+
+ERRATA
+
+
+  Page    14  line  26      -- _qualities_.
+
+  "       39    "   32      -- _wished_.
+
+  "       50    "   16      -- read _debtors_ for _creditors_.
+
+  Chap.   IV    "    3      -- _twilight_.
+
+  Page    61    "    3      -- _centuries_.
+
+  "       80    "   14      -- _inefficacious_.
+
+  "       84    "   19      -- _safeguard_.
+
+  Chap. VIII    "    7      -- _coronation_.
+
+  Page    85    "   12      -- _gratify_.
+
+  "       96    "   30      -- _previous_.
+
+  "      107    "   12      -- _too_.
+
+  "      111    "   13      -- _too_.
+
+  "       "     "   17      -- _search_.
+
+  "      112    " last line -- _enjoy_.
+
+  "      124    "    1      -- _attained_.
+
+  "      128    " last line -- _equal_.
+
+  "      131    "   28      -- for _economic_ read _financial_.
+
+  "      133    "   29      -- _consequence_.
+
+  "      134    "   13      -- _without_.
+
+  "      139    "    2      -- _read same time_.
+
+  "      141    "    2      -- _obliged_.
+
+  "      146    "   16      -- _appetizing_.
+
+  "      178    " footnote  -- _chinneloy_.
+
+  "      187    "    6      -- _falsehood_.
+
+  "      193    "    1      -- _But it is_.
+
+  "      207    "   32      -- _Sakai_.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+Every effort has been made to preserve the original text, including
+non-standard spelling and grammar as well as inconsistencies in the
+transliteration of non-English words (both in spelling and use of
+diacritics.) Non-standard spelling has been preserved if the word is
+understandable in context. Changes to the text have only been made in
+the case of obvious typographical errors and where not making a
+correction would leave the text confusing or difficult to read. All
+changes are documented in the notes below. The original text also
+included an errata page by the author/translator. The changes specified
+in this errata have been implemented and are also documented in the
+notes below.
+
+Treatment of quotation marks. In the original text, the
+author/translator used a variant of a European convention in which
+quoted text began with double quotation marks and ended with double
+low-9 quotation marks (present in unicode as U+201E). For the
+convenience of users who may not be able to display unicode, the double
+low-9 quotation marks have been replaced by regular double quotation
+marks.
+
+In the author/translator's original style of punctuation, full-stops
+were always placed outside of the closing quotation marks. Where quoted
+text ended with an exclamation or question mark, these would be placed
+inside the closing quotation mark and then a terminating full-stop
+would be added outside the quotation mark as in this example:
+"_Sacramento_!". This style of punctuation has been preserved.
+
+Some blocks of quoted text were enclosed in double angle quotation
+marks (or guillemets). This style of punctuation has been preserved.
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words have been preserved.
+(blowpipe/s, blow-pipe/s; earrings, ear-rings; earthenware,
+earthen-ware; goodbye, good-bye; hairpins, hair-pins; midnight,
+mid-night; recalled, re-called; recommenced, re-commenced; reproduced,
+re-produced; woodcutter's, wood-cutter's)
+
+Pg. 12, "meetins" changed to "meeting". (but once a meeting has)
+
+Pg. 12, "sould" changed to "should". (why should we consider the
+fierceness)
+
+Pg. 14, "qualilies" changed to "qualities". From author's original
+errata. (qualities of courage and energy)
+
+Pg. 20, "philosphy" changed to "philosophy". (But my philosophy soon
+took the)
+
+Pg. 20, "come" changed to "some". (a Pullman's car or some other
+vehicle)
+
+Pg. 21, closing quote inserted to end at end of paragraph. (a continual
+increase of danger".)
+
+Pg. 25, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (in conseguence, the
+presence of)
+
+Pg. 28, "stiffiness" changed to "stiffness". (Besides the stiffness of
+my joints)
+
+Pg. 29, "as" changed to "us". (you insult us and call)
+
+Pg. 35, "dutieu" changed to "duties". (all the various duties of)
+
+Pg. 35, "kiching" changed to "kicking". (kicking and batting)
+
+Pg. 35, "belongig" changed to "belonging". (of some land belonging to
+two)
+
+Pg. 36, "te" changed to "to". (my desire to become better acquainted)
+
+Pg. 36, "contry" changed to "country". (but in him his country lost)
+
+Pg. 36, "recipt" changed to "receipt". (tight hold of the receipt)
+
+Pg. 38, "indefaticable" changed to "indefatigable". (his indefatigable
+energy brings forth)
+
+Pg. 39, duplicated "a" removed. (we threw a well-pounded leaf)
+
+Pg. 39, "wishcd" changed to "wished". From author's original errata.
+(if I wished for fortune)
+
+Pg. 47, "af" changed to "of". (in spite of its glass eyes)
+
+Pg. 47, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (The consequence was
+quite)
+
+Pg. 50, "creditors" changed to "debtors". From author's original
+errata. (as his debtors could not pay)
+
+Pg. 51, "equal" changed to "equal". (is quite equal to the task)
+
+Pg. 59, Chapter VI summary, "Everlasting twlight" changed to
+"Everlasting twilight". From author's original errata.
+
+Pg. 55, "sirene" changed to "sirens". (and its steam sirens?)
+
+Pg. 55, "Telok Ansom". Author's original text retained, although he
+probably intended to refer to the town more commonly called "Telok
+Anson".
+
+Pg. 55, "Sakay" occurs here and in a few other instances in the text.
+Elsewhere it is spelled "Sakai". The original spelling has been
+preserved in all instances.
+
+Pg. 60, "incease" changed to "increase". (swarms of insects increase
+its agony by making)
+
+Pg. 60, "miriads" changed to "myriads". (these myriads of plants)
+
+Pg. 61, "centures" changed to "centuries". From author's original
+errata. (destined to brave centuries)
+
+Footnote 5, "i" changed to "I". (I ate it with relish)
+
+Pg. 71, "Proctectorate" changed to "Protectorate". (remote Eastern
+Protectorate)
+
+Pg. 71, "Pymalion". Author's original text retained, although more
+commonly spelled "Pygmalion".
+
+Pg. 76, "varities" changed to "varieties". (varieties of serpents, big
+and small)
+
+Pg. 77, "smakes" changed to "snakes". (danger from snakes)
+
+Pg. 80, "inefficatious" changed to "inefficacious". From author's
+original errata. (inefficacious when a man
+
+Pg. 84, "safe-quard" changed to "safeguard". From author's original
+errata. (behaviour being his safeguard)
+
+Pg. 85, Chapter VIII summary. "incoronation" changed to "coronation".
+From author's original errata. (coronation of King Edward VII)
+
+Pg. 85, "gratisfy" changed to "gratify". (such as to gratify a little
+ambition)
+
+Pg. 87, "responsable" changed to "responsible". (to establish the
+responsibility)
+
+Pg. 93, quotation marks fixed. '"By thus living separate, "he said"
+each family....' changed to '"By this living separate," he said "each
+family....'.
+
+Pg. 96, "aud" changed to "and". (produces and causes)
+
+Pg. 96, "previons" changed to "previous". From author's original
+errata. (to my previous position)
+
+Pg. 97, "angiush" changed to "anguish". (that awful anguish I had)
+
+Pg. 107, "two" changed to "too". From author's original errata. (I,
+too, have often made)
+
+Pg. 110, duplicated word "of" removed. (I speak only of the Sakais)
+
+Pg. 110, "investicating" changed to "investigating". (feel of
+investigating our neighbour's past)
+
+Pg. 111, "two" changed to "too". From author's original errata. (are
+too long in proportion)
+
+Pg. 111, "scarch" changed to "search". From author's original errata.
+(the like in search)
+
+Footnote 8, "eujoy" changed to "enjoy". (If to-day is ours to enjoy.)
+
+Pg. 112, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (in consequence of
+their long exposure) )
+
+Pg. 117, extraneous comma in "etc., Rice" removed as it appears a new
+sentence is being started. (etc. Rice is an imported luxury)
+
+Pg. 118, "elever" changed to "clever". (are very clever)
+
+Pg. 120, "off" changed to "of" (or of ill-treating them in any way)
+
+Pg. 121, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (agree in consequence
+of the difference)
+
+Pg. 122, "risult" changed to "result". (but the result of the
+circumstances)
+
+Pg. 124, "altained" changed to "attained". From author's original
+errata. (attained or the future)
+
+Pg. 126, caption of illustration following this page, "Bois practising
+shooting" changed to "Boys practising shooting".
+
+Pg. 128, "egual" changed to "equal". From author's original errata.
+(all are equal)
+
+Pg. 131, "economic" changed to "financial". From author's original
+errata. (financial conditions to permit the formation)
+
+Pg. 133, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". From author's original
+errata. (The immediate consequence of)
+
+Pg. 134, "withont" changed to "without". From author's original errata.
+(and without any hope of reward)
+
+Pg. 139, "same" changed to "same time". From author's original errata.
+(has, at the same time, to)
+
+Pg. 139, "civilizied" changed to "civilized". (with what civilized)
+
+Pg. 141, "obbliged" changed to "obliged". From author's original
+errata. (I have been obliged)
+
+Pg. 141, "boudaries" changed to "boundaries". (the boundaries of
+village)
+
+Pg. 141, "settlments" changed to "settlements". (these settlements that
+I have)
+
+Pg. 143, "to-morow" changed to "to-morrow". (to-morrow a common danger)
+
+Pg. 143, "betwen" changed to "between" (which exists between)
+
+Pg. 146, "appetising" changed to "appetizing". From author's original
+errata. (into appetizing capons)
+
+Pg. 150, "inventary" changed to "inventory". (the inventory of their
+kitchen)
+
+Pg. 153, "Notwithslanding" changed to "Notwithstanding".
+(Notwithstanding this sharpening)
+
+Pg. 158, glossary entry under "Evil", "sonnd" changed to "sound".
+(_alphabetical sound of_ e)
+
+Pg. 161, "scems" changed to "seems". (that seems to be composed)
+
+Pg. 162, "attemps" changed to "attempts". (renounces all attempts)
+
+Pg. 171, "indipendence" changed to "independence". (their "spirit of
+independence")
+
+Footnote 15, "chineloy" changed to "chinneloy". From author's original
+errata. (Pronounced _chinneloy_)
+
+Pg. 180, "contorsion" changed to "contortion". (every jump and
+contortion)
+
+Pg. 184, "de" changed to "do". (Sakais do not refuse)
+
+Pg. 184, "reasou" changed to "reason". (reason the terrible beast)
+
+Pg. 184, "Spirt" changed to "Spirit". (Evil Spirit who is continually)
+
+Pg. 184, "wcked" changed to "wicked". (play his wicked tricks)
+
+Pg. 184, "serinity" changed to "serenity". (the serenity of their
+simple minds)
+
+Pg. 184, "frequenty" changed to "frequently". (hurricanes that
+frequently)
+
+Pg. 185, "thay" changed to "they". (evil spirits that they believe)
+
+Pg. 186, "esixtence" changed to "existence". (the existence of a Good
+Spirit)
+
+Pg. 186, "os" changed to "as". (so much so as never)
+
+Pg. 186, "II" changed to "It". (It must also be considered)
+
+Pg. 187, "falshood" changed to "falsehood". From author's original
+errata. (tell you a falsehood)
+
+Pg. 188, "siezed" changed to "seized". (seized with great terror)
+
+Pg. 189, "imdetuous" presumed to be "impetuous". This text has several
+instances of inverted letters, as though the type-setter placed the
+type upside down. (The impetuous currents of air)
+
+Pg. 189, "twoo" changed to "two". (two-fold office)
+
+Pg. 189, "breaded" presumed to be "dreaded", which makes more sense in
+context (see the dreaded Being)
+
+Pg. 189, "scceeds" changed to "succeeds". (and succeeds in over-ruling)
+
+Pg. 189, "t�" changed to "to". (in order to ascertain)
+
+Pg. 189, "notwithstending" changed to "notwithstanding".
+(notwithstanding the cabalistic)
+
+Pg. 189, "sesisting" changed to "resisting". (resisting and defeating
+him)
+
+Pg. 189, "kflled" changed to "killed". has overcome and killed him)
+
+Pg. 189, "upringht" changed to "upright". (in an upright position)
+
+Pg. 190, "dayu" changed to "days". (For seven days continual)
+
+Pg. 190, "provider" changed to "provided". (it is provided with)
+
+Pg. 190, "fother's" changed to "father's". (his father's dignity)
+
+Pg. 190, "keed" changed to "keep". (alone to keep watch)
+
+Pg. 190, "ir" changed to "in". (incense-pan in which he burns)
+
+Pg. 190, "spyng" changed to "spying". (of spying his actions)
+
+Pg. 190, "ningt's" changed to "night's". (the night's proceedings)
+
+Pg. 190, "alght" changed to "alight". (continues to keep alight)
+
+Pg. 190, "slinghtest" changed to "slightest". (the slightest movement
+of fear)
+
+Pg. 190, "sciene" changed to "science". (the occult science of his)
+
+Pg. 191, "the had watchad". Either a word is missing after "the", or
+"the" was meant to be "he". Changed to "he had watched". (proof that he
+had watched that night)
+
+Pg. 191, "suol" changed to "soul". (soul of the dead man)
+
+Pg. 191, "pzwer" changed to "power". (power would be lost)
+
+Pg. 191, "moltals" changed to "mortals". (poor mortals around)
+
+Pg. 191, "efficatious" changed to "efficacious". (venomous virtue more
+efficacious)
+
+Pg. 192, "throug" changed to "through". (opening left through the)
+
+Pg. 192, "patien's budy" changed to "patient's body". (from the
+patient's body)
+
+Pg. 192, "thereforo be heriocally" changed to "therefore be
+heroically". (must therefore be heroically fought)
+
+Pg. 192, "villagn" changed to "village". (The village in which the)
+
+Pg. 192, "forbibben" changed to "forbidden". (light is absolutely
+forbidden)
+
+Pg. 193, "But is" changed to "But it is". From author's original
+errata. (But it is intended)
+
+Pg. 193, "succomb" changed to "succumb". (if he does not succumb)
+
+Pg. 193, "corpe" changed to "corpse". (leave the corpse)
+
+Pg. 194, "aud" changed to "and". (performed and they regularly)
+
+Pg. 199, "aed" changed to "and". (and makes abundant ablutions)
+
+Pg. 199, "Sakia" changed to "Sakai". Sakai is presumed to be the word
+most likely intended. (death of a Sakai)
+
+Pg. 199, "aven" changed to "even". (not require even the intervention)
+
+Pg. 200, "bi" changed to "by". (by distraction of thought)
+
+Pg. 200, "partticular" changed to "particular". (have no particular)
+
+Pg. 200, single quote mark changed to comma. (cooking their food,
+preparing their poisons)
+
+Pg. 200, "nigt" changed to "night". (warming them during the night)
+
+Pg. 200, "mathes" changed to "matches". (I gave them matches)
+
+Pg. 200, "Thek" changed to "They". (They may be briefly summed)
+
+Pg. 200, "stil" changed to "still". (are still under the thick)
+
+Pg. 200, "dobt" changed to "doubt". (bright light of a first doubt)
+
+Pg. 200 "far" changed to "for", appears more appropriate in context.
+(creatures for whom the discouraging counsel)
+
+Footnote 18, "studyng" changed to "studying". (without studying it)
+
+Pg. 201, "pratice" changed to "practice". (the practice of morality)
+
+Pg. 201, added full-stop at end of sentence (they do not understand or
+cannot.)
+
+Pg. 202, Chapter XV summary. An entire line "The _labar_, _lampat_,
+_mas�_ and _loo_" appears to be missing as can be seen from the
+equivalent summary paragraph in the Table of Contents.
+
+Pg. 202, Chapter XV summary. "Nai Bretaks" is given as "Mai Bretaks" in
+the table of contents. Original text preserved in both cases.
+
+Pg. 207, "triomphantly" changed to "triumphantly". (victors carry it
+triumphantly)
+
+Pg. 207, "sch" changed to "such". (There is such a rich)
+
+Pg. 207, "areparation" changed to "preparation". (preparation of
+poisons)
+
+Pg. 207, "famigliar" changed to "familiar" (most familiar are)
+
+Pg. 207, "Jnst" changed to "Just". (Just as a gun)
+
+Pg. 207, "Sakais doen" changed to "Sakai does". Includes author's
+original errata. (the Sakai does not waste)
+
+Pg. 208, "frepuently" changed to "frequently". (the other is
+frequently)
+
+Pg. 208, "properrties" changed to "properties". (contain miraculous
+properties)
+
+Pg. 208, "soffee" changed to "coffee". (coffee, sugar, rice)
+
+Pg. 209, "intollerably" changed to "intolerably". (that itch
+intolerably)
+
+Pg. 211, "ealled" changed to "called". (climber called _lemmak
+kapiting_)
+
+Pg. 214, "ander" changed to "under". (its nest under the leaves of)
+
+Pg. 215, "_of scudiscio_" changed to "of _scudiscio_". Author's style
+was to italicise non-English words but there did not seem to be a
+reason to italicise the word "of" and this is possibly a typographical
+error. (with a band of _scudiscio_ and)
+
+Pg. 216, "Lucretuis" changed to "Lucretius". (the poem of Lucretius
+Carus!)
+
+Pg. 221, "Kedak" probably refers to the place now more commonly spelled
+"Kedah", however the original text has been preserved. (Kedak and
+Kelantan)
+
+Pg. 224, "propogation" changed to "propagation". (propagation of the
+malady)
+
+Pg. 225, "seream" changed to "scream". (Hearing her scream the husband)
+
+Pg. 228, "nowithstanding" changed to "notwithstanding".
+(notwithstanding all this)
+
+Pg. "229" "to day" changed to "to-day" (that to-day the Sakais no
+longer)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Friends the Savages, by 
+Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FRIENDS THE SAVAGES ***
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+
+Project Gutenberg's My Friends the Savages, by Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Friends the Savages
+       Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula)
+
+Author: Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+Translator: I. Stone Sanpietro
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #28189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FRIENDS THE SAVAGES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by A Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
+digital material generously made available by the Internet
+Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1>MY FRIENDS&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE SAVAGES</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="title"><small>BY</small><br />
+<b>Captain G. B. CERRUTI</b></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="title">TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN<br />
+<small><span class="smcap">by I. Stone Sanpietro</span></small></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="left50" >
+Notes and observations of a
+Perak settler (Malay Peninsula).
+Richly illustrated with
+original photographs taken by
+the Author.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+COMO (Italy)<br />
+<small>TIPOGRAFIA COOPERATIVA COMENSE<br />
+1908</small></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+<p class="title" style="font-size: 110%;" ><i>Every copy of this work not bearing the<br />
+author's signature will be retained by him<br />
+as an infringement of his rights.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="signature" id="signature"></a>
+<img  src="images/sig.jpg" width="400" height="108" alt="Signature of Author" />
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="dedication">These notes, the fruit of much
+sacrifice, I dedicate to the memory
+of my dear ones.</p>
+
+<p class="dedication">The fond embrace of parents and
+a sister, which for me was a sweet
+augury at my departure, greeted me
+no more at my return!</p>
+
+<p class="dedication p2">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Varazze, June 1906.</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<p>Transcriber's Note: This table of contents was originally at the end of the
+book but has been moved here for the convenience of users.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<table border="0" width="80%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter I: Malacca and its contrasts&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Devourers of
+the soul and devourers of the body&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The realization
+of a poet's dream&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Temptations&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A call from the
+forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Auri sacra fames&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Baggage&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Farewell to
+civilization</td>
+<td class="toc2"><i>Page</i></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter II: My escort&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;By steamer to Telok Anson&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+other bank of the Perak&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Towards the forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;First
+news&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Blood-letting in the swamp&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Robbed and
+forsaken&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Revenge in due time&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Malay's
+instigation&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;My little Sam Sam's fidelity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Philosophical
+reflections under a heavy weight</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter III: A fearful nocturnal concert&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Fire!
+Fire!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A clearing in the forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A general
+flight&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Masters of the camp!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mortal
+weariness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A morning greeting without any
+compliments&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A first meeting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;In the
+village&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;<i>Al&agrave;</i> against the Orang-putei</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter IV: New friends&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Gold&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An English
+official&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The purchase of my future treasure&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Administrative
+simplicity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;England teaches!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "sla pui"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Bitter
+disappointment&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Sam-Sam&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The poison of the
+Savage and the venom of the Civilized</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter V: Great Mother Earth&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A dangerous meeting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A
+living statue&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Here or there?&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An unrelished
+supper&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A dreaded immigration&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A glance into
+the past&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A rape which was not a rape&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A noble
+task&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Towards the mountain&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Tiger-shooting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+Sakais in town&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Alloyed sweets&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Musical tastes&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Hurrah
+for the free forest!</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter VI: The great Sorceress&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The forest seen from
+above&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A struggle for life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The crimes of
+plants&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Everlasting twilight&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Births and
+deaths&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Concerts
+by forest vocalists&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "durian"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+"ple-lok"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Vastnesses unexplored by science&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Treasures
+intact&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Para Rubber&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Samaritans of the
+jungle&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The forest and its history</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter VII: The snares of civilized life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Faust's
+invocation&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The dangers of the
+forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Serpents&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A perilous
+adventure&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Carnivorous and herbivorous
+animals&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "sladan"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The man of the wood</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter VIII: An official appointment&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A tour
+of inspection&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Lost in the forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;I find a
+philosopher&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Lycurgus and his laws&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A contented
+mind is a continual feast&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A night among the
+tigers&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;On the Berumbum&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;I sleep with a
+serpent&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The last of many&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Safe
+from trap and arrow&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+coronation of King Edward VII</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter IX: The origin of the Sakais&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Hypothesis
+and legend&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Physical character&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Thick tresses,
+gay flowers and troublesome guests&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Hereditary
+antipathy&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The five senses reduced to two&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Food
+and drink&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Tranquil life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Intolerance of
+authority&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Logical
+laziness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A Sakai journalist&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The story
+of a mattress</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter X: The Sakai woman&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Conjugal fidelity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A life
+of labour&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Betrothals and nuptials&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Love among
+the Sakais&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Divorcement&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;No
+kissing&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Chastity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Bigamy&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Maternity
+and its excesses&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Aged before the
+time&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Fashion and coquetry</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter XI: A Sakai village&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "elder"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The family&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Degrees
+of relationship&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Humorists disoccupied&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;On the
+march&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Tender hearts&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Kindling the fire&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A
+hecatomb of giants&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The hut&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Household goods and
+utensils&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Work and repose</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter XII: Intellectual development&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Sakais of the
+plain and Sakais of the hills&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Laziness and
+intelligence&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Falsehood and the Evil Spirit&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+Sakai language&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;When the "Orang Putei" gets
+angry&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Counting time&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Novel calendars&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Moral gifts</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter XIII: First attempts at industry&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The story of
+a hat&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Multiplicity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Primitive arts&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Sakai
+music&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Songs&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Instruments&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Dances&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Ball
+dresses&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Serpentine
+gracefulness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An unpublished Sakai song</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter XIV: The beliefs and superstitions of the
+Sakais&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Metempsychosis&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Evil
+Spirit&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Superstition among savages and ignorance among
+civilized people&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The two sources of life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+wind&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Al&agrave; priest and physician&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A scientific
+vigil&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Venerable imposture!-<i>Tenac</i> and <i>Cintok</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Therapeutic
+torture&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Contagion&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A Sakai's death&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The deserted
+village&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mourning&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Births&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Fire&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Intellectual
+darkness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Sakais and
+Islamism</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter XV: Sakai arms&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Shooting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Serpent
+catchers&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Sakai and his poisons&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;<i>Toalang</i>,
+<i>rengas</i> and <i>sagol</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;<i>Sl&agrave; dol</i>, <i>sl&agrave; plek</i>
+and <i>sl&agrave; clob</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;<i>Akar toka</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Ipok&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An
+antidote&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The <i>labar</i>, <i>lampat</i>, <i>mas&egrave;</i> and <i>loo</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+<i>legop</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Mai
+Bretaks&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The preparation of <i>legop</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Curious
+and superfluous ingredients&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The effects
+of <i>legop</i>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Strange contradictions&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Experiments&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Poisons
+and antidotes&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The settler and science</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">
+Chapter XVI: Past and future geography&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mountains
+and plateaus&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An attempt at a census&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Temperature&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Maladies
+and remedies&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;<i>Al&agrave;</i> a quack</td>
+<td class="toc2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch1.jpg" width="400" height="94" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>AMONG THE SAKAIS<br />
+<br />
+CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">Malacca and its contrasts&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Devourers of the soul and devourers of the
+body&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The realization of a poet's dream&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Temptations&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A call from the
+forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Auri sacra fames&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Baggage&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Farewell to civilization.</p>
+
+
+<p>From the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Siam the Malay Peninsula, once
+known as the Golden Chersonese, jets out into the Indian Ocean like an
+arm stretched forth to unite once more within its embrace the
+innumerable isles that belt its coasts and that have probably been
+severed from the mainland by the combined force of Time and Sea.</p>
+
+<p>In these surrounding islands, some as large as continents, others as
+narrow as reefs, over which civilization passes in squalls of cupidity,
+are concealed the strangest contrasts, for whilst around the shore human
+wolves disguised as civilized men are devouring souls, or (with due
+observance of the law) are usurping and stealing their neighbour's
+property and products, (the cleverest and most respected being he who
+best dissembles his rapacity or who knows how best to substitute
+unscrupulous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>shrewdness for industrial activity) not far off towards
+the centre of these scattered lands other men, in primitive ignorance of
+the law, are devouring their neighbours' flesh and skin or stealing
+their live bodies to serve as slaves.</p>
+
+<p>But such curious contrasts are not after all so very striking when one
+considers that to devour souls and to devour flesh are both natural
+instincts of Man!</p>
+
+<p>Around the coast of the Peninsula are many flourishing towns where every
+modern and up-to-date accommodation is to be found. These seaside
+resorts are thronged with a cosmopolitan population composed of
+tourists, business men, nabobs and adventurers. There life rolls on in
+the refined corruption of fashionable society amidst sports and
+amusements, scandals and intrigues, every race and every tongue
+contributing its share of good and evil. A motley crowd swarms their
+streets, presenting to the eye of an onlooker the picturesque spectacle
+that the contrast of costumes always produces. They are people of
+different colours, dress and education, attracted thither by the
+loadstone of wealth. The fortunate, the clever, the unscrupulous have
+already gained the victory in Life's struggles and now ride about in
+motor-cars of the newest types; the others look at them, most likely
+envy them, and work all the harder to get rich themselves. Will they
+succeed? The way, here is a short one but can only be successfully
+trodden by those who possess sound energy and blind confidence in their
+own brains and in their own muscles. It must not be thought, however,
+that the motor-car is a prerogative, in these parts, of opulent
+Europeans and Chinese for it is also a powerful auxiliary for those who
+are striving to make their fortunes through agricultural and mining
+speculations in the wildest regions of the Peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>But whilst near the sea the inhabitants and travellers can enjoy all the
+luxuries and conveniences of the 20th century, in the interior of the
+Peninsula, leading <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>a nomadic life in the thick of the jungle, which
+covers the range of mountains from north to south, a primitive people
+still exists. All unconscious of the violent passions and turbulent
+emotions that disturb the tranquillity of their fellow-creatures
+(civilized in form if not in fact) at some miles distant from them, they
+live quietly and peaceably in their forest homes preserving intact their
+original simplicity and ingenuousness.</p>
+
+<p>The hot breath of our fagging life, that generates every sort of nerve
+complaint, has not yet reached their mountain haunts. On those wild
+heights the nerves rest; the affections are not tormented; love is pure
+and, for this, lasting; ambition neither perverts the mind, nor consumes
+the conscience; there are no honours or favours to arouse envy; no
+artificial boundaries to liberty or difficult problems about Capital and
+Labour; there are no rich and no poor, for in that blessed spot money is
+an unknown article and what is more&mdash;strange triumph of the Savage over
+the Civilized&mdash;every man is a brother to the other!</p>
+
+<p>Up there in the forest there are neither princes nor subjects;
+Governments nor Police; no Tax-gatherers, public meetings or strikes so
+that if Stecchetti<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> were still living he might have been sent among
+the Sakais to find the ideal place of which he was always seeking the
+address.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The 15th of June 1891 I landed at Penang (the Prince of Wales's Island)
+on my return from an exploring tour in the Isle of Nias. I was feeling
+rather worn out with the fatigues lately undergone so resolved to rest
+awhile on British territory.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>I had brought with me a rich and interesting ethnographical collection I
+found no difficulty in selling to the Perak Government that destined it
+to the Museum at Taiping, a small town where is the British Residence.</p>
+
+<p>During my well-earned repose I often heard speak of the Mai Darats, a
+tribe of Aborigines dwelling in the interior of the Peninsula and who
+were called by the name of Sakais by the Malays, a scornful appellation
+which signifies <i>a people of slaves</i>, and this insulting term is
+explained by the fact that formerly their neighbours carried on an
+extensive slave-trade by making them victims and also took advantage of
+their simplicity and good faith in many other ways, until the British
+Protectorate was established and these poor wandering tribes were put
+upon a par with more civilized races.</p>
+
+<p>I began to gather information concerning these wild men of the bush and
+learnt that they inhabited the unfrequented parts of the Perak and
+Pahang States, that they were a nomadic race and that they passed most
+of their time in the abstraction and preparation of vegetable and animal
+poisons in which art they were exceptionally expert and that they were
+equally skilful in shooting poisoned arrows. Some of my informants
+wanted to make me believe that they were exceedingly ferocious by nature
+and so superstitious that they would aim their deadly dart at whatever
+stranger ventured to approach them, believing him to be the messenger of
+some Evil Spirit and that afterwards they would make of him a dainty
+meal to comfort their insatiable stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>But knowing something of the previous relations between the Sakais and
+the people surrounding them I was put on my guard against certain
+exaggerated and prejudiced reports and felt strongly tempted to try and
+dissipate the vague mystery&mdash;that I somehow guessed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>was based upon
+self-interest&mdash;in which they wished to envelop the Mai Darats.</p>
+
+<p>The more they told me about them the more I felt attracted towards the
+Sakais, it seeming to me that a people so foreign to every light of
+civilization, so bold as they were described to be, so free from every
+regime or authority, must needs afford an interesting study to one who
+sought to know them at close quarters. Perhaps, when once I had overcome
+the, not always surmountable, difficulty of getting into their company,
+I might find amongst them a tranquil life and settle down in their midst
+as a planter or agriculturist for I was already convinced that I was
+unfitted for commercial enterprises in which very often scruples of
+conscience and uprightness are encumbrances.</p>
+
+<p>My brief sojourn in civilized society made me long for the freedom and
+peace which, may be, awaited me there; I longed to know intimately these
+people who, I reasoned to myself, must be exempt from corruption as they
+were so much hated by those who lived in its midst, and who were
+surrounded by so much mystery.</p>
+
+<p>There was, I must confess, another reason that helped to draw me towards
+the Sakai camps. I know not how the germ took root, but in my brain the
+conviction was always growing that in the heart of the Peninsula,
+already proved to be rich in metals, a gold vein might be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>The Virgilian <i>auri sacra fames</i> took possession of me little by little,
+solved every remaining doubt, conquered all my hesitations and removed
+every obstacle.</p>
+
+<p>This impetus united with the longing for new adventures, for profound
+emotions, for a life far different in every respect to that I was then
+passing in a sphere of elegant slavery, imposed by ridiculous
+conventionalisms, decided me, and I packed up my baggage.</p>
+
+<p>Just imagine: a strong piece of tarred canvas to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>converted into a
+camp-bed by means of four wooden pegs; a hat, four shirts and some
+woollen undervests, a few pairs of trousers and socks, some very light
+canvas shoes, and one or two khaki jackets as used by the soldiers in
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p>I did not forget though that it was very possible to catch some sort of
+illness and as in those parts a malady followed by death may be
+considered an involuntary suicide but never a homicide because.... there
+are no doctors to cure you, I also provided myself with a small stock of
+purgative lozenges, quinine, some antiseptic preparations and a
+bistoury.</p>
+
+<p>Thus having quickly arranged for my new journey and having supplied
+myself with such elements as would be useful to me under the
+circumstances, I added to them a large quantity of tobacco and coloured
+beads&mdash;two things that exercise a great power over savages&mdash;and bidding
+farewell to all the culinary delicacies adapted to weak digestions, and
+turning my back upon all domestic comfort, I started forth towards the
+Unknown.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="Maidarats" id="Maidarats"></a>
+<img src="images/010.jpg" width="600" height="406" alt="Mai Darats" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A group of Mai Darats, called "Sakais".</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> An Italian poet who wrote many humorous
+verses.&mdash;Translator's Note.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch2.jpg" width="400" height="107" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">My escort&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;By steamer to Telok Anson&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The other bank of the
+Perak&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Towards the forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;First news&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Blood-letting in the
+swamp&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Robbed and forsaken&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Revenge in due time&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Malay's
+instigation&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;My little Sam Sam's fidelity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Philosophical reflections
+under a heavy weight.</p>
+
+
+<p>The kind reader who peruses these poor pages of notes and memories,
+accustomed to hear speak of expeditions organised for the purpose of
+penetrating into inhospitable lands or into regions encompassed by all
+the terrors of the unknown, will perhaps think that I was jesting when I
+gave the inventory of my luggage in the last chapter and that from sheer
+vaunt I did not mention the support of some Geographical or Commercial
+Society and neither the tons of goods which would follow in my wake, nor
+the numerous waggons and armed battalion that had to escort me.</p>
+
+<p>No, nothing of all this, for to tell the truth I have always found more
+harm than good done by these etceteras to an explorer's equipment, and
+for this reason, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>even in my most arduous travels, I always set out, as
+it were, alone, confiding only in my own forces. And let me explain why.</p>
+
+<p>From the very beginning of my wanderings in countries populated by
+savages, to some of whom is attributed the most sanguinary instincts, I
+reassured myself by a logical conclusion which experience has shown me
+to be quite right.</p>
+
+<p>If the fierceness of wild beasts, I reasoned to myself, is nothing else
+but a paroxysm of fear why should we consider the fierceness of the
+savages caused by other motives? Man, however wild may be his state, has
+been endowed with intelligence although in some cases this intellectual
+faculty is possessed in the smallest possible degree. Let us then make
+him understand that he has nothing to fear from us and little by little,
+if our patience does not fail, he will grow more gentle and become a
+friend instead of an enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore to-day, as well as in the past, I carefully avoid warlike
+preparations, brigandish masquerades or any escort of a prepotent or
+menacing appearance. I go ahead like a simple wayfarer, with a smiling
+face and friendly gestures, leaving my gun (which is indispensable in
+defending oneself from the attacks of wild beasts) slung over my
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>The first welcome, I admit, is far from being cordial, and there is
+always the risk of falling into a trap dexterously laid for big game and
+strangers or of being ably struck by a poisoned dart, but once a meeting
+has been obtained without any serious consequences accruing, it is not
+so difficult as it might be supposed to follow it up with a parley, for
+the feared (and fearing) individual is dumbfounded at the extraordinary
+double event of either not having killed you or of not having been
+killed himself, according to the law of reciprocity which for him is
+inviolable.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>Under the impression of this very strange fact he will not oppose
+resistance to a peaceable understanding and afterwards in order to
+ensure his friendship there only needs a quick intuition of the poor
+creature's superstitions, beliefs and susceptibilities and a spirit of
+precaution against offending his puerile vanity or of in any way
+provoking jealousy or mistrust.</p>
+
+<p>When he is persuaded that the presence of his undesired guest brings him
+no evil he will give you his full confidence and spontaneously accept
+you as a benevolent and powerful protector.</p>
+
+<p>The perils, I grant, are many and great, but greater still are those
+that lie in wait for an armed traveller. The savage may be terrified and
+overpowered by the massacres with which civilization asserts its
+tyrannical superiority but the venom of hatred has entered his soul and
+he meditates and prepares an ambush which sooner or later, without fail,
+will give him his revenge.</p>
+
+<p>The use of brutal force (that for me is a political error) is an
+enormous damage to the study of the customs, beliefs, and psychological
+peculiarities of the people with whom we are in contact, for they will
+back out of every enquiry or investigation, will either refuse to
+respond or will tell you lies, and this accounts for the contradictory
+reports that different travellers give about the same tribe or race.</p>
+
+<p>This, kind reader, is my modest conviction as, from their method of
+proceeding, it is also of the English, who are Masters in everything
+that concerns colonization.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>My baggage being ready it only remained for me to find some carriers who
+would be useful to me, if not as guides to the country of the Sakais, at
+least as interpreters between me and its inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>Penang is populated chiefly by Malays but numerous other races are
+represented there, especially Chinese and Indians. Without much trouble
+I succeeded in engaging the services of five porters: a Malay, an
+Indian, a Chinese, a Siamese and a Sam-Sam, quite a lad. Together they
+formed a little Babel which I congratulated myself would prove of great
+help in making overtures with the Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>All my followers, with the exception of the Sam-Sam, had faces which
+would have graced the gallows and I am sure that Lombroso<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> would have
+classified them without hesitation as born-criminals. But their
+forbidding countenances did not alarm me as it is well known that the
+basest villain becomes timid and servile when confronted by unexpected
+danger, and I was well aware that the dread of tigers, snakes, traps and
+poisoned arrows, the thousand mysteries of Death which the wonderful
+forest encloses amidst its countless trees, amongst the confusion of its
+thick interlaced creepers and under its soft moss and long grass would
+have converted these ugly-faced, crooked-souled individuals into docile
+lambs. I knew that once they had entered a land, to them not known, they
+would not forsake me, for the Oriental has faith in the European and
+will follow whither the latter leads, attributing to him rare qualities
+of courage and energy as well as a marvellous ability in overcoming
+obstacles and getting out of difficult positions.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We left Penang on a coasting steamer and after going up the River Perak
+for about 60 miles we reached the little town of Telok Anson where we
+landed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>It was too early in the morning, when, we arrived for me to present
+myself to the British Authority and as the local officials did not in
+the slightest way interfere with my free passage nor subject me to any
+sort of inquisitorial interrogations (which in other colonies and under
+other Protectorates I had been obliged to undergo) I gave orders for our
+immediate departure as I was anxious to commence our march as soon as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>Having divided our load of provisions in equal parts we crossed the
+Perak on a pontoon and with a "<i>slamat gialat</i>" (pleasant journey) from
+the man on board we found ourselves upon the shores where my adventures
+had to begin.</p>
+
+<p>I was there, then, with my face turned towards a new land, and a thrill
+of joyous emotion pervaded me. What surprises were reserved for me up on
+the wooded mountains towards which we were bending our steps? What
+things, what habits would be revealed to me when I reached my goal?</p>
+
+<p>I was leaving behind me civilized company. I was isolating myself from
+educated society but I was not perturbed at the thought of the hardship,
+the sufferings, the dangers that lay before me. Vague and pleasant hopes
+smiled upon me from the Future. Of what nature were they? I could not
+tell.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" I said to myself and my carriers. And the march began.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The first day passed very well, in spite of the intense heat, and
+nothing occurred worth mentioning. It was growing dark and we had
+already done about 20 miles when we came in sight of a hut erected
+amongst some cocoanut and banana trees. We soon found that it was
+occupied by a Malay, with his wife and children, who had come there for
+the cultivation of rice.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>My request for hospitality, until the morning, was received with evident
+distrust, but the hope of coveted gifts in the end, got the better of
+Islamatic superstition in the soul of the Malay, and a covered corner of
+his humble residence was accorded me and my men.</p>
+
+<p>During the night I tried to make the Malay talk about the Sakais but I
+could not ask him any direct questions as it would have been a serious
+affair if my companions came to suspect that our way through the forest
+was entirely new to me and that I was ignorant of the place where our
+journey would end.</p>
+
+<p>I managed, however, to find out that quite recently some Sakais had
+ventured as far as there to exchange <i>rattan</i> (Malacca cane) and rubber,
+for tobacco and rice. They had then departed, but the Malay did not know
+from whence they had come or whither they had gone. He believed that
+they could not be very far off as a few days before he had distinctly
+heard their call-whistles.</p>
+
+<p>For various causes I felt obliged to doubt the truth of what the man
+related, not the least of which being his ill-disguised desire to rid
+himself of our company as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At day-break we started off again, following an almost untracked path
+which led us over miasmatic marshes swarming with insects. Our poor legs
+were attacked by a perfect army of leeches and subjected to a most
+inopportune and undesirable bleeding. From time to time we were
+compelled to stop and free ourselves from their tenacious hold. They
+seemed to prefer European blood to Asiatic and made me suffer more than
+my escort, perhaps because my skin being more tender they could better
+succeed in their sanguinary intent, but although my flesh smarted and my
+strength <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>failed it was necessary to keep cheerful and pretend, every
+now and then, to recognize our whereabouts just as if I had passed the
+same way other times. I even assured my five companions that when we
+reached the Sakais there would be no more difficulties, and so urged
+them on the faster.</p>
+
+<p>I hoped that the farther we penetrated into the vast wilds around us the
+more I might depend upon the fidelity of my carriers as they would have
+to rely upon my supposed knowledge of the country we were entering and
+so would be less likely to beat a retreat. As we went along, however, I
+leading the way which. I did not know myself, I could not help noticing
+that they paid particular attention to every characteristic point we
+passed, cutting notches in the trees with their <i>parang</i>, or knives,
+after we had waded through a brook or taken a sudden turn in our course,
+but my mind was too much occupied with the duties of my self-assumed
+pilotage for me to attach any importance to the fact.</p>
+
+<p>The weather was fine all day so that we were able to go a long way
+before night fell. Not having come across any sort of refuge we were
+obliged to improvise one for ourselves and in about an hour we were
+resting from our fatigues whilst the little Sam-Sam served us with
+boiled rice, dried fish and certain capsicums which would have made
+cayenne pepper seem sugar in comparison! There being nothing better to
+eat I too had to take my share of the frugal repast.</p>
+
+<p>Sleep soon stole over us all, but I was somehow uneasy, for certain
+strange demands my companions made me had reminded me of the marks I had
+seen them making on the trees a while before, and my suspicions were
+aroused without my knowing exactly how to define them; therefore, with
+the excuse of writing, I determined to keep watch. Until about four
+o'clock in the morning I was able to resist the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>somnolence which
+weighed down my eyelids but at last, exhausted with so many hours'
+march, with the high tension to which my nerves had been pitched and
+weakened by the abundant blood-letting in the swamp, my body triumphed
+over my will and I also slept.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn the little wild bird, the <i>cep pl&oacute;t</i>, broke the silent air with
+its characteristic and shrill <i>ci ti ri&agrave;</i>. To him the smaller and tamer
+<i>cep ri&ograve;</i> replied with a sweetly modulated solfeggio of extraordinary
+precision, and I awoke. At the same time I felt myself being roughly
+shaken and the voice of my little Sam-Sam cried into my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"Tuan lakas bangun samoa Orang suda lari" (Wake up quickly, sir; the men
+have all run away)!</p>
+
+<p>Ah, then, my misgivings had not been unfounded and it was Slumber that
+had betrayed me. I jumped up and looked around. There was nobody to be
+seen and nothing to be heard. I turned anxiously towards our heap of
+provisions and discovered instantly that the four rascals had made off
+with a large booty of my rice, tobacco, and matches, things that were
+very precious to me at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done? Follow them? And if we did not find them? It would
+be loss of time as well as goods. The only thing to do was to treat the
+incident with philosophy, comforting myself with the remote hope of some
+day meeting with the scoundrels and of making them pay dear for their
+knavish trick. This hope, I may say in parenthesis, was not a vain one,
+for a year later I met my Chinese culprit at Telok Anson and not long
+after, his Malay confederate at Penang, on both of which occasions I had
+the satisfaction&mdash;without troubling the legal authority to intercede for
+or against me&mdash;of giving them a lesson in honesty that I dare warrant
+will have made them lose the gust of treating others as they had treated
+me.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>I was glad to find that the Sam-Sam boy had not deserted me for I had
+taken a kind of liking to him. He told me that the Malay who had
+accorded us hospitality had narrated to his countryman most terrible
+things about the Sakais, describing so many perils, and such ferocious
+treatment, which awaited those who risked getting into their midst, that
+even a man of dauntless courage would have shuddered. Nothing was said
+to me of this, but the man had informed the other three, who understood
+the Malay language, and between the four it was quickly decided to
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>The boy had heard it all but did not give me any hint, never thinking
+that the wicked project of robbing and abandoning me would have been so
+speedily carried into effect.</p>
+
+<p>I asked the only companion left me if he was disposed to be faithful to
+his engagement and to me, no matter where we went, or whom we met with,
+and he expressed his readiness to accompany me. The answer put me into
+better spirits and I made arrangements for continuing our journey.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We boiled enough rice and broiled enough fish to last us for two meals
+and then divided both in two parts. We each took our own share and
+wrapped it up in some leaves ready to eat when we made a brief halt on
+the banks of the many streams flowing through the forest.</p>
+
+<p>With the remaining provisions we made two bundles, as bulky as seemed
+possible to carry, but their weight surpassed our strength so we were
+compelled to sacrifice a large quantity of our victuals which we put
+into a sack and left in the hut, hoping that there it would not be
+damaged by the rain, and afterwards, still well-laden, we once more set
+off.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>Under the scorching rays of the sun and the weight of my burden I
+plodded on, philosophizing to myself&mdash;like a Boetius lost in the
+jungle&mdash;in order to draw some comforting conclusion out of this, my
+first, unpleasant adventure. But my philosophy soon took the form of
+certain meditations and comparisons that were not all serene. My
+thoughts flew to the heroes of the Bar-room and the Club to whom Sport
+means fatigue, boldness, development of the muscles, and sacrifice
+provided.... that every athletic exercise, however slight, be followed
+up by a tepid or shower bath, massage, or the rest prescribed by the
+hygienist or trainer. I thought of those so-called explorers who
+enlighten the civilized part of the world upon the habits and customs of
+the uncivilized part; those literary swindlers who travel in a Pullman's
+car or some other vehicle, equally convenient and comfortable, to a safe
+place, near the land to be explored, there to make notes of the vague
+reports and yet more vague "they says" that circulate about the
+Aborigines in question, and afterwards with the help of their fertile
+imagination turn these mere voices into startling facts, add a few
+extraordinary occurrences in the Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver style (in
+which they themselves always play the principal part) and then present
+their interesting writings to the public as a scientific and instructive
+volume. I was inclined to envy them their ability and to admire the
+ineffable good-nature of Society that pays the expenses for these
+triumphs of Humbug.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="Sakaisflee" id="Sakaisflee"></a>
+<img src="images/020.jpg" width="600" height="427" alt="Sakais fleeing from a camp" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">At our approach the Sakais fled terrified from the hut.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Ah!" I went on grumbling to myself, and it seemed to relieve me to thus
+apostrophize them in their absence, "if you were only here now, you
+gentlemen of sportive tastes and you, illustrious explorers of wonderful
+lands and mysterious islands, how I should like to see your virtue put
+to the test: here in the forest from whose black depths a poisoned dart
+may at any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> moment fly towards you as a Messenger of Death or from
+whence a huge wild beast may, unexpectedly, rush furiously forth: here
+where one's steps may be suddenly arrested by the up-rising of a
+venomous snake. Who knows what an assistance to your fervid fantasy it
+would be to hear in the freedom of Nature's own menagerie the sinister
+hissing of the serpent, the bellowing of the elephant, the lowing of the
+<i>sladan</i>, the roar of the tiger, the grunt of the wild-boar, the squeal
+of the monkey, and the peevish notes of the cockatoo all blended into a
+formidable concert, the accompaniment being the rustling of reeds and
+climbing plants, moved more by animal life than by the air; the
+fluttering of leaves; the humming and buzzing of myriads of insects: the
+murmuring of the brooks: voices and sounds that announce to the
+traveller a continual increase of danger".</p>
+
+<p>But I must apologize to my readers for this digression. The jungle and
+its concerts often make one commit the sin of philosophy, and, in thus
+sinning, I had involuntarily forgotten you.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> An Italian celebrated for his psychological
+studies.&mdash;Translator's note.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch3.jpg" width="400" height="106" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">A fearful nocturnal concert&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Fire! Fire!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A clearing in the forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A
+general flight&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Masters of the camp!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mortal weariness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A morning
+greeting without any compliments&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A first meeting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;In the village&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;AL&Agrave;
+against the Orang-putei.</p>
+
+
+<p>Not having found even a trace of human habitation either on the second
+day of our march we were once more compelled to prepare a shelter for
+the night as best we could. We made two little alcoves of boughs and
+leaves, and having satisfied the cravings of appetite we lighted a fire
+on each side of our miniature encampment, piled up enough wood at hand
+to keep them burning, and settled ourselves down to sleep, or rather one
+of us had to sleep whilst the other watched, as we had agreed to take
+turns. In our ignorance we had calculated upon finding ourselves
+surrounded by a solemn nocturnal stillness in these remote regions; such
+calm quietness as one enjoys during the night on the Alpine and
+Appennine woods. We were soon made aware of our mistake, however, for
+the monkeys, frightened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> at the glare of the fires, raised a hubbub of
+protests, their shrill cries and chattering voices reaching to the most
+acute notes. Leaping up to the very highest branches of the trees they
+began to shower down upon us broken twigs, leaves, nuts and other
+fruits. They seemed to be holding a meeting overhead at which each
+one&mdash;and they were a multitude&mdash;tried to gabble out a speech and to make
+himself heard above all the others.</p>
+
+<p>Deeper and more ominous notes were not long wanting to complete the
+infernal chorus. From the dense, dark forest came the blood-curdling
+roars of tigers, panthers, and bears mingled with the loud bellowing and
+heavy stampede of elephants; we could distinctly here the cracking of
+boughs hurled to the ground in their furious course, and the crashing of
+bamboo, which with them is a favourite food. One might have said that an
+immense legion of demons had invaded the forest, because in its intense,
+impenetrable obscurity, only dimly lighted for a yard or two by the
+blaze of our fires, everything seemed to turn into life. Every creature,
+every reed, every leaf had a voice of its own; a howl, a rustle, a sigh
+that filled the night air with diabolical sounds. It was a fearful
+pandemonium; a mighty strife twixt victim and victor; an insatiable lust
+for blood; a ferocious manifestation of ferocious love.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire! Fire! let us put on fuel!" and we threw log after log upon the
+burning piles whilst thousands of sparks flew upwards and the bright
+flames cast a red glow around.</p>
+
+<p>But the great voice of the forest did not cease; it still spoke on in
+the roars and the bellows of the strong and in the yells and wails of
+the weak. It rose up against us, as though pronouncing a malediction
+upon the intruders, upon the profaners of those mysteries that, in the
+inmost recesses of the jungle, great Mother Nature celebrates during the
+night.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>For hours we remained there, in a state it is useless for me even to
+attempt to describe, and then as day-break approached the fearful
+clamour began gradually to die away. Evidently at the first streak of
+dawn the wild beasts had returned to their dens. The monkeys were the
+last to finish as they had been the first to begin, but what was their
+chattering and gibbering compared to that terrible chorus which, with
+freezing veins and paralized brains, we had been obliged to listen to
+all night?</p>
+
+<p>It has never happened to me to greet a friend with such fervour as I did
+the sun that morning. At its appearance a new concert commenced, but now
+it was with the pleasant harmony of the buzzing and humming of insects,
+blended with the gay singing of birds.</p>
+
+<p>It reanimated us and we began to stretch our poor limbs which, besides
+being stiffened and benumbed by the horrors of the past night, and the
+thick dew that had fallen upon us, had also been an unconscious prey to
+leech and mosquito.</p>
+
+<p>Comparisons are odious. Granted. But between a tiger and a leech, a
+panther and a mosquito, notwithstanding their affinity in the liking of
+human blood, believe me there is a great difference, and it was perhaps
+for this reason that we had not previously noticed the onslaught made by
+these lesser carnivora upon our appalled flesh.</p>
+
+<p>A few hurried mouthfuls and we were on the tramp again. Our sleepless
+night, and the strong emotions that had kept us awake, made us feel
+tired and listless, but the bare idea of being exposed to the same
+torment and fear another time, gave us courage and strength to press on
+as far as possible in search of some nocturnal refuge, more secure from
+the four-footed inhabitants of the land, before sunset should have
+enticed them from their lairs.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>Weary, and mechanically, we trudged along, anxiously peering in front of
+us for some opening in the thick foliage and closely packed trees, or of
+some other sign of human life.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been about three o clock in the afternoon&mdash;for my watch had
+stopped&mdash;and it had begun to drizzle, when we saw, at not a great
+distance from us, the everlasting twilight of the wild forest dispersed
+by the full light of day.</p>
+
+<p>Our spirits revived at the sight, for in all probability it meant a vast
+clearing for the erection of huts and, in consequence, the presence of
+fellow beings, however savage they might be.</p>
+
+<p>We advanced with alacrity and soon came out in a large open space closed
+in by the felled trunks of enormous trees and planted with Indian corn,
+yams and sweet potatoes.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle stood two cabins made of the strong branches and gigantic
+leaves of the plants and trees which had been cut down. We were just
+able to catch a glimpse of some men lying about on the ground, whilst
+some women were busily cooking monkey's, serpents, and colossal rats,
+and several younger men were preparing poisoned arrows.</p>
+
+<p>We took in the whole scene in a rapid glance for in an instant the dogs
+began to bark and their masters were thrown into a state of alarm. We
+stopped, and they saw us, saw <i>me</i>&mdash;a white man&mdash;and full of fright they
+sprang to their feet. Like lightning they gathered up their provisions,
+the women slung the children on to their shoulders and they all
+disappeared, over the stout fence they had erected round their dwelling
+place, with the agility and the speed of a troop of monkeys.</p>
+
+<p>I really think that if the head of the Medusa, instead of turning into
+stone those who looked at it, had given <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>them wings to escape they could
+not have flown away faster than did those poor savages at the sight of
+me.</p>
+
+<p>I had only time to see that they were quite naked and that their skin
+was of a light brownish tint, but this for the moment satisfied me as I
+knew that at last I had come into contact with the May Darats in search
+of whom I had ventured there.</p>
+
+<p>But I was so thoroughly exhausted in every way that I had even lost the
+power of thinking about them or anything else.</p>
+
+<p>I, and my faithful follower, entered the abandoned huts where we found
+some hot potatoes (which were quickly devoured) and a curious stringed
+instrument that had been left behind in the hasty flight.</p>
+
+<p>Having taken the usual precautions for the night, too tired out to care
+for the dangers that might be menacing us, dangers that might prove
+worse than those we had experienced the previous night (for we knew what
+we had to expect from quadruped enemies, but were ignorant of how our
+biped foes would treat our presence in their domain) unmindful and
+heedless of everything, dizzy with the need of rest, I threw myself down
+on the rude floor and fell heavily asleep.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Towards two o'clock in the morning (as far as we could judge) my
+Sam-Sam, who had been keeping watch, awoke me. It was his turn to sleep.
+Nothing had happened, as yet, to excite suspicion or inquietude and this
+made me hope that we should not receive any serious hostility from the
+Aborigines.</p>
+
+<p>By straining my gaze into the darkness of the forest I discerned that
+some fires were lighted not very far off, a sure sign that the Sakais
+were still near us. Was this a good or a bad omen? Day would without
+doubt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>bring the answer. And day soon came, gladly welcomed by all
+Creation save by those people and beasts whose deeds are better suited
+to obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>I was preparing a nice strong cup of tea to refresh my stomach and cheer
+up my spirits (for recent events had greatly depressed them) when
+something lightly whistled above my ear and glided over my head.</p>
+
+<p>I gave a violent start and taking off my hat discovered that it had two
+little holes in it, one on each side. At a few steps from me lay an
+arrow, which had just fallen there, after having perforated my
+head-covering and softly touched my thin locks. It was a hair breadth
+escape, in a true sense of the saying, for the sharp missile shot at me
+from the Sakais infallible blow-pipe had first been carefully poisoned.</p>
+
+<p>That unexpected and not very friendly "good morning" called me back to
+the bitter reality of my position, and warned me not to delay coming to
+an understanding with them at once.</p>
+
+<p>Prudence forbade my presenting myself in their midst because the colour
+of my skin, although well sunburnt, would have drawn upon me certain
+death. I was convinced that in their primitive superstition they would
+have believed me an evil spirit and as such would have speedily
+despatched me to another world. The only thing to be done was to send
+hither my intelligent Sam-Sam who willingly allowed himself to be loaded
+with tobacco, coloured beads, <i>sirih</i> and matches and then sallied forth
+to make a truce.</p>
+
+<p>He was accorded an audience without any difficulty which fact was
+perhaps due to the similitude of his race with theirs but more probably
+to the gifts he carried with him.</p>
+
+<p>My ambassador was interrogated with eagerness and curiosity about the
+<i>orang putei</i> (white man), and he told them that I had come laden with
+gifts and full of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>good-will towards them. But the Sakais would not hear
+of my approaching their new encampment and sent word that they would
+soon favour me with a visit.</p>
+
+<p>And they kept their promise without losing any time in making a toilet
+or getting into a dress suit. They were in three, two stalwart youths
+and a man of between forty and fifty, all armed with their <i>sumpitans</i>
+(blow-pipes).</p>
+
+<p>By means of the Malay language and the universal one of gestures, I
+explained to them that I did not mean them any harm, that on the
+contrary it was my desire to help them in whatever way I could and that
+I should like to live amongst them if they would let me, as I wanted to
+initiate some plantations in their part.</p>
+
+<p>They replied by first trying to dissuade me from taking up my abode with
+them, and then suggested that it would be better for me to go to a small
+village at a short distance off, whither they offered to accompany me.</p>
+
+<p>I thanked them and accepted the offer, telling them, as a recompense,
+where we had left our sack of provisions. I afterwards heard that they
+had succeeded in finding it.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I felt so contented at having made the first step&mdash;which is always the
+most difficult&mdash;that notwithstanding the thoroughly exhausted state in
+which I knew myself to be, I re-commenced my journey with a light heart,
+escorted by the three Sakais and my Sam-Sam. But arrived at a certain
+point it was impossible for me to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the stiffness of my joints, my flesh was tingling and bleeding
+with the bites and stings of many insects. In order to prove my
+sufferings to my companions I showed my livid limbs to them and I saw an
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>expression of pity pass over their countenances. It seemed to me a good
+augury for one who was joining their tribe.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped, and the Sakais quickly built up the huts, lighted the fires
+and afterwards ate some rice with us. We then lay down to repose for the
+night, but if Sleep closed our eyes I think Mistrust opened them and
+none of us enjoyed much slumber in the end.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning we continued our course and reached the group of
+cabins dignified by the name of village. Here the same thing took place
+as on the previous day. In spite of my being in the company of three of
+their own people, which I thought would have reassured them, at my
+appearance the huts were rapidly deserted amidst cries of terror.</p>
+
+<p>My three guides, however, managed to get into communication with their
+brethren and after a while led them to me without their making any
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>I got their consent to let me settle down near them on the condition
+that I did not seek to enter their huts. The reason of this interdiction
+I learnt later on. It had been a prescription of the Al&agrave;, a sort of
+sorcerer, who believed, or made believe that my presence would have an
+evil effect upon a sick mother and her new-born babe.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais, stimulated by my presents, built me a solid and pretty
+comfortable cabin near a rivulet and not far from them, and I installed
+myself there forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>The first day of our acquaintance it happened that I accidentally called
+them Sakais. They changed face and some of them protested angrily:</p>
+
+<p>"You are not good, because you insult us and call us bad names!".</p>
+
+<p>It was a dangerous slip of the tongue and I hastened to make my peace by
+explaining that I had heard the term used by the other people but that I
+knew they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>were really May Darats whose kindness and gentleness had
+often been abused by their neighbours, and in the future I meant to save
+them from being cheated and deceived by their former aggressors.</p>
+
+<p>This declaration calmed their resentment and I was able to begin a
+quiet, tranquil life amongst those simple, sincere beings, a life so
+calm and undisturbed that I have never had cause, then or now, to regret
+the civilized society from which I had voluntarily withdrawn myself,
+persuaded that if my character and habits incapacitated me for the
+dubious and not always straightforward transactions of the commercial
+world, the same moral qualities which impeded me from becoming a
+business man might find good ground for bringing forth fruit in the pure
+hearts and minds of a primitive people, who knew neither fraud, nor
+hypocrisy.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch4.jpg" width="400" height="105" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">New friends&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Gold&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An English official&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The purchase of my future
+treasure&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Administrative simplicity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;England teaches!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "sla
+pui"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Bitter disappointment&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Sam-Sam&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The poison of the Savage and
+the venom of the Civilized.</p>
+
+
+<p>My strength and health, which had suffered in consequence of those few
+days' strain of muscle and nerve, soon returned to their normal state in
+that peaceful retreat upon the grassy banks of the stream that is an
+affluent of the Bidor.</p>
+
+<p>My friendship with the Sakais increased every day because little by
+little their suspicions concerning me were allayed and the curiosity
+with which they watched my every act was no longer mixed with fear. They
+did not attempt to run away when I bent my steps towards their rough
+habitations in spite of the Al&agrave;'s veto to my passage through their
+village and it was not a rare thing for my gifts of tobacco and <i>sirih</i>
+to be exchanged with pheasants and other game and sometimes even with a
+chicken. I found it easy to talk with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>men and prized these
+conversations as a means of studying their characters and of learning
+their language, which is composed of short, strongly accented words. It
+was very seldom that I could find any sort of derivation from the Malay
+tongue in these terse syllables.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time that I sought to get upon a familiar footing with my
+new friends I did not forget one of the principal motives that had
+induced me to wander so far from the haunts of ordinary men, so one day
+I cracked a cocoanut in half and, cleaning it well out, I dipped the
+shell into the bed of the stream and drew it out again full of water and
+sand.</p>
+
+<p>I examined the contents with great care and found a few grains of gold
+in the alluvion! This was joy indeed, and mentally I bade goodbye to the
+life of a planter (although I had not yet begun it) and there on the
+spot decided to dedicate my time and energy to the gathering of gold
+which would be far the quickest way of making a fortune.</p>
+
+<p>All at once, however, an unpleasant thought crossed my mind and dimmed
+my bright hopes.</p>
+
+<p>In my chats with the Sakais they had told me that there was another
+<i>orang putei</i> at Tapah. I endeavoured to discover who this person was,
+and what he was doing, in the little Malay town, but I was unable to
+obtain any information about him.</p>
+
+<p>Now the idea suggested itself that this white man could be no other than
+a British Government Officer to whom, from a feeling of delicacy,
+respect of the law, and as a means of avoiding future trouble, I was
+bound to explain what I wished to do before setting myself to work, as
+his permission would be necessary for the execution of my desire.</p>
+
+<p>My unfortunate experience of other colonial authorities inspired me with
+very little confidence in that of the English and nothing seemed to me
+more likely than to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>find myself expelled from the Protected States
+instead of having my petition granted.</p>
+
+<p>But on the other hand it would be very rash to commence work in earnest
+without legal authorization, so one day, accompanied by some Sakais to
+the confines of the forest, I betook myself to Tapah.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I could not help wondering to myself what sort of a gruff, bureaucratic
+functionary I should find to deny me my fortune. Who knew how my Italian
+enterprise would be judged on territory protected by H. B. M.?</p>
+
+<p>But calling up my courage I was introduced into the presence of a young
+and pleasant-mannered gentleman who received me with much politeness.</p>
+
+<p>He had already been informed that a white man was to be found amongst
+the Sakais and he had been greatly surprised, not understanding what
+attractions anyone could find in the midst of a people so ignorant and
+savage. He congratulated himself upon the opportunity of meeting and
+knowing me, was pleased to hear that I was an Italian and wound up with
+the stereotyped demand:</p>
+
+<p>"What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?".</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by his kindness, but not without a little secret misgiving, I
+told him frankly what I proposed doing and related all particulars.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wise (for this was his name) listened to everything attentively, now
+and then expressing a word of sympathy or approval and finally, for the
+sum of a few dollars, made me the owner of the tract of land upon which
+I had fixed my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that in the short space of an hour, without having to
+surmount any obstacles, and at an almost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>ridiculous price I became the
+legitimate possessor of a piece of ground that perhaps concealed a
+treasure in its bosom.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I had never before been at Tapah I took advantage of the time spared
+in my business affairs to visit it a little and to form an opinion upon
+the expedients used in a half-desert Eastern country, scorched by the
+sun, populated by different tribes, infested by poisonous insects and
+terrible microbes, to say nothing of a host of wild beasts!</p>
+
+<p>Tapah is a modern little town, all villas and gardens. It rises white
+and coquettishly at the foot of green hills and its smiling panorama,
+although without the magnificent background of the sea, recalled to my
+sight the sweet vision of my native Varazze, one of the most beautiful
+gems that adorn the Riviera Ponente.</p>
+
+<p>It is the chief-town of a district counting 30,000 inhabitants amongst
+which about a thousand of diverse races and nationalities. It has two
+large streets lined with shops where Malays, Indians, and Chinese offer
+a varied and heterogeneous stock of goods for sale.</p>
+
+<p>It is divided in the middle by the big river Batang Padang which
+afterwards discharges itself into the Bidor, that too.</p>
+
+<p>As capital of the district it possesses a Post Office, a very large room
+where two Indian clerks perform their duties under the direction of an
+English Postmaster who has also to overlook the branch offices of the
+circuit.</p>
+
+<p>My attention was attracted by an unpretending edifice in front of which
+some Malay and Indian soldiers were seated. I was asking them what
+building it was when an Englishman came out and courteously told me that
+it was the Head Police Station of which he was the inspector.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>During a subsequent conversation I learnt that the Police Service was
+everything that could be desired as also that of all the other Public
+Offices and that Indigenes and Indians were everywhere employed under
+the direction of English chiefs. The number of clerks, as in other
+British colonies, was according to strict necessity; no extra posts were
+ever created for political or personal interest but when assistance was
+required there was never any difficulty in selecting local aspirant, as
+long as they had a sufficient knowledge of the official language.</p>
+
+<p>So I found that Tapah, the chief-town of the district, is under the
+direction of an Englishman, who is called the District Officer, and who
+performs all administrative and magisterial functions.</p>
+
+<p>Not much time lost here in the labyrinths of Bureaucracy! And yet I
+heard that both the District Officer and the Police Inspector who are
+under the control of the Authority residing in Taiping, capital of Perak
+but who in reality enjoy almost complete liberty of action, find the
+time not only to discharge all the various duties of their office but
+also to take recreation in a little football and cricket. It is said
+that sometimes the menservants too are called in to take part in these
+national sports and for an hour freely compete with their masters in the
+art of kicking and batting, returning serious and respectful to their
+proper places at the end of the game.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst I was passing the time pleasantly, talking with one and the other
+I saw a little party approaching that was the object of great respect
+from the bystanders.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mr. Wise the District Officer who had received me so politely a
+few hours before.</p>
+
+<p>He was on his return from a survey made in order to define the boundary
+of some land belonging to two Malays. Without donning any sort of
+uniform or insignia, this British delegate had known how to preserve
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>all the solemnity and dignity of form due to the occasion, a virtue
+peculiar to the English who are always and everywhere the most rigorous
+observers of social and official etiquette.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wise kindly invited me to follow him the Club where he kept me in
+friendly conservation, answering all the questions I could not refrain
+from asking him in my desire to become better acquainted with the colony
+and its method of government.</p>
+
+<p>Now Mr. Wise is no more, but in him his country lost a model functionary
+for intelligence, solicitude and uprightness.</p>
+
+<p>He died at the very moment his future seemed to smile its brightest;
+when his fondest hopes were about to be crowned by matrimony with the
+young lady of his choice.</p>
+
+<p>Let me, through these pages, render to his memory the modest,
+affectionate homage of admiration and deferential friendship.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>That day, having made my peace with the authorities, I returned with a
+clear conscience to the quiet nook I had found in the vast forest; to
+that domestic corner reserved for me in Dame Nature's grand and wondrous
+saloon: to that rude home so far removed from the generality of mankind,
+but so close to the kings and princes of the animal kingdom, commonly
+called&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;wild beasts.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="YoungSakai" id="YoungSakai"></a>
+<img src="images/036.jpg" width="416" height="600" alt="A young Sakai" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 416px;">
+<p class="caption">A young Sakai with his inseparable blowpipe.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Keeping tight hold of the receipt which had suddenly made me the owner
+of a possible gold mine, I alternately made castles in the air and
+meditated upon the simplicity of English administration that in a few
+short instants had conceded to me an extensive zone of land with which
+to do what I liked, without any need of setting in motion the intricate
+machinery of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>bureaucracy; without any stamped legal forms, surveys
+and expensive reports; the presentation of birth certificate and that of
+British citizenship; without digging into the past and the future, into
+the state and position of one's family, etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>And because everything that happens to one abroad recalls one's
+fatherland (a natural habit that neither distance nor time can change) I
+thought of my native country and of the complicated organization of its
+many bureaucratic departments that only too often clogs the boldest
+Italian enterprise and raises an insurmountable barrier before creative
+and inventive genius compelling it to seek elsewhere its fortune.</p>
+
+<p>From my heart I longed that Italy might before long be liberated from
+these toils which hinder the free expansion of its young and vigorous
+forces.</p>
+
+<p>One thing had particularly struck me during my intercourse with Mr.
+Wise. The fact of my being an Italian was no obstacle to my request
+being favourably received. This surprised me, for under other
+governments I had seen that foreigners were considered anything but
+necessary to the colony and after having opposed, more or less openly,
+the intruder's initiative, the Authority seized the slightest pretext,
+that offered itself under a decent aspect, to send the new-comer back
+over the frontier for fear that their digestion might suffer from his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>England on the contrary does not search into, nor care for, the origin
+of those who bring energy or any other useful quality to her colonies.
+In her dominions she only aims at reaching the highest point of
+prosperity, she desires only the accumulation of riches, and whoever
+promises well to further her interests, becomes an appreciated
+collaborator, be he Italian, German, Portuguese or Turk.</p>
+
+<p>England never repells talent or aptitude from an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>absurd prejudice of
+Chauvinism. Considering the length and breadth of her possessions she
+may well say that the world is her tributary, no wonder then that she
+avails herself of the hands and brains of every one who knows how to use
+them well, instead of confining herself exclusively to the merits of
+those born on British soil.</p>
+
+<p>In this broad way of seeing and treating things&mdash;which proves the
+tranquil and perfect consciousness the English nation has of its own
+strength&mdash;I believe lies the secret of its colonial success.</p>
+
+<p>The well-known satire according to which it is impossible to find in the
+world a rock or strip of land, however barren or sterile, without an
+owner, for the simple reason that an Englishman is always prompt to
+unfold and hoist the Union Jack there, is in reality the highest and
+most just homage that can be paid to the spirit of enterprise that
+characterizes this people. Where others only see sand and reefs, not
+worth the trouble of cultivation, the Englishman discovers some
+productive germ that with his indefatigable energy brings forth a
+thousand fold. Nor is Colonial work, industrial activity and commercial
+thrift disturbed by bureaucratic sophistry or immoderate fiscal
+pretentions, that so frequently suffocate the most promising and
+audacious undertakings in other places.</p>
+
+<p>Colonial success very often depends upon the ability of its
+administrative body in directing all available force to this one end:
+the increase of its wealth. Bureaucracy is a cancer which paralyzes all
+life and motion that it finds within reach of its tentacles.</p>
+
+<p>Old England has understood this for a long time, ever since, from the
+island once fruitless and barren, she spread her wings and flew to the
+conquest of the World's markets.</p>
+
+<p>When will certain other nations comprehend that antiquity and past
+glory, instead of offering the precious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>fruit of experience, has
+brought upon them a palsied decrepitude?</p>
+
+<p>When wilt thou understand this, my Italy, risen as thou art to the third
+maturity of thy civilization and glory?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I set myself at once, with a good will, to the extraction of gold, and
+engaged the services of a few Malays and Chinese coolies, who were
+expert enough, to assist me in my work.</p>
+
+<p>The method we followed was a very primitive one. We filled some round
+wooden bowls with the water and sand, then by gently stirring the mass,
+particles of tin and gold were separated from the sand and went to the
+bottom. This deposit carefully gathered up was passed into other bowls
+full of water, into which we threw a well-pounded leaf of the <i>sla
+pi&ugrave;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The juice of these leaves possesses a chemical property which I cannot
+explain but it draws up to the surface the sand still sticking to the
+metals, leaving them quite pure.</p>
+
+<p>But the yellow tempter was not at all profuse in his favours and the
+golden metal came in very small quantities. I did not lose courage,
+however, and persevered for a long time without any change of luck. I
+even tried to trace out the auriferous bed from whence the waters of the
+stream transported the metals. I made innumerable attempts to find it,
+but in vain, and the day came when I was constrained to confess to
+myself that alluvial mining for me was a failure.</p>
+
+<p>After all my hopes and dreams it was a melancholy confession to make but
+it was evident that I must turn in another direction if I wished for
+fortune, so I settled my account with the workmen and dismissed them.</p>
+
+<p>At their departure my Sam-Sam who had become in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>the meantime a robust
+young man, begged me to let him return to his own part, saying that
+there was a young Sakai willing to take his place in my service.
+Although very sorry to lose the faithful companion of that never to be
+forgotten journey through the forest, I could not refuse his request and
+let him do as he wished.</p>
+
+<p>It was with real pleasure that I fell in with him again some years after
+when I was travelling through the interior of Kedah and he too evinced
+great joy at the meeting.</p>
+
+<p>He told me that what he had earned from me had been the means of making
+his fortune, for with it he had bought a piece of ground and some oxen,
+and now kept himself, his wife and two children, by agricultural work.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I have said, the gold was very scarce. After the coolies had left I
+tried to persuade the Sakais to take their post, which would have saved
+expense in gathering it, but every effort was useless for these people
+do not and will not understand what works means, or the pleasure it
+gives, beyond that of preparing poisons.</p>
+
+<p>Poison is the principal topic of conversation with them and their only
+boast is the discovery of new or more deadly mixtures. The children
+listen to these discourses with lively interest and pay anxious
+attention to the experiments made by their elders in this primitive kind
+of chemistry, and in this way the passion is propagated from father to
+son and so it will continue until the breath of civilization reaches
+that far-off spot and those good, simple men learn that, in the struggle
+for life, civilized persons no longer use poisons that kill the body,
+but those which are much more terrible and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>without an antidote, such as
+envy, calumny, hatred and luxury, which destroy the mind and soul.</p>
+
+<p>These are the venemous elements that my forest friends do not yet know,
+those poor savages who extract their poisons from the <i>ipok</i><a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and
+other, trees to defend themselves against wild beasts and to procure
+them food in their wild abode.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The <i>ipok</i>, known in science by the Javenese name of
+<i>upas</i>, is a tree that affords a very baneful poison as explained in the
+chapter upon poisons.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<img src="images/ch1.jpg" width="400" height="94" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">Great Mother Earth&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A dangerous meeting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A living statue&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Here or
+there?&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An unrelished supper&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A dreaded immigration&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A glance into the
+past&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A rape which was not a rape&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A noble task&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Towards the
+mountain&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Tiger-shooting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Sakais in town&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Alloyed sweets&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Musical
+tastes&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Hurrah for the free forest!</p>
+
+
+<p>My gold mania was transient. My spirit was very soon liberated from its
+thrall and I turned with alacrity to the study of a more practical and
+satisfactory enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>In that brief period of uncertainty I had somehow felt convinced that
+fortune (if indeed fortune was reserved for me) would have to come to me
+through the ground. But in what way?</p>
+
+<p>I often accompanied the Sakais in their visits into the thick of the
+forest where they were in the habit of going in search of poisons, and
+sometimes I would even go by myself. During these excursions I tortured
+my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>brain with the everlasting question of how to initiate a new line of
+work and gain.</p>
+
+<p>One day the forest itself answered my puzzling query!</p>
+
+<p>There were extensive woods of rattan, and other magnificent reeds which
+are called in England Indian and Malacca cane; there was resin oozing
+copiously from the trunks of the trees. What more could be desired?</p>
+
+<p>I began gently to make my Sakais comprehend how much I should like to
+gather these products and transport them to where I might exchange them
+for other articles that we were without. It was of no use to speak to
+them of money because they had not the smallest idea of what it meant.</p>
+
+<p>At first they responded roughly that they did not care anything at all
+about the matter, for, as I before said, the Sakais from habit and an
+innate spirit of independence will never hear of submitting themselves
+to any regular, ordinate labour. Knowing, however, with whom I had to
+deal, and divining what a great amount of patience would be necessary to
+bring them round to my way of thinking, I began to distribute gifts,
+especially tobacco, freely and frequently amongst them, only mentioning
+my wish occasionally, as if by chance. And my prodigality had its
+reward.</p>
+
+<p>One day I saw them returning from the forest abundantly laden with the
+products I wanted.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good beginning and was followed up by a constant supply. I
+stored up the bamboo and gum and when I had accumulated enough I went to
+the coast to sell my merchandise coming back well provided with tobacco,
+iron, coloured beads, matches, salt, rice padi and maize. These things I
+dispensed amongst my friends and they, seeing the good result of their
+fatigue in the form of articles which excited their cupidity, ended by
+keeping me plentifully furnished with the goods in question.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>The new branch of commerce, which I had started, required a good deal of
+energy, but I let no grass grow under my feet and went frequently to
+Tapah in order to open up a sale for my products.</p>
+
+<p>It was on my return from one of these journeys that something happened
+to me worth relating.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few hours of daylight remained when I set out from Tapah for my
+forest habitation. I was carrying with me six nice loaves and a piece of
+venison that I had bought in town and I thought with keen appreciation
+of the savoury supper I should have that night.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried along as fast as possible in order to traverse the 2 miles of
+highroad and the other of woodland track, which lay before me, ere night
+fell. In spite of the 30 miles already done that day my legs continued
+to serve me well and I walked rapidly on with a bent head, full of
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>At a sudden turning of the path I raised my eyes to scrutinize the way.
+About 50 yards in front of me I saw a dark and confused mass slowly
+moving. Thinking to meet with a party of coolies from a neighbouring
+mine, who were perhaps going for provisions, I advanced for another 40
+paces, then stopped short and was fixed to the spot. The formless mass
+had taken the shape of nothing less than an enormous tiger!</p>
+
+<p>There was no fear that step or gesture of mine would attract its
+attention for at the sight I had become petrified, like Lot's wife! In
+that atom of time, which seemed to me a century, I could not even think,
+but across the deadened faculty of my mind flashed a warning I had
+recently received from the Sakais: never make a movement in the presence
+of a tiger, and never look it straight in the face.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="mountains" id="mountains"></a>
+<img src="images/044.jpg" width="600" height="396" alt="A view of mountains" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Towards the mountains.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>The first part of this injunction was instinctively obeyed for I
+remained there rooted to the ground, utterly unable to stir even if such
+an imprudent idea had suggested itself. My senses were so paralyzed by
+the unexpected encounter that I did not entirely realize my position and
+had only a vague perception that when those fierce eyes once rested upon
+me the end of the world would have come, as far as I was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Sideways I saw that the huge beast, which had been sniffing the ground,
+to find out what animal had lately passed by, now raised its head and
+looked slowly around with an indolent but suspicious air.</p>
+
+<p>After a painful vibration, some of my muscles became rigid. The monster
+cautiously advanced; it was certainly preparing to pounce upon me! I
+could hardly resist the impulse of looking towards it. All my nerves
+were quivering with anguish as if in a supreme protest against the
+imminent slaughter. Already I felt the terrible creature's hot breath as
+it opened wide its greedy jaws; already my trembling flesh felt the
+fatal touch of its death-dealing claws&mdash;one instant&mdash;two....!</p>
+
+<p>With a quick, irrepressible motion my eyes turned in its direction.</p>
+
+<p>The tiger was leisurely crossing the path and disappeared into the
+forest without taking even the least notice of me! Why, it was almost a
+personal offence!</p>
+
+<p>But although the blood began to flow once more through heart and brain,
+and Life&mdash;which had been momentarily suspended&mdash;again ran through all my
+being, filling the veins and relaxing muscles and nerves, I did not then
+think of the slight offered me by the animal's indifference, for with
+renewal of life had come an atrocious spasm of horror and of fear.</p>
+
+<p>In those few seconds a drama, full of strange sensations, awful
+impressions, and maddening effect had been enacted within me!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>After the first moment of relief, and whilst I was still stretching and
+rubbing my limbs, a serious problem presented itself for solution.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the forest the tiger had gone the very way I had to go
+myself. What had I better do? It was impossible for me to retrace my
+steps, for my previous tiredness had increased to a singular degree
+after my fright. It was equally impossible for me to think of stopping
+where I was. And to penetrate into the forest following in the
+creature's wake, would it not be like going to seek the ghastly end from
+which I had just so narrowly escaped, thanks perhaps to the tiger's
+defective sense of smell?</p>
+
+<p>And yet, after having carefully pondered which course to take I was
+obliged to make my decision in favour of the one that seemed the most
+insensate of the three.</p>
+
+<p>My cabin was not very far off. I should only have to quicken my pace, by
+making a supreme effort, in order to arrive before it got dark.</p>
+
+<p>And the tiger? But might I not have met a dozen of them on my road from
+Tapah? And besides, who could say that the one I had seen was really
+gone towards my home? It would indeed have proved a curious
+predilection, especially after the affront just received!</p>
+
+<p>So armed with these subtle reasonings, with which I sought to persuade
+myself, I left the tragical spot where, according to the brief agony of
+my feelings and the likelihood of procedure, I had been torn to pieces
+and eaten by a wild beast, and I continued my homeward journey.</p>
+
+<p>How the faintest sound startled me! A falling leaf; a blade of grass
+moved by an insect; a snake or a lizard gliding out of my path; the
+squeal of a monkey; the fluttering of a bird's wings as it flew up to
+its perch, all subjected me to spasmodic thrills.</p>
+
+<p>I always had in my sight that dreadful beast with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>gaping mouth, and
+cruelly glittering eyes. The horrible vision gave new vigour to my body,
+extraordinary suppleness to my legs and&mdash;wings to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>Kind reader, who knows how many times in your sitting-room or perhaps in
+somebody else's even dearer to you&mdash;<i>honi soit qui mal y pense</i>!&mdash;you
+have found yourself in front of a tiger, leopard or panther whose
+brindled and glossy skin you have admired; who knows how many times you
+have absently played with its head, still ferocious-looking, in spite of
+its glass eyes and red cloth tongue; who knows how often you have toyed
+with its fangs and claws whilst you were persuing a pleasant thought or
+inebriating your spirit with the soft tones of a certain voice!</p>
+
+<p>Well, have you ever tried to imagine what emotions you would experience
+if quite unexpectedly those glassy eyes should become animated; if that
+ugly mouth should open wider; if those white fangs should gleam with
+life; if those splendid claws should be stretched out in the act of
+lacerating you: if that magnificent skin should once more be
+incorporated and rise up to face you?</p>
+
+<p>I confess the truth when I say, that the dainty supper I had brought
+with me from Tapah, lost its flavour for me that evening.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A report of my flourishing trade and the news that gold was to be found
+at the bottom of the little river which flowed past my humble dwelling
+soon spread outside the Sakai region. The consequence was quite an
+invasion of our tranquil village.</p>
+
+<p>This immigration greatly alarmed the poor Indigenes who cannot easily
+forget how they were once treated by those not of their own race.</p>
+
+<p>They still remembered with terror how the strangers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>had plundered their
+villages, carrying off everything they could lay their hands upon, even
+their young men and women to serve as slaves and concubines.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of these poor victims, torn from the unlimited freedom of
+the jungle, unused to any sort of work that was not voluntary, and
+faithful to their traditions and superstitions did not long survive
+their separation from kin and tribe. The others, who managed to adapt
+themselves to their new conditions, as a matter of course, had their
+primitive simplicity corrupted, and little by little learnt the vices
+and habits of their masters. For this they were considered by their
+brethren as inferior beings and were looked upon with grave suspicion,
+when, taking advantage of the first occasion that offered itself, they
+fled back to the forest. Although by their return to their own people
+they foreswore their past moral and material bondage they could not help
+bringing with them some of the depravity they had seen, or endured, in
+their exile which clashed with the customs and sensibilities of the pure
+type of May Darats, remarkable for their sincerity and integrity.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, by degrees, the original Sakai race diminished whilst new
+clans sprang up around them, formed of those who had been, and continued
+to be, in contact with comparatively civilized people, who knew their
+languages and their craftiness, notwithstanding which they frequently
+became their dupes under the show of good-feeling and cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>The British Protectorate came as a blessing to the Sakais because it
+officially abolished slavery and shortened their neighbours' talons,
+that had grown a little too long.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of the vigilance exercised by their white protectors the
+others still found the means of depredating and imposing upon these good
+but ignorant creatures. Instead of devastating their rude homes and
+arbitrarily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>taking possession of everyone and everything they pleased,
+they soon established another system for achieving their end.</p>
+
+<p>They supplied them with goods of the very worst quality, charging them
+at the highest prices, and as these consisted principally of tobacco,
+salt, iron, <i>sirih</i> and pieces of calico they lasted no time, and had to
+be frequently replaced. As a matter of course this fraudulent manner of
+trading made the poor Sakais' debts amount to fabulous proportions and
+then their swindling creditor dictated the conditions he best liked: the
+man had to follow and serve him or if there was some woman in the family
+he preferred, he would carry her off either to keep for himself, or
+privately sell to another.</p>
+
+<p>To better succeed in their roguery they depicted the white man as an
+incarnate devil, never tired of doing evil, who had come there for
+nothing else but to ravage their land and disperse its inhabitants. The
+<i>orang putei</i> was described to the credulent Sakais as the most terrible
+and cruel enemy that one could possibly imagine.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the real persecutors of this primitive people were regarded by them
+as true friends, whilst the relation of imaginary and fantastic perils
+distracted their minds from the more practical dangers of this false
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>By instilling in them fear of the white man there was less chance that
+the wretched individuals, whose good faith and domestic affections had
+been abused and outraged, would appeal to a British magistrate for
+justice, believing him to be a worse enemy than the actual one, and if
+sometimes a complaint was brought before this functionary through a
+third party, a most distressing scene ensued.</p>
+
+<p>The victim, under the influence of his injurer's glance and presence,
+would acknowledge whatever misdeed, debt, and even crime was attributed
+to him, responding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>to the demand if what his accuser said was true,
+with the invariable and laconic words: "What he says is true".</p>
+
+<p>I may here cite a case in which I took an active part when I was the
+Superintendent of Sakais under the British Government.</p>
+
+<p>One day a family of these Sakais who have dealings with other races,
+rushed wildly into my hut, crying desperately. The parents, sobbing,
+told me that a Chinese, to whom they owed a great deal, had seized and
+led away their daughter.</p>
+
+<p>I set myself to find the blackguard and after some difficulty succeeded.
+I rescued the girl and restored her to her relations and then sent in a
+report of the incident to the Magistrate. A case for abduction was made
+out, and the English law does not jest on such matters. The Chinese
+declared that as his debtors could not pay him his due he had agreed, if
+the girl consented, to take her as his wife or servant, and so cancel
+their debt towards him.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst he spoke he never took his eyes off his accusers. The father and
+mother of the young woman were interrogated and although they were in my
+presence they replied, after a momentary hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"What he says is true".</p>
+
+<p>The girl was then asked if she had followed the Chinese of her own free
+will or if violence had been used in taking possession of her and she
+too repeated like an automaton:</p>
+
+<p>"What he says is true".</p>
+
+<p>Nothing availed to get other words than these out of the poor wretches'
+mouths, nor the magistrate's clever cross-questioning, nor my entreaties
+to tell the whole truth. I re-called to their memory the pitiful state
+they had been in when they ran into my house, crying and invoking
+justice. It was all in vain; but fortunately for them the legal officer
+himself was convinced that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>Chinese&mdash;who stood by with a sarcastic
+smile upon his lips&mdash;was guilty, and closed the process by condemning
+him to six months' imprisonment.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="shootingbox" id="shootingbox"></a>
+<img src="images/050.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="A shooting box in a tree" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A forest shooting-box.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I made up my mind to go to the bottom of the affair if only to discover
+why the Sakais, by nature so far removed from falsehood, had denied the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>My investigations proved that the Chinese had threatened to revenge
+himself by utterly destroying the whole family if they made any
+complaint about his way of proceeding, and had also terrified them by
+stories of the inhuman tortures to which they would be subjected by the
+British magistrate if they spoke against him.</p>
+
+<p>The confession came too late because, if they had spoken in time the
+scoundrel would have had a much heavier sentence.</p>
+
+<p>From this simple episode one can understand what an amount of energy,
+boldness, and resolution the English Authorities need in order to
+liberate the poor Sakais from the moral tyranny that still oppresses
+them. But the British Government is quite equal to the task it has
+undertaken, and there is no reason to doubt that before long it will
+have reduced to impotency these dregs of Society who creep in amongst
+the Sakai tribes, that are far removed from civilization and justice,
+there to work out their wicked schemes and practise their crafty wiles.</p>
+
+<p>I have written the word "dregs" on purpose, as of course peoples in a
+collective sense cannot be held responsible for the bad-doings of a
+small number of their countrymen, and I wish it here to be distinctly
+understood that when I speak of the villainous acts and thievish
+propensities of these latter (who being too well-known and despised in
+their own place, to be able to succeed in their base tricks go elsewhere
+in search of victims) I do not mean to offend, or cast a slight upon
+Malays, Chinese, or Indians in general.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>On the contrary, I have the highest esteem and respect for all three,
+especially those who faithfully follow the ways of Progress, and have
+certain virtues peculiarly theirs.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>After this rapid glance into the past it is not difficult to understand
+with what inquietude and uneasiness the Sakais saw their little
+settlement invaded by those they feared.</p>
+
+<p>The new-comers, though, no longer found such a credulous and frightened
+people as they had been accustomed to on other occasions. Their
+calumnious stories of the white man (whose vigilant and not very lenient
+control troubled them a great deal) made little or no impression. They
+knew the white man by now, he had been among them for some time and they
+had even come to look upon him as a good protector.</p>
+
+<p>So by mutual agreement we let our unwelcome visitors choose their sites
+and erect their huts, allowing them to enjoy the ecstasy of a vigorous
+abuse of the humble Sakai village and everything they could find within
+reach; then one fine morning, to their infinite wonder, we left them to
+their own devices and betook ourselves to the heights from whence flowed
+down the little river Bidor. This sudden change of locality did not
+cause me any serious sacrifice as the spot where we had been living was
+not very healthy owing to the frequently stagnant condition of the
+stream and, apart from hygienic motives, I was not altogether sorry at
+being thus compelled to seek new quarters as I was anxious to get well
+acquainted with the whole district, studying its products and its
+fitness for colonization, hoping in the end to succeed in inducing the
+Sakais to abandon their nomadic life for one of honest work, in the
+field of agriculture. Besides so teaching my good <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>friends the value and
+the nobleness of labour I should have a useful occasion myself for
+employing latent energy.</p>
+
+<p>We selected a beautiful place in the forest for our new encampment, and
+the men set to with a good will to cutting down the splendid timber and
+luxuriant climbers within the circle drawn out for the clearing. The
+thick interlaced boughs and bushy underwood were alive with reptiles,
+and our advent, with the noisy and destructive blows with which we broke
+the drowsy stillness of the air, brought an indescribable panic in that
+little centre of animal life.</p>
+
+<p>Our huts were quickly raised and we were soon able to resume our
+habitual occupations.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Some time passed without our camp being disturbed by any sort of
+incident when one day a tiger was seen to stealthily approach our
+clearing and snatching up a dog in its mouth, it fled back into the
+forest, the poor little beast yelping pitifully as it was being carried
+off.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was a graver one than the mere loss of the dog would have made
+it seem because if the animal had been constrained to commit such an
+audacious act by the pangs of hunger, it would most probably return
+again, and who could say that there would always be a dog ready for its
+meal? It is however well known, that this dreadful feline creature does
+not devour its prey all at once but invariably leaves a part of the
+flesh sticking to the carcass, reserving the picking of its bones for
+the following night. Therefore there was a good chance of speedily
+liberating ourselves from our ferocious enemy, if the Sakais had not
+regarded the tiger with superstitious respect, for a reason which I will
+explain later on, a vague belief in metempsychosis that also has the
+effect of making them fond of their domestic animals.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>I had the greatest difficulty in convincing my ignorant companions that
+the tiger must be killed if we wished to remain in peace and safety. It
+was a long time before I could overcome their reluctance and terror at
+my proposal.</p>
+
+<p>At last they consented to let me rid them of their dangerous friend and
+built me a small house up one of the trees we considered to be in the
+best position. Armed with a first class <i>Martini</i> I took my place there
+with two or three Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>What I had expected came to pass: at dead of night the beast returned.
+We could see it crawling cautiously through the high grass. I took
+careful aim and fired. The sharp report was instantly answered by a
+fearful roar, and the formidable creature, after giving a tremendous
+jump into the air, once more disappeared into the darkness of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais were awed and dismayed by the thunder and lightning of my
+gun.</p>
+
+<p>We could still hear the furious laments of the wounded animal so we
+thought it advisable not to stir from our posts until morning.</p>
+
+<p>At the first streak of day, as the groans of the evidently fallen tiger
+had not ceased, some of the men went to ascertain its refuge whilst I,
+with my loaded rifle, kept myself prompt to defend them in case of an
+unlikely attack.</p>
+
+<p>The beast was soon found, stretched out on the turf In spite of its fury
+it was unable to move as one or two of its legs had been shattered by my
+lead.</p>
+
+<p>I finished it with another shot. Its skull now displays its beauties at
+the Ethnographic Museum at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Not much later on I was obliged to repeat the same sport.</p>
+
+<p>Another tiger had stolen a dog, and we had found its half-eaten body.
+Knowing that the rest would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>devoured within a few hours by the same
+beast of prey we made a little shelter of leaves and branches up a tree
+close by and remained there to await his majesty.</p>
+
+<p>At nightfall he punctually arrived and was received, according to his
+merit, by my rifle. My shot did not miss its mark and he rushed off
+howling with pain and rage. All night long the forest echoes were
+awakened by his horrible cries but towards morning we managed to trace
+him out and he too was finished by a second shot.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In the year 1898 the ever increasing solicitude of the Sakays had
+enabled me to accumulate a considerable quantity of Malacca cane,
+rattan, resin and orchids which I had made up my mind to take to Penang
+for sale.</p>
+
+<p>But I wanted to indulge myself in the pleasure of conducting with me
+some of my friends, the savages, that they might for the first time see
+a modern town.</p>
+
+<p>It was no easy matter to prevail upon them to follow up my desire but
+finally I persuaded five of them to come with me as carriers.</p>
+
+<p>Keeping always along the banks of the Bidor we descended as far as the
+Perak which we crossed in order to do a part of the journey in train and
+then board one of the steamers that ply between Telok Ansom and the
+island of Penang.</p>
+
+<p>During the voyage I noticed nothing particular in my companions beyond a
+great wonder, not unmixed with fear, when they felt themselves
+travelling upon water.</p>
+
+<p>They observed everything with grand curiosity, and were immensely
+interested in the noisy movement of the ship's engines and its steam
+sirens.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Penang, where I met with numerous friends, they soon became
+the centre of attraction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>Dainties of every kind were pressed upon them, and they were offered
+loads of the finest sweetmeats and white sugar. They accepted it all
+without enthusiasm but threw away the sweetmeats as soon as they had
+tasted them. When I asked them why they did so they replied that there
+was something not perfectly sweet in their flavour and they feared that
+whatever it was would do them harm.</p>
+
+<p>The gifts which they seemed to appreciate the most were cigars, tobacco
+and white sugar.</p>
+
+<p>My five Sakais divided their presents with each other, putting away some
+for the dear ones at home, and I often noticed that in the midst of the
+bewilderment which those simple souls must have experienced at being
+surrounded by people and things so totally new to them, they never
+seemed to forget for a moment the beloved persons they had left behind
+in the jungle.</p>
+
+<p>The Town-Band gave a concert and I accompanied my proteg&eacute;s to hear it.
+The bass instruments with their deep notes jarred upon the acoustic
+sense of the poor fellows and visibly inspired them with terror. They
+stopped their ears with their fingers and gave clear signs of the
+unpleasant feelings they were suffering from. But it was quite different
+when they heard the higher-toned instruments, especially those of wood,
+as the flute, the clarionet and the oboe. The pure, vibrating notes gave
+them intense enjoyment judging from the pleased expression of their
+countenances and their singularly brilliant eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I also took them to a Chinese theatre, but the skill of the yellow
+artistes did not find its way to the Sakai heart and after having
+witnessed the spectacle for a few minutes they frankly declared that
+they were not at all amused.</p>
+
+<p>Their artless natures and simple affections remained unpolluted by the
+seductions of civilization. Nothing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>was wanting to content them: they
+were caressed by the English, received heaps of gifts and lived without
+the slightest fatigue, yet they were not happy. I saw them change humour
+and become more melancholy hour by hour. The distractions with which I
+tried to cure their home-sickness tended only to increase it.</p>
+
+<p>The third day of our sojourn at Penang they implored me so earnestly to
+let them return to their families that, impressed by their sickly looks
+and disconsolate air, I promised at once to grant their desire.</p>
+
+<p>This promise put them into better spirits and their good humour was
+quite restored when the steamer left the harbour at Penang and bore us
+towards the river Perak. No one would imagine the transformation that
+had taken place in my five fellow-travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Four days of town-life had told upon them physically and morally. They
+were tired and disgusted with everything. Accustomed, on an average, to
+walk twenty miles a day, at Penang, after strolling through a few
+streets, they had been weary. Exposed to privations and hardships in the
+Jungle (often owing to their own improvidence) they were soon nauseated
+with the ease and abundance offered them in the city.</p>
+
+<p>Where the climate, the charms of the place and the security from wild
+beasts were all calculated to captivate their fancy and render them
+contented, the poor Sakais drooped and pined for the vicissitudes of
+their wild life in the woods where comfort was unknown and food was
+sometimes scarce. Their thoughts, their very souls were always back in
+the remote forest, in that enchanting wilderness whose magic spell
+blinded them to its mortal perils and inconveniences. Up yonder there
+was perfect liberty of action; up yonder there were their families!</p>
+
+<p>That sudden transition from a primitive existence to the progress of
+many centuries had been a severe shock <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>to them. In the same way that an
+abrupt change from profound darkness to the most dazzling light, or from
+the temperature of the pole to that of the equator, inevitably produces
+grave disorders in the organism if it does not actually prove fatal, so
+the turning of a savage into a citizen at a day's notice incurs a
+dangerous risk.</p>
+
+<p>The popular idea amongst us that anyone can quickly habituate himself to
+the luxuries and commodities of modern life finds a check when applied
+to primeval people like the Sakais. They may observe, enquire, and seek
+to understand&mdash;as far as their intelligence permits&mdash;everything they see
+around them; they remember well all they have heard and seen, and will
+mimic and describe it in their poor, strange language to their relations
+and friends; they carry with them presents which are a tangible record
+of their travels; they explain to the others how the houses were
+protected from wind, sun and rain; they will teach how to imitate the
+engine whistles, the roar of the steam flowing out of the open valves,
+and the hollow sound of that mysterious monster, the motor-car, but
+their enthusiasm and affections are firmly fixed upon their native
+forest, wondrous in its riches and allurements.</p>
+
+<p>Though it may bring to its lovers death and suffering it is always the
+best beloved of the savage and only a very slow, patient and&mdash;to
+them&mdash;imperceptible introduction of civilizing elements in their midst
+will be able to weaken this attachment for savage surroundings and turn
+those treasures of affection and fidelity to a more useful and logical
+end.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<img src="images/ch2.jpg" width="400" height="107" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">The great Sorceress&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The forest seen from above&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A struggle for
+life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The crimes of plants&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Everlasting twilight&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Births and
+deaths&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Concerts by forest vocalists&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "durian"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+"ple-lok"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Vastnesses unexplored by science&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Treasures intact&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Para
+Rubber&mdash;The Samaritans of the jungle&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The forest and its history.</p>
+
+
+<p>To speak of the forest without having seen it, and after having seen it,
+to describe its marvellous beauties, are equally impossible tasks.</p>
+
+<p>When Art shall have re-produced faithfully the magnificent harmonies of
+colour, voice and outline peculiar to the jungle, it may be said that
+there are no more secrets of beauty for it to penetrate, because nowhere
+else has Nature been so profuse in bestowing her multifarious tints or
+has manifested Life with such triumphal glory of fecundity; nowhere else
+can be found such a prodigious variety of forms and attitudes or such
+ineffable multiplicity of sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Like a paean of love the forest breaks forth from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> the bosom of its
+great Mother and rises eagerly, passionately towards the sun, its
+Benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>Were it possible to soar on high and look down upon that wide verdant
+sea, its infinite gradations of green, enlivened here and there by the
+audacious brightness of a thousand wondrous flowers, we should have
+under our eyes the most complete, artistic and suggestive representation
+of life and its struggles.</p>
+
+<p>The gigantic trees shoot up straight towards the sun, each one seeming
+to strive to outstrip the other; but a thick and even more ambitious
+undergrowth of plants twine round their trunks and enclose them in a
+tenacious embrace, then twisting, and creeping, amongst the spreading
+boughs, reach and cover the highest tops where they at last unfold their
+several leaves and flowers under the sun's most ardent gaze.</p>
+
+<p>The tree, thus encircled and suffocated by the baneful hold of the
+climbers, lacks light and breath; the sap flows in scarce quantities
+throughout its organism and it languishes under the shade of the close
+tendrils; swarms of insects increase its agony by making their food and
+their nests of its bark; reptiles make love within the hollows of its
+trunk and at last the day comes when the lifeless giant falls with a
+frightful crash bearing with it the murderous parasite that is the
+victim of its own tenacity, which first raised it to bask in the
+sunshine and then caused it to be crushed under the rotten weight of its
+former supporter.</p>
+
+<p>These are furious embraces of envy and jealousy; phrenzies of egotism in
+the vegetable kingdom: strange expressions of formidable hate and love,
+of oppression and vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>All these myriads of plants are invaded by the irrepressible mania to
+ascend as high as possible and to receive the first, the most burning,
+perhaps the most pernicious, but the most liberal kiss of the sun. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+they all hasten to arrive as though fearing to be superseded in the
+ascent as much by the colossal tree destined to brave centuries&mdash;if its
+massive roots are not ruined by its minute foes&mdash;as by those slender
+growths of a month or a day.</p>
+
+<p>"Higher still! Always higher!" the green-leafed multitude seem to cry,
+"Excelsior!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The sun never penetrates under this tangled mass of vegetation except
+where an opening has been made by the hands of the savages or by the
+work of lightning and hurricane.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim light of its damp atmosphere the interminable rows of tall
+straight trunks, some stout and some slight, assume the oddest shapes
+which can appeal to the observer's phantasy. Now they are colonnades,
+adorned with pendant festoons stretching away into the distance; now
+they are mysterious aisles of monster temples; now they are the
+unfinished design of some giant architect whose undertaking was arrested
+by a sudden, mystic command. However fruitful may be the imagination of
+the artist he would here always find fresh and superb inspiration from
+the enthralling sight of Nature's virginal beauties.</p>
+
+<p>The stagnant waters of the ponds, round which the frogs croak and the
+leeches crawl, are plentifully strewn with water-lilies, reeds and other
+aquatic plants.</p>
+
+<p>On the hoary trunks of ancient trees whole families of orchids have
+insinuated themselves into little clefts in the bark, and flower there
+in the brightest of colours: red, purple, blue and also white.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere there is a joyous exuberance of life and vigour. Each day
+begins or ends the cycle of time destined to the vegetable inhabitants
+of the jungle, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> as there is no regular round of seasons the
+plants and flowers finish their course according to the short or long
+existence prescribed them by natural laws, and one continually sees
+dried and withered leaves and flowers falling to the ground whilst
+others open and blossom in their stead. Those that die to-day afford
+nourishment to the new-born generation and in this manner there is a
+ceaseless renovation of the various species without any need of a
+gardener to prepare the soil.</p>
+
+<p>The exuberance of animal life is in equal proportion, as there is
+abundance of food for all.</p>
+
+<p>A deep and uninterrupted buzz fills the air; it comes from the cicadas
+whose monotonous note wearies the ear, and from hornets and bees of
+every description that keep up an incessant hum as they suck Juices from
+the plants or dive their antenn&aelig; into the ripe fruit or perhaps into
+some carrion lying near. The bassoon-like sound never ceases a single
+instant and tells the listener how innumerable are the populations of
+insects which live and generate their sort under the shade of their
+jungle retreat. Other inexplicable noises&mdash;far off crashes, mysterious
+sounds that chill one's veins, howls that make one shiver&mdash;for a sole
+moment break the noon-day silence. What is their origin? Nobody can say.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The different animal sounds to be heard in the forest follow a rule
+which knows no exception.</p>
+
+<p>The day is hailed by a full concert warbled from the throats of
+feathered songsters. This morning hymn rises in all its innocent purity
+to the skies whilst the fierce protaganists of the past night's bloody
+tragedies slink off to their dens and leave the field free to the more
+gentle herbivorous animals.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="durian" id="durian"></a>
+<img src="images/062.jpg" width="421" height="600" alt="A durian tree" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 416px;">
+<p class="caption">The durian tree.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>But at noon, when the sun is casting down its hottest rays upon that
+vast emerald palace of life, gay voices are hushed and the forest echoes
+only with the drowsy buzzing of insects.</p>
+
+<p>As evening draws near the birds once more begin to chirp and trill, they
+salute the setting sun and fly away to rest. Then the monkeys commence
+their screeching and chattering and soon after the owls and other night
+birds take their turn, making the now dense darkness more terrible with
+their harsh, sinister cries. Little by little as the night deepens,
+bellows, roars and howls resound upon every part in a slow crescendo
+until they are fused into a general and appalling uproar which could not
+be more awful if the gates of Hell were to be opened on Earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I am not an artist and still less a scientist but as a simple observer I
+like to take note of all that is worthy of notice and that is possible
+for me to transmit in an intelligible form.</p>
+
+<p>Having depicted, to the best of my ability, the characteristics of
+forest life, I think it will be well&mdash;setting aside its magic charms and
+manifold wonders which would make a poet even of one who has no tendency
+for poetry&mdash;to describe, in a more practical way, some of its products.</p>
+
+<p>I will begin with the durian, or <i>sump&agrave;</i>, the fruit of which is unknown
+in our country.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very large tree, growing to the height of 40 or 50 metres and
+distends around it a huge pavilion of rich branches, covered with little
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be found sometimes singly and sometimes in clumps and is the
+only tree that the Sakais show any interest in multiplying, and this
+cultivation, if we may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> so call it, is done by them almost
+unconsciously, not from any sentimental feeling but rather from the
+effect of a sentiment and a superstition.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It produces a most
+extraordinary quantity of fruit, the exquisite flavour of which it is
+difficult to match. It has been calculated that every tree bears, on an
+average, about 600 durians but some have even reached the enormous
+figure of 1000.</p>
+
+<p>If one were treating of berries or nuts this would not be so remarkable
+but each fruit of the durian weighs about two kilograms and is as large
+as a child's head. For this reason it is a dangerous thing to stand or
+pass under one of these trees when the fruit is quite ripe as so heavy a
+ball falling from a height of forty or more metres would suffice to
+split open one's head even if the long prickles with which it is covered
+did not make it more to be feared.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais are quite greedy over durians and Mr Wallace writes that its
+delicate flavour is so exquisite it would well repay the expense and
+disturbance of a journey Eastward on purpose to taste it.</p>
+
+<p>This assertion of the English writer may be somewhat exaggerated but for
+my own part, I must say that I have never tasted anything more
+delicious. But not everyone can enjoy or appreciate this strange fruit
+for the disgusting smell that distinguishes it and that is apt to cause
+nausea to a weak stomach.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine to have under your nose a heap of rotten onions and you will
+still have but a faint idea of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>insupportable odour which emanates
+from these trees and when its fruit is opened the offensive smell
+becomes even stronger.</p>
+
+<p>When mature, that is to say in the months of August and September, the
+durians fall to the ground and are eagerly gathered up by the natives,
+who at the period of their ripening, leave the women and children, the
+old and the sick in their villages and encamp themselves in the forest
+around these precious trees.</p>
+
+<p>The outside of the durian is ligneous and is covered with strong
+prickles of nearly an inch long. The interior consists of a great many
+small eggs each one being wrapped in a fine film which, when broken,
+reveals a pulp of the consistency and colour of thick custard. A big
+seed is embedded in the centre of each egg, almond-like in size and
+form, although not so flat.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot describe in any way the flavour of this fruit which the real
+Sakai calls <i>sump&agrave;</i>. I can but repeat that it is exquisite and far
+superior to any sweet dainty prepared by cook or confectioner. There is
+nothing to equal it, and in eating one does not discern the least smell
+as the disagreeable stench comes from the husk alone and the worse it
+is, the more delicate is the taste of the pulp.</p>
+
+<p>This fruit is too perishable for it to be exported to far countries even
+if there was any chance of its finding favour in European markets, in
+consequence of its horrible smell, which does not however protect it
+from the voracity of the monkeys and their rodent companions&mdash;especially
+the squirrels&mdash;that manage, in spite of its formidable prickles, to make
+a hole in the husk and nibble out some of its contents leaving the rest
+to rot inside.</p>
+
+<p>To my knowledge the durian is not subject to any malady which might
+effect the annual quantity of fruit to be gathered, this depending
+entirely upon whether <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>the wind has blown violently, or not, during the
+time it was in flower.</p>
+
+<p>This King of Trees, as it is called by the Sakai, will grow and prosper
+nearly to the height of a thousand metres, and its fruit is preserved by
+pressing it into large tubes of bamboo after the seeds have been picked
+out.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais frequently exchange these original pots of jam for other
+articles equally prized by them, such as tobacco and beads.</p>
+
+<p>Another fruit, so delicious that it may almost be said to rival the
+durian, is the <i>pl&egrave; l&ograve;k</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The tree on which it grows cannot be ranked amongst the giants of the
+forest. It has big and long leaves something like those of the orange
+but whilst on the top they are a glossy black in under they are of a
+still glossier green.</p>
+
+<p>The fruit, that ripens between September and November, is the size of a
+peach but it is covered with a very thick husk (nearly black outside,
+and a rusty red inside) after the sort of our walnuts. The pulp is
+divided into a lot of quarters each one enclosed in a very thin skin. It
+looks like snow-white Jelly and in fact melts in the mouth at once,
+leaving only a little kernel. The flavour is sweet and exceedingly
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>The husk is utilized by the Sakais for producing a dye with which to
+paint their faces and also for making a decoction as a remedy against
+diarrh&aelig;a and pains in the stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais are immensely fond of this fruit as indeed any European,
+accustomed to the finest sweets, might be, the more so as it never does
+any harm or brings about an indigestion, even when eaten in large
+quantities.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these two grand lords of the forest I will also mention the <i>ple
+pra</i>, a colossus that, modestly, but without avarice, supplies the Sakai
+with excellent chestnuts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>It is impossible, notwithstanding my desire, to describe the many other
+trees and fruits which form the richness of the forest, as it would take
+too long. Further on, in a chapter dedicated to poisons, I have named
+some of the most dangerous in this respect, but between those that are
+the ministers of Death and those that are the means of Life to the
+simple jungle-dweller, there are countless species to which it would be
+difficult to assign a particular class.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these latter are regarded by the natives with distrust, perhaps
+without any reason, but from who knows what strange belief transmitted
+from father to son? And in the heart of the forest who is there to study
+and make experiments upon such leaves and fruits in order to ascertain
+if they are perfectly edible?</p>
+
+<p>I, for instance, am of opinion that the fruit of the <i>gi&ugrave; &ugrave; ba a</i> could
+be safety used and to a great extent.</p>
+
+<p>It is like a little pumpkin, green outside and yellowish-white inside. A
+kind of oil is extracted from its pulp which, when cooked, is not of a
+disagreeable taste and does one no harm. But the <i>gi&ugrave; &ugrave; ba a</i> is a
+creeper and it is among these parasites that poisons abound and this is
+why the fruits obtained from them are used with reluctance and if
+possible, avoided altogether.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Treasures not to be imagined are still hidden in the profound recesses
+of the Malay forest; priceless treasures for medical science and for
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>Could the former but discover the exact therapeutic and venomous virtues
+of some of those plants, many of which are quite unknown to botanists,
+what innumerable new and potent remedies might be found to enrich the
+pharmacop&oelig;ia of civilized people!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>Agriculture, in all its varied branches, could here find incalculable
+treasures of fertility!</p>
+
+<p>Without counting the rice that gives a wonderful annual product, the
+Indian-corn that gives two harvests a year and the sweet potatoes that
+give three, there is the yam, the <i>sikoi</i>,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> the sugar-cane, coffee,
+pepper, tea, the banana, the ananas, indigo, sago, tapioca, gambier,
+various sorts of rubber, gigantic trees for shipbuilding, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The Para Rubber, from which is extracted our gutta percha grows
+marvellously well in the Malay soil and requires very little attention
+or expense.</p>
+
+<p>There is the <i>rami&egrave;</i> whose fibres will by degrees supplant the silk we
+get from cocoons, or mixed together will form an excellent quality of
+stuff. It is a herb with long, fibrous stems which when well beaten out
+and bleached become like a soft mass of wool. After being carded it can
+be spun into the finest threads as shiny and pliant as silk itself.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="durianfruit" id="durianfruit"></a>
+<img src="images/068.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="An opened durian fruit" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">The Durian.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This plant flourishes to a great extent in Perak and its stems may be
+cut off twice a year. It only needs to be cultivated, for industry to be
+provided with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>new and precious element. In fact there are few who do
+not know that the greater part of Chinese silk stuffs are woven with the
+<i>rami&egrave;</i> fibres, but its utility might have a much larger extension if it
+were made an object of study by those capable of drawing from it
+profitable results.</p>
+
+<p>Very few lands, I think, have been so favoured by capricious Nature as
+the Malay Peninsula where she seems to have taken delight in bestowing
+her treasures of flora and fauna as well as underground ones, for
+several gold and tin mines are being worked, whilst lead, copper, zinc,
+antimony, arsenic and many other metals are constantly being found,
+besides some rich veins of wolfram, although a real bed of the latter
+ore has not yet been discovered.</p>
+
+<p>If once the still lazy but honest forces of the Sakais could be utilized
+by turning them towards agriculture, all this natural wealth might be
+sent to the World's markets and a sparse but good people, susceptible of
+great progress, would be gradually civilized.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Para Rubber, referred to above, constitutes one of the greatest
+riches of the Malay agricultural industry.</p>
+
+<p>Both soil and climate are very favourable for its cultivation in the
+Peninsula, so much so that a tree attains the maturity necessary for the
+production of this valuable article in four years, if special care and
+attention is given it, or in five or six if left to its natural growth
+(as in Ceylon), whilst in other places it takes eight and even ten
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Not many years ago the British Government had a limited space of ground
+planted, with seeds brought from Brazil, as a simple experiment. The
+result was encouraging enough to induce the Institute of Tropical
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>Researches&mdash;initiated under the auspices of the Liverpool University,
+with the object of developing Colonial commerce&mdash;to make plantations
+which in one season yielded no less than 150,000 pounds of gum.</p>
+
+<p>About three years ago 60,000 acres of land were planted with Para
+Rubber, the Government providing the seed at a very low rate.</p>
+
+<p>It is calculated that each acre contains from 125 to 250 trees according
+to the quality of the ground and its position.</p>
+
+<p>These plantations continue to increase with surprising rapidity and it
+may be said, at the present day, that four million trees are to be found
+in an area of 200,000 acres.</p>
+
+<p>When one considers that each tree renders, on an average, from 5 to 6
+pounds of gum, and that that of Perak&mdash;chemically proved to be pure&mdash;is
+quoted on the market at 6/10 per pound&mdash;whilst the best produced by
+other countries does not exceed 5/7&mdash;one can form a pretty correct
+estimate of the enormous sum derived from the Para rubber of Perak.</p>
+
+<p>It was generally supposed that this valuable tree would suffer if it
+surpassed a thousand metres in height but in the Malay Peninsula it
+grows and nourishes even higher than 1,600 metres, especially the
+so-called <i>ficus elasticus</i> and India-rubber.</p>
+
+<p>The British Government is doing its best to increase this cultivation,
+and "its best" in this case really means "the very best" because besides
+concession of land, and the providing of seed at a low rate, the
+Government aids this industry, in which so many millions are invested,
+by the making of fine, wide high-roads as well as by maintaining
+railways for the conveyance of goods, fixing a minimum tariff for the
+transport.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps some one will accuse me of being too partial in my remarks upon
+the work done by the British <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>Government in this its remote Eastern
+Protectorate, but having assisted for many years in the ever increasing
+agricultural and commercial development of the peninsula, and having
+seen the steady conquest civilization has made by means of the most
+practical and surest methods&mdash;such as the patient training of the
+natives to the love of work, and the prompt and conscientious
+administration of justice&mdash;I cannot but admire the enlightened and
+benificent activity displayed by the English in those parts.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Closed this parenthesis about the plantations, which are now spreading
+far and wide over the forest (the wood-cutter's hatchet continually
+clearing new tracts of land for agricultural enterprises), I want you to
+return with me to the jungle which is still almost untrodden and where
+Nature reigns supreme over the thick tropical vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>Having already spoken briefly and in a disorderly way of the riches
+which are here gratuitously offered&mdash;not the riches of Midas and
+Pymalion, because mother Nature does not refuse food to her children
+even if they are profaners of that wonderful temple of her fecundity&mdash;it
+is right that I should now draw your attention to two great friends of
+travellers in the forest. One is the bamboo and the other a creeper
+called the "water vine".</p>
+
+<p>The bamboo, known to us only as one of the plants least considered in a
+large, well-kept garden, or as a polished walking stick, as the legs of
+a fancy table of uncertain equilibrium or as a tobacco box ably worked
+by Chinese or Japanese fingers, in the free forest becomes a colossal
+inhabitant. Its canes, at first tender and supple, grow to such a size,
+and so strong as to be used for water conduits. It is a vigorous and
+invasive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>plant that covers the surrounding ground with new shoots
+whilst in under its long roots spread out and suck up all the vital
+nutriment to be found in the earth around.</p>
+
+<p>To one who lives in the forest, the bamboo is as necessary as food
+itself. It provides light, solid huts; it makes the blowpipe, arrow and
+quiver; it serves for carrying water and preserving fruit; it forms a
+safe recipient for poisonous juices; it is bottle and glass, and finally
+supplies the native cooks with a saucepan that only they can use because
+they have the knack of cooking their food without burning the bamboo. I
+have often tried to do the same but the result has always been that pot
+and pottage have been burnt together.</p>
+
+<p>The bamboo has also a secret virtue of incalculable value to the thirsty
+wayfarer, overcome by the heat of a tropical sun: it is a perfect
+reservoir of water.</p>
+
+<p>By boring a hole just under the joints of each cane more than half a
+litre of clear water, not very fresh, but wholesome and good, gushes
+out. It is rather bitter to the taste and serves to restore one's forces
+as well as to quench one's thirst.</p>
+
+<p>The water-vine also acts as a Samaritan in the jungle. Like all the
+others of its sort this climbing plant closes some giant king of the
+forest in its cruel embrace (thus depriving it of its strength) and then
+falls in rich festoons from its boughs, swaying and rustling with every
+breath of air.</p>
+
+<p>By making a cut at the extremity of one of the sprays that hang down
+towards the ground, a fresh, drinkable water flows out.</p>
+
+<p>It is superfluous, perhaps, to add that this grand necessity for the
+traveller on foot may be obtained from other sources: the streams that
+are to be found trickling along here and there, and the huge leaves that
+upon drying up secrete a certain quantity of rain water within them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>So the jungle gives to eat and to drink, with wonderful abundance and
+variety, but woe to him who does not know her well, for she also
+proffers Death in a thousand unsuspected and seductive forms!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>How many times in the solemn, languid hour of noontide, when bird and
+beast were drowsing from the heat, I have stood in the shade and
+interrogated the forest upon its first violators and their descendants!
+But my demands remained unanswered; in its superb grandeur it does not
+interest itself in the tragic vicissitudes of animal or vegetable lives,
+it makes no records, on the contrary, it quickly cancels all traces of
+past events.</p>
+
+<p>I have vainly asked: from whence came those who have found shelter and
+solitude in the obscure depths of its wooded hills? How many centuries
+have they dwelt in those lone, wild parts? I have asked if that shy and
+dispersed tribe was not the remains of a once great and strong people
+eclipsed by a younger, stronger, and more savage race? Sometimes
+watching, with admiring eyes, the strange architectural forms taken by
+the massive trunks and graceful vines, fantastic but always majestic, I
+have asked the forest if it had not arisen upon the ruins of some long
+ago and lost civilization and if those same forms were not an
+inexplicable evocation of the gigantic creations of vanished genii of
+which I seemed in imagination to catch faint glimpses?</p>
+
+<p>But the forest remained mute and kept its impenetrable secret.</p>
+
+<p>Only here and there, groups of trees, lower than the surrounding ones,
+and between them spaces of ground, which had evidently once been
+clearings and were not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>yet totally re-covered by jungle growth, gave
+proof of Sakai nomadism even in other ages. No other sign of the past,
+and my query, perhaps absurd, repeats itself. Am I before the savage
+infancy of a people, or the spent senility of a race, lost sight of in
+the course of centuries? If the latter, would there not be some relic
+left of its existence; a fragment of stone or concrete substance
+inscribed with the figures of its period? Is it possible that everything
+has been buried from the sight of modern man, under the rank luxuriance
+of grass and bush? Or is it not I who vainly dream under the impression
+of the forest's mute grandeur and the thousands of voices that to-day
+awake its echoes and to-morrow leave none behind?</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> In another chapter, wherein I describe the superstitions
+and beliefs of the Sakais, I have spoken of the custom they have of
+depositing food, tobacco, etc., on the tombs of their dead for a week
+after they have been buried. Naturally everything, not devoured by beast
+or insect, rots upon the spot and the seeds of the fruit find their way
+into the ground. For this reason many new trees spring up in groups,
+obtaining their first alimentation from the dissolution of the corpse.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The <i>sikoi</i> grows on high mountains and the women have to
+take great pains in cleaning it before it is cooked. It is a grain
+something like our millet and has good nutritive qualities.
+</p><p>
+The Sakays mix it with water and make a sort of "polenta" cooking it, as
+usual, in their bamboo saucepans. It is a favourite dish with them when
+eaten with monkey flesh, rats, pieces of snake, lizards, beetles and
+various other insects which would be of rare entomological value to any
+museum that possessed them.
+</p><p>
+Ignorant of the repugnant compound, that gave such a savoury taste to
+the <i>sikoi</i>, at the beginning of my sojourn with the Sakays, I ate it
+with relish after seasoning it with a little salt, an article not much
+used amongst my mountain friends. But when I came to know what
+ingredients gave it flavour I refused it, as kindly as I could not to
+offend their susceptibilities, because my stomach rebelled against the
+mess.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch3.jpg" width="400" height="106" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">The snares of civilized life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Faust's invocation&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The dangers of the
+forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Serpents&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A perilous adventure&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Carnivorous and herbivorous
+animals&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "sladan"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The man of the wood.</p>
+
+
+<p>The young man who incautiously ventures into the mysterious parts of
+Drury Lane&mdash;where vice and crime have a classical reputation&mdash;or strolls
+through the old Latin Quarter of Paris (where some of the streets are
+anything but safe to pass through), or who finds himself, for whatsoever
+reason you will, in one of those questionable labyrinths still existing
+in the most civilized Italian cities, would certainly not run less risk
+than in facing the dangers of the forest. The dart, the trap, the attack
+of beast and reptile may be, with courage and calmness, averted or
+parried, but the evils which menace man, under the hypocritical
+euphemisms of Society (ever ready to vaunt its impeachableness) injure
+not only the body but, what is worse, the spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Those who succumb to the latter are ofttimes induced to lament that
+death does not come swift enough to kill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> their flesh, after their souls
+and intellects have been long since slain and consumed.</p>
+
+<p>In the thick of the jungle the spirit rises and wanders free; there are
+no restraints or limits to its flight. It is inebriated by the simple
+and serene joys of living; it is pervaded by a current of new, potent
+energy that makes one feel&mdash;alone, in Nature's realm&mdash;either immensely
+great or infinitely small; exquisitely good or miserably wicked.</p>
+
+<p>It is not prudent, when travelling in the forest, to let philosophy make
+us linger long on the way, but there are some moments in which one's
+inner life is so intense, in which thought and sentiment are so
+impetuous that that fleeting atom of time is in itself sufficient to
+mark an indelible epoch in the existence of men. Who knows but what if
+Mephistopheles had lead Faust into the virgin forest, and there left him
+free to his speculations, if the famous invocation would ever have
+escaped from the fevered lips of the doctor?</p>
+
+<p>But... what is this hissing? It is not the spirit that denies; it is a
+snake I have disturbed along my path and that has not found my
+philosophizing over pleasant (like you, perhaps, kind reader) and so I
+will cut short my digression.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The forest abounds in reptiles. There are innumerable varieties of
+serpents, big and small, venomous and harmless. It may almost be said
+(especially towards the plain) that every bush and every tree has one of
+these inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>The commonest species are the <i>tigi ril&oacute;</i>, the <i>tigi pa&agrave;</i> and the <i>tigi
+dol&ograve;</i> but the most feared are the <i>sendok</i> and the <i>bima&agrave;</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="cooking" id="cooking"></a>
+<img src="images/076.jpg" width="441" height="600" alt="bamboo tube over a fire" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 441px;">
+<p class="caption">Cooking in a bamboo saucepan.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As a rule none of these snakes will assail a person unless they have
+been molested. They remain either rolled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>up close to a tree or lazily
+swinging from one of its branches, keeping hold of it with its powerful
+tail and so it is necessary to proceed very carefully and to look
+attentively both up and down in order not to disturb them.</p>
+
+<p>The serpent, when stumbled against, hurls itself as quick as lightning
+upon the unhappy offender, encircling and suffocating him with its coils
+and biting him with its sharp fangs even when they are not poisoned.
+Like all other animals it becomes ferocious and seeks to kill from fear.
+He who disturbs it is a foe to be vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>But if you pass him without being afraid and without hurrying, with a
+slow gliding step, taking care not to move your hands or arms, it will
+let you go on your way and take no notice of you.</p>
+
+<p>And this I can affirm from experiments I have myself made upon the
+terrible <i>sendok</i>.</p>
+
+<p>One day I was able, in this way, to pass quite close, almost touching
+one of these most venomous reptiles. He never moved as I crept by but he
+did not lose sight of me for a single instant. I am quite sure that if
+my inward fear had betrayed itself by the slightest gesture, I should
+have been a dead man.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I have succeeded, very, very gently, in placing upon it a
+stick about two metres long. Well, the horrid serpent just lazily
+unfolded its coils and softly slipped from under it. Very different
+would have been the result if I had put the stick upon its head roughly!</p>
+
+<p>From this you will see that danger from snakes is much less than one
+might believe from the thrilling adventures narrated by friends (between
+a roast chestnut and a sip of wine), as they are snugly gathered round a
+cosy fireside, adventures which they have read in the fabulous pages
+written by one of those story-tellers who gull the respectable public
+with the loveliest or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> the most terrifying descriptions of places, men
+and beasts of which they scarcely know the name.</p>
+
+<p>Serpents are always attacked and beaten down with sticks, except the
+very large ones, that are taken by lassoes as I will explain in another
+chapter. It is a quick and simple means of getting free, in a few
+minutes, of a venomous enemy which it never fails to do when fear does
+not make the eye and the hand miss its aim, precision in the blow being
+all that is needed.</p>
+
+<p>Not very long since I had an adventure with one of these reptiles which
+threatened to be my last. I was quietly strolling in the forest and had
+with me neither weapon nor stick. My thoughts were far away but a
+rustling sound and a loud hiss brought them quickly back and arrested my
+steps. A large, venomous snake was right in front of me! Erect, with
+open mouth and protruding tongue, the embodiment of hatred, it was
+there, prompt for an assault. My case was desperate and only a miracle
+of <i>sang-froid</i> could save me. Fixing my eyes steadily upon those of the
+serpent, very gradually and with the slowest possible movement I bent my
+knees and crouched down towards the ground, where, in an equally slow
+and methodical way I groped for some sort of stick with which to strike
+my adversary. Having found what I wanted, I drew myself up in the same
+cautious manner and with a sudden, rapid gesture I hit the beast with
+all my might. Fortunately for me, my blow told and I had an addition to
+my collection of jungle foes.</p>
+
+<p>The traveller in Malay who is not a thorough alien to timorous feelings
+would do well to never leave his comfortable post in the railway
+carriage between one place and another or at least to keep within a safe
+distance of the forest, for although its perils have been greatly
+exaggerated there are some, all the same, that require a stout heart and
+firm nerves.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>When there is no big game to put your courage and your pulse to the test
+there is always a troop of smaller animals that make game of you and
+prove your force of resistance. A rat bites your heel whilst you are
+asleep; the leeches suck your blood; all sorts of insects sting you.
+These little annoying incidents irritate flesh and spirit and may be the
+cause of feverishness, but a dose of quinine and a compress over the
+wound soon have a good effect.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But it is not sufficient to bravely face bodily danger, support physical
+pain and endure with grace the mortifications inflicted upon one's flesh
+by the more minute inhabitants of those regions, for the jungle also
+exacts certain moral virtues which civilization does not always
+appreciate or admire, nay, on the contrary, that it often laughs at.</p>
+
+<p>The great Sorceress, for whom one feels a strange nostalgia after having
+once known her magnificence and her horrors, kills the man who is not
+temperate in his habits.</p>
+
+<p>Moderation in eating is the first consideration for prolonging life in
+the forest. The stomach must never be overladen and no strong drinks
+must be used.</p>
+
+<p>By following this method of living and allowing myself very rarely even
+a glass of wine I managed to keep in excellent health in 1889 when an
+epidemic raged violently in the island of Nias and made sad havoc
+amongst the natives.</p>
+
+<p>The human organism, especially that of a European, is beset by numerous
+inconveniences which may generate illness; the burning sun, that seems
+to cook one's brain; the cold nights and heavy dews; the violent storms
+that quite suddenly break over your head, and the food<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> that must be put
+up with even when it is not actually hygienic.</p>
+
+<p>For all this a strict regime, based upon moderation, is indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that in my forest cabin I have an assortment of the best
+wines and whiskies, notwithstanding the improbability of being able to
+offer a glass to my friends, but those bottles remain well corked,
+waiting for their legitimate owner to feel indisposed, when a draught of
+their contents will restore his lost strength without resorting to
+medicine.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The greatest dangers in the jungle are those which cannot be met with
+impunity; those that render every defence inefficacious when a man is
+taken unawares.</p>
+
+<p>I speak of the tigers and panthers that are very numerous and audacious;
+of the bears, that do not act so jocosely here as in our streets and
+menageries but vie with other wild beasts in blood-thirstiness; of the
+rhinoceros, the elephant, the terrible <i>sladan</i>, the wild dogs that,
+fierce as wolves, wander about in large packs.</p>
+
+<p>A dissertation upon the tiger and its like does not seem to me a
+sufficiently interesting subject for my readers who will have seen, who
+knows how many, at the fairs and museums and will have learnt their
+character and habits from Natural History books or from the description
+(not always correct) of someone who has only set foot on the land where
+they live. I must, however, make special mention of the <i>sladan</i>, the
+only survivor of an almost extinct fauna.</p>
+
+<p>This animal belongs to the herbivorous class but is more ferocious than
+any of the carnivorous species. It does not kill from hunger or for
+self-defence, but for the mere sake of killing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>It is a sort of buffalo or bison with two very solid, strongly planted
+horns on its thick-set head. This animal possesses such vigour and
+agility as to enable it to attack victoriously all other wild beasts.
+Only the elephant sometimes succeeds, with difficulty, in mastering it.</p>
+
+<p>Its den is in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the forest and
+by day and by night it scours the neighbourhood, rending the air with
+its awful roars. One is never sure of not meeting it, and to meet it
+either means to kill it or to be killed.</p>
+
+<p>It is very fond of the tender shoots of sweet potatoes and for this will
+often visit the crops cultivated by the Sakais who, for fear of this
+dreaded enemy, do not plant very much. Generally, though, the <i>sladan</i>
+devastates the potato fields during the night.</p>
+
+<p>The ferocity of this beast surpasses that of all others, for whilst the
+lion, the bear and even the tiger and panther have been known to show
+some feeling of respect, gratitude or fear, the <i>sladan</i> never exhibits
+one or the other. It would almost seem that in him is concentrated all
+the hatred of a race of animals, fast dying out, against every living
+creature whose species is still destined to remain in the world.</p>
+
+<p>And yet quite close to the haunts of these champions in savagery, always
+on the look out for blood and carnage, live other quiet and harmless
+animals. I will say nothing of the wild boar (that in comparison with
+the <i>sladan</i>, might pass for a lamb) of the wild goat or of the deer
+which are in great numbers, but there are little rodent quadrupeds of
+every sort, size, and fur, besides perfect crowds of monkeys of
+different kinds. They belong to the herbivorous order and go about by
+day in search of food, hiding themselves when the first shades of night
+call forth from their dens the heroes of nocturnal tragedies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>A garrulous population of birds enliven the forest; they are
+insectivorous, granivorous, and omnivorous but all are beautiful in
+their rich and wonderful variety of colour. Amongst these the pheasant
+for its oriental plumage and the cockatoo for its querulous voice are
+remarkable as the largest.</p>
+
+<p>A gay concert is given in honour of the dawning and the dying day but
+long before the birds of prey have unfolded their wings and soar, like
+phantoms, through the darkness, the pretty carol-singers hush their
+warblings and hide themselves from the horrors of the night.</p>
+
+<p>A collector of butterflies would go into ecstasies over the splendid
+varieties that flutter and flit in the air, and the countless multitude
+of different insects would be well worth special study; amongst the
+latter are verified the most curious mimetic facts that ever the
+unprejudiced mind of a man of politics could imagine!</p>
+
+<p>And yet, in the midst of so many contrasts, in the midst of so many
+dangers which exact exceptional presence of mind and strong nerves, life
+in the forest is full of charm and allurements.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit is strengthened and elevated by this continuous warfare, open
+and pronounced, so unlike those depressing struggles against narrow
+minds, and tiger-hearts, which distinguish town-life.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is very rare that one meets a man in the Malay forest. You may walk
+on for weeks without encountering a soul. I happened once, though, to
+fall in with one who was a primitive being in the strictest sense of the
+term.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="trap" id="trap"></a>
+<img src="images/082.jpg" width="429" height="600" alt="a trap" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 429px;">
+<p class="caption">Trap for reptiles and rats.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I was trudging along one day with my Sakai servant, when at the foot of
+the hill (Chentok) I saw a little cot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>and wished to visit it. Inside I
+found a man. At seeing me he caught up his blow-pipe&mdash;a
+miserable-looking instrument&mdash;and his poisoned darts, and was about to
+run away. I hastily made my companion offer him a few cooked potatoes
+and a little maize which he accepted without saying a word and began to
+devour ravenously.</p>
+
+<p>In those brief moments I took stock of the poor creature. He was
+painfully thin; his skeleton could be clearly seen under the unadorned
+skin; his sunken eyes gleamed with mistrust and inquietude from out of
+his fleshless face, and his long black hair lay in tangled masses round
+his neck.</p>
+
+<p>I had before me the true type of a wild man of the wood, less vivacious
+and less loquacious than his brother, the ape.</p>
+
+<p>I gave him some tobacco, that he eagerly crammed into his mouth and
+then, keeping fast hold of his weapon he hurried off, without uttering a
+single syllable, although I asked him many things in his own tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Neither did he in any way express satisfaction, or gratitude for what he
+had received but vanished mute, contemptuous and silently into the
+thickest part of the jungle.</p>
+
+<p>My little Sakai was not so surprised as I at this strange person and his
+way of proceeding, because he had seen him before and could tell me
+something about him.</p>
+
+<p>He was known by the name of <i>Al&agrave; Lag</i>, or the sorcerer. He had no wife,
+no children, no friends, and lived quite alone, far from everyone,
+wandering about the forest, feeding upon wild-honey and the fruit he
+found upon the ground. If he happened to catch some game he would light
+up a bit of fire and seem to cook it but in reality he ate it raw.
+Sometimes he came across a settlement when he would enter the first hut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+which lay in his way, and by gesture more than by word, would ask for
+food and after having obtained it, started off again.</p>
+
+<p>The good Sakais pitied the poor vagabond and had often tried to make him
+stop with them as a brother or a guest but he always resolutely refused
+whatever proposal they made him and they were of opinion that not even
+old age would have any effect upon the misanthropy of this poor
+inoffensive being who isolated himself so obstinately from all his kind.</p>
+
+<p>I thought to myself, is the poor fellow wise or mad in thus seeking to
+live alone as Nature produced him, in the unlimited liberty of his
+native jungle where he is secure from delusions and sorrows?</p>
+
+<p>Men, little less savage than he, feel compassion for him as he passes
+by. Nobody would dare to laugh at or injure such a harmless soul and so
+he is allowed to ramble from hut to hut undisturbed, his eccentricities
+and his odd behaviour being his safeguard.</p>
+
+<p>It is not always so amongst people more advanced in civilization!</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch4.jpg" width="400" height="105" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">An official appointment&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A tour of inspection&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Lost in the forest&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;I
+find a philosopher&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Lycurgus and his laws&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A contented mind is a
+continual feast&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A night among the tigers&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;On the Berumbum&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;I sleep with
+a serpent&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The last of many&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Safe from trap and arrow&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The coronation of
+King Edward VII.</p>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>felt flattered that the British Government
+should repose so much confidence in an Italian.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was so uncommon and extraordinary considering the good nature
+of the people, that it was quite worth the while of an investigation.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened, that one of the women,&mdash;who had been ill for some
+time&mdash;ate two of them, thereby causing herself such a serious
+indigestion that in a couple of days she was no more.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="quest" id="quest"></a>
+<img src="images/086.jpg" width="427" height="600" alt="A fruit picker" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 427px;">
+<p class="caption">In quest of fruit and bulbs.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of time the Government came to hear of the question and
+bade the <i>pengulu</i> (Malay chief) to make enquiries in order to establish
+the responsibility. But he refused to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I was journeying quite by myself, confiding perhaps too much in the
+knowledge I had gained of the jungle, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>and the possibility of being lost
+in the forest never entered my head.</p>
+
+<p>And yet this is one of the greatest perils that can befall anybody, for
+it may be a compendium of all the others.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! there was no mistaking the truth; I was lost in the depth of the
+forest, and what was worse, at nightfall!</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>despair I turned towards the direction of
+the sound and hurried forward.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before I came across a solitary hut that I found to be
+inhabited by a family of six persons.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I intentionally introduced the Sakais' dislike for work and asked him
+the reason why.</p>
+
+<p>Very quietly, and without the least hesitation, he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"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?".</p>
+
+<p>The argument was logical, but I smiled and remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"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".</p>
+
+<p>The old man quickly retorted:</p>
+
+<p>"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?".</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="quest2" id="quest2"></a>
+<img src="images/090.jpg" width="405" height="600" alt="Hunters with blowpipes" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 405px;">
+<p class="caption"> In quest of animal food.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>"Povera e nuda vai, filosofia",<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?".</p>
+
+<p>With a shake of his head my humble host hastened to answer:</p>
+
+<p>"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?".</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> 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 <i>orang putei</i>" (he meant the British Government)
+"we and our families live in more peace than before".</p>
+
+<p>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".</p>
+
+<p>He paused again and then added:</p>
+
+<p>"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".</p>
+
+<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I afterwards got the old man to tell me something about their customs
+regarding marriage and family organization.</p>
+
+<p>"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".</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>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".</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The old man having spoken of the Evil Spirit, I abruptly demanded who
+this much feared being might be.</p>
+
+<p>"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".</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="halfbreed" id="halfbreed"></a>
+<img src="images/094.jpg" width="390" height="600" alt="A half-breed Sakai" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 390px;">
+<p class="caption">A half-breed Sakai.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>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?</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;with his own virtues or his own
+defects?</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="meeting" id="meeting"></a>
+<img src="images/096.jpg" width="600" height="413" alt="A large group of Sakai" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A meeting in celebration of king Edward VII's Coronation.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>flood gates and the rain fell in perfect torrents, accompanied by
+dazzling flashes of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I turned this way and that without any notion hardly of what I was
+seeking.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway willing or not willing, I saw everything.</p>
+
+<p>Close by, some big phosphorescent mushrooms illuminated the darkness
+with their faint, ghastly gleams of light.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>A tiger was here, perhaps 50, perhaps 20 yards from me!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes of cruel, breathless suspense....</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>In the fervour of their passion would they notice the dainty meal
+prepared for them in my person?</p>
+
+<p>Not far off the implacable <i>sladan</i> was savagely bellowing. Was he too
+bound for my place of martyrdom?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know when the tigers went away or when the enormous multitude
+of beasts of prey beat a retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The first sensation I had of being alive was when the two heralds of the
+morn, the <i>cep pl&ocirc;t</i> and the <i>cep ri&ograve;</i> announced with their musical
+notes the dawn of another day.</p>
+
+<p>Then I stirred. My limbs were benumbed by that long immobility, and with
+the cold which was all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>more intense from the rain first and the dew
+afterwards, both of which had drenched me to the skin.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="Bretak" id="Bretak"></a>
+<img src="images/100.jpg" width="437" height="600" alt="Three Sakai" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 437px;">
+<p class="caption">Three types of tatooed Bretak Sakais.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>When at last I fell asleep I did not awake till morning.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But all my persuasions were fruitless.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>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....".</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed a strange sentiment for one whose people for the most
+lead a roving life either from habit or from superstition!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I myself had a proof of this.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that one day I had stopped in the hut of one of these
+half-breeds&mdash;where there were several real Sakais who had come from
+their jungle home to exchange products&mdash;and on my return I was overtaken
+by one of my good friends that offered to accompany me for a little way.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>If this had been discovered at the moment the wretch would most likely
+have paid for his sin with his life.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Something of the same kind befell me on another occasion when I was
+returning to my cabin by myself.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"This is the work of a <i>Mai-Gop</i>, 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".</p>
+
+<p>The kind fellow sucked out my wound and knew by its reddish-black colour
+that the poison used was a mixture of <i>legop</i> and <i>ipok</i> juices, most
+deadly in its effect.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>He washed the wound carefully with this strange lotion, making it
+penetrate well in, and recommended me not to touch it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>Let the disciples of Esculapius decide!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>ciniloi</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Not much less contented was I at the good impression my simple friends
+made by their nice behaviour and modest manners.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "Philosophy, poor and naked thou goest". This is a
+quotation from the Italian poet Petrarch. <i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch3.jpg" width="400" height="106" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">The origin of the Sakais&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Hypothesis and legend&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Physical
+character&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Thick tresses, gay flowers and troublesome guests&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Hereditary
+antipathy&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The five senses reduced to two&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Food and drink&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Tranquil
+life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Intolerance of authority&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mother-in-law and
+daughter-in-law&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Logical laziness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A Sakai journalist&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The story of a
+mattress.</p>
+
+
+<p>Paolo Mantegazza, the scientific poet writes:</p>
+
+<p>"Man is eternally tormenting himself with unanswered questions: Where
+did our species first come from? When did this life first begin?</p>
+
+<p>"This is his real original sin, as it is also the source of his true
+greatness. He is but a single link in an endless chain; he is but one
+imperceptible moment enclosed by a Past which he does not know and a
+Future which he will never see. But he feels the need of looking back
+and asking: where did we begin? And of looking forward, asking: where
+shall we finish?".</p>
+
+<p>I, too, have often made much the same demands, not about myself, for I
+have no inclination for metaphysical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>reflections, but about the Sakais
+who have unconsciously given me a difficult problem to solve: who are
+they? From whence did they come?</p>
+
+<p>There is absolutely nothing that speaks of them, and in the absence of
+positive fact we can only fall back upon mere hypothesis, more or less
+probable, until an accurate investigation with regard to the origin of
+this primitive people may present us with a convincing theory.</p>
+
+<p>But in order to make these studies it would be necessary to live in
+their midst (and not many could adapt themselves to the various
+inconveniences of such a life) because the live Sakai never abandons his
+native forest and to have a dead one for the purpose would be next to
+impossible, as he who attempted to carry away a corpse would expose
+himself to serious danger, there being no greater sacrilege, according
+to the idea of these bushmen, than that of touching a dead body or of
+digging up the ground where a skeleton lies.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore there does not seem to be any near chance of arriving at a
+definite conclusion upon the subject.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It is generally believed that anciently a people, called Benuas, not
+willing to submit themselves to the laws imposed upon them by the then
+flourishing and civilized India and fearing to fall into slavery,
+advanced through Indo-China till they reached the Malay Peninsula. Here
+also they found themselves pursued and surrounded by civilization, so,
+instead of settling round the rich and smiling shores, they turned
+towards the forest and encamped there. This version of their immigration
+would account for the Sakais not having the least idea of the sea which
+they never mention, not even in their legends or superstitions.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>Shunning-all contact with the other inhabitants of the country they had
+chosen as a refuge, they concealed themselves in the jungle, thus
+preserving their independence and the purity of their race.</p>
+
+<p>Some centuries later, in an era of fanaticism, invasions were made upon
+them with the object of converting them to Mohammedism but the only
+result was fire and bloodshed and after each conflict the surviving
+Sakais fled further into the forest (into those parts which had never
+been before explored) or to the natural strongholds of the far off
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>If this hypothesis holds good then the Sakais must be a very ancient
+people. It is an accepted fact that as far back as the 8th century
+Arabian merchants traded with the inhabitants of the Peninsula and that
+a very remote intercourse existed between these and Hindostan, and
+although there is no substantial proof, no analogies of language,
+customs or creed upon which to base such a conjecture, neither, as yet,
+has anything been proved to the contrary whilst many primeval
+superstitions prevalent amongst the Sakais are still to be found in
+other tribes living in proximity with believers in Buddha and Brahma.</p>
+
+<p>Another legend, sustained by the Kurumbus themselves, would make one
+suppose that the Sakais belong to that people, once grand, but now
+broken up and dispersed. In fact, even at the present time, there are
+many popular songs amongst the Malays in which the Kurumbus and Sakais
+are mixed up together.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Short, in his ethnological studies of India, describes certain
+characteristics and habits of the Kurumbus, inhabiting the forest, which
+perfectly coincide with those to be met with amongst the Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>I refer to those regarding physiognomy, structure, and stature, the
+primitive mode of cultivating corn, the choice of food, and the
+improvidence shown in eating, with the consequence that deficiency
+follows upon excess.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>Naturally these points of similarity are no proof that the two peoples
+are of the same origin but they give to the question a certain
+argumentative value.</p>
+
+<p>What seems to me sure is that the Sakais have nothing in common with the
+Malays or with the various other races that surround them. This may
+perhaps be owing to the contact the latter have with each other, the
+result being a modification of customs, traditions and purity of blood.
+I find, however, many traits which connect them with the Mongolian and
+Caucasian races (Indians and Semitics) and there is much in them which
+resembles other peoples living in Indo-China and India.</p>
+
+<p>It must be understood, though, that I speak only of the Sakais of the
+hills and not those of the plains who have in a great measure lost the
+characteristics which should distinguish them through their mixing with
+Kampongs, Malays and Chinese Ghedes.</p>
+
+<p>But let us now leave aside all the vague suppositions that for several
+reasons I have felt bound to mention (not the least of which being
+perhaps the need we all feel of investigating our neighbour's past), and
+let us rather examine the Sakai as he is in the 20th century.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Evidently he has not perceived the passing away of nineteen or more
+centuries because they have left no inheritance for him.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai, then, is somewhat short in stature but sufficiently hardy and
+well-formed, except in the lower limbs which render him slightly
+bow-legged.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of this trifling deformity is to be found in the habit they
+have, from their earliest childhood, of sitting upon their heels, as it
+were, thus leaving the knees wide apart.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>This posture, however, is not a particularity of the jungle inhabitants
+as I have frequently seen Italians in the same position, but the latter
+lean their shoulders against a tree or wall for support so that there is
+less strain upon the legs.</p>
+
+<p>When they are eating or listening to something that interests them the
+Sakai men and women will remain for whole hours in this attitude without
+showing any fatigue whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Their feet are rather large and properly arched. The big toe is well
+separated from the others and is very strong.</p>
+
+<p>The muscles of their arms are not much developed and sometimes these
+members are too long in proportion to the rest of the body. Their hands
+are also very long and slender. The chest muscles, on the contrary, are
+very well developed owing probably to the continual habit of climbing
+trees, rocks, rifts and the like in search of food or for any other
+motive that their nomadic life may make necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether the figure of the Sakai does not reveal any large amount of
+vigour perhaps because he is usually thin and is what might be termed
+pot-bellied, owing to the sort of food he eats and the cold he suffers
+during the night, but he is much more robust and taller (the average
+height of an adult is a little past one metre and a half)<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> than the
+other tribes and races around him who are in close reports with
+civilization. This fact would almost make one believe that civilization
+is detrimental to the physical development of an individual.</p>
+
+<p>These Aborigines are endowed with wonderful agility, as may be seen when
+they clamber up certain clefts that we should judge impossible of ascent
+and also when they spring from one part to another with a nimbleness
+that might excite the envy of our best gymnasts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>They have not much muscular force, as I have said, but they are second
+to none in enduring fatigue, especially in the case of long marches, to
+which they are well accustomed as every day they walk about 20 miles,
+carrying upon their shoulders the by no means light product of the
+chase, together with the various roots and bulbs they find in the
+forest, as well as their inseparable blow-pipes and well-filled quivers.</p>
+
+<p>They also resist very well the privations to which they are sometimes
+subjected by their own improvidence. All that they bring back with them
+they will eat at once, be it animal or vegetable food, and when they
+cannot finish it up by themselves they invite people from another
+village or tribe to come and help them devour it, laughing at every idea
+of domestic economy that I have vainly tried to impress upon their
+minds.</p>
+
+<p>But are they wrong, after all? They know for certain that the forest
+will not leave them to starve and when there is no more rice, durian,
+mangosteen etc., it is never difficult to catch a pheasant, monkey, rat,
+serpent or even a wild boar.</p>
+
+<p>Were they acquainted with Italian operas their favourite lines would
+certainly be:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Non curiamo l'incerto domani<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Se quest' oggi n'&egrave; dato goder.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and their choice would be appropriate, for where else could the Borgias
+be so well remembered as in a land famous for its poisons?</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais' skin is of a colour between light and burnt ochre, the tint
+getting darker as they grow older (in consequence of their long exposure
+to the sun), at which period the whole body becomes rough and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>wrinkled.
+The children are of a much lighter colour until they begin their life in
+the open air.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="woman1" id="woman1"></a>
+<img src="images/112.jpg" width="450" height="449" alt="A Sakai woman" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 450px;">
+<p class="caption">Another.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The woman, as a type, differs very little from the man. She is rather
+shorter as is the case with all the pure and mixed Mongolian races.</p>
+
+<p>As a girl she has a rounded form and is not without grace. As long as
+she is healthy and blooming she may be considered a beauty.... in the
+forest, but she soon gets faded because of the fatiguing life she leads
+and also because of her early marriage, for she is already a wife when
+our girls are at the beginning of their teens.</p>
+
+<p>The boys are generally healthy, sturdy little fellows.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakai's head is regular in form and size like that of the Mongolian
+race; the cheek-bones, however, are less prominent than those of the
+Tartars and the eyes are wider open and less oblique.</p>
+
+<p>The forehead neither retreats nor protrudes and is high and spacious
+enough. The nose is large and slightly flattened at the root. The facial
+angle measures pretty much the same as that of the Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>The mouth, well-cut and not too large, with rather thick lips, would be
+beautified by two rows of sound regular teeth if the latter were not so
+blackened by the constant chewing of tobacco, betel-nut and sirih.</p>
+
+<p>The chin is sharp.</p>
+
+<p>All the features, in fact, are very marked and the jaws are a little
+projecting but the countenance is not an unpleasant one and wears an
+expression of frankness and goodness that soon wins sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The head is covered with a rich, crisp growth of very black hair but few
+hairs are to be seen on the face or body. Those rare ones, whose
+appearance would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>be rapturously hailed by our youths as the forerunners
+of a possible mustache or beard, are plucked out by the Sakais in their
+spare time!</p>
+
+<p>A great many ladies would be highly contented to possess the beautiful
+tresses that the Sakai woman generally has, but whilst amongst us an
+artistic arrangement of the hair is an attraction which often makes us
+forget the lesser charms of the face, the raven locks of these women
+sometimes cause a feeling of disgust.</p>
+
+<p>They do not take the least care of this splendid ornament bestowed upon
+them by Nature; when they do not let their hair hang dirty and
+dishevelled upon their shoulders they just tie it up badly with a strip
+of many-coloured upas bark (a remedy against migraine) stick in some
+roughly carved combs and hair-pins (amulets against the malignant spirit
+of the wind) and adorn it with fresh flowers.</p>
+
+<p>But alas! under that bow of natural ribbon, under those combs and
+flowers there is a tiny world of restless inhabitants and the poor
+primitive Eve is obliged to scratch her head furiously now and then.</p>
+
+<p>And not less furiously does the man also scratch his though he takes
+much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to
+divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes the
+parting.</p>
+
+<p>Frequently both the men and the women rub into their heads the finely
+pounded root of a plant to which they attribute the virtue of softening
+their rough, luxuriant locks and of destroying the inmates.</p>
+
+<p>Even the men sometimes wear combs and hair-pins.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Cleanliness as the reader will have understood from the example given
+above is not the highest quality of the Sakai any more than it is of
+other primitive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>peoples. Hygienic practices march alongside civil
+progress. The bath, as a pleasure or a necessity, is quite unknown to
+them, and those who dwell amongst the mountains have the greatest fear
+of water. The foaming torrents and noisy cascades that dash down the
+ravines have inspired them with terror and as they have no notion
+whatever of being able to keep afloat, they are afraid to venture near a
+stream, however quietly it may flow, unless it is shallow enough for
+them to see the bottom.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="woman2" id="woman2"></a>
+<img src="images/114.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt="Sakai woman" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 450px;">
+<p class="caption">A Sakai beauty.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not only have they no idea of swimming but they are equally ignorant of
+any other means, of remaining on the water's surface. They have no
+canoes of any kind and when they want to cross from one shore to the
+other they either throw a huge tree into the river to serve as a bridge
+or they walk on round the bank until they find a fordable point and can
+reach the opposite side by jumping from stone to stone.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to say that my lectures upon cleanliness have not been
+completely fruitless for many of the young people make their ablutions
+now from time to time, especially the females, and come to me asking for
+soap. Though not a great step towards progress this is always better
+than nothing. The old people, of course, do not regard the bathing
+innovation with kindly eyes. They are always filthy to a repugnant
+degree, begrimed with ashes and earth from lying about round the fire,
+day, and night; the smell that emanates from them certainly does not
+invite one to approach them.</p>
+
+<p>But their fathers and their grandfathers never washed themselves and so
+it is their duty to follow their questionable example.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The five senses with the Sakais are practically reduced to two for
+whilst they are very quick in hearing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>and seeing, the same cannot be
+said of smelling, feeling and tasting.</p>
+
+<p>The acuteness of the two first is due to the continual need they have,
+in the forest, of keeping the ear and the eye open. To be on their guard
+against enemies they must either hear or see them.</p>
+
+<p>The weakness of the smelling faculty may be explained by the bad way the
+Sakai men and women treat their noses, boring holes through them large
+enough to pass a little bamboo stick, which they wear, partly for
+ornament, and partly as a charm, against I do not exactly know what
+danger. And not only this, but they are in the habit of playing a sort
+of flute with their nose, stopping up the right nostril with leaves, so
+it is easy to comprehend what little sensibility this unfortunate
+appendix of the face can have.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to their almost complete nudity their skin is not very susceptible
+to touch for it is hardened and toughened by the effects of sun, rain,
+cold and dew which makes it as weather-beaten as that of any old salt's;
+besides this they are accustomed from childhood to be stung by insects
+and nettles, to be pricked and scratched by thorns and brambles, and to
+be cut by the dry stiff blades of the long grasses of their native
+place. Habit is second nature.</p>
+
+<p>Their deficient sense of taste results from the practices mentioned
+further on.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="woman3" id="woman3"></a>
+<img src="images/116.jpg" width="450" height="450" alt="Sakai woman" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Another Sakai beauty.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Sakai cookery does not require much study or experience.</p>
+
+<p>The vegetable food they have at their disposition consists of: sweet
+potatoes, yams, maize, sikoi, different bulbs and tubers that they find
+in the forest like we do truffles, many edible leaves and all sorts of
+fruit, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>mushrooms, <i>nanka</i>, <i>guaccicous</i>, <i>gu&agrave; pra</i>,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> etc. Rice is an
+imported luxury which they use when they can get it.</p>
+
+<p>Here are the necessaries for a variety of dishes, but the Sakais know no
+variety in the culinary art and with the exception of the fruit, the
+yams and potatoes that are cooked under the hot ashes, the whole lot is
+put, with a little water, into cooking-pots made out of large bamboo
+canes, and boiled up together into a kind of paste with pieces of
+serpents, rats, toads, lizards, beetles and other similar delicacies to
+give it flavour.</p>
+
+<p>The monkey, deer, wild-boar, wild-sheep and any other big game caught in
+traps they just burn at the fire without taking the trouble to skin the
+animal, and then they eat it nearly raw.</p>
+
+<p>They season the meat with salt, when they have any, which is not often,
+and with a capsicum that sets your mouth on fire. The use of this
+capsicum, and the continual chewing of tobacco, and betel has ruined the
+palate of the Sakais, and left them with little power of relishing.</p>
+
+<p>Fish is rarely seen at the board (I use the word in a figurative sense
+as the thing it signifies does not exist for them) of the mountain
+tribes for the double motive that they have no fishing tackle and their
+fear of the water makes them avoid it as much as possible. Nevertheless
+when there is a dearth of other food they will throw in some beaten
+<i>ple-pra</i> and the fish, of a fair size, that rise to the surface to bite
+it are deftly hit by a knife, the Sakai seldom failing in his mark.</p>
+
+<p>To the simplicity of their cooking corresponds the still greater
+simplicity of their drinks which are&mdash;of the singular number.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>The inhabitants of the forest drink nothing but water but this they
+require clear and fresh. Should it not be perfectly pure in colour and
+taste they will not drink it. They always seek a spring to satisfy their
+thirst and supply their families with the necessary liquid.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when I was first living amongst them, I happened to stoop
+over a torrent or stream to drink some water but my companions protested
+vehemently declaring that it might do me a great deal of harm.</p>
+
+<p>They are afraid of poisons in every shape and form as they are also of
+contagion and would even be frightened if in drinking they were to touch
+their bamboo bottles and glasses with their lips. They are very clever
+in pouring the contents down their throats without letting the
+receptacle come in contact with their mouths, an accomplishment which we
+should not be able to achieve until after many damp trials.</p>
+
+<p>It might almost be desired that our civilization would imitate this
+hygienic custom of the savages. How many infections the less! How much
+fewer the microbes that poison the blood of our poor people!</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais do not drink milk, not only from the difficulty in obtaining
+it but also from a strange prejudice which I have never succeeded well
+in understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Once they are weaned they never swallow a single drop of milk.</p>
+
+<p>Neither do they drink alcoholic beverages for the simple reason that
+they have not got them and do not know what they are.</p>
+
+<p>If they should ever come to taste them and procure them easily will they
+not crave for them like all other savages?</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Sakai's frugal meal is finished he fills his mouth with
+tobacco, or if he has none, with sirih.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="resting" id="resting"></a>
+<img src="images/118.jpg" width="457" height="600" alt="Group of Sakai resting" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 457px;">
+<p class="caption">Resting from work.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This is composed of a leaf or two of betel&mdash;a plant that possesses a
+certain narcotic virtue&mdash;smeared <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>with lime and rolled up round a little
+tobacco and a piece of areca nut. Both men and women chew these quids
+with great relish, spitting out the juice from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>The old people, whose want of teeth makes mastication next to
+impossible, put the ingredients into a bamboo and pound them until they
+are reduced to, what they consider, a delicious paste.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The young Sakai reaches the height of his vigour at about eighteen years
+old, after which he has a brief stationary period, followed by a rapid
+falling off that I think must be caused by his being continually exposed
+to the inclemency of the weather.</p>
+
+<p>The woman begins to decline soon after her first confinement. From the
+age of 13 to 15 she becomes a wife and in two years from that date she
+is but the ghost of her former self. Thin, and with a wrinkled skin, not
+even a shadow remains of her youthful freshness and the attractive
+points she had as a girl.</p>
+
+<p>But what does this matter to her? Her husband is faithful to her, with a
+fidelity that knows no hypocrisy; she is happy and is proud of her
+maternity; she can still dance and strike chords upon her <i>krob</i>,
+modulate a plaintive ditty on her <i>ciniloi</i> and sing whilst she beats on
+her bamboo sticks an accompaniment that tortures well-tuned ears. For
+the rest, if her beauty soon fades, her ugliness does not create the
+least feeling of disgust amongst the Sakais of the masculine gender, who
+have aesthetic ideas peculiarly their own.</p>
+
+<p>It is enough to say that the ugliest of the female sex are the prettiest
+and the most admired.</p>
+
+<p>I am speaking in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>They, as well as the men, are in the habit of painting themselves in
+grotesque stripes and hieroglyphics, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>in imitation of medicinal plants,
+the principal colours used being red and black. Sometimes they add a
+little white but very rarely yellow.</p>
+
+<p>When I tell you that these strange designs are not only the
+manifestation of coquetry or vanity but that they are also made to
+frighten away the Evil Spirit you may well imagine how they each try to
+arabesque their skin in a more horrible way than the other, in order to
+look uglier and be more admired.</p>
+
+<p>How many, even in civilized places, would like to adopt such a mode of
+winning the admiration which their forbidding features cannot command!</p>
+
+<p>One of these artistic creations cannot last more than a day. It is
+carefully scraped off and replaced.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakai's life is tranquil and serene. He does not pass much of his
+time in the hut because every morning he goes off into the forest in
+search of game and vegetable food. He is accompanied by his boys who
+either practise with their blow-pipe or with a pointed stick dig in the
+ground for roots and bulbs, or they catch insects and reptiles to fill
+the baskets they carry on their backs.</p>
+
+<p>When the Sakai is not out hunting, or visiting friends and relations in
+other villages, he remains quietly in his hut sleeping, smoking, chewing
+a nice quid or in preparing poisons and poisoned arrows.</p>
+
+<p>He is good-tempered and good-hearted, and never quarrels with his wife.
+I have never heard of one of these savages beating his wife or children,
+or of ill-treating them in any way and neither of using violence with
+any one else unless with a declared foe or one who has offended his
+sentiments and superstitions.</p>
+
+<p>One day I ordered a child to do something, I don't remember what, and he
+answered me impertinently with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>a curt <i>neay</i> (no). I turned to his
+mother who was present and told her that the boy ought to have his ears
+boxed.</p>
+
+<p>The woman gave me a look of mingled wonder and irritation, then said:
+"You are a bad man if you would hurt my son when he did not mean any
+harm!".</p>
+
+<p>Yet in spite of this kind of reasoning and the clemency shown towards
+children (which would make a pedagogue of the educational rod system
+commit suicide) the Sakais are honest and respectful to their parents
+and the old; they are affectionate in their family and, poor savages!
+are still a long way off from such a degree of civilization as to cut up
+a cross wife or a troublesome lover into pieces and send them in a
+mysterious valise to take a sea-bath or in a butcher's sack to take a
+fresh water one in a convenient river.</p>
+
+<p>But the answer given me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval
+were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom
+that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never what
+others command.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, even taking him as a guide or travelling companion it is always
+wise to let him have his own way without interfering at all. He will
+rest, eat, smoke, and walk on just as he chooses and if you contradict
+him in his desire he will turn his back upon you and abandon you in the
+midst of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Every act of his life reveals and marks this mania of independence. I
+will quote a rare case. Should a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law not
+be able to agree in consequence of the difference in their characters no
+tragic scenes or petty quarrels occur; the young couple merely take up
+their scanty belongings, destroy their own hut and march off to build
+another at a sufficient distance to avoid troublesome contact or the
+possibility of further misunderstandings and discord.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>It is so: nobody will submit to the will of another and even when
+settling some particular question unless they are all of the same
+identical opinion the matter has to be abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law love their fathers-in-law and
+mothers-in-law well enough and <i>viceversa</i>, and they all respect each
+other and can live peaceably together, but no one can impose his own
+will without determining a strike.</p>
+
+<p>They put into practice the same simple remedy when there is not very
+good harmony in the conjugal state. A man and woman cannot exactly agree
+as husband and wife? They cheerfully divorce themselves instead of
+poisoning their existence by continual altercations and the reluctance
+they both feel at doing what the other wishes.</p>
+
+<p>How much regarding the human spirit civilized people have yet to learn
+from savages! Do you not think so, kind reader?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakai is commonly believed to be lazy by nature. This is an error,
+for their so-called laziness is nothing but the result of the
+circumstances amidst which they live.</p>
+
+<p>Once their daily food is provided and they have prepared a good supply
+of poisons and darts what remains for them to do in the depth of the
+forest, where there is no thirst for riches (because unknown to them),
+for honours (of which they have no idea at all), or for power (which
+their individual independence repudiates)?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="manufacture" id="manufacture"></a>
+<img src="images/122.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="Group of Sakai making arrows" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Manufacturing poisoned arrows.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>There is no race for wealth, position or fame in their parts, no
+struggle for life which amongst us is the inexhaustible source of
+progress as well as the incentive to crime and corruption.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>The desire expressed by Henry IV that each one of his subjects might
+boil his own fowl in his own pot is more than realized amongst the
+Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>They do not cook their fowls because they are only reared as a means of
+barter, but it seldom happens that they cannot enjoy a choice bit of
+monkey, snake, deer or wild boar, which they like much better. If (a
+very strange case) somebody should be without, he goes to the nearest
+hut, enters without speaking, and sits down without being greeted. Some
+food is placed before him that he devours without being invited to do so
+and then departs as he came without any one saying a word beyond perhaps
+(in an excess of courtesy) a muttered "<i>abor</i>" (meaning "very good" and
+used as "good-bye" by the Sakais), from the visitor as he leaves.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai does not understand the reason of working when there seems to
+be no need, but what he finds strictly necessary he does with alacrity
+and good will. Whatever they have to do they all work together, the head
+of the family, the elder, the young men, the boys, everyone gives a hand
+to the best of his capacity. When they have finished, the oldest of the
+company lie down to doze and chew tobacco or sirih, the other men squat
+themselves about to chat and prepare poisons or make blow-pipes and
+arrows, whilst the children play and the women busy themselves over the
+cooking.</p>
+
+<p>The terms of indolent and lazy as erroneously applied to these savages
+might be used with the same force in speaking of many who live in the
+vortex of civilized society.</p>
+
+<p>We frequently see, amongst us, inexhaustible treasures of energy
+displayed when ambition or pure need demands it but when one or the
+other has been satisfied, or the necessity for such continual effort no
+longer seems imperative, or either the desired point has been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>attained
+or the future has been fully assured, then little by little energy gives
+place to a longing for repose.</p>
+
+<p>As I have before said, the Sakai never provides for the morrow. His work
+begins and finishes with the day. Give him some tobacco and in his
+happiness he will stay awake all the night to smoke or chew it.</p>
+
+<p>He works only in proportion to the urgency of the moment and then throws
+himself down to rest upon the ground, because beds and chairs are
+unknown to him, and it is not always that dried leaves and grasses are
+used as a substitute for the former.</p>
+
+<p>The evolution of our society has brought us on the contrary to this
+curious condition: he who does not work at all and consequently has no
+honest fatigue to rest from, lies upon a soft feather bed, there to
+restore his strength wasted in fast living and dissipation, whilst....
+But I had better stop or I may be mistaken for a dangerous class
+agitator!</p>
+
+<p>I will only say this: that could the Sakai look into some of our houses
+and palaces he would make haste to return to his own forest and if he
+were obliged or knew how to write his impressions he would certainly
+commence: "The men of the West are effeminate, lazy and indolent".</p>
+
+<p>But he would do wrong to generalize for they are Western men who have
+conquered his forest.</p>
+
+<p>I will conclude this chapter by confessing a remorse. Out of pity for
+these poor creatures sleeping on the cold ground, huddled together to
+keep each other warm, I, one day, gave a hair mattress to a Sakai
+family.</p>
+
+<p>All of them took their places on it and slept soundly, but in the
+morning their bones ached so much that they gave me back my mattress in
+a hurry and without a single word of thanks.</p>
+
+<p>And I could not blame them for this.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="shooting" id="shooting"></a>
+<img src="images/124.jpg" width="409" height="600" alt="Boys shooting blowpipes" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 409px;">
+<p class="caption">Boys practising shooting.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A little more than five feet. Translator's Note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let to-morrow take care of itself<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If to-day is ours to enjoy.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The latter is a sort of acorn which keeps good for a long
+time. When pounded into an oily paste it is not altogether disagreeable
+to the taste.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch1.jpg" width="400" height="94" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">The Sakai woman&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Conjugal fidelity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A life of labour&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Betrothals and
+nuptials&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Love among the Sakais&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Divorcement&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;No
+kissing&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Chastity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Bigamy&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Maternity and its excesses&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Aged before the
+time&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Fashion and coquetry.</p>
+
+
+<p>Woman, who has been compared to nearly every sort of animal that flies,
+creeps, swims or runs by poets and others of chivalrous sentiments,
+amongst the Sakais is simply a woman. In speaking of her those good sons
+of the East neither calumniate the dove nor the gazelle, and they do not
+slander the tiger and the snake but when they are inclined to praise her
+charms they do so with affection and brevity And this is not to be
+wondered at when one considers that the female sex in the jungle,
+although not beautiful to our taste (but very much so according to the
+Sakay criterion) is good, laborious and incorruptible. These three
+virtues, if they were better known in our parts would spare poor,
+suffering humanity a great deal of prose, as well as poetry, without the
+least damage to Art.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>It is for this reason that the savages in the Malay States have always
+considered, and still consider, the Woman as the faithful companion of
+their life and as the mother of their children. They have never imputed
+to her the sin committed by Eve, which in other countries, where ever so
+little of Sacred History is known, has made her the butt of every
+insulting, sarcastic and opprobrious term. They have never discussed, as
+at the Macon council, the probability of a woman having a soul or not;
+what little is necessary to harmonize with their own they have
+recognized without any argument and they have found it in the care and
+affection shown towards her dear ones and in her unswerving
+faithfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst these uncivilized people there are no chivalrous traditions, it
+is true, but neither have their women been driven to seek emancipation,
+because, sharing with perfect equality the rights of the men, none
+remain for them to claim, and they have no wrongs to revenge!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="boys" id="boys"></a>
+<img src="images/126.jpg" width="600" height="407" alt="Boys with blowpipes" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Boys practising shooting.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The men, for their part, never dream of what Demosthenes said of the
+corrupt Athenians of his time, words which are repeated and acted upon
+by some of our leading men in this the twentieth century: "We marry a
+woman to have legitimate children and to possess a faithful housekeeper;
+we keep concubines and pay harlots for our convenience and for the
+enjoyments of love".</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I say, among the Sakais the one sex is not the slave of the other.
+They live in perfect harmony. The male is considered the head of the
+family, although there is nothing to be administered or directed and the
+female shows herself sufficiently deferential towards him, but the
+custom does not exist among them that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>one should passively submit to a
+will with which his, or her own does not agree.</p>
+
+<p>The man provides food by hunting in the forest, fishing, gathering fruit
+and cultivating a little land around; the woman helps him in the work of
+agriculture, sometimes follows him into the jungle, prepares his meals
+and attends to other domestic duties. She looks well after her children
+and is very jealous of them. When they are too little to walk she straps
+them to her back with long strips of bark, resting their legs upon her
+hips.</p>
+
+<p>This burden does not prevent her from moving about and working. If they
+go for a long march the parents take turns in carrying the child.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as a boy reaches the age of six seasons (6 years) he passes from
+his mother's to his father's guardianship and under the latter's
+guidance begins to make trips into the forest where he catches insects,
+picks up fruit and bulbs, learns, little by little, to handle the
+blow-pipe and to take part in the hunting and fishing as well as to
+distinguish poisons and assist in their extraction.</p>
+
+<p>This is the educational period of the little Sakai.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, on the contrary, remains with her mother and is taught to help
+in household (?) work, doing her part with a good will and cheerful
+temper.</p>
+
+<p>She goes with her mother to plant and pull up potatoes and yams, to
+gather fire-wood, and fill the bamboo buckets with water; she learns to
+cook and take care of the little ones.</p>
+
+<p>Quite early she begins a life of great activity. Her arms are still weak
+and she can scarcely lift some of the weights allotted her, but they
+gradually become nerved for heavier ones.</p>
+
+<p>Her fatiguing duties always increase, and yet as a little girl, a
+maiden, and also a woman she accepts it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>all with a light heart and is
+so contented with her hard life that I have often heard one of these
+good, laborious creatures declare that she was completely happy. How
+many ladies in civilized Europe and America would be prepared to make a
+similar avowal?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At about 15 years of age, when our girls are still in short dresses and
+are not always dignified by the term "young lady", the female Sakai is
+generally a wife.</p>
+
+<p>From her infancy a baby-girl may be betrothed by her parents to some boy
+of another tribe. But if when the time comes to unite in matrimony the
+two young people engaged from babyhood, one no longer likes the other in
+the quality of a life-partner, they exchange a quiet <i>gne</i> (no) and the
+engagement is at a complete end.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>Neither one nor the other is offended at this refusal for they are of
+full accord that it is better not to be bound together unless the desire
+is mutual, as heartache and suffering would be the sure result.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful philosophy, in all its simplicity, that liberates the little
+Sakai world from an enormous number of martyrs, and sensational crimes.</p>
+
+<p>The girl is left free in the choice of a husband. Of course advice is
+readily given her, favourable or otherwise to the suitor, but nobody can
+compel her to wed a man she is not inclined to.</p>
+
+<p>This total absence of coercion is no marvel, however, for in the forest
+there are no fortune-hunters, dowries being unknown, and there are no
+Dianas to join in the chase after a rent-roll. There is no ambition with
+regard to title, position or lineage because all are equal. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>They are
+human creatures, made in the same form and invested with the same right
+of living. There is no difference of blood amongst them for it is always
+red.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The young Sakai that wishes to form a family, accompanied by some near
+relations (grandfather, father or brothers) leaves his own village and
+goes to a more distant encampment.</p>
+
+<p>It often happens that hunger, dusk, or some other circumstance
+determines this Pilgrim of Love and his companions, to stop at one hut
+rather than another.</p>
+
+<p>They enter, as is their custom, without saying a word; they sit down on
+their heels and eat what is offered them.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the young man looks about him and carefully eyes the
+girls, should there be any and if there is one that pleases him he
+points her out to one of his companions who immediately rises and tells
+the fortunate damsel what his relative desires.</p>
+
+<p>The young woman, when she does not utter a curt <i>gne</i>, murmurs, "<i>Eh!
+eh! ngot</i>" (Yes, I am willing), a phrase which seems a hiccough but is
+not.</p>
+
+<p>Then the gallant youth draws near the girl and offers her a necklace of
+glass beads, and, if he has any, some brass wire to make bracelets,
+receiving in exchange from his future bride a quid or two of betel.</p>
+
+<p>Without any delay the father of the girl and that of the young man, or
+some one who represents them, commence the more prosaic part of the
+business, that is: they decide upon the sort of presents that the
+bridegroom must give the parents and sisters of his spouse on the
+wedding-day, to compensate them for the girl he is taking away.</p>
+
+<p>They discuss if the gifts must consist of only one earthen-ware
+cooking-pot (an article of luxury in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>jungle where bamboo utensils
+are in common use) instead of two, and if a pair of <i>parangs</i>
+(woodcutter's knives) should be added; then there must be some coloured
+beads, brass wire and perhaps even a piece of bright coloured calico.</p>
+
+<p>These very important matters being settled, the wedding-day is fixed,
+after which the affianced couple part without either tears or sighs, the
+young man returning with his relations to their own habitation.</p>
+
+<p>The great day comes.</p>
+
+<p>The bridegroom accompanied by all the men of his family and by some of
+the women, betakes himself to the far-off hut of the bride, carrying
+with him the promised gifts.</p>
+
+<p>There is a large gathering of Sakais from every part, because joys and
+pains, plenty and famine are equally and fraternally shared by them.</p>
+
+<p>The Elder gets up and says in a loud voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Hearken! hearken, all you who are here assembled: they who were at a
+distance are now together; they who were separate are now united".</p>
+
+<p>The bridal couple then take each other tenderly by the hand, and some
+rice is presented to them upon a leaf. The woman takes up a few grains
+and puts them into the mouth of her husband and then they both partake
+of that light, symbolical repast from the same leaf. The nuptial
+ceremony finishes here, without the intervention of <i>Al&agrave;</i> or any sort of
+ecclesiastical or civil authority. How they are to be envied!</p>
+
+<p>A banquet immediately follows and the company cram down everything that
+they find eatable. The <i>menu</i> consists of every sort of edible article
+known in the Sakai cuisine, and when they have stuffed themselves to
+their utmost, they dance, sing and draw from their instruments the
+sharpest notes that ever rent the human ear whilst the furious beating
+of bamboos give out the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>sound of wooden bells. Terminated in this way
+the wedding festival, the newly-made husband and wife return, with the
+relations of the former, to their own group of huts, where a new one, a
+nest of love, has been prepared for them.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Love among the Sakais never becomes a passion or a delirium. It is a
+quiet calm sentiment, a physiological necessity such as the good soul of
+Schopenhauer interpreted it, to the great scandal of a certain class of
+lovers.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women are united from a feeling of cordial sympathy, by a
+spontaneous act of their own wills which would never suffer the least
+restraint.</p>
+
+<p>No personal or family interest suggests or determines the important
+step. The only thing that may be said to inspire love (and bring about a
+marriage) in the jungle is that supreme and inviolable law of nature for
+the conservation of the species.</p>
+
+<p>But what is to be admired in the unions of these good, simple people is
+the fidelity which follows them throughout life.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais are not, I repeat, very ardent spirits, nor are they
+excessive in sacrificing to Venus perhaps because sensual satisfaction
+arrives when physiological development imposes it, instead&mdash;as too often
+happens in civilized society, with great damage to morality and race&mdash;of
+after a long and wearisome vigil, always waiting for financial
+conditions to permit the formation of a family.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fact to be noted that neither the men nor the women feel drawn
+toward other than their rightful partner, which naturally contributes a
+great deal in maintaining faithfulness between the two.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>Sometimes, but very rarely, one may find a couple whose difference of
+character renders cohabitation impossible.</p>
+
+<p>There are no scenes of fury, no violent quarrels and, still less, no
+reciprocal blows.</p>
+
+<p>The two interested parties merely declare that his or her heart suffers
+too much from a life of such perpetual misunderstandings and they decide
+to part good friends, hoping to find better luck next time.</p>
+
+<p>They will then separate with the best and most sincere wishes for each
+other's future happiness.</p>
+
+<p>The woman only takes away with her the youngest of her children who have
+most need of her care, leaving those over six years of age to the
+father, and she returns to her own place where she is affectionately
+received.</p>
+
+<p>She often finds another husband, even in the first days of her
+separation; her new companion adopts her little ones and considers them
+as his, after which the relationship with their real father is annulled.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Divorce, as is here seen, is performed without the intervention of
+others. The Sakais are as free to marry as they are to part when they
+find that they cannot live in peace and quietness. They attribute to the
+heart the same impulse of union as of separation. It is then Sentiment
+that takes the form of Law amongst them and regulates their acts. How
+much it is to be deplored that a similar law is not recognized in
+civilized countries, where that imposed by legislature creates so many
+unhappy beings and provocates so many tragedies and so much infamy.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="sleeping" id="sleeping"></a>
+<img src="images/132.jpg" width="410" height="600" alt="Sakais sleeping on ground" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 410px;">
+<p class="caption">Sleeping children.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And yet, in spite of this facility in obtaining a divorce, there are
+very few who recur to it, a circumstance that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>ought to have weight with
+those persons who fight furiously against a measure so conducive to the
+real defence of the family, defence in the sense that its condition and
+functions would be improved without the crushing and suppression of
+those rights (by a prejudice that is made to pass as a religious
+precept) which the soul itself asserts.</p>
+
+<p>Nowadays the holy state of matrimony is viewed by the majority with
+sceptical diffidence, almost as an abyss that swallows up freedom,
+energy, scruples of honour, morality, will and every kindliness of
+sentiment that has survived the shipwreck of many hopes and illusions.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Sakais no such feeling prevails. The men voluntarily bind
+their own existence to that of a woman and sanctify their new state with
+the sincere virtues of fidelity and chastity.</p>
+
+<p>But&mdash;these virtues belong to savages and I am a savage to speak of them!</p>
+
+<p>Let me then, briefly finish up the argument. Divorce cases are rare
+because they are almost exclusively based upon incompatibility of temper
+or persistent sterility.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the man nor the woman can reconcile themselves to stay without
+children; if their union is without fruit there is no longer need for
+them to live together.</p>
+
+<p>In an exceptional case it sometimes happens that the two parties do not
+agree over a divorce, in which circumstance the decision is left to the
+Elder who pronounces a sentence without the possibility of appeal.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate consequence of an annulled matrimony is the return of the
+presents given by the husband to the family of the wife. The latter at
+once abandons the tribe to which she belonged after her marriage and
+becomes a stranger to those who, a short time before, were her closest
+relations.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the end of a love-dream but the calm and reasonable decision
+of two beings who, finding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>that their characters do not agree and that
+they no longer feel pleasure in each other's company, are not
+sufficiently cruel towards themselves and their better or worse halves
+(as the case may be) as to simulate and continue a union which renders
+them unhappy.</p>
+
+<p>In our parts the question of divorced people's children serves as a
+weighty argument to the opposers of divorce and gives to its partisans a
+difficult problem to study. To the Sakais the solution is easy enough.
+The age of the children decides with whom they have to remain, and those
+left to the father's charge are taken care of by the womenfolk around,
+who from a pure impulse of maternity and without any hope of reward,
+treat them with motherly tenderness. It is as though their mother was
+dead and their natural female guardians become the sisters or mother of
+the father. In default of these close relations the man is free to
+contract a second marriage at once, his term of mourning being condoned.</p>
+
+<p>Any way, the little ones always become the object of affectionate
+interest to all the women of the village.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakai people do not kiss each other. They know neither the kiss of
+Judas nor that of Romeo. They express their sympathy and love by some
+rough fondling or the scratching of each other's nose, neck or chin.</p>
+
+<p>Yonder, in the jungle, there are no poets, novelists, dramatists or
+painters; a new (and original) field would here be opened to the
+excellence of their arts. Can you not imagine, kind reader, how
+irresistible the effect would be if, at the most passionate point of
+their love scenes, instead of "their trembling lips meeting in a
+thrilling kiss" the hero and heroine were to furiously scratch each
+other's noses?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>Although, now and then, in the interest of true Art, it might be a good
+thing for some of our pseudo artists to go to that distant land in
+search of strong inspirations that would, at least, increase the glory
+of common sense in civilized places, I would certainly not advise them
+to emigrate into the Malay forest for it would be like condemning them
+to death by starvation as there they would find no sort of tool or
+material with which to do their work. There are no suicides, murders,
+robberies, adultery, coveted legacies and suppressed wills, forgeries,
+lost women and illegitimate children, there are no alcohol drinkers,
+opium eaters etc.</p>
+
+<p>It would be utterly impossible for even a "Sherlock Holmes" to satisfy
+the cravings of appetite if he had been created in those parts.</p>
+
+<p>But let us return to my good friends the savages after this involuntary
+ramble.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakais manifest their love and gallantry by scratching nose, chin or
+neck but when they want to express a milder sentiment, such as sincere
+affection or friendship, they do so by a smile, at the same time
+embracing each other.</p>
+
+<p>I have sometimes noticed both men and women, when far from their other
+halves, indulge in a few caresses and a little nose-scratching, as also
+young men not engaged, but I can affirm with the fullest certainty that
+these demonstrations of tenderness go no further; they finish where they
+begin.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem strange, but it is true. Both sexes are in continual
+contact. In the cold nights they will all sleep close together to keep
+themselves warm and yet nothing wrong results from this promiscuous
+proximity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>As I have already said, chastity is a natural virtue among the Sakais,
+and even that which relates to legitimate love is veiled in a coy
+mystery. Neither the male or the female are given to sexual caprices.</p>
+
+<p>If a young man should happen to be in love with a girl before he can
+handle his blowpipe with dexterity and profit, or is able to procure the
+wedding presents prescribed by habit, he will perhaps persuade his
+sweetheart to meet him in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>It is extremely seldom that any harm comes to the girl through such an
+appointment, because it is not in their character to give way to lust,
+but should this occur, and the fact become known, a marriage is arranged
+without any loss of time. The woman who will not consent to a matrimony
+with her lover or who is known to have been on intimate terms with more
+than one young man is held in great disdain by the rest of her people.</p>
+
+<p>There are very few spinsters to be found in these tribes but those who
+do remain in the single state owe it to some moral or physical defect.
+Such persons live with their nearest relations.</p>
+
+<p>Polygamy is never thought of by the Sakais but bigamy is not an absolute
+exclusion although it very rarely takes place because as soon as a woman
+sees that her husband is enamoured of another she is the first to
+propose a divorce and no recriminations follow her suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Your heart" she says "suffers with me, when with her it would be glad.
+Well, then, let us separate for I feel that I could not live happily
+with another wife of yours".</p>
+
+<p>Should a woman, however, be contented to share the nuptial bed with a
+rival you may be quite sure that the very best harmony would reign in
+that <i>menage &agrave; trois</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>The Sakai women are born with the instinct of maternity and will never
+renounce nursing their own babes unless scarcity of milk or a weak
+constitution compels them to do so. These exceptions are, however
+extraordinarily rare and they are at the height of their pride when
+their little ones are drawing life and strength from their breasts.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p>There are very few cases of complete sterility or excessive fecundity
+amongst them. Hardly ever does a woman have more than four or five
+children.</p>
+
+<p>She nurses and takes care of them with great tenderness, delighted at
+seeing them grow strong and healthy.</p>
+
+<p>Children are weaned at from seven months (reckoned roughly by the moon)
+to two years of age (two seasons of fruit) but generally when they are
+about a year old (one season).</p>
+
+<p>The first food given to the baby is a well-cooked pap made with a
+certain bulb and the tender leaves of a little plant whose names I do
+not remember.</p>
+
+<p>When the little fellow has become accustomed to his new food (whether he
+likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name
+that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event
+of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, or
+of pronouncing it badly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The good-heartedness and maternal kindness of the Sakai woman is
+extended even to young animals that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> have been deprived of their mother.
+They will adopt them and bring them up with the same care they bestow
+upon their own children or human orphans.</p>
+
+<p>One day a she-boar was caught in a trap, and, as a matter of course, was
+cooked and eaten, but soon after a litter, belonging to the victim, was
+found and the tiny beasts, only just born, were taken and nursed by the
+women of the village.</p>
+
+<p>I once saw a big boar that followed a Sakai tribe with wonderful
+docility even allowing the children to play tricks upon it; it had been
+brought up by the women.</p>
+
+<p>I have also seen rats, that have been reared by these foster-mothers, go
+backwards and forwards from the hut at their will, and I remember that
+one night when I had taken shelter in one of these cabins and had
+selected a particular corner for my night's rest, the dark lady of the
+house, without raising any objection to my choice, warned me that during
+the night a rat would return to repose in the same spot and begged me
+not to do any harm to the poor thing, as he was one of the family, but
+to call her if it gave me any disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>In fact I was fast asleep when some warm fur softly caressed me, and
+waking up I understood that the dissolute rodent&mdash;almost bigger than a
+cat&mdash;had returned home in the small hours, just as if he had been
+provided with a latch-key.</p>
+
+<p>I hastily called the woman who tenderly took it up and carried it away
+to sleep with her.</p>
+
+<p>It was an adopted child!</p>
+
+<p>Is not this the acme of maternal feeling? And does it not approach
+foolishness?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The birth, and subsequent suckling, of her first child put an end to the
+grace and bloom of a Sakai woman.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="tattoo" id="tattoo"></a>
+<img src="images/138.jpg" width="427" height="600" alt="" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 427px;">
+<p class="caption">A child being tattooed.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>She fulfils with incomparable zeal the functions confided to her by
+Nature, but as she has, at the same time, to attend to the heavy duties
+allotted her by man she becomes over-worked and worn-out with excessive
+fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>When thirty years old she looks almost as old and withered as one of our
+hard-worked countrywomen does at fifty, and the poor creature cannot in
+any way conceal this premature falling off because of&mdash;the extreme
+lightness of her attire.</p>
+
+<p>"The tailor tree of our great father Adam" has no leaves for the
+inhabitants of the jungle, for both male and female only wear a strip of
+bark (well beaten to render it flexible) wound round the body and
+fastened on the hips.</p>
+
+<p>That worn by the men never exceeds four inches in breadth, but the women
+use lists of from six to eight inches wide. Another piece of bark-cloth
+is passed between the legs and tied, in front and behind, to this belt.</p>
+
+<p>The women, although daughters of the forest, are not without a certain
+amount of coquetry and will often decorate their girdles with flowers or
+medicinal and sweet-smelling herbs, but they never think of making a
+chaste veil of large leaves with which to cover those parts of their
+persons that ought to be kept secret from the public gaze.</p>
+
+<p>The costume that they are wearing in the photographs was prepared by me
+in order to present these ochre-coloured Eves to my readers in a more
+decent state, or rather, a little more in accordance with what civilized
+society requires, because "to the pure all things are pure" and in my
+opinion the perfect innocence in which these women go about naked is
+preferable to that consciousness of their natural form which leads so
+many of our society ladies and other females, to resort to artificial
+means that they may deceive their admirers, and gain a name for beauty.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>The men, too, are even to be envied, for in the total absence of
+nether-garments their better-halves can never claim "to wear the
+trousers" as sometimes happens amongst us.</p>
+
+<p>Necklaces are very much worn by Sakai girls and women. They are made of
+beads (which are considered the most elegant) serpents' teeth, animals'
+claws, shells, berries or seeds.</p>
+
+<p>The men, instead, finish off their toilet by loading their wrists with
+bracelets. These are of brass-wire, bamboo or <i>akar bat&ugrave;</i> which it is
+believed preserves them from the fever.</p>
+
+<p>Their faces are always disfigured by coloured stripes or hieroglyphics.</p>
+
+<p>They have not the custom of wearing rings through their noses but only a
+little bamboo stick that is supposed to have the virtue of keeping off I
+don't exactly know what sort of malady or spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The mother bores a hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a
+porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly,
+without closing. Afterwards she passes through a light piece of this
+reed.</p>
+
+<p>The same operation is made upon the ears, which from being generally
+well-shaped, become deformed, as the hole through the lobe has to be
+very large. It is not sufficient to pierce the tissue with a quill; a
+little bamboo cane has to be at once inserted; the day after a larger
+one is substituted and so on until it is possible to hang from the ears
+pendants made of bamboo and ornamented with flowers, leaves and perhaps
+even cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>A strip of <i>upas</i> bark twisted round the head bestows the finishing
+touch to the Sakais' toilet. Happy people! They have no tailor's,
+dressmaker's or milliner's bills to pay!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Gne</i> would be pronounced in English as <i>neay</i>.
+<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> In <a href="#Page_183">chapter XIV</a> speaking of the superstitions of this
+people I have mentioned those which refer to the birth of a child and
+the strange ideas they have concerning this event.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch2.jpg" width="400" height="107" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">A Sakai village&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The "elder"&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The family&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Degrees of
+relationship&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Humorists disoccupied&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;On the march&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Tender
+hearts&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Kindling the fire&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A hecatomb of giants&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The hut&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Household
+goods and utensils&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Work and repose.</p>
+
+
+<p>A real village, such as we understand it to be, does not exist among the
+Sakais, but I have been obliged to make use of the word for want of a
+better one to explain the meaning. Each hut is some hundreds of yards
+distant from the other so that altogether a village covers an area of
+from twenty to forty miles. Nearly always the boundaries of village
+territory are marked by secondary water-courses (the true Sakais never
+encamp near a navigable river) which give their names to the people
+living round the shores.</p>
+
+<p>Only the width of a brook or torrent divides two of these settlements
+that I have called villages, therefore the distance is much less than
+that lying between the two extremities of a single village.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>And yet, beyond being on neighbourly and friendly terms, they have
+nothing to do with each other, for one Sakai tribe does not like mixing
+with another and will not recognize any tone of authority, or receive
+any word of advice unless proceeding from a close relation, and even
+then it must be given in the form of fatherly counsel or affectionate
+exhortation otherwise the person to whom it is addressed would probably
+leave his own people, not to have further annoyance from them, and go to
+live among his wife's kinsfolk.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of a village are all one family, belonging to the first,
+second, third and even fourth generation for they are all descended from
+the same old man, who is called the "Elder" and who is regarded with
+esteem and consideration by everybody.</p>
+
+<p>It is he who acts as magistrate or arbitrator in any dispute or quarrel
+(that very rarely takes place) amongst his offspring and the sentence
+pronounced by him is rigorously respected. It is he, too, who selects
+the spot for a clearing when, as often happens, the Sakais change their
+place of encampment, forming their village in quite another part of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this he has nothing else to do, unless he is still able to work.</p>
+
+<p>The Elders of the various villages are upon a perfect footing of
+cordiality and never incite to or permit the shedding of blood, or even
+a conflict between their tribes.</p>
+
+<p>If upon the death of an Elder there happens to be two or more brothers
+still living the oldest one succeeds him, and should any
+misunderstanding eventually arise between them, or should the number of
+those composing the village become too great, the other emigrates to a
+far off corner of the forest, followed by all the families which are, in
+a direct line, closely related to him, thus forming the nucleus of a new
+Sakai village which never exceeds a few hundreds of inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>In the plains, however, a great many families may be found living
+together in the same village, sometimes even to three thousand persons.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not here that one is able to study and observe the habits and
+customs of the genuine Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the practice of living in groups, one family isolated
+from the other, fraternity of race is very profoundly felt and if
+to-morrow a common danger should be menaced they would all unite like
+one man to resist and overcome it, besides being always ready to help
+each other in time of need.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Not many degrees of relationship are recognized by the Sakai.</p>
+
+<p>The male and female children of the same father and mother are
+considered, as with us, brothers and sisters, but also the sons and
+daughters of brothers (who among us would only be cousins) are classed
+the same and call all their uncles "father".</p>
+
+<p>That established for the descendants of females is quite different, and
+this is natural because the girls of one village marry into another.</p>
+
+<p>The children of a woman are supposed to bear no relationship to those of
+their mother's brothers and very little attention is paid to that which
+exists between them and their uncles.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters' children are considered brothers instead of cousins, and the
+aunts are all called mothers, even when they live in other villages.</p>
+
+<p>The wives of brothers call themselves sisters and are known by the name
+of "mother" by their nephews and nieces but sisters' husbands have no
+claim to relationship, other than that of cordial friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Grandchildren give the title of "father" also to their grandfather and
+great-grandfather and that of "mother" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>to their grandmother so that
+these two words which have such a sacred significance to us, to the
+Sakais are but common appellations.</p>
+
+<p>No tie whatever exists between the parents of the husband and those of
+the wife and neither between the latter (the father and mother of the
+wife) and their sons-in-law. They are only upon simple friendly terms.</p>
+
+<p>Humourists who are fond of exercising their wit upon the eternal
+mother-in-law question would find no ground for their jokes among this
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The daughter-in-law, on the contrary, recognizes her husband's parents
+as her own father and mother.</p>
+
+<p>This does not, however, prevent her from still feeling and cherishing a
+fond affection for those who are nearest to her in blood and who were
+the authors of her being.</p>
+
+<p>She goes very often to see them and is welcomed with great joy. At
+parting they give her good wishes and advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, follow thy husband!".</p>
+
+<p>"Take care not to fall by the way!".</p>
+
+<p>"Abor!".</p>
+
+<p>"Abor!".</p>
+
+<p>As far as I know there are no other relations acknowledged by the Sakais
+who dwell on the forest heights, beyond these I have mentioned and even
+these are reduced to four names: father, mother, sister and brother. It
+is very difficult, though, to get information about the bonds of
+kinship.</p>
+
+<p>Judging from the youthful age at which they marry and have children and
+assuming that the greatest age which they reach is that of 60 years old
+(a calculation purely by guess as it is impossible to ascertain
+precisely) it may be said that every village is populated by the second,
+third, fourth and even fifth generation of the same people.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="fire" id="fire"></a>
+<img src="images/144.jpg" width="446" height="550" alt="Lighting a fire" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 446px;">
+<p class="caption">A primitive method of lighting a fire.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>In fact, establishing the date of his first paternity at 16 years old,
+it is evident that at 32 a Sakai may be a grandfather, at 48 a
+great-grandfather and at 64 a great-great-grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>The closer and more direct the relationship the stronger is their
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>The tenderest love that a Sakai can bestow is poured out upon his son,
+especially when the child is little, but gradually, with the passing of
+years, and the formation of new families around, the warmth of this
+attachment somewhat cools down, perhaps because there is no longer any
+need of his care.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Kind reader, I have introduced you (as best I could) to my good friends
+of the Malay forest; I have made you know their virtues and their
+defects, their habits and their family ties and now I should like you to
+follow with me the little tribe marching from one end of their territory
+to the other in order to fix upon a new dwelling-place.</p>
+
+<p>The long procession moves along without any order whatever. Everybody
+carries something that they did not want to leave behind in the
+abandoned village. The very little children are fastened to their
+mother's backs, the others caper merrily round the women, and the old
+people walk slowly on, sometimes leaning on their sticks.</p>
+
+<p>All the men and the youths are armed with their deadly cane and poisoned
+arrows.</p>
+
+<p>Several dogs&mdash;not unlike little setters&mdash;escort the company and give the
+alarm when danger threatens. With them, in friendly intimacy, are
+monkeys, squirrels and tame wild-boars, while fowls cackle in the
+dossers where they have been put for fear of being lost in the jungle.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>This is an emigrating tribe. Are they then taking a long journey that
+they are so well provided with food?</p>
+
+<p>Such a supposition would be erroneous. Those fowls, boars, squirrels and
+monkeys are not a reserve stock of provisions for the travelling Sakais
+but are their friends and companions, brought up by them with kind care
+and which are considered as a part of the family.</p>
+
+<p>A Sakai never eats an animal that he has reared; it would seem to him to
+commit a crime. He uses the fowls, however (which are a trifle smaller
+than those in Europe) as a means of exchange for tobacco, rice and other
+articles but he would never eat one himself unless reduced to the verge
+of starvation.</p>
+
+<p>How different to civilized persons who breed animals and poultry on
+purpose to devour them, who fatten fowls in coops, cruelly convert
+cockrels into appetizing capons, peg geese to the ground that their
+liver may supply an extra dainty for the table and protect the poetic
+love of pigeons in order to cook their little ones!</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes! we protect animals, even the birds that fly wild in the woods,
+we surround them with attention, we make laws in their favour, why? for
+what? That we may have the pleasure of eating them!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A halt is called. The Elder, assisted by some of the men inspect the
+site to see if in its vicinity there are any sort of flowers or birds of
+ill-omen. If any such are discovered the journey is continued but if
+there are none they begin at once to kindle a fire.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="felling" id="felling"></a>
+<img src="images/146.jpg" width="407" height="600" alt="A tree being felled" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 407px;">
+<p class="caption">Felling a tree.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A little bamboo reed is taken and a hole made in it through which is
+passed a towy substance found upon palm-trees and known by the name of
+<i>lulup</i> among the Malays. Round this reed is wound two or three times a
+long piece of very flexible Indian cane and he who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>has undertaken to
+light the fire now holds the two ends of the latter, and pressing the
+bamboo hard with his foot, pulls first one and then the other, sharply
+and rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>The violent friction soon brings about combustion for the larger reed is
+heated to such a point that the tow ignites. Leaves and dry grasses are
+thrown on and the Elder watches the smoke.</p>
+
+<p>If this goes up in a straight column the position is good, otherwise it
+is not a suitable one.</p>
+
+<p>The decision having been made in this manner, work commences in right
+earnest and a febrile activity pervades the spot.</p>
+
+<p>The men carefully observe in what direction the trees are inclined, and
+with a small axe (that cuts into the wood wonderfully well) they begin
+to chop round the roots of the smaller ones.</p>
+
+<p>This done they attack one of the superb giants of the forest. With
+primitive, but not for that less practical, ladders made of bamboo, they
+ascend the tree they mean to fell, and after having planted some stout
+poles around it they construct an ingenious platform some yards from the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>Up there they again make use of their little, but terrible hatchet,
+which is pointed in shape and marvellously resistant. It is of a
+moderate size, scarcely measuring 8 inches in length, 4 in breadth and 2
+in thickness. Firmly fixed on a pliant bamboo cane the blows given by it
+have marvellous force.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais of the mountain obtain this instrument (which is never used
+by them as a weapon of offence or defence) from their brethren of the
+plain who, in their turn, get it from the Malays by bartering.</p>
+
+<p>When the preliminary work has been finished the huge tree is attacked
+(upon one side only) and its wood is soon reduced to chips under the
+terrific strokes which are repeated in rapid succession.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>In the meantime nimble youths climb up the trunk and near the top tie
+two stout and very long Indian canes, letting the ends dangle to the
+ground. As soon as the tree gives the slightest sign of vacillation the
+men hurry down, grasp a rattan upon each side and with all their might,
+rhythmically and simultaneously, pull the vanquished colossus towards
+the other trees whose roots have been already recised.</p>
+
+<p>The enormous tree, for a while, seems to withstand all their efforts,
+then begins to bend and sway, shaking as though seized by a fit of
+trembling; it totters for a minute or two and at last crashes down with
+awful violence, in its fall hurling to the ground the nearest ones that
+have been prepared on purpose, and these in their turn knock down those
+which are behind.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody has fled to a safe place but are deafened for a time by the
+loud noise of falling trunks, broken boughs, the crackling of leaves and
+the snapping asunder of the thick masses of foliage that the creepers
+have woven amongst the branches. The turmoil is indescribable. Reptiles,
+birds, squirrels, insects frightened at the unexpected disaster are
+moving wildly about in search of shelter, filling the air with their
+cries and buzz.</p>
+
+<p>Through the gap made in the green roof of the forest the sun enters
+triumphantly and illuminates the prostrate forms of the gigantic victims
+(lying about like Cyclopses fulminated by the ire of Jupiter) that ever
+and anon still give convulsive starts at the breaking of some huge bough
+in under that can no longer bear their tremendous weight.</p>
+
+<p>The opening has been made; it must now be cleared out. The work
+continues with feverish haste; all take part in it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="treehouse" id="treehouse"></a>
+<img src="images/148.jpg" width="406" height="600" alt="A treehouse" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 406px;">
+<p class="caption">An elevated residence.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>One after the other trees are stripped and maimed and, with miracles of
+strength and ingenuity, are pushed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>away as far as possible in order to
+make with them a solid and reliable enclosure all round.</p>
+
+<p>Before night comes, in the space thus prepared, rise groups of temporary
+huts, and large bon-fires burn.</p>
+
+<p>Following the method here described, the Sakais in a few hours succeed
+in clearing the forest for several miles round.</p>
+
+<p>The next day they begin afresh and go on until the clearing is big
+enough to contain the number of huts necessary, separated, as is the
+use, two or three hundred yards each one from the other.</p>
+
+<p>These are immense breaches which are opened in the forest but the latter
+also is immense and does not suffer from this raid upon its land, the
+less so because with its amazing power of fecundity it will soon have
+covered anew with vegetable life the abandoned village of the wandering
+tribe.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The hut (<i>dop</i>) of the Elder is the centre around which all the others
+are erected.</p>
+
+<p>To defend themselves against wild beasts and other animals, as well as
+against the humidity of marshy ground, the Sakais of the plain often
+build their huts either up a tree or suspended between stout poles.</p>
+
+<p>But on the hills there is no necessity to do this and the rude
+habitation is constructed on the ground with green branches and leaves,
+the roof and walls being of such poor consistency that they do not
+afford the very least protection. Wild beasts, as a rule, never venture
+into open spaces and besides are kept afar by the glare of the fires but
+the inclemency of the climate on those heights would render a more
+substantial residence desirable for comfort.</p>
+
+<p>There is no furniture or other sort of household goods in the Sakai's
+<i>dop</i>. His bed consists of dry leaves <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>and the same bark they use for
+their waist-cloths, strewn upon the ground. Some of them possess a
+coverlet, worth only a few pence, but for which the poor creatures have
+paid its weight in gold by means of articles given in exchange. The
+majority have not even this.</p>
+
+<p>The hearth is placed in the middle of the hut and is made of four pieces
+of wood surrounding and closing in a heap of earth.</p>
+
+<p>Three stones placed upon this serve to sustain the cooking-pot.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said, they have no tables, chairs, stools or cupboards, and
+also the inventory of their kitchen utensils is very short: one or two
+earthen-ware pots (when they have not these they use bamboo canes for
+cooking), a couple of roughly-made knives, a few basins composed of
+cocoanut shells, and some bamboo receptacles which officiate as bucket,
+bottle and glass. The ladle with which they distribute their food is
+also of cocoanut shell.</p>
+
+<p>Their plates are... banana or other leaves, adapted for the purpose,
+that are thrown away after they have finished eating.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the hut are hung the blow-pipes, and well-filled quivers.
+They are kept there for a little heat to reach them, this being
+considered essential to the efficacy of the poisons.</p>
+
+<p>Above these, twined amongst the green, are preserved strips of bark for
+a change of... dress when required, together with the Sakais' musical
+instruments which are never forgotten.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="treehut" id="treehut"></a>
+<img src="images/150.jpg" width="426" height="600" alt="A tree-hut" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 426px;">
+<p class="caption">A tree-hut.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Such total poverty of shelter and chattels I think must be explained as
+cause and effect of the nomadic life these people live (although I
+should not know how to define the former from the latter) as well as the
+result of their indolence and the excessive simplicity of their wants.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>If once the continual migrations, from one point of the forest to the
+other, could be prevented the huts would certainly be improved both in
+construction and adornment.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Round the hut a piece of ground is prepared for the cultivation of
+potatoes, yams and maize, but the harvest is very scanty, and the whole
+is frequently destroyed by the visit of a <i>sladan</i>. Here, too, the
+good-wife devotes a part of her time to fowl-breeding.</p>
+
+<p>She, like all the Sakais, sleeps at her pleasure in the morning. As soon
+as she gets up, with the help of her daughters she prepares the morning
+meal and serves it out as she thinks proper without the slightest remark
+being heard as to the quality or quantity of the food given to each.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast every one goes about their own business; the men
+shooting, searching for poisons, or setting traps; the women and girls
+gathering tubers, bulbs and mushrooms, or catching insects, lizards and
+frogs, whilst the old people no longer able to go to the forest remain
+behind chewing tobacco or <i>sirih</i> and looking after the children.</p>
+
+<p>Sunrise and sunset keep each other company!</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon all who can, return to the village, those who cannot, after
+having eaten in the forest, squat themselves on the ground to rest. It
+is the solemn hour of silence and repose, observed by man and beast.</p>
+
+<p>Only when the sun, from being right overhead, has begun to decline
+westward is the interrupted work or march resumed. At the first sign of
+twilight, which is very brief, the Sakais may be seen hastening back to
+their huts, on their return from labour or from other villages, where an
+abundant meal and ineffable peace awaits them.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch3.jpg" width="400" height="106" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">Intellectual development&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Sakais of the plain and Sakais of the
+hills&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Laziness and intelligence&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Falsehood and the Evil Spirit&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+Sakai language&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;When the "Orang Putei" gets angry&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Counting time&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Novel
+calendars&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Moral gifts.</p>
+
+
+<p>Intellectual development amongst the Sakais of the hills is very limited
+and as a consequence requires little or no study but much more is to be
+met with amongst those of the plain for two reasons which I have already
+explained: one their traffic and consequent intercourse with more
+civilized races; and the other the mixture of blood from their parents'
+concubinage with strangers, thus destroying the purity of their own.
+After the establishment of the British Protectorate and the abolition of
+slavery in the Federated Malay States the Sakai men and women returned
+to their native places, the latter taking with them the children born of
+their masters and the former entered into business relations with their
+quondam owners by the exchange of forest products for trifles of little
+or no value.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>This explains why in the tribes dwelling on the plains we meet with
+certain cunning and malicious intents which are in strange contrast with
+their primitive ingenuity and sincerity. But although in comparison to
+their brethren of the mountains they might and do pass for artful, they
+themselves are continually cheated and deceived by their more skilful
+neighbours who barter inferior qualities of tobacco, iron, calico and
+other trash, worth nothing, for real treasures in rattan, cane, rubber,
+poisons, fruit and fishing gear which the Sakai of the plain is very
+clever in making.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this sharpening of their intellect due to sojourn
+amongst their more astute neighbours or to the inheritance of
+insincerity, theirs by birth when born in exile, they are not yet
+capable of understanding what profit they might make by exciting
+competition between their covetous barterers, and the latter, each one
+for self-interest, are very careful not to open the eyes of those who
+are so ready to let themselves be cheated. Moreover, the ill-treatment
+to which they were once subjected, and the imperfect knowledge they
+still have of what the British Protectorate means, renders them timid
+and too much afraid of these rapacious merchants to dare resent, in any
+way, the prepotence which damages them.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the corruption which has infected them from their
+companionship or relationship with corrupted people the Sakai of the
+plain still preserves some of his original goodness and uprightness.
+Only too well it may be said that once he has rid himself of these moral
+encumbrances which leave him defenceless in the hands of the
+unscrupulous he will have taken a new step towards civilization but
+there will be two virtues the less in his spiritual patrimony.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>The Sakai who has taken refuge in the hilly part of the forest in order
+to escape from the influences of Civilization which may now be said to
+beset him on all sides, still preserves and defends the original purity
+of his race.</p>
+
+<p>His intellectual development is inferior to that of his brother living
+in the plain because he keeps himself alien to everything that might
+effect his physical laziness and the utter inertia of his brain.</p>
+
+<p>He lives because the forest gives him abundant food, and he lives idly,
+immersed in innumerable superstitions that <i>Al&agrave;</i> (the sorcerer) enjoins
+him to always preserve intact.</p>
+
+<p>If, quite suddenly, a change should come in the life and conditions of
+these Sakais they would never be able to adapt themselves to a different
+regime until after extreme suffering and sacrifice had strewn the new
+path with many victims.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, in spite of all, I believe him to be endowed with a fair amount
+of intelligence, dormant for the present, but susceptible of development
+when once awakened and with great patience he has, by slow degrees
+(almost imperceptibly) been taught to overcome his strange fears and to
+lose those curious ideas concerning life which the old forest
+philosopher revealed to me.</p>
+
+<p>I say "almost imperceptibly"&mdash;as for some years I have been doing
+myself&mdash;that no suspicions may be raised and that <i>Al&agrave;</i> may have no
+cause to rebel against the introduction of modern sentiments by
+outsiders who insinuate themselves into the tribe, persons whom he does
+not view with benevolent eyes, especially if they are white. This sort
+of priest obstinately opposes every element of progress and obliges his
+people to do the same.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="preparing" id="preparing"></a>
+<img src="images/154.jpg" width="413" height="600" alt="A group of Sakai" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 413px;">
+<p class="caption">Preparing the supper.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>I have my reasons for believing in the latent intelligence of the
+mountain Sakai as I have noticed in him a great facility in imitating
+sounds, movements and even the way of doing things and also of learning
+and remembering what he has been taught or has seen. I have perceived in
+him, too, a pronounced rectitude of judgment and a remarkable sharpness
+of observation when his superstitious terrors do not throw a veil over
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But he is incorrigibly lazy and will not engage in any kind of work that
+requires fatigue unless it be by his own spontaneous will. The spirit of
+independence within him is so profound and indomitable as to induce him
+perhaps to renounce a benefit to himself for fear of obtaining it
+through satisfying the desire of another.</p>
+
+<p>He is also very touchy; a harsh word or an impatient gesture is enough
+to offend him.</p>
+
+<p>In compensation he is hospitable, generous, sincere and averse to
+falseness and intrigue. If sometimes he tells a lie he does so from the
+dread of an imaginary or possible evil which might otherwise befall him
+or his, as for instance when somebody he does not know asks his name or
+seeks information about his place of abode. In such a case the Sakai,
+with something like childish impudence, will give a fictitious name or
+information quite contrary to the truth because he is convinced that
+every stranger brings with him an evil spirit to let loose upon the
+person or place he seeks, and that by not saying the truth he tricks
+both the man and the spirit that cannot injure him as he is not the
+person declared.</p>
+
+<p>As can be seen, this their way of reasoning does not lack a certain
+ingenuity which leads one to think that the poor things' brains might be
+educated to more agility in thinking and understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately the means are very scarce for making new impressions upon
+the grey matter enclosed in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>bony case of their thoughtless pates.
+The first difficulty to be met with is the incredible poverty of their
+language which impedes the communication and development of an idea.</p>
+
+<p>I endeavour to remedy this deficiency by employing English words and
+phrases because this is the official language in the Protected Malay
+States, and the British Government wishes to make it popular.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais catch the meaning and make use of the terms the same as they
+often learn a word in Italian or Genoese that I sometimes utter when
+speaking to myself.</p>
+
+<p>I remember well, one day, that in a moment of irritation about something
+that did not go right, I exclaimed "<i>Sacramento</i>" (I apologize to those
+who know what a naughty word it is).</p>
+
+<p>My little servant boy who was present looked at me frightened, then
+began to cry and darted away as if mad, although he had nothing to do
+with my bad temper.</p>
+
+<p>Well, what do you think? Now it has passed amongst the Sakai boys that
+when the <i>Orang Putei</i> gets angry he says "<i>Sacramento</i>!". And they
+repeat the oath with all the emphasis and air of a trooper, yet I had
+not taught them it nor should I have wished them to learn the
+exclamation.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakai language is, as I have said, very poor indeed, so much so that
+it is impossible to form a long phrase or keep up the most simple
+conversation because there are no means of connecting the various words
+one with the other.</p>
+
+<p>An idea is expressed by a single word or perhaps by three or four
+together so that it requires a great deal of practice, attention and
+also a special study of the mimicry which accompanies and explains these
+terse vocal sounds, to enable one to follow out the thought.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="groupBretak" id="groupBretak"></a>
+<img src="images/156.jpg" width="419" height="550" alt="A group of Sakai boys" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 419px;">
+<p class="caption">A group of Bretak boys.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>Their vocabulary is soon exhausted for it is composed only of those
+words which are strictly necessary to make known their daily wants, the
+necessity of defence and their superstitious feelings. They refuse to
+adopt any of those expressions that their brethren of the plain have
+learnt from other races, considering them as impure and perilous as the
+people themselves. This is an implacable application of the maxim
+"<i>timeo danaos et dona ferentes</i>" by folks who do not understand Latin
+and who ignore the existence of the Greeks but who know thoroughly well
+their stranger neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore vain to seek among the Sakais those poetical metaphors
+and that flowery, figurative style of speech which is attributed by us
+to all Orientals without distinction.</p>
+
+<p>I am not a student or professor of glottology, contenting myself with
+being able to speak one or two languages without troubling my head over
+their origin, so I dare not judge upon the affinity more or less remote
+of the not too sweet Sakai idioms with others, but there seemed to me
+such a marked difference between the Malay and Sakai phraseologies that
+I should have declared them to be absolutely distinct one from the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>However, the recent studies of the German, W. Schmidt, and the more
+profound ones of the Italian, A. Trombetti, have proved that all the
+tongues spoken by the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula as well as
+those to be heard in the neighbouring isles are in connection with each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>The most part of the words used by the Sakais are of only one syllable,
+polysyllables being very rare, and the way in which these accents are
+shot out from the lips would make a foreigner decide at once that the
+best method of translating their talk would be by a volley of shots.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>For the curious and the studious I have here added a short list of the
+words commonly used amongst the Sakais but as their language is totally
+exempt from every rule of orthography I have tried as well as I can to
+give a phonetic interpretation of the same.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Sakai glossary">
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Arm</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">glahk</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Arrow</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">grog</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(poisoned)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">grog mahng tshegrah'</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(not poisoned)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">grog pe' m tshegrah</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Bamboo</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">annahd'</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Banana</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tellah'e</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Betelnut</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">blook</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Bird</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">chep</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Body</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">brock</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Born</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">egoy (alphabetical sound of <span class="up">e)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Blow-pipe</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">blahoo'</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Brother</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tennah'</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(elder)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tennah' bop</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(younger)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">manang se ne (e sounded as in <span class="up">met, men)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Child</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">kennon</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Cigarette</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">rock&ograve;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Come</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">hawl aghit (a <span class="up">as in</span> father)</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Cover</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tshenkop</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Day</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">e eah top</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Dead</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">daht</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Death</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">daht</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Dog</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">chaw</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Ear</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">garetook</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Earth</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">in noos</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Evening</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">danwee</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Evil</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ne' ghne' e' (alphabetical sound of <span class="up">e)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Eye</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">maht</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Father</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">abbay', abboo', appah'</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(in-law)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tennah' amay</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Fear</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">sayoo neot</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>Female</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">knah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Fish</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">kah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Flute</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tshinelloi</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Foe</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">pay kabaad</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Foot</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">jehoo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Forest</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">dahraht</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Fowl</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">poo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Fruit</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">pla'</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Good</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">bawr</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Good</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">abbawr</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Hail</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">tayho oontoy</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Hand</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tahk</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Harm</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ne', ghne' e' (like <span class="up">evil)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Head</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">kovey</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Heart</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">noos</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Hen</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">poo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Hill</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">loop</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Hot</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">baykahk</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Hunger</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">chewahr</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Husband</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">care lore</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Hut</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">dop</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Illness</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">nigh</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Leaf</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">slah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Leg</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">kaymung</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Lightning</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">bled</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Malay</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">my gope</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Male</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">crahl</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Man</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">sing no</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Mandoline</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">krob</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Mangosteen</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">play semmetah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Many</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">jeho e</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Medicine</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">penglie <span class="up">(ie</span> as in <span class="up">lie)</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Moon</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ghecheck</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Monkey</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">dak</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(with long tail)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">raoh</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Mouth</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">eneoong</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Morning</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">pawr</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Mother</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">amay, kennen, kenung</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(in-law)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tennah abbay</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Mountain</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">lot, loop</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>Night</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">sin oar</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">No</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">pay neay'</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Noon</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">dahjis</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Nose</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">moh</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Old</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">din grah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">One</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">nahnaw</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">People</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">my</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Plain</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">barrow</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Pond</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tebbahov</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Poison</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">chingrah</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Quiver</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">lock</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Rage</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">roh</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Rain</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">mahny</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Rat</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">hay loy</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Rice</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">bah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">River</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">tayhoo</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Season</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">moosin</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sing</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">jeoolah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sister</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">kaynah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(elder)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">taynah kaynah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(younger)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">mennang kaynah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sky</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">sooey</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sleep</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">bet bet</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Slumber</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">n' tahk</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Snake</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">teegee</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sorcerer</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ahlah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Spirit</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ghenigh nee</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(Evil)</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ahtoo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Star</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">pearloy</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Storm</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">poss</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sun</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">mahjis</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Thunder</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">nghoo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Thunder</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">nahkoo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Tiger</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">mah moot, mah noos</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Tobacco</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">bahkoo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Tree</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">jehoo oo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Two</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">nahr</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Valley</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">wawk</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>Water</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">tayhoo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;for drinking</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;engot</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Wedding</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">ba' kaynah</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Wife</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">kay el</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Wild</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">loo</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Will</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">engot</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Wind</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">poy</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Woman</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli">knah, caredawl</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td class="tdl pad1">Yes</td><td class="tdr pad1">&mdash;</td><td class="tdli pad1">aye aye.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor"><span class="up">[12]</span></a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>This poor language that seems to be composed of short coughs does not
+even lose its roughness in song, if I may so term the musical (?) sounds
+that proceed from the Sakais' mouths, because real songs they have none.
+They are accustomed, however, to improvise something of the sort in
+which they always allude to facts of the day but as there is nobody to
+collect these fragments of extemporaneous ballads they disappear from
+the world of memories as quickly as they have been put together.</p>
+
+<p>It is for this that all my endeavours have been in vain to find amongst
+them some song transmitted from father to son which by referring to an
+event more or less remote might serve as a clue to the legends or
+history of this mysterious people. But nothing of the kind exists and
+not even in talking can they narrate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>anything farther, back than three
+or four generations. They could not tell you if the sun and the forest
+were in existence before their great-grandfather lived. One cannot
+wonder much at this, though, when it is known that these poor
+inhabitants of the wildest parts of the jungle can scarcely reckon
+beyond three and have no means of counting time.</p>
+
+<p>With them the first three numbers are not followed by a series of others
+which always increase by one but from <i>neer</i> (three) it is rare that
+they pass to <i>neer nahn&ograve;</i> (three one) jumping instead to <i>neer neer</i>
+(three three), and by this addition they express number six. They use
+the words <i>neer neer nahn&ograve;</i> for seven and then jump again to <i>neer neer
+neer</i> which means nine.</p>
+
+<p>When a birth, a death or any other event takes place which requires the
+exact period of seven days for the accomplishment of certain ceremonies
+according to their habit, the Sakai takes a strip of reed or rattan
+(splitting it into parts to make it flexible) with which he ties two
+groups of three knots each and a single one apart. Every day he undoes
+one of these knots and so knows when the time prescribed is finished.</p>
+
+<p>If you ask him whether it would not be better for him to learn to count
+at least as far as seven, a number that for one thing or another is
+frequently necessary in his life, he answers you invariably:</p>
+
+<p>"We know nothing. Our fathers did so and we too will do the same without
+being too fantastical".</p>
+
+<p>Thus we see that the saying: "My father did so", may be an inveterate
+enemy of arithmetic whilst it establishes a close relationship between
+those who in civilized society put it into practice and the savages
+dwelling on the heights of Perak.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai renounces all attempts at counting more than nine, and his
+total abstention from commercial persuits permits him to spare his brain
+this fatigue.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="huts" id="huts"></a>
+<img src="images/162.jpg" width="600" height="410" alt="Huts in the jungle" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Two more solid huts.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>Returning from a day's shooting, if they have had luck, my good friends
+do not trouble themselves much over counting the heads of game they have
+brought home. They will perhaps begin by placing their victims in groups
+of <i>neer</i> (three) until they amount to three threes but should the
+number exceed nine they simply declare them to be <i>jeho e</i> (many) and do
+not care about knowing anything more precise as they are satisfied at
+the fact that they, and any of their relations who like to partake of
+the feast, can live upon game until it is all finished.</p>
+
+<p>Many times I have amused myself by asking a prolific father or mother
+how many children they had. My friends would get as far as three but
+then becoming confused would beg me to count them for myself, and their
+offspring had to pass in front of me whilst they called each by name,
+for example: <i>Roy</i> (boy) <i>No</i> (boy) <i>Taynah</i> (girl) <i>Po lo</i> (boy) <i>Tay
+lep</i> (girl) <i>Betah</i> (girl).</p>
+
+<p>Counting them upon my fingers I would tell the parent or parents that
+they were six, to which they agreed with:</p>
+
+<p>"If you say they are six, they are six".</p>
+
+<p>It is more difficult still for the Sakais to count time. They imagine
+pretty nearly what hour it is by the position of the sun overhead or
+from the various sounds which come from the forest announcing, as I have
+already said, morning, noon, and evening, and during the night the
+<i>crescendo</i> and <i>diminuendo</i> of the wild beasts' roaring proclaim the
+hours before and after midnight.</p>
+
+<p>The shortest measure of time that the Sakais understand is that employed
+in smoking a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>They observe, although not with much precision, the phases of the moon
+that they gladly greet at her appearance but they do not feel any
+curiosity in knowing where she has gone and where she remains when they
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>do not enjoy her soft light at night and during their dances.</p>
+
+<p>The flowering of certain plants and the ripening of certain fruits gives
+the Sakai a faint idea of the longest period of time they are capable of
+imagining and which is about equal to our year. The seasons, which
+cannot here be recognized by diversity of temperature, are distinguished
+by the gathering and storing away of those fruits that supply them with
+food at regular intervals of time, such as the <i>durian</i> season, that of
+the <i>bu&agrave; pra</i>, the <i>dukon</i> and the <i>gi&ugrave; blo lol</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I think it would be quite impossible to find out the right age of a
+Sakai. Sometimes after the birth of a child its parents will cut a notch
+in the bark of a tree every time the season when he was born returns.
+But these signs never continue very long because even if the father or
+mother have not been compelled to abandon their tree-register to follow
+their clan to another part of the forest, after the third or fourth
+incision they easily forget to keep up the practice.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When as often happens a Sakai has to undertake a journey of more than
+three days as in the case of seeking a wife or of making a large
+provision of tobacco for all the encampment, both he and those left
+behind have recourse to a novel calendar in order to remember how many
+days he is absent. They pick up some small stones or little sticks and
+dividing them into threes the traveller carries away a half with him
+leaving the rest with his family. At the end of every day those at home
+and the one who has departed throw away one of these stones or sticks.
+When the little stock is finished the Sakai is sure to return because he
+knows very well that any further delay would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>the cause of grave
+apprehensions and anxiety to his dear ones which he is eager to spare
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Some of them adopt the same system on this occasion as when counting the
+days of traditional ceremonies, that is by the tying and untying of
+knots in a strip of <i>scudiscio</i>.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Amongst those Oriental peoples not yet civilized the Sakais are the
+least known, and yet I firmly believe that they could surpass the others
+in intelligence&mdash;as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral
+qualities&mdash;if they were to be made the object of assiduous care and
+benevolent interest.</p>
+
+<p>Once these poor jungle dwellers could be brought to have full confidence
+in their white protectors, it seems to me that the best thing which
+could be done for them would be to induce them, by degrees, to dedicate
+themselves to agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>But their aversion to any kind of labour cannot be overcome by coercive
+means or evangelical preaching. They would rebel as much against one as
+the other for they wish to be absolute masters of their own will and
+their own conscience. And this liberty of thought and action must be
+left them whilst very slowly and with great patience, by force of
+example and gentle persuasion, they are made to understand that by doing
+what we want they are giving us a pleasure which will be largely
+compensated with tobacco and with the numerous trifles that are the joy
+and vanity of savages.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>He who would dream of redeeming them from their present ignorant state
+by treating them arbitrarily and thereby hurting their feelings and
+insulting their beliefs would find his undertaking not only fruitless
+but also dangerous because he would be immediately considered an enemy
+and the <i>Al&agrave;</i> would not fail to incite vengeance upon him in the
+troubled spirits of the tribe.</p>
+
+<p>I think the method most promising in its results is that which I myself
+have proved. I slipped in amidst them, living the life that they live
+and respecting their opinions and superstitions, at the same time
+seeking indirectly to cure them of their natural laziness.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais are nomadic for two reasons: first, because when they have
+exhausted, by their prodigality, the edible treasures that the forest
+soil produces for them without need of toil, in the tract of land within
+reach of their settlement, they change their residence to a fresh
+quarter where this uncultivated product is for a long time in
+superabundance; secondly, because when somebody of their number dies
+they believe that an evil spirit has entered their village and that to
+free themselves from its malignant influence it is necessary to fly to
+another part.</p>
+
+<p>Well, more than once I have made a point of sleeping in a hut lately
+visited by death to show them how absurd the idea is. At first they
+stood afar, looking at the forsaken spot and believing that I, too, was
+dead, but afterwards finding, to their immense wonder, that I was still
+alive and well, they began to doubt their own superstition and to build
+their huts a little more solid so that they might be of greater
+durability.</p>
+
+<p>Overthrown in a definite manner one of the motives of their wanderings
+the other would cease to exist from the moment they were taught to work
+the ground. With this scope in view, from time to time, I make a
+distribution of padi or maize and am glad to see that little by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>little
+the miserable plots once rudely sown with corn are now becoming ample
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>Like the old philosopher I found in the forest, the other Sakais have
+never thought, or rather let themselves think, what a boon it would be
+for them to grow the things they like best, around their huts, instead
+of feeling obliged to get it from others, and they evidently shared his
+dislike to torturing the earth with iron, for before my advent and
+sojourn amongst them they simply burnt the pith of the trees and plants
+they felled and into the bed formed by the ashes they cast
+indiscriminately bulb and grain, covering up both with their feet or
+with a piece of wood, and afterwards they took no more care of it.</p>
+
+<p>But this pretence of cultivation was nothing less than a greedy caprice
+and did not in any way help their domestic economy. The products of the
+planting which had cost them so little fatigue was deemed surplus food
+and they would eat up in a few days what might have lasted them for
+months, inviting friends even lazier than themselves (who had not taken
+the trouble so much as to imitate this rudimental mode of agriculture)
+to take part in the gorging feast.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a real blessing to those Sakais who have already begun to
+cultivate their fields, to work with me in the plantations I am making,
+to help me in gathering in jungle produce and to apply themselves to
+some simple industry, if a few good-hearted, thrifty families of
+European agriculturists were to come and dwell amongst them. In this way
+my forest friends would make rapid and immense progress for they have
+already shown their aptitude and ability and the British Government
+would in a very short time have a flourishing colony by thus bringing
+them into direct contact with a wholesome civilization consisting of
+kindness, rectitude and honest work without their losing any of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>their
+characteristic integrity through the contaminating influence of spurious
+evolutionary principles.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the wide dominions of England claim an immense amount of
+care and energy but her rulers display sufficient activity and wisdom
+for the need and would have no cause to regret, but rather rejoice, if
+they were to extend their beneficence to the far off worthy tribes of
+Sakais now wandering over Perak and Pahang.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Returning to the character of my no-longer new friends I must really
+repeat that we should be fortunate if we could find similar traits in
+many of the persons belonging to civilized society.</p>
+
+<p>Whether I am prejudiced by the sympathy I feel for this people amongst
+whom I live, and who have granted me hospitality without any limit, I
+will leave you to judge, kind reader, you who have the patience to
+peruse these modest pages written, not from an impulse of personal
+vanity, but in all sincerity, and whose only aim is to do good to the
+poor Sakais, unknown to the world in general and slandered by those who
+know them and who are interested in preventing any sort of intercourse
+with other outsiders besides themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody has ever been to teach the Sakai to be honest and as no kind of
+moral maxims are known by them it stands to reason that this honesty
+which speaks in their looks, words and acts depends upon their natural
+sweet temper and their way of living.</p>
+
+<p>The real Sakai recoils from everything approaching violence and never
+assaults a fellow creature unless he believes himself or his family
+seriously menaced or badly treated.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="procuring" id="procuring"></a>
+<img src="images/168.jpg" width="407" height="600" alt="Sakai with blowpipe" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 407px;">
+<p class="caption">A young man procuring food with his blowpipe.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Paolo Mantegazza has written that the nature of a weapon indicates not
+only the technical ability of a race <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>but also its degree of ferocity.
+All those arms which serve to make suffer instead of to kill are certain
+signs of cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the Sakai inflicts no suffering upon his foe. The terrible poisons
+with which he tinges his fatal arrows cause almost immediate death, and
+his sole motive for killing is to rid himself of one whom he thinks will
+do him harm, but should his enemy run away before he can hit him he
+would neither follow nor lay an ambush for him. He might almost take as
+his motto the celebrated line by Niccolini:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ripassi l'Alpi e torner&agrave; fratello.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Even if their gentle, peaceable characters did not disincline them for a
+deed of crime, if their indolence and lack of passionate feelings were
+not safe-guards from evil-doing the entire absence of incentive power
+prevents them from committing a guilty action. Why should they rob when
+their neighbours' goods are also theirs? When everything is everybody's,
+be it a rich supply of meat, fruit, grain, tobacco or accomodation in a
+sheltered hut? And why should they kill anybody?</p>
+
+<p>For pure malignity? Because there is no other reason to prompt such a
+wickedness. They have no excuse for jealousy, even if they were capable
+of entertaining it, for when two young people are fond of each other no
+pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their
+affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical
+respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his
+blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous
+desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature
+couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a
+woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) or should they have met
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>with somebody else that they like better, no demoralizing
+love-intrigue, or guilty flirtation is the consequence; they simply
+announce their change of feeling to their conjugal half and if the
+latter still cherishes a sincere attachment for the faithless partner in
+wedlock he or she will hasten to make the other happy by giving up all
+claim upon the loved one and they agree to part upon the best of terms,
+as also they do when by chance they are reciprocally tired of one
+another's company. The fact does not give rise to drama, tragedy or
+Othello-like fury.</p>
+
+<p>Now tell me under what impulse can the Sakai become a criminal?</p>
+
+<p>He is honest and sincere from the kindness and indolence of his
+character, because of the free life which is his, and the society of
+people like himself, not because he fears being punished or has any hope
+of a prize in Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Will not this strange fact induce some genius of the State to meditate
+the subject, there being full proof that the alliance of Prison and Hell
+does not succeed in eradicating the seeds of corruption and crime in
+civilized nations?</p>
+
+<p>This innate honesty of the Sakai is especially revealed in the manner he
+respects whatever engagement he has, of his own accord, assumed.
+Mistrustful in dealing with others, violent and apparently overmastering
+from the vivacity with which he speaks and gesticulates, as soon as the
+bargain is fixed he will keep it faithfully to the very letter.</p>
+
+<p>In conformity with the custom that both the Sakai of the hills and his
+brother of the plain have of not providing for the future, he will
+consume even beforehand his share of the exchange agreed upon, but all
+the same he will perform his duties towards the other with the most
+scrupulous punctuality.</p>
+
+<p>Many times I have intentionally left outside my cabin such articles as
+would excite in the Sakais a desire of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>possession, but upon my return I
+have always found them intact and in their right place. My habitation is
+always open, even when I am far away but I have never missed a single
+object.</p>
+
+<p>A little from habit, a little from the virtue I have frequently
+mentioned, and a little, very likely, because he is too lazy to be
+otherwise, the Sakai is a just and upright man. He has a great respect
+for the old, seeks their advice, and&mdash;what is much more&mdash;follows it; he
+has a deep sense of gratitude, is unselfish, open-hearted and
+open-handed, and ever ready to do a service to those who belong to his
+own village. And this exclusiveness is one of the curious contrasts that
+may sometimes be noted in human nature.</p>
+
+<p>Meeting upon his road a person who is evidently suffering and has need
+of aid, if he does not recognize in him, or her, one of his own tribe he
+will pass on with indifference and grumble out cynically: "All the worse
+for them". But if the same person were to make an appeal to his charity
+on the threshold of his rude home, he or she would receive hospitality
+without being known, and in the event of an accident or any other
+misfortune which has occasioned grief or trouble to a kinsman, however
+distant, he will share in their affliction, and do all he can to relieve
+them in their distress.</p>
+
+<p>After all this, that close and continual observation permits me to
+affirm, may I not ask the public, or at least those who have followed me
+in my rambling notes until now: might not this type of savage be held up
+as an example of perfection to many of our acquaintances in the
+civilized world whose boundary line of honesty is where it ceases to
+bring profit, who scorn the thought of gratitude for a favour received
+as being inconsistent with their "spirit of independence" and who never
+lose an occasion for exemplifying the tender brotherly love of Cain?</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The author of this book has given the pronunciation of the
+above words according to the sounds and rules of Italian and it has been
+a difficult task to present them in a sufficiently orthoepical form for
+English readers to understand, for the reason that all the vowels and
+many of the consonants are so differently articulated in the two
+languages.</p>
+
+<p>Where <i>a</i> is followed by <i>h</i> it should be pronounced as in <i>father</i>; by
+<i>w</i> as in <i>all</i>; by <i>y</i> as in <i>may</i>. The consonants <i>g</i> <i>k</i> and <i>n</i>
+which precede certain words and which would be mute in English must be
+very lightly accented with the same sound they have in the
+alphabet.&mdash;<i>Translator's Notes.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The <i>scudiscio</i> is a very large fungus that grows upon
+trees. It is easily broken into strips which the Indigines use for tying
+up things and for putting round their necks to protect them from fever.
+The Sakais call it <i>tennak kahr&agrave;h</i> that means literally "the root of a
+stone".</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Go back over the Alps and we shall be brothers again.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch1.jpg" width="400" height="94" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">First attempts at industry&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The story of a hat&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Multiplicity&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Primitive
+arts&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Sakai music&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Songs&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Instruments&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Dances&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Ball dresses&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Serpentine
+gracefulness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An unpublished Sakai song.</p>
+
+
+<p>Primitive, like their language and their agriculture, are also Art and
+Industry among the Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>They make blowpipes, arrows and quivers from bamboo, strings from
+twisted vegetable fibres, ear-rings and ornamental combs for the women.
+Now, under my direction, they have begun to plait mats with dried
+grasses, as well as bags and even hats, using for the latter the fibrous
+part of the pandanus, and copying one of Panama which I gave them as a
+model. I cannot give an estimate of the time and patience I spent over
+this new branch of industry.</p>
+
+<p>The first time I mentioned such a thing to the women I had the
+unenviable success of making them laugh heartily. And I laughed with
+them, remarking however, that as they were so good and clever they would
+have no difficulty in accomplishing the feat if they would only set
+themselves to try.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>Vanity is the great spring of a woman's soul that cannot resist the
+charm of flattery. This is proved by History from the time of Eve to our
+days and I myself proved it when I again spoke on the subject of hats.
+The laughter was not so loud and soon ceased altogether. At last the
+women answered me, with an annoyed and discontented air, that my
+insistance vexed them. Then I knew that the fortress was about to
+capitulate and re-doubled my attacks.</p>
+
+<p>The day of surrender was near.</p>
+
+<p>A girl, accompanied by a group of inquisitive, mocking companions,
+presented herself at my hut bringing with her something in the shape of
+a hat which was meant to be an imitation of mine. It was full of knots,
+puckers and other defects.</p>
+
+<p>The little artist was very confused and mortified but I praised her work
+a great deal and after showing her the mistakes she had made I gave her
+several bead-necklaces.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days the hats multiplied. The other girls and the women, seeing
+the presents I had given their companion, felt offended and devoted
+themselves with fury to the manufacture of the head-covering I desired,
+improving the form so much as to obtain an exact copy of the pattern
+one.</p>
+
+<p>When some were finished they brought them to me and throwing them on the
+ground with a gesture of scorn cried:</p>
+
+<p>"There! take your hats!". But a generous distribution of beads soon made
+their good-temper return.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I was able to start this new industry by flattering the vanity of
+the Sakai females ("oh, Vanity, thy name is Woman" even among the
+savages) and the goods produced, after having been awarded a silver
+medal and a diploma at Penang were the object of general admiration at
+the Milan Exhibition of 1906.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>It is some time now that I have got the men to work in iron. I provide
+them with the raw material and it is really a wonder to see how well
+they manage to make knives without possessing any of the tools used in
+the trade.</p>
+
+<p>When they understood the necessity of a very fierce fire for reducing
+the metal into such a state as to enable them to make it take the
+wished-for form, they attempted to put together a sort of bellows and at
+length succeeded in the following way.</p>
+
+<p>At the bottom of a very big piece of bamboo, they cut a hole into which
+they inserted a smaller one, joining and fixing them together with gum
+that the air might not escape from the wrong part. Then at the extremity
+of a thick stick they fastened a bunch of leaves and grasses large
+enough to pass with difficulty into the bamboo tube. By working this as
+a piston the air was expelled from the lower bamboo cane and kindled a
+bright fire.</p>
+
+<p>After the iron has taken the form required, whilst it is still red-hot,
+they throw it into a bluish-coloured mud which smells of sulphur and
+leave it there to temper.</p>
+
+<p>In fact the metal tempers and becomes very hard but I could not tell
+anyone what properties this slimy earth contains or how the Sakais came
+to know its value in connection with iron. I only know that they have to
+dig very deep in the ground before getting at it, a thing that is not
+either easy or agreeable owing to the lack of necessary implements.</p>
+
+<p>Steel being a very scarce article amongst my good friends they have
+learnt to make great economy with it using it solely for the blades of
+the knives and for other purposes. They mix the two metals with
+surprising skill.</p>
+
+<p>This is the boldest and most intelligent step that the Sakais have made
+as yet in the field of industry.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="dancing" id="dancing"></a>
+<img src="images/171.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="Two women dancing" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Dancing.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>That Art which expresses elevated thought and refinement of spirit, in
+whatever form it manifests itself, is at its lowest ebb among the Sakais
+and especially representative art, although it is curious to notice how
+much more they prefer (I speak of the male sex) this latter to that of
+sounds. Music may procure some moments of bliss to those who yield
+themselves to its charms but it is transitory and, with them, leaves no
+reminiscence for the performer or the listener; on the contrary
+representative art remains and can also give satisfaction to the self
+love of the artist. It is limited to some rough designs and still more
+rough incisions on the blowpipes, quivers and the women's combs and
+their earrings.</p>
+
+<p>Bamboo is the principal material used in making their hunting
+requisites, their personal ornaments and their domestic utensils.</p>
+
+<p>The combs are large and their teeth vary from 2 to 4 in number. Across
+them are carved, more or less deeply cut, various signs, some of an
+angular form that display a pretty correct geometrical precision and
+others in curved lines, all of which are intended by the several artists
+to represent birds' heads, snakes or plants. Sometimes this intention is
+expressed sufficiently clearly; at others there is need of
+interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>The plants reproduced in this way are always medicinal or those to which
+superstition attributes some virtue, so that the primitive art is in a
+great measure due to the desire of possessing an amulet.</p>
+
+<p>The same designs are repeated on the ear-rings, blowpipes and quivers.
+The Sakais are very proud of these incisions and he who has the most
+upon his weapon enjoys a certain fame. As a natural consequence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>this
+makes him somewhat jealous of his finely decorated cane, much more so
+than he is of his wife, that for her part gives him no motive for
+cultivating the yellow demon's acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the time I am writing the Sakais' artistic genius has not passed
+this limit, unless we reckon the horrible paintings upon their faces and
+bodies, but this branch of art&mdash;it may seem irreverent, though none the
+less true, to say so&mdash;brings to the mind dainty toilet-rooms and cosy
+boudoirs in other parts of the world, in the very heart of civilization,
+where its devotees think to beautify (but often damage) Nature.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! what a chorus of silvery voices are calling me too, a savage!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakais like music but nearly always the notes are accompanied by a
+dancing movement, sometimes lightly as if to mark the time, but at
+others they kick their legs about so furiously, at the same time
+twisting and writhing their bodies in such a strange series of
+contortions that an uninitiated looker-on would surely receive the
+impression that they were suffering from spasmodic pains in the stomach,
+whereas in reality they are only imitating the wriggling of a serpent.</p>
+
+<p>The woman is particularly fond of dancing and with it she measures the
+cadencies of her own songs and gives point to the words themselves
+whilst her companions repeat a sort of chorus which completes the
+musical passage.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="ciniloi" id="ciniloi"></a>
+<img src="images/176.jpg" width="600" height="434" alt="Two Sakai playing flutes" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Playing the "ciniloi".</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It must not be thought, however, that song as it is known among the
+Sakais is the melodious sound we are in the habit of considering as
+such. With them it is an emission of notes, generally guttural ones
+which are capriciously alternated without any variety of tune <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>and which
+in their integrity fail to express any musical thought.</p>
+
+<p>The women sing with greater monotony, but more sweetly, than the men.
+Often they join in groups singing and dancing, and this, I believe, is
+the gayest moment of their lives and to this honest pleasure they will
+abandon themselves with rapture, forgetting the fatigue of the day. Then
+feminine coquetry triumphs before the other girls and the young men.</p>
+
+<p>When night falls the air becomes cool, and even cold later on. Having
+finished their evening meal the old folk and the children stretch
+themselves out to sleep round the fire which is always kept lighted. The
+women sit about weaving bags, mats and hats, their work illuminated by
+flaring torches composed of sticks and leaves covered with the resin
+found in the forest. To the extent permitted by their poor language they
+chat and jest among themselves, laughing noisily the while.</p>
+
+<p>The young men are scattered around preparing their arrows for the next
+day's hunt, dipping them into the poisonous decoction when it is well
+heated.</p>
+
+<p>It is not long before work gets tedious to the girls. They jump up and
+daub their faces in a grotesque manner. With palm leaves they mark out a
+space of some yards square that has to be reserved for the dancers, and
+then commences the women's song to which is soon added the stronger
+voices of the men. At times the chorus is accompanied by an orchestra of
+those instruments that the Sakais know how to play.</p>
+
+<p>They will take two bamboo canes of six, eight or more inches in
+diameter, being careful to select a male and female reed. These they
+beat violently one against the other, the result being a deep note with
+prolonged vibrations which awake the forest echoes but not the old
+people and the children who are sleeping.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>There is also the <i>krob</i> a very primitive kind of lyre that consists of
+a short but stout piece of bamboo on which two vegetable fibres are
+tightly drawn. The plectrum used by the player is equally primitive
+being a fish-bone, a thorn or a bit of wood. The sound caused by grating
+the two strings is more harmonious than one might suppose.</p>
+
+<p>But the Sakais possess besides a wind instrument that claims more study
+both in the making and the playing.</p>
+
+<p>It belongs to the flute family and, of course, is made of bamboo. Like
+all its brothers in the world it is open at one end, with three or four
+holes on the top side.</p>
+
+<p>Before playing it the performer carefully stops up one of his nostrils
+with leaves and then applies the other to the first hole into which he
+gently blows with his nose. From the instrument issues a sweet,
+melancholy note. By leaving all the holes open a clear <i>sol</i> (G) is
+obtained; by shutting them all a <i>mi bemolle</i> (E flat); the first hole
+gives the note <i>mi</i> (E) and the second <i>fa</i> (F).</p>
+
+<p>The <i>ciniloi</i><a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> (for so it is called) is not artistic to the eye and
+loses all its poetry when one sees its owner blowing his nose into it
+but the notes emanating from it breathe a vague sense of melody and
+sadness not entirely unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the Sakais are quite masters of this instrument and the women
+too prefer it to the <i>krob</i>. They seem to find extreme delight in
+sending forth those long sustained and plaintive sounds as though lulled
+by a dream, or absorbed in some pathetic thought.</p>
+
+<p>On festive occasions when the solemnity of the entertainment increases
+in proportion to the noise made, there is a full orchestra. The choruses
+bawl, the bamboos deafen one with their loud noise like that of huge
+wooden bells, the <i>krobs</i> sob desperately at the way they are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>treated
+by the plectrum, the <i>ciniloi</i> whistles and laments, and all without any
+fixed measure of time or modulation of tones, in a confusion of sounds
+so discordant as to recall a very, very faint echo of the infernal
+nocturnal concerts of the forest.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The orchestra prompt and the singing begun the female dancers advance by
+twos and threes into the open space confined by palm leaves. Their
+features are incognizable so disfigured are they with stripes and daubs
+in red, white, black and sometimes yellow.</p>
+
+<p>Their ball costume is exceedingly simple. They just lay aside the girdle
+of beauty or chastity which they ordinarily wear and present themselves
+to the public as Eve did to Adam; or like so many brown-skinned Venuses
+with variegated masks.</p>
+
+<p>They are however, profusely adorned with flowers.</p>
+
+<p>The first time I saw a similar sight I was struck with surprise but then
+remembering the cut of some of the evening dresses worn by our Society
+ladies I came to the conclusion that comparing the clothes with which
+the latter and the Sakai women are habitually covered there was nothing
+to be said about the difference made in the toilet on grand and festive
+occasions.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the dancers. They hold in their right hands a bunch of
+palm leaves and begin their performance with curtsies, skips and the
+contortions I have spoken of; then follows an undulating movement of the
+flanks as they hurry forward, something in the same position as
+"cake-walk" dancers, lightly beating the leaves in their hand against
+others of the same kind they have fastened on their right hip.</p>
+
+<p>The dance is a continual exercise of the joints and muscles, but its
+swaying motion is not without grace <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>and displays all the seductive
+beauty of the girls whose freshness has not been destroyed by love and
+maternity.</p>
+
+<p>A little innocent vanity may be found in this Terpichorean competition
+because every movement, every jump and contortion receive the greatest
+attention and are followed by admiration and applause, when worthy of
+the demonstration, from those who have danced before or have to do so
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>The men sometimes take an active part in the dance but their steps and
+their movements are always the same as the women's.</p>
+
+<p>The strange thing is that they take the serpent as their model of
+gracefulness and elegance and seek to copy as closely as possible the
+flexibility of its body and the gliding motion peculiar to that reptile.</p>
+
+<p>A malignant person would perhaps find here the subject of a witty
+sarcasm thinking that in the forest serpents in the guise of women dance
+alone but with us, if we wish to dance at all, we are obliged to embrace
+them!</p>
+
+<p>These dances will often last until dawn, just as it is at our own
+evening parties.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Neither song, nor dance, nor the sound of those primitive instruments
+ever take the character of a religious demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>Only on the nights enlivened by bright moonlight, whilst dancing in the
+open air, their impromptu songs contain a greeting to the shining orb
+that presides over their festivity and with its silvery rays enhances
+its enjoyment. But in this there is nothing to suggest a special cult.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="trio" id="trio"></a>
+<img src="images/180.jpg" width="550" height="424" alt="Three Sakai musicians" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 550px;">
+<p class="caption">A trio for Sakai instruments.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Over yonder they do not dance with any intention of intrigue in their
+minds, or with the pretext and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>hope of meeting young persons of
+opposite sexes in order to kindle the fatal spark that will lead them to
+matrimony; there they dance for the pure pleasure of dancing, for
+sincere, hearty enjoyment without any other scope or desire, because, as
+I mention in another place, the young men and maidens of the same
+village being all relations, marriage is not permitted between them; the
+wives must be chosen from a different tribe. This wise custom was
+evidently established to exclude consanguineous unions (with their
+degenerating consequences) and perhaps also to consolidate the brotherly
+ties between people of the same race.</p>
+
+<p>I think if Mantegazza had ever been present at one of these dances of
+the Sakai girls, he would have added another beautiful page to his
+<i>estasi umane</i> ("Human Ecstasies") because at these little festivals,
+whether they are held in the hut or outside, one never sees pouting
+faces, frowning brows or any other indication of preoccupation or
+passion. Everybody is merry and their delight can be read upon their
+countenances (notwithstanding the frightful way they are besmeared with
+paint), and shines in their eyes; happy are the women who blow into the
+flute or grate the <i>krob</i> or beat the bamboo sticks; happy are the girls
+that dance; happy are the youths who join in the chorus. It is an
+innocent amusement for innocent souls.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>To finish off this chapter I here give a very free translation of a
+song, whose words I was able to catch and remember, which came from the
+lips of my dear friends upon my returning among them after a long
+absence:</p>
+
+<p>"O'er mountains and rivers you have passed to come amongst us as a
+friend, as a friend who will not hurt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>us, and behold we are here to
+meet you bearing with us all that the forest has yielded us to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"The clear and beautiful mountain announced the good news and now you
+have returned to us who rejoice at seeing you again".</p>
+
+<p>The form was not so but I have given the thought exactly, a thought, as
+you see, full of affection and with a very faint perfume of poetry about
+it. You will not accuse me, therefore, of being too optimistic when I
+affirm that the Sakai, in spite of his semblance to a wild man of the
+bush, savage, suspicious and superstitious as he is, is susceptible of
+rapid intellectual progress whenever the right means are used in his
+favour, and towards that end.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Pronounced <i>chinneloy</i>&mdash;<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch14.jpg" width="400" height="105" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">The beliefs and superstitions of the Sakais&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Metempsychosis&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Evil
+Spirit&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Superstition among savages and ignorance among civilized
+people&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The two sources of life&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The wind &#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The AL&Agrave; priest and
+physician&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The scientific vigil&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Venerable imposture!&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;TENAC and
+CINTOK<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Therapeutic torture&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Contagion &#8203;&mdash;&#8203;A Sakai's death&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+deserted village&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mourning&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Births&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Fire&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Intellectual darkness&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+Sakais and Islamism.</p>
+
+
+<p>The good notary Chirichillo, born in the fervid fancy of Ippolito Nievo
+firmly believed that the many tribulations of his modest life would be
+compensated one day by God, and that this recompense would be a second
+birth, when he would relive in another person, under another name and
+under a luckier star.</p>
+
+<p>Although less learned and although they have but a vague intuition of
+the idea relating to the soul <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>immortality, the Sakais do not refuse the
+theory of reward or punishment hereafter. According to them the spirit
+freed from the body wanders about in the air and often, in a transitory
+way, retakes a corporal form in the shape of certain animals (more
+especially the tiger, for which reason the terrible beast is respected
+as almost sacred by them) or it takes refuge in certain herbs which thus
+acquist healing properties.</p>
+
+<p>In no case will a Sakai willingly kill, wound or lay a trap for the
+animals he thinks consecrated by the indwelling of a spirit, this is so
+true that even whilst preparing one of the usual traps for catching big
+game he will turn himself towards the thickest part of the forest and
+murmur, &laquo;this is not for thee&raquo; to warn the tiger to be on his guard. And
+should one happen to be caught it causes real grief to the Sakai who you
+may be sure would give it back its liberty at once if he had not found
+it dead or did not fear to be killed himself as soon as it was free. The
+Sakai does not believe in the natural death of a person but attributes
+the decease to the spell of the Evil Spirit who is continually on the
+watch to play his wicked tricks. So ready is he to do harm that he even
+slips into the little holes made in their darts thus carrying death
+where they strike, otherwise the poison would not have the force to
+kill.</p>
+
+<p>This is the superstition that inspires every sort of terror in the
+inhabitants of the jungle and which renders it so difficult to approach
+them and so dangerous to disturb the serenity of their simple minds. The
+wind, the thunder-storms, the violent hurricanes that frequently invade
+the forest, bringing destruction and fear in their course are the
+vehicles used by this Evil Spirit to declare open warfare against the
+frightened savages.</p>
+
+<p>When the clouds begin to gather thick and ominously, and first with a
+distant roar and then with the fury and the voice of a hurricane, the
+wind sweeps fiercely on, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>howling and whistling over the great green sea
+that is quickly strewn with wreckage; when the colossal champions of the
+forest are struck by lightning and the fall of their huge branches and
+gigantic trunks increase the general uproar, whilst the boom of Heaven's
+artillery thunders around their huts, then the trembling Sakais throng
+together. They paint themselves in a manner to scare the devil himself
+(which is however their intention) and shoot out from their blow-pipes a
+volley of poisoned arrows, directed against the tumultuous messengers of
+the awful Being they fear; the women, keeping their children close at
+their side as if to defend them, throw pieces of burning wood into the
+air, and beat their big bamboo sticks till the noise is insupportable,
+at the same time screaming to the wind:</p>
+
+<p>&laquo;Go away and leave us alone! We have not harmed thee, so do not harm
+us!&raquo;.</p>
+
+<p>So they implore and imprecate, turning themselves into the ugliest and
+fiercest creatures they can, to frighten the evil spirits that they
+believe have come against them on the outspread wings of the storm.</p>
+
+<p>To the wild cries, arrow shots and loud noise of the bamboos, the
+mothers add an exorcism. They burn locks of their little ones' hair and
+disperse the ashes to the wind whilst the <i>Al&agrave;</i> energetically spits.</p>
+
+<p>And in civilized Italy is there not a superstition very like this of the
+poor savages? I refer to the odd custom still observed in the country,
+or at least in some of the villages (and which not so very long ago was
+put into practice also in towns) of trying to arrest a heavy thunder
+storm, by the tocsin, the deep noted ringing increasing the general
+alarm amongst the timid of the place. The women too, will go to the door
+and rattle together the shovel and tongs just as their Sakai sisters
+beat their bamboos, and olive branches (that previously have received
+the priest's benediction) are burnt with incense <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>that the smoke may
+rise up to appease the fury of the elements just as over there locks of
+the children's hair are burnt for the same purpose.</p>
+
+<p>These are superstitions that vary a little in form but are exactly
+equivalent in the substance and show how much remains in us of primitive
+ignorance and how our boasted civilization is still bound to the antique
+customs and childish beliefs of the uncivilized, over whom we sing the
+glory of our own triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais also admit the existence of a Good Spirit but precisely
+because he is good, so much so as never to reveal himself, they do not
+deem it necessary to bother him. To the Good Spirit the Sakais oppose in
+their mind, the Evil Spirit exercising his empire upon the souls of
+their ancestors. To him they make many and different exorcisms and
+supplications, with the hope not to be molested by him after death if
+they keep good. Such a belief may be considered as a kind of
+demonclatry.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>To learn thoroughly the beliefs of a people still in a savage state, and
+who are totally without any written guide to their faith, would be
+indeed a difficult undertaking. First of all they always fear that a
+stranger, particularly if white, brings with him a whole legion of bad
+spirits, and secondly because they are extremely jealous of their
+superstitions and are afraid of incurring evil by revealing them to
+others.</p>
+
+<p>It must also be considered that the Sakais (like all the other peoples
+to be found on the same level of intellectual development) have ideas so
+fragmentary and undetermined about religious matters that they are quite
+incapable of giving an explicit description of their spiritual feelings
+and convictions. It is only by living amongst them for a long time in
+confidence and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>familiarity that one can obtain any correct knowledge,
+and even then only by intent observation of facts which pass under one's
+eyes, as it is useless to attempt to get an explanation or ask
+questions, for the Sakais, truthful as they are by nature, would most
+certainly tell you a falsehood for the reasons alluded to in another
+chapter. Superstition always prevails over veracity when treating with
+persons not belonging to their race.</p>
+
+<p>Wilken so writes in his book <i>Animism</i>: "With all the peoples in a
+primitive natural state nearly every daily event, every illness, every
+misfortune, every phenomenon, when not attributed to the souls of their
+dead, has a special spirit as the author. Lakes, seas, rivers, springs,
+mountains, caverns, trees, bushes, villages, towns, houses, roads, air,
+sky, the ground in under, in short all nature and the principal things
+they see, are, in their opinion, populated by supernatural beings. I
+need hardly say that not all the innumerable spirits in whom they
+believe have the same importance in their minds and therefore are not
+all venerated to the same extent. In the animist's cult fear reigns over
+every other sentiment, such as gratitude, trust, devotion, etc., and the
+spirits that inspire the most fear are those invocated with the most
+fervour; in this way the bad spirits are installed in the place of the
+good ones".</p>
+
+<p>We see then that the Sakais form no exception to this summary
+description of Mr. Wilken's.</p>
+
+<p>They believe that only their sorcerers have the faculty of beholding
+spirits which satisfactorily explains to them the strange fact that they
+are always invisible to other eyes. For the rest, though, the Sakais,
+like all those on the same par in intellectual capacity, do not trouble
+their heads at all over whatever natural phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>He feels deep veneration for the sun and water as being the two great
+sources of Life; he venerates also <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>the moon and the stars without
+however applying any sacred rites to this sentiment but they do not care
+in the least to know of what these luminaries are composed, where they
+come from or where they go when they are not in sight. When the day
+arrives for the Sakai to put such questions to his brain he too will
+enter triumphantly into the vortex of civilization, impatient to find
+out the reason of everything he sees around and above him.</p>
+
+<p>From force of habit he does not wonder at the change of day into night
+and the different phases of the moon but he is seized with great terror
+when an eclipse of the sun or moon takes place. He weeps and despairs,
+making horrible noises to put to flight the accursed spirit that is
+devouring one or other of the heavenly bodies, and as soon as the
+eclipse in over, he seems mad with joy that the <i>mahgis</i> (sun) and
+getcheck (moon) have got the better of their enemy.</p>
+
+<p>He is equally overcome with fright at the appearance of a rainbow, or at
+a shock of earthquake.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakais have no idols of any kind, but they have great faith in the
+amulets which they make themselves by incising upon their combs and
+hair-pins (as before written) the form of certain plants, fruits, leaves
+and roots that they are fully persuaded are possessed of prodigious
+virtue.</p>
+
+<p>In fact when a storm is approaching and the wind begins to agitate the
+forest, before commencing their usual invocations, both men and women
+hasten to stick in their hair all their combs and hairpins with the firm
+conviction that the wind, blowing upon these miraculous carvings will
+lose its power to do them harm.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="trapbig" id="trapbig"></a>
+<img src="images/188.jpg" width="600" height="421" alt="A large trap" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Trap for big game.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Here it must be observed that, apart from the superstitious character of
+the fear the Sakais (especially <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>those of the hills) have of the wind,
+this terror may be said to be almost justified.</p>
+
+<p>The impetuous currents of air coming from below often bring amongst them
+the germs of various infections and in particular malarial fevers.</p>
+
+<p>The poor natives in their ignorance of this, when they see their dear
+ones fall ill and often die after the wind's raging believe that it has
+brought into their village and left there, an invisible enemy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The <i>Al&agrave;</i>, sorcerer, physician, and magician of the local superstitions
+does all he can to keep unshaken the belief in spirits and exorcism. He
+fulfils the functions of his two-fold office with all the ignorance and
+the deception which is possible to him; ignorance, because he shares
+with the others a sincere terror of the Evil Spirit, and deception
+because he makes the others think that he can see the dreaded Being and
+has a certain power over him by means of words and gestures.</p>
+
+<p>He is, upon a close and vigorous analysis, nothing but a vulgar swindler
+who obtains some sort of advantage by his artefices and succeeds in
+over-ruling his own people by giving advice which is often sought and
+always followed.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Al&agrave;</i> is generally the son of an <i>Al&agrave;</i>, a circumstance that might
+lead someone, who is fond of similar studies, to make accurate
+researches in order to ascertain if imposture should be considered as a
+hereditary disease.</p>
+
+<p>When the Evil Spirit, notwithstanding the cabalistic signs and
+mysterious words that proclaim the <i>Al&agrave;'s</i> prerogative in resisting and
+defeating him, has overcome and killed him, the corpse is not buried but
+is placed in an upright position between the roots of a tree not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>very
+far from his late residence. For seven days continual watch is kept over
+it and it is provided with food, tobacco and betel.</p>
+
+<p>An old tradition, which I have managed with difficulty to piece together
+from fragments unconsciously dropped now and then, pretends that <i>ab
+antiquo</i> a covenant was made between the tigers and sorcerers that after
+one of the latter had been dead a week his soul should enter a feline
+body.</p>
+
+<p>If a son of the deceased <i>Al&agrave;</i> wishes to succeed to his father's
+dignity, he must, at the end of the seven days established, go alone to
+keep watch over the corpse, taking with him a sort of incense-pan in
+which he burns a great quantity of perfumed resin in honour of the dead
+(an honour that is most opportune for his own nostrils!). He passes the
+night in this way, or it is believed that he does, for nobody sets
+himself the task of spying his actions or of learning something about
+the night's proceedings fearing that evil would overtake him in
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst still engaged in this sanitary act, the tiger, animated by the
+soul of the defunct sorcerer, presents itself to the man who is
+engrossed in his scientific vigil and feigns to spring upon him to tear
+him to pieces. But he continues to keep alight the sweet-smelling resin
+and does not betray his inward perturbation or give the slightest
+movement of fear, which would, without emission, cost him his life. Then
+the terrible scene changes; the wild beast suddenly disappears and
+encircled by a soft light two beautiful fairies come forward to teach
+the new <i>Al&agrave;</i> the occult science of his chosen ministry including
+cabalistic words and medical art. The two elves then become the familiar
+spirits of the sorcerer who is in this manner consecrated.</p>
+
+<p>No witness is allowed to be present. No profane eye may see those two
+good spirits.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>If it happens that the aspirant never makes his return it is immediately
+decided that he showed he was afraid and had been eaten up by the not
+too fatherly tiger. It would be, at least, a sure proof that he had
+watched that night in the forest!</p>
+
+<p>The succession of a son to his father in the office of <i>Al&agrave;</i> is not
+obligatory but all the Sakais wish it to be so as otherwise the soul of
+the dead man would always remain in the body of a tiger and treasures of
+wisdom and power would be lost to the tribe he had belonged to.</p>
+
+<p>Not all the villages have the fortune to possess an <i>Al&agrave;</i> of their own
+who&mdash;by the way&mdash;does not differ in his domestic life from any of the
+poor mortals around him. He has a wife, and children, makes poisons,
+chews tobacco and <i>sirih</i>, sleeps and goes out shooting. Those
+settlements that have no <i>Al&agrave;</i> in their midst go in search of one in the
+nearest encampment and the physician-priest responds quickly to the
+invitation by hastening to the spot indicated.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There being no ritual in the Sakai ceremonies, the simple functions of
+the <i>Al&agrave;</i> are very limited.</p>
+
+<p>He has to mumble in an unintelligible manner mysterious words (the
+meaning of which he does not know himself) when a poisonous mixture is
+being boiled in order to render its venomous virtue more efficacious. He
+makes exorcisms against the evil spirits when the wind arises or a heavy
+storm breaks or he is called to visit a sick person.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter case duties are merged in those of the physician's for
+whilst preparing some remedies with herbs possessing medicinal
+properties (of which he knows very few out of the multitude that grows
+in the Malai forests) he proceeds to exercise the authority <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>reposed in
+him, according to the Sakai beliefs by attempting to cast out the evil
+spirit from his patient.</p>
+
+<p>This act is called the <i>tay nak</i>. He first asks the sufferer where the
+pain is, then making a sort of brush with some palm leaves he holds it
+in left hand. The right he closes loosely and lays it on the place that
+aches, puts his mouth to the opening left through the lightly closed
+fingers and begins to pull in his breath as hard as he can. Sometimes he
+is able in this way to draw out the demon which has caused the illness,
+from the patient's body into his hand and drives it away by
+energetically beating it with the brush.</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer is aware if the spirit has come out by a very pale light,
+which only he can see, though!</p>
+
+<p>But if the malady is a serious one this cure fails, a sure proof that
+the spirit is one of the most dreaded class and must therefore be
+heroically fought by means of the <i>chintok</i>, as follows.</p>
+
+<p>The village in which the afflicted person lives is closed in by numerous
+traps, and planted all round with poisoned arrows so that nobody can
+come near, even if someone were to succeed in crossing that original
+<i>cordon sanitaire</i> without any fatal consequence he would most certainly
+be killed inside it as it is feared that another evil spirit may be
+imported by an outsider, in aid of the one they are trying to get rid
+of.</p>
+
+<p>Over the body of the infirm they form a canopy of medicinal herbs; the
+<i>Al&agrave;</i> and the company present paint themselves in the most horrible
+manner possible and as soon as it is quite dark (any sort of light is
+absolutely forbidden) they dispose themselves around the invalid and
+begin to madly beat their big bamboo canes. Their frenzy and the noise
+they make cannot be described; it makes one shudder, and the sound can
+be heard several miles off.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="abandoned" id="abandoned"></a>
+<img src="images/192.jpg" width="428" height="600" alt="Sick man lying in a shelter" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 428px;">
+<p class="caption">Abandoned because of contagious disease.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>But it is intended to heal the poor wretch in the middle who, if he does
+not succumb to the violence of his disease, has a good chance of dying
+from the torture endured.</p>
+
+<p>The diabolical concert lasts until the garrulous harbingers of the sun
+announce the dawn but is repeated after sunset for seven days during
+which period only the men are permitted to go into the forest in search
+of food.</p>
+
+<p>If on the seventh day the patient is still alive he is left in peace
+unless a relapse should render another night of music necessary, and if
+he dies it is believed that the malignant spirit would not depart
+without taking the soul of his victim with him.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The most frequent illnesses to which the Sakais are subject are
+rheumatic complaints and very heavy colds which not rarely turn into
+severe bronchial and pulmonary ailments. Both are due to the cold at
+night against which they take no pains at all to protect themselves.
+Their huts shelter them from the rain but not from the air.</p>
+
+<p>Some contagious skin diseases are also prevalent amongst them.</p>
+
+<p>Directly somebody is seized with this malady a tree is selected at some
+distance from the settlement up which a little bower is hurriedly made
+and the person attacked is placed there and left with a little food at
+hand. Next day the relatives go to see if he or she is living and call
+out their demands, in a loud voice, a long way off. If there is a
+movement or an answer they go nearer and throw up some food but if there
+is no sign of life they hasten back and leave the corpse to decompose in
+the bower that now serves as a sepulchre.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>No rites whatever are performed at the death and burial of an
+individual.</p>
+
+<p>When the sufferer has breathed its last all the people in the village
+unite in making grand lamentations. They cry, moan and howl worse than
+at the proverbial Irish funeral, they blacken their faces with charcoal
+and daub it with other colours to frighten away the bad spirit whilst
+the family crowd round the dead body and let their tears flow freely,
+exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! Look at us, don't leave us! Who will take care of us now! Who
+will defend us? Thou has departed before us and we shall follow thee".</p>
+
+<p>The first moments of grief over they quickly destroy the hut visited by
+Death, then taking up the corpse they carry it into a thick part of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>Here a grave is dug, from five to six feet deep and the body is placed
+in it, sometimes lying on its back, and sometimes in a sitting posture
+but always with its face turned towards the west. Some tobacco, betel
+and personal objects of the deceased are put near and then it is covered
+up with the ground. Sometimes these articles are strewn on the top of
+the grave and sometimes too instead of interring the corpse it is laid
+upon pieces of wood placed horizontally across the branches of a large
+tree, close to the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>But whether buried or not, for seven days the dead person's relatives
+carry water, fruit, tobacco and sirih to the spot, over or under the
+last resting-place of their lost one, taking care to always keep a
+bright fire burning within the vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>It is however with fear and trembling that this duty is performed and
+they regularly implore:</p>
+
+<p>"Here is thy portion, but don't hurt us!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="tombwoman" id="tombwoman"></a>
+<img src="images/194.jpg" width="600" height="413" alt="Burial artifacts on the ground" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Tomb of a woman.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>Finished the seven days mourning the memory of the dead fades, only
+awakening afresh when somebody passes by the burial place when they
+deposit there a part of whatever they have with them, game or fruit.</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of truth, though, I must say that the grief of parents for
+a child is not so soon cancelled, for I have seen some moved to tears at
+the remembrance of one who had been dead perhaps for many seasons.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The immediate consequence of a Sakai's death is the forsaking of the
+village by all the survivors for fear that the evil spirit which has
+bereaved them of a kinsman may do the same with another.</p>
+
+<p>Then follows the march in search of a desirable spot, as I have already
+described. Taking the children and the little domestic goods they
+possess upon their shoulders they troop away seeking suitable ground for
+the erection of their new huts. The Elder, as head of the immense
+family, gives the signal for stopping where he thinks best and if there
+is an <i>Al&agrave;</i> in their midst he consults with him about the choice of
+position.</p>
+
+<p>When the site seems favourable a fire is quickly lighted and if the
+smoke goes up straight they settle there otherwise they continue their
+wanderings for the Sakai thinks that his whereabouts will be betrayed if
+the smoke is dispersed in the forest and that it will serve as a guide
+to some bad spirit&mdash;eager to do harm&mdash;that will cast its fatal influence
+over the company fleeing from the cruel spell of another.</p>
+
+<p>Once the decision is made, with wonderful rapidity trees, and bushes are
+cut down and the huts are raised.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As in civilized countries. Death amongst the Sakais exacts an exterior
+manifestation of mourning, with this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>difference perhaps that with them
+it is much more sincere because they have not the comfort of a long
+expected and coveted legacy to make it a farce.</p>
+
+<p>All ornaments have to be put aside; ear-rings, bracelets, necklaces,
+nasal sticks, flowers, tattooing etc, for a period of time determined by
+the Elder but generally for not less than six months.</p>
+
+<p>Those in mourning are rigorously prohibited to sing, play, dance, marry
+and even (quite a Lenten sin) to eat fish and meat on the some day.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakais observe all these prescriptions with the greatest strictness
+and are scandalized should any of them be infringed before the appointed
+time. Whoever violates them is judged a heartless being and if a woman
+loses all the consideration that was hers before.</p>
+
+<p>The duration of mourning varies according to relationship. That for a
+father or a mother is the same, but it is shorter for brothers and
+sisters and for little children there is none at all.</p>
+
+<p>In this respect the Sakais are not dissimilar to their civilized
+fellow-beings who measure their grief by the black clothes they wear and
+at the demise of a baby, notwithstanding its parents' desolation, make
+the church-bells ring out the liveliest tunes.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When a little Sakai opens its eyes to the light of this world no
+religious ceremony greets its arrival.</p>
+
+<p>The woman who is about to become a mother separates herself from the
+rest of the family and retires by herself to a hut apart, where the
+floor is very high. Nobody assists her at her confinement because there
+is perhaps no other event in the existence of a Sakai <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>so involved in
+tenacious and perilous superstition as is that of birth. Her own husband
+and the father of the new-born babe dare not cross the threshold of the
+hut or make the acquaintance of his child until a long time after, that
+is, until it has got some strength.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="tombman" id="tombman"></a>
+<img src="images/196.jpg" width="600" height="415" alt="Burial artifacts on the ground" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Grave of a Sakai man.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is always feared that by entering the cabin the smell of the child
+may be carried into the forest by means of which the Evil Spirit would
+be able to trace it out and do it some mischief. And for the same reason
+the newly-made mother dare not have contact with any of the adults who
+go into the jungle to hunt or for other purposes, but has food and water
+taken her by the children.</p>
+
+<p>It is superfluous to add that for a given time before and after a
+confinement the presence of a stranger in the village is not tolerated,
+worse still if he is a white man.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Al&agrave;</i>, seconded by all, both males and females, is inflexible about
+this, asserting that it would be the death of the babe, and it is a
+prudent thing to accept the veto with a good grace and to obey the
+sorcerer's orders without hesitation. Sometimes a stranger is not even
+allowed to look upon a woman who is in an interesting state, as it once
+happened to me.</p>
+
+<p>Another time upon arriving at a village where a child had been born a
+few hours before, I was flatly refused hospitality, some Sakais
+preferring to accompany me a long way off and there erect a hut for my
+use on the formal understanding that I should not for any motive
+whatever attempt to approach the settlement. Had I not kept to this
+condition I should probably have been killed.</p>
+
+<p>One cannot reason with terror.</p>
+
+<p>The hut in which the poor woman is fulfilling the noblest of Nature's
+missions is jealously guarded by day and by night.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>Woe to the unfortunate individual who is found loitering around it if he
+is not one of the village!</p>
+
+<p>The floor of the hut does not touch the ground that the odour of
+excrements may not penetrate into the earth and proclaim to the Evil
+Spirit: Here a babe is born!</p>
+
+<p>The mother herself, with extreme caution places everything of this sort
+in vessels of bamboo which she hangs high up on the bough of a tree.</p>
+
+<p>There the torrid sun quickly dries it all up and the smell emanating
+from it being diffused in the upper air the spirit cannot find out the
+sick woman or her child.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As soon as the period of gestation commences neither the woman nor her
+husband must eat the flesh of monkey or serpent in order not to transfer
+to the unborn child the tendencies of a quadruped or reptile.</p>
+
+<p>They must also abstain from eating fish and meat on the same day and are
+obliged to be very careful not to enter a hut whilst it rains, this
+being always a very bad omen but especially so when an increase is
+expected in the family.</p>
+
+<p>Another very bad sign is when the <i>cep plu&igrave;</i> sings near the encampment.
+The Sakais consider it quite as unlucky as the grating screech of the
+night owl (birds kept in awe by the Sakais as being in familiarity with
+the Evil Spirit) on the roof of a house, or the spilling of salt is
+believed to be in many countries we know.</p>
+
+<p>A few days before her confinement the woman picks up some leaves of the
+<i>baka&ugrave;</i> which have fallen to the ground and makes a decoction with them.
+She drinks a little every day, continuing the cure even after
+child-birth. I do not know the wherefore of this but the women seem to
+think it exercises a particular effect upon them at this period.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>Immediately the child is born its mother takes the fruit of the <i>bu&agrave;
+kaluna</i> and squeezes out a few drops into the little thing's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>I have never been able to understand the reason of such a practice but
+believe that it is inspired by some superstition or hygienic rule of the
+natives.</p>
+
+<p>The fruit of the <i>bu&agrave; kaluna</i> is sweet but has also a rather tart
+flavour.</p>
+
+<p>After seven days have passed the newly made mother leaves the hut and
+makes abundant ablutions that have the same character and scope as the
+religious duty imposed upon the Israelite women; that of respect for
+elementary hygiene.</p>
+
+<p>From this moment the wife may return to her husband but she is not
+allowed to go into the forest and is obliged to wear upon her stomach a
+hot stone, which serves her as a cure and exorcism.</p>
+
+<p>She returns to her faithful mate but she does not abandon her child
+whose separation from all other human beings, including its own father,
+cannot last for less than six months.</p>
+
+<p>The birth and death of a Sakai, as here seen, is devoid of every rite or
+ceremony, as in the case of matrimony or divorce and do not require even
+the intervention of the <i>Al&agrave;</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The fact of their being strictly forbidden, when kindling a fire, to
+lift their eyes from it until the wood has been well ignited and smoke
+proceeds from it would suggest the idea that there is either a
+superstition attached to this operation or that fire is also an object
+of veneration with them. But this concentration of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>gaze may be
+simply a precaution (become a habit) not to retard the act of combustion
+by distraction of thought.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing in connection with this custom I have succeeded in
+ascertaining is that the Sakais have no particular cult for the Sacred
+Fire like the priests of Baal the Brahmins in India and the Vestals of
+Rome but appreciate it as a means of cooking their food, preparing their
+poisons, of warming them during the night and of keeping wild beasts far
+from their huts. And I was convinced of this the first time I gave them
+matches and taught them their use.</p>
+
+<p>Their wonder was mixed with satisfaction but had there been any
+pronounced religious sentiment they would have rejected the modern
+innovation and continued the old method of making fire.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I have here given a rough idea of the superstitions and beliefs of the
+Sakais as best I have been able to understand them from close
+observation and words inadvertently let fall now and then. They may be
+briefly summed up thus: a supreme terror of Evil spirits; a vague
+principle of the soul's transmigration (a strange degeneration from the
+primitive conception of the Pythagorean theory).</p>
+
+<p>The people of the jungle are still under the thick shade of cerebral
+inertia. They have not yet seen the swift, bright light of a first doubt
+flash across the darkness of their brain giving to it a shock of
+unsuspected vibrations. As yet no glorious Prometheus has arisen amongst
+those primitive creatures far whom the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>discouraging counsel of the
+Italian poet might seem to have been in part written:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meglio oprando obliar, senza indagarlo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quest'enorme mister dell' universo!<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Sakais have no real religion; they only have fear for everything
+they do not understand or cannot. And yet in the practice of morality
+they are much more forward than other uncivilized and even civilized
+peoples.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Pronounced <i>tay nak</i> and <i>chintok</i>.&mdash;<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> A custom in Italy when a little child is buried.
+<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a></p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better by work to forget, without studying it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This tremendous mystery of the Universe.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch15.jpg" width="400" height="107" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">Sakai arms&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Shooting&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Serpent catchers&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Sakai and his
+poisons&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;TOALANG, RENGAS AND SAGOL&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;SL&Agrave; DOL, SL&Agrave; PLEK and SL&Agrave; CLOB&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;AKAR
+TOKA&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Ipok<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An antidote&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The LEGOP&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The Nai Bretaks&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The preparation
+of LEGOP&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Curious and superfluous ingredients&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The effects of
+LEGOP&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Strange contradictions&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Experiments&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Poisons and antidotes&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;The
+settler and science.</p>
+
+
+<p>The Sakai possesses only one weapon: the &laquo;<i>bla&ugrave;</i>&raquo; (pr. blahoo) called
+&laquo;<i>sumpitam</i>&raquo; by the Malays.</p>
+
+<p>This reveals the peaceful character of these forest inhabitants who
+never seek adventures or commit aggressions.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="quivers" id="quivers"></a>
+<img src="images/202.jpg" width="600" height="399" alt="Collection of quivers and arrows" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Quivers and poisoned arrows.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The strong ugly knives which he procures from his brethren of the plain
+or manufactures for himself, and the little hatchets I have already
+described, are not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>for him arms in the exact meaning of the word but
+are simply instruments necessary for those living in the jungle. He
+employs them for cutting down bamboos, creepers and trees and for
+preparing food, but very likely he would not know how to use them for an
+assault or in defence.</p>
+
+<p>His weapon in this case is always the <i>bla&ugrave;</i> (blow-pipe) which he
+carries about with him constantly even if he only goes just outside his
+hut.</p>
+
+<p>It is a cane of bamboo from two metres and a half to three in length not
+very large in diameter but perfectly round, especially inside. At one
+end there is applied a mouth-piece similar to that of a trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>Having introduced a dart the Sakai puts the cane to his lips and first
+drawing a very long breath he then blows into it with all his might. The
+little arrow flies out with the greatest velocity reaching to the
+distance of 40, 50, or 60 metres.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pea-shooter but with the difference that the projectiles shot
+out are deadly in their effect, particularly so when in the hands of
+persons who, like the Sakais, seldom or never fail to hit the mark.</p>
+
+<p>This dangerous weapon, which at first might be mistaken for a toy, is
+ornamented with designs lightly incised in the cane. It is kept with
+great care and when not in immediate use it is slipped into a bamboo of
+a larger size (this too decorated with incisions) which serves it as
+sheath.</p>
+
+<p>The arrow is a little stick made of very hard wood of about 12 or 14
+inches long and not much bigger than a big knitting needle. At one
+extremity is fixed a tiny cone made of palm-pith that stopping up the
+tube, receives the impulsion of the air blown into it so violently.</p>
+
+<p>The other extremity finishes in an exceedingly sharp point (sometimes of
+bone or metal well inserted into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>the wood) contrived in such a mode
+that when the dart strikes an object the point breaks off and remains
+there. The force of penetration is however so great that the body of a
+man standing 30 metres off may be pierced through without its being
+broken.</p>
+
+<p>No animal, except pachyderms, can challenge with impunity the Sakai's
+arrow. It is always, and for all, a terrible messenger of Death, either
+in the precision of aim, the violence with which it hits, or the poison
+it inoculates.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way as the aborigenes of Australia throw their boomerang
+with inimitable dexterity and security, the Sakai manages his blowpipe
+with a cleverness it is impossible to imitate or learn. The Malays, who
+have studied to make themselves masters of this weapon, are but poor
+shooters compared to their forest neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>Together with the <i>bla&ugrave;</i> the Sakai always carries with him his <i>lok</i>
+(quiver) suspended from a girdle of bark, called <i>b&ograve; gnan</i> (pr. bo
+nean).</p>
+
+<p>This quiver is also composed of bamboo measuring from 3 to 7 inches
+round and 13 or 14 long. It is very rare that the darts are placed in it
+without being first enclosed in thin reeds, known by the name of <i>dam&agrave;</i>
+which preserve the points and prevent the poison from being rubbed off
+as well as saving it from getting damp, when it would lose its force. In
+its turn the quiver is enclosed in the <i>tchenkop</i>, a covering of ratan
+or palm-fibres woven so intricately as to render it water-tight.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>With his blowpipe ready the Sakai penetrates into the forest, creeping
+softly among the tall grasses and bushes. No rustling, no crackling of
+dry leaves denounces the presence of the man who advances cautiously
+under the broad green roof, casting keen and restless glances <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>towards
+the branches of the trees. His ear catches the faintest flapping of
+wings. From time to time he utters a cry like that of a bird or a
+monkey, and quickly a feathered biped, moved by curiosity descends from
+a higher to a lower bough; a monkey swings itself down in answer to the
+call, or a pretty little head with a sharp nose and bright eyes peeps
+out of a hollow in the tree.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="blowpipes" id="blowpipes"></a>
+<img src="images/204.jpg" width="550" height="410" alt="Blowpipes and accessories" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 550px;">
+<p class="caption">Blowpipes, quivers and poisoned arrows.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Very slowly and quietly the Sakai crouches down, lifts his blowpipe and
+fixing his eyes upon the black mark he has made at the end of the cane,
+he takes a long and steady aim.</p>
+
+<p>The bird and the monkey 30 metres above him are trying to provocate
+another cry from the voice they heard before; the squirrel looks puzzled
+and uncertain but neither of the three suspects the mortal danger that
+awaits them from below.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai blows into his <i>bla&ugrave;</i>, the dart flies out with a slight whiz
+and perforates the victim's flesh. There is a cry and a fall, then the
+sportsman runs to pick up his prey.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes a wounded bird will fly away from the spot where it has been
+hit, but the savage knows perfectly well the infallibility of his
+poisons which will bring it to the ground in a few minutes, so he
+follows the way it has taken.</p>
+
+<p>Something of the same sort may also happen with a monkey. Although it is
+usually cowardly enough to let itself fall a dead weight as soon as it
+is touched (so breaking all its bones) it may by chance cling to the
+bough upon which the Sakai shot it, but if the arrow itself does not
+succeed in killing it, the poison never fails to do so and nothing can
+save it from the fatal effect. The monkey holds on convulsively but the
+<i>legop's</i> influence cannot be resisted, there is a brief struggle
+against death and then the animal is precipitated heavily to the ground.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>The Sakai runs to pick it up but perhaps is arrested by seeing an
+enormous boa constrictor twisting itself round the crushed body of the
+little beast.</p>
+
+<p>But at this sight the hunter does not despair. He observes the
+surrounding trees with great attention and discovers that the one upon
+which he had found the monkey has a large hole beneath, where the huge
+reptile has taken up its abode.</p>
+
+<p>He hurries away to let his comrades know, for a boa constrictor excites
+the spirit of gluttony amongst the Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>They instantly and unanimously resolve upon its capture and accompany
+him to the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Guessing nearabouts the length of the serpent they cut down a very
+strong bamboo cane that if not longer is not shorter than the reptile
+and at the end they fasten a stout piece of rattan ably folded into a
+noose.</p>
+
+<p>Terminated his repast the boa retires to his den and settles down for a
+little nap that will help his digestion.</p>
+
+<p>This is the right moment: two men, with great caution approach the
+hollow, keeping in their hands the knot made of the Indian cane. Very
+gently but with a rapid movement they lift up the snake's head and slip
+it through the noose. The snake gives a shake but it is too late. At a
+sign from the two who have disturbed its slumber, the others pull hard
+the bamboos that they are holding in their hands. The noose is pulled
+tighter and the boa constrictor fights furiously to get free. But the
+more it resists the closer the knot becomes. The struggle between captor
+and captured is not soon finished. The monster pulls, jumps, writhes,
+sometimes giving such sudden springs as to make the tenacious Sakais run
+here and there to keep their equilibrium and to stay out of its reach.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="poisoned" id="poisoned"></a>
+<img src="images/206.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="Two Sakai with blowpipes" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Shooting poisoned arrows through the blowpipe.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Often they strive so for more than an hour but at last the serpent is
+suffocated and is reduced to a lifeless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>mass. Then its victors carry it
+triumphantly to their village where it makes a banquet for almost all
+the inhabitants.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Sakais would find but a scanty result from their hunting and
+shooting-, and their own lives would not be sufficiently protected if
+the forest did not provide them with an inexhaustible and infallible
+means of dealing death with their blowpipes and darts.</p>
+
+<p>There is such a rich and varied quantity of plants growing in the jungle
+which produce poison, that Man has the choice of using the one he deems
+more adapted for this or that particular need.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai is enthusiastic over his poisons, so much is he engrossed in
+the science that it takes with him the post of a besetting. Like a
+maniac which always speaks of his strange fancies, so this poor savage
+speaks all day long of his poisons, and studies their qualities.</p>
+
+<p>And they provide him with all the necessaries for his primitive
+existence for he utilizes them in shooting, fishing, and in setting
+traps for big and small animals, they are a defence for himself and the
+whole village where he lives, besides furnishing him with the means (by
+barter) of obtaining tobacco, rice or any other article that cannot be
+found in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>All his best intellectual faculty is consecrated to the research and
+preparation of poisons because it must not be thought that he uses one
+instead of the other indifferently. Those with which he is most familiar
+are each used as the occasion may require.</p>
+
+<p>Just as a gun is not loaded with the same sized shot when shooting small
+birds and partridges, the Sakai does not waste his strong poisons when a
+weaker one would be equally effectual.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>His selection of one rather than the other is frequently regulated by
+the state of the atmosphere (damp being pernicious to venomous
+productions) and sometimes by the phases of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>These plants are herbaceous, arboreous and often creepers, but not all
+those that grow in the forest, nor even those known to the savage for
+their efficacy, are yet in the knowledge of Science.</p>
+
+<p>This is a very great pity as I fear that these medicinal treasures,
+which may contain miraculous properties, will be inevitably lost if a
+scientific study of this wild jungle produce is not quickly initiated.</p>
+
+<p>The fever of colonization has attacked the forest and here and there it
+rages; for certain it will not be a long time before that vast extension
+of tropical vegetation with the extraordinary fertility of its soil will
+give place to plantations of Parah-rubber, gutta-percha, coffee, sugar,
+rice, tobacco, etc.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason I shall be very pleased to give what aid I can to the
+cause of Science by means of notes, collections and specimens of paints
+and animals not yet thoroughly known or studied, should anyone feel
+inclined to respond to the offer before it is too late. Such help would
+seem to me a sweet chain of thought, linking the mind of the colonist in
+the remote depths of the Malay Forest, to the Mother Country and that
+civilization from which he has withdrawn himself.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The "<i>giu u toalang</i>" is one of the colossal trees of the Jungle for it
+reaches from 40 to 46 yards in height. It may be said that its whole
+organism is poisonous because its deadly properties have the same force
+in the juice under the bark as in the leaves, when they are rubbed or
+broken. If this sap finds its way under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>the skin, in contact with the
+flesh or blood-vessels it has a quick and mortal effect. It seems to me
+that even the smell might produce fatal consequences but of this I am
+not sure, although it is a certain fact that it makes one feel very ill
+and the indisposition can only be cured by keeping the patient in a high
+temperature.</p>
+
+<p>Almost the same poisonous power has the "<i>gi&ugrave; u rangas</i>", a tree of more
+modest dimensions, and the "<i>gi&ugrave; u sagol</i>" smaller still. It is dangerous
+to touch the leaves of these two plants because they bring about a
+severe irritation of the skin, covering it with pimples and little
+bladders, that itch intolerably, whilst the body becomes swollen. And
+yet the temptation to scratch must be resisted or ulceration follows
+with the probability of gangrene. When one is able to renounce the
+momentary relief procured by rubbing or scratching the inconvenience
+passes in a couple of days.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>toalang</i>, <i>rengas</i>, and <i>sagol</i> are to be found scattered profusely
+over the forest but the Sakai does not interest himself in their
+venomous properties because he finds that those of which he already
+knows the secret fully satisfy his wants in promptness and effect. On
+the contrary he wages a continual war against these noxious plants
+beating them down and destroying them wherever he comes across them. He
+is very careful, however not to touch them with his hatchet but chops
+down one of the giants growing near which bears them to the ground in
+its ponderous fall.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the dangerous trees are down the trunk and branches of their
+involuntary assassin are pulled away and they are left on the spot for
+one or two months to dry, and when completely withered they are burnt.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There is also a large and varied number of plants in the forest whose
+leaves are very dangerous. I will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>mention for an example the <i>sl&agrave; dol</i>,
+<i>sl&agrave; plek</i> and the <i>sl&agrave; clob</i> the leaves of which, if eaten, may
+engender fatal consequences according to the Sakais.</p>
+
+<p>In some the poisonous qualities are located only in the roots. Of the
+<i>legop</i>, which belongs to this class I will speak further on, for now I
+will only name the <i>akar tob&agrave;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This root is first well pounded and then left to soak in some water for
+a few days after which the venomous liquid is thrown into a pond and a
+perfect massacre of big and little fish follows, all of which may be
+eaten without doing any harm to the persons.</p>
+
+<p>What sort of poison this is I cannot say for it has never been made the
+object of special study. I have proved its utility in destroying insects
+and particularly the larva of mosquitoes and the little worms that ruin
+fruit and vegetables.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The <i>ipok</i> called "<i>upas</i>" by the Malays and "<i>antiaris toxicaria</i>" by
+botanists is a tree which supplies a poisonous juice to the Sakais of
+the plain. It is a colossus of the forest, and belongs to the nettle
+family.</p>
+
+<p>It has broad, shiny leaves something like those of the magnolia, and
+numerous species are to be found in the Malay Jungle.</p>
+
+<p>When the season is not too damp and there is a full moon the Sakais make
+some deep cuts in the bark of this tree and place some bamboo tubes
+around it in order to catch the sap which flows out abundantly. This
+juice has a gluey, resinous appearance and is white or yellow according
+to whether it is extracted from the trunk or from a young bough.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="upasbranch" id="upasbranch"></a>
+<img src="images/210.jpg" width="417" height="550" alt="Upas branch and leaves" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 417px;">
+<p class="caption">A branch of the poison-tree "Upas".</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then, whilst still in the thick of the forest, they light up a fire and
+boil the liquid during which process the <i>Al&agrave;</i>, who presides over the
+work, mutters the magical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>words without which the poison would not have
+the desired force.</p>
+
+<p>It is not taken from the fire until it presents the aspect of tar, in
+thickness and colour. Finished to boil, some lemons are squeezed over it
+and after throwing in red arsenic and other drugs it is all stirred up
+together and the mixture is ready for use.</p>
+
+<p>The substances added to the <i>ipok</i>&mdash;with the exception of the
+arsenic&mdash;are not toxical but are only the expression of Sakai
+prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>The flesh of animals killed with arrows dipped in <i>ipok</i> are perfectly
+eatable after being cooked a little, but the precaution must be taken of
+cutting away for about an inch round the wound which turns purple
+immediately from the action of the poison.</p>
+
+<p>An antidote against <i>ipok</i> poisoning is found in the juice of a climber
+called <i>lemmak kapiting</i>. By energetically rubbing the wound with this
+juice all baneful effects of the <i>ipok</i> are checked.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I believe that it is amongst creepers that the most powerful poisons
+must be sought.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai is on confidential terms with the <i>gi&ugrave; u legop</i>, <i>gi&ugrave; u
+labor</i>, <i>gi&ugrave; u lampat</i>, <i>gi&ugrave; u mas&egrave;</i> and the <i>gi&ugrave; u loo</i>, but the
+<i>lampon</i> and <i>broial</i> are not forgotten either.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>The roots of these two plants yield poisons that are amongst the most
+terrible of those which abound in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me that the only difference passing between these creepers
+is in the intensity of virulence, but not in the nature of the venomous
+substances, and it is just for this that the Sakais favour the <i>legop</i>
+and make it the centre of their primitive chemical studies because it
+furnishes them with the strongest and most fatal of poisons.</p>
+
+<p>This parasite, as soon as it is long enough, clings to one of the superb
+vegetable kings of the forest, twining round it with a tenacious hold.</p>
+
+<p>Its trunk is from 2 to 4 inches in diameter and gives vigorous life to
+about 5000 feet of its offspring.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>legop</i> leaves are green, smooth and glossy, similar in form to
+those of the lemon, but they are larger. They are covered longitudinally
+by prominent nervures.</p>
+
+<p>The fruit borne by this dangerous plant is of the size and form of a
+small orange, slightly depressed at the stalk and the opposite part. It
+is very black and hard to break, a hammer or its substitute being
+necessary to disclose its contents which consist in a great number of
+little seeds embedded in a scanty pulp.</p>
+
+<p>All the Sakais extract and prepare poison from the <i>legop</i> but there is
+a tribe living in the most remote parts of the forest, severed from all
+intercourse with civilized beings, and in consequence pure barbarians,
+who are renowned for their ability in the preparation of the same, and
+whose products are considered much superior in strength.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="extracting" id="extracting"></a>
+<img src="images/212.jpg" width="600" height="401" alt="Two Sakai beside a tree" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Extracting poison from the "Upas" tree.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is the Mai Bretak tribe to whom all the other Sakais have recourse,
+carrying with them a large tribute of the goods usual in exchange. This
+speciality mixed with <i>ipok</i> is the Essence of Death in drops. The
+minutest particle that enters the blood means imminent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>extinction of
+life. The sentence is irrevocable for no remedy is known with which to
+avert it. The utter impossibility of saving a creature that has fallen a
+victim to this terrible poison has given rise to a superstition among
+the Sakais that an evil spirit hovers over, or goes into the mixture
+when it is being prepared and for this they do not set themselves to the
+work without taking numerous precautions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ipok</i> is extracted and condensed (under the exorcism of <i>Al&agrave;</i>) in the
+presence of, perhaps, all the village but no women or girls may assist
+at the preparation of <i>legop</i> lest the invisible enemy should do them
+some injury. (The spirit is evidently a woman hater!).</p>
+
+<p>The man who prepares it may not eat fish or meat on the day fixed for
+the important operation and once he has begun it he must remain fasting
+until he has finished. He is scrupulously attentive not to expose
+himself to the steam escaping from the bubbling liquid and often (here
+superstition comes to the aid of cleanliness and hygiene) has to wash
+his face and hands. But even all this caution is not sufficient and he
+is considered as a sick person for some days.</p>
+
+<p>The earthenware pot or bamboo used for the purpose must be new, nothing
+must have been cooked in it before, and nothing after. Directly the
+<i>legop</i> has been poured out it is thrown away because contaminated.</p>
+
+<p>The perfect newness of these vessels serves to increase the power of the
+poison.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A couple of days before the Sakai wishes to prepare the deadly mixture
+he goes in search of the creeper, which having found he uncovers its
+roots and to assure himself that he has not made a mistake, he tries if
+it has the bitter taste natural to it. Secure upon this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>point he digs
+up a nice lot and then fills up his dosser with two sorts of bulbous
+plants which secrete a glutinous substance but whose name and quality I
+have never found out. This done he rambles about the forest until he is
+able to find two kinds of wasps or bees (whichever they are); one is
+very big and black the sting of which causes a high fever, and which
+generally has its nest on the ground; the other is little and red,
+stings like a nettle and has its nest under the leaves of a tree.</p>
+
+<p>If he has in store some teeth of the <i>sendok</i> snake, or of any other
+equally venomous, he now returns to the village, otherwise he looks for
+one, kills it and possesses himself of its fangs.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus all the necessary ingredients, the Sakai begins to pound the
+roots into a paste. This mass he then puts into a tube stopped up by
+leaves which lets pass a liquid but not a substance. Keeping this
+primitive filter suspended over the receptacle to be used for boiling,
+he slowly empties some water into it which soaking through the paste
+becomes of a brown colour before it reaches the vessel beneath.</p>
+
+<p>Terminated the filtering process he takes the two bulbous plants and
+squeezing them in his hand he sprinkles as much of their juice as he
+thinks fit, into the same vessel. The serpent's teeth and the bees are
+then pounded, they too, and cast in with all the rest which is at once
+placed on a slow fire. When the mixture begins to boil the Sakai skims
+off the impurities floating on the surface and adds a little more
+<i>legop</i> if it seems to him necessary, taking great care, meanwhile, not
+to breath or to be enveloped by the fumes rising from the pot.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="root" id="root"></a>
+<img src="images/214.jpg" width="403" height="550" alt="dried roots" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 403px;">
+<p class="caption">Root of the poisonous creeper "Legop".</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The poison is lifted off the fire as soon as it has got to the
+consistency of a syrup and is of a dark reddish colour, the darts are
+dipped into it and its virulence is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>put to the test without waste of
+time. If the proof is satisfactory the thick fluid is poured into bamboo
+receptacles, covered with leaves, and a piece of deer-skin fastened over
+them with a band of <i>scudiscio</i> and finally the vases are collocated in
+the driest corner of the hut, from whence from time to time, they are
+carried near the fire to prevent that their contents should lose force
+through humidity.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Now the question is this: do the ingredients which the Bretak Sakai
+believes indispensable in this concoction augment the virulence of the
+<i>legop</i>?</p>
+
+<p>I am inclined to doubt it a great deal as I do not think those two
+plants containing the glutinous juice are poisonous, or at least very
+little so, but that they are added merely to give denseness to the
+mixture or else from a false supposition of the indigenes.</p>
+
+<p>And less still can serpents' teeth or crushed wasps have any influence
+in increasing the power of this poison, which is in itself intense.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the Sakais, well aware of the lethal effect of a bite from a
+serpent, think that by introducing into the wound, by means of their
+dart, a tiny portion of the organ which determines this effect, an equal
+result will follow.</p>
+
+<p>He neither knows nor imagines that the tooth exercises a simple
+mechanical action in consequence of which the little reservoir of
+poison, being compressed, lets a drop fall into the wound produced by
+the bite.</p>
+
+<p>But there is nothing to be surprised at in this because in history we
+learn that the superstitions and sorceries practised by more advanced
+races than the Sakais offer the most curious documents in proof of such
+odd reasoning.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>It is enough to remember that in the time of Augustus the jaw bone of a
+female dog, which had been kept fasting, and a quill plucked from a
+screech-owl were required for the enchantments of Canidia, <i>ossa ab ore
+rapta jejunae canis, plumanque nocturna strigis</i>. And yet it was just at
+that period Rome had inherited from Greece the Philosophy of the
+Epicureans and that of the Sceptics and was maturing the poem of
+Lucretius Carus!</p>
+
+<p>And quite recently has it not been narrated by Parson Evans, of Wales,
+how he had been badly treated by a spirit because he had forgotten a
+fumigation during one of his enchantments?</p>
+
+<p>If there has been so much imposture or hallucination amongst advanced
+peoples (or supposed to be such) we cannot reproach the poor Sakai for
+his ignorance if in all good faith he thinks that a pinch of pounded
+bees and serpents' teeth increases the virulence of the <i>legop</i> poison.
+Does he not also believe that the mysterious words muttered by the <i>Al&agrave;</i>
+give greater force to his murderous preparations?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As to the effects of the <i>legop</i> strange and contradictory versions are
+given.</p>
+
+<p>Some affirm that the smallest possible quantity brought into contact
+with the blood, causes instantaneous death; others declare that it is
+not sufficiently powerful to kill a man or a beast if the quantity
+inoculated is not in proportion to the size or if they are strong enough
+to resist it.</p>
+
+<p>It is my opinion that both these assertions are exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>One day I asked a Sakai if he thought it possible to kill a man with
+<i>legop</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>He replied that nearly every day animals of double the bulk and strength
+of a man were killed in the forest, and that the poison supplied by this
+creeper speedily fulfils its mission. As a proof of this he related that
+once he was standing near a Javanese who had been guilty of violating a
+woman. This man was hit by a poisoned dart and died almost immediately.</p>
+
+<p>Without appearing in the least to doubt the fact I begged him to show me
+the exact spot where the dart entered the poor fellow, and where it came
+out, and from his indications I could convince myself that the dart
+having penetrated under the shoulder blade had passed through the heart
+from part to part and had been arrested in its course by the muscles of
+the thorax.</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore clear to me that death was due to the passage of the
+dart through the victim's body and had nothing to do with the poison in
+which the missile had been previously steeped. To my knowledge no
+recognized studies have ever been made to ascertain the true force of
+<i>legop</i>, so one is free to calculate it at its maximum or minimum,
+especially when its susceptibility to atmospheric changes is considered.</p>
+
+<p>When the weather is dry it carries death on the wing of the arrow, but
+if it should be wet, or damp, the poison becomes moist and remains on
+the surface of the wound (where it can be easily rubbed off) instead of
+penetrating with the dart into the object aimed at.</p>
+
+<p>And this was the disillusion of one who wanted to try its effects on a
+dog. The poor beast howled with the pain but did not present any symptom
+of poisoning.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Science alone can pronounce accurately upon the toxical qualities of the
+<i>legop</i> and I am always ready to assist it with my modest experience.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>Wishing to solve every doubt and also to find out an antidote to this
+poison I sacrificed many innocent creatures, but I will relate the
+pitiful end of only two.</p>
+
+<p>I selected a fine fowl full of healthy vigour and taking one of these
+poisoned darts I made a wound of not more than a half an inch long upon
+the upper part of its leg.</p>
+
+<p>For a minute after it moved about slowly without even noticing the
+wound, then it stopped as if overcome by a strange sense of stupor, but
+soon began to peck the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes and a half later it opened and shut its beak and let its
+tail and wings fall limply on the ground. Another half a minute and with
+its legs bent under, as though sitting, it sought to raise and shake its
+drooping head. For an-instant it succeeded but the poor member wagged
+without energy (as happens to us when in travelling we get sleepy but
+have no place to repose ourselves) whilst its eyes now shut, and now
+wide open wore an expression of unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>About the fourth minute the animal was seized with violent convulsions
+and at the fifth it was quite dead.</p>
+
+<p>I made the same trial upon a middle-sized dog, wounding this also upon a
+leg in order not to touch a vital part.</p>
+
+<p>At first it seemed quite insensible to what I had done but after three
+or four minutes had passed it got very inquiet and sniffed the ground
+and everything that was around as if to find out what was the matter,
+turning round its head from time to time towards its thigh which it
+evidently felt was the seat of its uneasiness. It gave a jump, a
+prolonged shudder and then lay down.</p>
+
+<p>Once it feebly barked but when it made a second attempt it entirely
+failed. The cry was not one of pain but seemed to be a sound emitted
+under the impulse of profound bewilderment.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="legop" id="legop"></a>
+<img src="images/218.jpg" width="398" height="550" alt="Leaves and berries of a plant" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 398px;">
+<p class="caption">Branch and fruit of the poisonous creeper "Legop".</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Its head rested for a moment upon its fore-legs but was soon lifted up
+as the animal rolled over on one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>side of its body which had the
+appearance of being paralyzed. Its eyes became fixed, expressionless.
+The body shivered and gave little starts but the head remained
+motionless, lying heavily on the ground, and the eyes in their glassy
+stare revealed the absence of all perception of the senses rather than
+pain or mortal anguish.</p>
+
+<p>At this point I turned my attention to its heart which was beating
+quickly and violently. It stopped an instant, then continued but very,
+very weakly whilst the whole body began to take a rigid form.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour after the inoculation of <i>legop</i>, the dog was dead.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>If I do not mistake, the first and almost immediate effect of this
+poison is upon the nerve centres. For certain the blood remains
+unaltered, or at least no change is visible and the flesh of animals
+killed with <i>legop</i> does not lose any of its flavour nor is there any
+danger in eating it.</p>
+
+<p>But I dare not speak with any precision about the nature of certain
+venomous products because where the vast field for scientific research
+begins, the unpretending labour of the colonist, who collects, refers
+and describes, finishes, leaving to the chemical student and the
+physiologist the task of drawing from the information given, those
+results which may be for the good of humanity in general.</p>
+
+<p>The poisonous flora of the forest is not limited to trees and climbing
+plants; it extends also to countless herbs, to an infinite variety of
+fungi, berries, flowers and tempting fruits.</p>
+
+<p>The realm of poison is known but very little. It still reserves the
+greatest surprises for the scientist who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>wishes to explore it. And
+because provident Nature in every manifestation of its fecundity has the
+habit of putting different qualities in contrast I think that amongst
+such an abundant vegetation of dangerous plants there may be another,
+perhaps less plentiful but which would serve to oppose the deadly
+effects of the first.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai knows no antidote except those I have mentioned: the <i>lemmah
+kapiting</i> and the one empirically prepared with quicklime and urine.
+Neither of them, however, can be warranted as genuine articles, so in
+this field Science would have everything to discover.</p>
+
+<p>The great Sorceress, the great and incomparable Malayan Forest, offers
+wonderful treasures to the world, some of which give charms to Life and
+others conceal the snares of Death.</p>
+
+<p>It is for the <i>homo sapiens</i> to distinguish this from that and to make
+himself the master of their secrets as he has done with Electricity,
+thereby making it the means of illumination, motive power, and the
+alleviation of many physical sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>This forest, which would have answered to all the criminal exigencies of
+the Borgias as regards poisons, is still a waste land, notwithstanding
+its extraordinary riches.</p>
+
+<p>Let Science tell us of the immense treasures there produced for the
+welfare of Mankind.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="preplegop" id="preplegop"></a>
+<img src="images/220.jpg" width="600" height="402" alt="Sakai brewing poisons" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Preparing "Legop" poisons.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The <i>i</i> is almost an <i>e</i> and the <i>a</i> in all these words
+are pronounced as <i>ha</i>. <i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The professors, A. Benedicenti and G. B. De Toni, of the
+Camerino University have published the result of their studies upon the
+roots and some juice extracted from the <i>broial</i> which I sent them for
+the purpose in 1902. I think, however, that the conclusions of these two
+scientists would have been in favour of a greater and quicker effect of
+this poison if, in spite of all my care, the samples had not suffered
+from the change of climate and, very likely, been exposed to dampness.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter2">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+<img src="images/ch3.jpg" width="400" height="106" alt="decorative panel" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p class="summary">Past and future geography&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Mountains and plateaus&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;An attempt at a
+census&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Temperature&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;Maladies and remedies&#8203;&mdash;&#8203;AL&Agrave; a quack.</p>
+
+
+<p>Thirty years ago, even in our best geographies, very little mention was
+made of the Malay Peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>Something was said about its coasts and a scanty product of tin,
+antimony and coal but there was not a single word about the wide stretch
+of land far from the shores, partly unexplored and partly inhabited by
+savages, beyond stating that a chain of mountains ran the whole length,
+beginning at Kedak and Kelantan and terminating at the extreme end of
+the peninsula, so dividing it almost in the middle.</p>
+
+<p>But a geographer in our days would have to write a great deal more, for
+the interior of this country is no longer a deep inviolated mystery, and
+its aspect has proved very different from what studies, made at a
+prudent distance, had led us to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>The high mountains (the Berumbun reaches 6530 feet in height) present to
+the gaze scenery which would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>satisfy an artist. Some of the tops are
+covered with a rich, wild vegetation, some are rugged or have sharp
+peaks from which torrents of sparkling white foam dash down the narrow
+dark crevices with roaring fury.</p>
+
+<p>From those superb masses extend a series of plateaus like so many
+terraces which the more they descend the more they unfold the
+fruitfulness of the soil, irrigated by smooth rivers and rills.</p>
+
+<p>There, where mountainous fertility ceases, one to the east and the other
+to the west, lie the plains of Pahang and Perak whose industrious hands
+guided by civilized ideas are carrying on a work of redemption from
+abandonment and malaria by the extension of cultivation and sanitary
+principles.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The forest&mdash;the territory of the Sakais&mdash;covers the central part of the
+Peninsula. On the outskirts live those less savage because of their
+contact and dealings with the Malays, Siamese, Chinese and Indians, by
+whom they are surrounded. The others press always closer on towards the
+mountains at the same rate that civilization approaches them, fixing
+their abode at an elevation of not more than from 1500 to 2000 feet. I
+have found some, but a very rare case, at a height of 4000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that up there, there are not so many dangers to be met with,
+for wild beasts (with the exception of an occasional bear) and serpents
+do not frequent the heights but the cold is too intense to be well
+supported by individuals who do not wear clothes and who do not build
+houses to protect themselves from the inclemency of the weather.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="poisoning" id="poisoning"></a>
+<img src="images/222.jpg" width="600" height="414" alt="Two Sakai preparing arrows" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">Poisoning the arrows.</p>
+<p class="capright"><i>p.</i> <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The tract of land inhabited by the Sakais is, at a rough guess,
+comprised between 3&deg; 50' and 5&deg; 50' North <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>latitude and 101&deg; and 102&deg;
+East longitude (Greenwich). But for such an extension they are very few
+in numbers because in the year 1903, passing from one village to another
+in 25 days, I could not count more than 6800 persons camping round the
+durians at the ingathering season.</p>
+
+<p>Reckoning the women left behind because of a recent confinement, the old
+and infirm and the little children I do not think that altogether they
+can be many more than 10,000 souls. It is truly the case to say: "<i>rari
+nantes in gurgite vasto!</i>".</p>
+
+<p>It would be impossible to take a real census of the Sakais owing to
+their distrust of everything they do not understand and the difficulty
+their nomadic life presents.</p>
+
+<p>The climate where they live, although damp, is good, for the thick
+foliage of the forest and the breezes that often hail from the mountains
+mitigate the heat of the sun's rays.</p>
+
+<p>There are no alternations of seasons as in temperate zones but only the
+distinction of dry and rainy ones, the former being determined by the
+monsoon blowing from the east, and the latter from that coming from the
+west.</p>
+
+<p>It is not unusual for the heat at noon to surpass 40&deg; (centigrade) but
+to the torrid temperature of the day follows a cold night and the hotter
+the day is, the colder the night. From 40&deg; it easily falls under 20&deg;.
+The Sakais who possess no garments, or rugs and whose huts are very open
+and airy, sleep all huddled together (to keep each other warm) round a
+large fire but they frequently suffer from these variations of
+temperature.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I have before mentioned severe colds are very prevalent among the
+Sakais against which they have no efficacious remedy so that it often
+happens for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>simple attack of influenza to turn into a serious
+bronchial or lung affection and finally result in consumption.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the <i>tenak</i> or <i>cintok</i> is of any use then; the evil spirit
+never leaves hold of his prey.</p>
+
+<p>Cases of fever are very rare and these few must be attributed to the
+wind which ascends from the plain bringing with it germs of infection.
+It is extremely seldom that a woman dies in child-birth, but a great
+many succumb to senile decay at about 60 years of age.</p>
+
+<p>Both men and women are very subject to a cutaneous disease which covers
+the body with large blotches of a lighter colour than their skin, giving
+a repugnant appearance to the poor wretch so afflicted. But it is
+neither a serious nor a contagious illness, nor does it excite amongst
+the jungle-dwellers that loathing which it would with us because this
+discoloration does not prevent them from getting married and having
+children as healthy as other peoples'.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes one of them is struck down by an infectious disease for which
+they know no remedy or cure. The sick person is at once isolated from
+all the rest and is almost entirely abandoned in order to check any
+propagation of the malady.</p>
+
+<p>I have never noticed any illness which might be considered as peculiar
+to the people themselves or the region they inhabit but I have been able
+to establish the fact (from a special study made by me as to the causes
+of death among the Sakais) that the victims of wild beasts and serpents
+are on a very low average.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite an extraordinary thing for anybody to lose their life in
+this way if they have not by some imprudence brought death upon
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>I only remember, perhaps because it took place not long ago, that a
+young woman incautiously wandered away from her hut one evening, as it
+was getting dark, and was attacked by a panther which fastened its teeth
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>into her lower jaw. Hearing her scream the husband rushed out just in
+time to kill the animal and save his poor wife's life, but she, of
+course, remained deformed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The pharmacopoeia of these foresters, freed from all superstition, is of
+truly primitive simplicity and only contains vegetable remedies. A
+decoction of the root <i>tenak celes</i> is an excellent purgative. A
+poultice made of its leaves pounded with lime and <i>sirih</i> and applied to
+the forehead is intended to cure headache.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>sla delok</i> (a bitter leaf) serves in the place of our worm powders
+for children.</p>
+
+<p>Another leaf (the <i>sl&agrave; po&oacute;</i>) is used for curing dysentry.</p>
+
+<p>They have also several other medicines (whose virtues are kept secret by
+the <i>Al&agrave;</i>) for complaints of the stomach or that may be used at will
+without any precise knowledge of the illness needing treatment.</p>
+
+<p>The gum extracted from the <i>singret</i> is employed for stopping decayed
+teeth and is also rubbed over the cheek during a fit of tooth-ache to
+preserve it from the air, without putting on bandages.</p>
+
+<p>The Sakai makes great use of charcoal powder in his medicinal
+preparations, dressing sores, wounds and the bites of animals with it.
+This might make one suppose that he either knows or divines the
+disinfecting properties of charcoal. He also makes it a means of defence
+against the invasions of ants which change their direction when they
+find the black line across their way.</p>
+
+<p>The water in which a piece of charcoal, made from bitter wood, has been
+for a long time infused, is according to them a first-rate remedy
+against debility of the organism and coughs.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Al&agrave;</i> wisely acting for&mdash;his own good, reserves for himself the
+prerogative of mixing certain pharmaceutical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> specialities which make
+the patient recover if the indisposition is merely a passing one, but
+help to kill him if the conditions of his health are serious.</p>
+
+<p>He always keeps prompt some plasters prepared from herbs, either of a
+soothing or irritating nature, in case of fractures, sprains, or
+dislocations caused by accidental falls.</p>
+
+<p>But it is scarcely worth while to discuss the merits of these
+cataplasms, for the Sakai, who is the first person interested in the
+question, acknowledges and admits their healing virtues.</p>
+
+<p>All the world is akin, and the much respected <i>Al&agrave;</i> of the forest is
+nothing less than an uncivilized colleague of those charlatans,
+inventors of miracles, who by the sale of powders, lotions, medicinal
+waters and ointments make their fortune in the midst of civilized
+society, often deceiving science and common sense by means of well
+placed advertisements.</p>
+
+<p>One is an educated and the other an uneducated quack.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My notes finish here. They are wanting in order and art but not in
+verity because above all I have dedicated this writing to the truth,
+prompted by feelings of gratitude and good will towards my kind friends
+the savages. I have wished to illustrate the customs and character of a
+people very much calumniated, amongst whom I have found strong and
+devoted friendship free from every taint of jealousy or self-interest.</p>
+
+<p>Sixteen years of a tranquil, laborious life have I passed among the
+Sakais and still to-day I feel a pang of home-sickness thinking of that
+wonderfully fertile land and its good and simple inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>If my words have been clear to you, dear reader, you must have remarked
+that in those savages are to be found real treasures of uprightness,
+honesty and common sense. And the first seeds of these virtues were sown
+by nobody for they bud and blossom in their souls as spontaneously as
+from the bosom of great Mother Nature the marvellous multitude of flora
+rises up towards the sun, seeking light and heat.</p>
+
+<p>It is not so amongst us. Civilization teaches virtue: sermons preach it;
+moralists condense it into precepts and aphorisms; historians honour it
+in the ancients in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>order to inspire it in the moderns; laws, and the
+menaces of Hell, want to impose it. And yet, notwithstanding all this,
+it cannot flower well for too often it is fettered by the frenzy of
+"getting ahead" and by the spasms of passions which in the superb
+majesty of the forest, and under its sublime influence, are neither
+known nor understood. Here one works serenely, undisturbed by the fear
+that others will rob you of your profit.</p>
+
+<p>I mention the fact but leave others to draw the conclusion because if I
+arrived at that which would seem most logical after the premise, I
+should be called a worse savage than those I have held up to public
+admiration and if I arrived at any other I should be accused (and with
+reason) of contradiction.</p>
+
+<p>I will instead declare that, in spite of certain discouraging proofs, I
+firmly keep my faith in human progress, believing that Science will one
+day succeed in lessening the grand anguish accruing from the incessant
+and cruel "struggle for life".</p>
+
+<p>My chief reason for illustrating the virtues and defects of the
+little-known Sakais is to present them more closely to the attention of
+England, that, by delivering them from the contempt and able trickery of
+other races, might easily lead them to civilization and at the same time
+form important and lucrative centres of agricultural product in the
+interior of the Peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>It is without the slightest idea of boasting that I state I have always
+remained among the Sakais alone and unarmed, in my work as a colonist.
+In this way it was possible for me to overcome hostility and mistrust,
+winning confidence and affection from one of the most uncivilized of
+peoples. And the fact gives me the greatest satisfaction for it
+demonstrates in a modest, but not for that less eloquent manner, that
+armed expeditions however fine and imposing in appearance (according to
+taste) have not the practical or lasting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>value of peaceful, friendly
+overtures. Civilization which pretends to impose itself by violence,
+slaughter and sackage only sows hatred. The pretended saviours become
+oppressors, and having begun by force they are compelled to resort to
+force if they wish to keep the dominion which a ferment of hatred,
+little by little, is undermining.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore no arms, no missions (tending to substitute one terror for
+another) but only patience and calmness are necessary for the conquest
+of those simple souls and to subsequently teach them, through example,
+to devote themselves to work. They must be made to feel that
+civilization is useful, the inspirer of good and not an insidious
+injurer.</p>
+
+<p>What can savages think when they are subjected to depredation and
+bloodshed by those who, with these measures, have come to them to
+proclaim the principles of respect for other people's property and the
+inviolability of human life?</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed a great pleasure to me finding that to-day the Sakais no
+longer distrust civilization and some of them, especially the younger
+ones, do not refuse or shrink from work as they once did and neither do
+they oppose such an obstinate resistance to those innovations which I
+too had a part in introducing among them.</p>
+
+<p>I leave it to my readers to judge if I am guilty of vanity in thus
+expressing my contentment.</p>
+
+<p>And now I have finished.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<p>Transcriber's Note: This errata prepared by the author/translator is included for historical and
+archival interest only. All the changes specified by this errata have already been implemented in the
+etext.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>ERRATA</b></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="errata">
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Page</td><td class="tdr">14</td><td class="tdc">line</td>
+<td class="tdr1">26</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>qualities.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">39</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">32</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>wished.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">50</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">16</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl">read <i>debtors</i> for <i>creditors</i>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Chap.</td><td class="tdr">IV</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">3</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>twilight.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Page</td><td class="tdr">61</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">3</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>centuries.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">80</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">14</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>inefficacious.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">84</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">19</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>safeguard.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Chap.</td><td class="tdr">VIII</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">7</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>coronation.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Page</td><td class="tdr">85</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">12</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>gratify.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">96</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">30</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>previous.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">107</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">12</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>too.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">111</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">13</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>too.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">"</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">17</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>search.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">112</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr">last line</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>enjoy.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">124</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">1</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>attained.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">128</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr">last line</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>equal.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">131</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">28</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl">for <i>economic</i> read <i>financial</i>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">133</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">29</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>consequence.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">134</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">13</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>without.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">139</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">2</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>read same time.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">141</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">2</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>obliged.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">146</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">16</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>appetizing.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">178</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr">footnote</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>chinneloy.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">187</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">6</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>falsehood.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">193</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">1</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>But it is.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td><td class="tdr">207</td><td class="tdc">"</td>
+<td class="tdr1">32</td><td class="tdr">&mdash;</td><td class="tdl"><i>Sakai.</i></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<p class="center"><b>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</b></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Every effort has been made to preserve the original text, including
+non-standard spelling and grammar as well as inconsistencies in the
+transliteration of non-English words (both in spelling and use of
+diacritics.) Non-standard spelling has been preserved if the word is
+understandable in context. Changes to the text have only been made in
+the case of obvious typographical errors and where not making a
+correction would leave the text confusing or difficult to read. All
+changes are documented in the notes below. The original text also
+included an errata page by the author/translator. The changes specified
+in this errata have been implemented and are also documented in the
+notes below.</p>
+
+<p>Treatment of quotation marks. In the original text, the
+author/translator used a variant of a European convention in which
+quoted text began with double quotation marks and ended with double
+low-9 quotation marks (present in unicode as U+201E). For the
+convenience of users who may not be able to display unicode, the double
+low-9 quotation marks have been replaced by regular double quotation
+marks.</p>
+
+<p>In the author/translator's original style of punctuation, full-stops
+were always placed outside of the closing quotation marks. Where quoted
+text ended with an exclamation or question mark, these would be placed
+inside the closing quotation mark and then a terminating full-stop
+would be added outside the quotation mark as in this example:
+"<i>Sacramento</i>!". This style of punctuation has been preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Some blocks of quoted text were enclosed in double angle quotation
+marks (or guillemets). This style of punctuation has been preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words have been preserved.
+(blowpipe/s, blow-pipe/s; earrings, ear-rings; earthenware,
+earthen-ware; goodbye, good-bye; hairpins, hair-pins; midnight,
+mid-night; recalled, re-called; recommenced, re-commenced; reproduced,
+re-produced; woodcutter's, wood-cutter's)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 12, "meetins" changed to "meeting". (but once a meeting has)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 12, "sould" changed to "should". (why should we consider the
+fierceness)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 14, "qualilies" changed to "qualities". From author's original
+errata. (qualities of courage and energy)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 20, "philosphy" changed to "philosophy". (But my philosophy soon
+took the)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 20, "come" changed to "some". (a Pullman's car or some other
+vehicle)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 21, closing quote inserted to end at end of paragraph. (a continual
+increase of danger".)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 25, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (in conseguence, the
+presence of)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 28, "stiffiness" changed to "stiffness". (Besides the stiffness of
+my joints)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 29, "as" changed to "us". (you insult us and call)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 35, "dutieu" changed to "duties". (all the various duties of)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 35, "kiching" changed to "kicking". (kicking and batting)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 35, "belongig" changed to "belonging". (of some land belonging to
+two)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 36, "te" changed to "to". (my desire to become better acquainted)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 36, "contry" changed to "country". (but in him his country lost)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 36, "recipt" changed to "receipt". (tight hold of the receipt)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 38, "indefaticable" changed to "indefatigable". (his indefatigable
+energy brings forth)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 39, duplicated "a" removed. (we threw a well-pounded leaf)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 39, "wishcd" changed to "wished". From author's original errata.
+(if I wished for fortune)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 47, "af" changed to "of". (in spite of its glass eyes)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 47, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (The consequence was
+quite)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 50, "creditors" changed to "debtors". From author's original
+errata. (as his debtors could not pay)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 51, "equal" changed to "equal". (is quite equal to the task)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 59, Chapter VI summary, "Everlasting twlight" changed to
+"Everlasting twilight". From author's original errata.</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 55, "sirene" changed to "sirens". (and its steam sirens?)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 55, "Telok Ansom". Author's original text retained, although he
+probably intended to refer to the town more commonly called "Telok
+Anson".</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 55, "Sakay" occurs here and in a few other instances in the text.
+Elsewhere it is spelled "Sakai". The original spelling has been
+preserved in all instances.</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 60, "incease" changed to "increase". (swarms of insects increase
+its agony by making)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 60, "miriads" changed to "myriads". (these myriads of plants)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 61, "centures" changed to "centuries". From author's original
+errata. (destined to brave centuries)</p>
+
+<p>Footnote 5, "i" changed to "I". (I ate it with relish)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 71, "Proctectorate" changed to "Protectorate". (remote Eastern
+Protectorate)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 71, "Pymalion". Author's original text retained, although more
+commonly spelled "Pygmalion".</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 76, "varities" changed to "varieties". (varieties of serpents, big
+and small)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 77, "smakes" changed to "snakes". (danger from snakes)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 80, "inefficatious" changed to "inefficacious". From author's
+original errata. (inefficacious when a man</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 84, "safe-quard" changed to "safeguard". From author's original
+errata. (behaviour being his safeguard)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 85, Chapter VIII summary. "incoronation" changed to "coronation".
+From author's original errata. (coronation of King Edward VII)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 85, "gratisfy" changed to "gratify". (such as to gratify a little
+ambition)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 87, "responsable" changed to "responsible". (to establish the
+responsibility)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 93, quotation marks fixed. '"By thus living separate, "he said"
+each family....' changed to '"By this living separate," he said "each
+family....'.</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 96, "aud" changed to "and". (produces and causes)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 96, "previons" changed to "previous". From author's original
+errata. (to my previous position)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 97, "angiush" changed to "anguish". (that awful anguish I had)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 107, "two" changed to "too". From author's original errata. (I,
+too, have often made)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 110, duplicated word "of" removed. (I speak only of the Sakais)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 110, "investicating" changed to "investigating". (feel of
+investigating our neighbour's past)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 111, "two" changed to "too". From author's original errata. (are
+too long in proportion)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 111, "scarch" changed to "search". From author's original errata.
+(the like in search)</p>
+
+<p>Footnote 8, "eujoy" changed to "enjoy". (If to-day is ours to enjoy.)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 112, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (in consequence of
+their long exposure) )</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 117, extraneous comma in "etc., Rice" removed as it appears a new
+sentence is being started. (etc. Rice is an imported luxury)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 118, "elever" changed to "clever". (are very clever)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 120, "off" changed to "of" (or of ill-treating them in any way)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 121, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (agree in consequence
+of the difference)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 122, "risult" changed to "result". (but the result of the
+circumstances)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 124, "altained" changed to "attained". From author's original
+errata. (attained or the future)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 126, caption of illustration following this page, "Bois practising
+shooting" changed to "Boys practising shooting".</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 128, "egual" changed to "equal". From author's original errata.
+(all are equal)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 131, "economic" changed to "financial". From author's original
+errata. (financial conditions to permit the formation)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 133, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". From author's original
+errata. (The immediate consequence of)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 134, "withont" changed to "without". From author's original errata.
+(and without any hope of reward)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 139, "same" changed to "same time". From author's original errata.
+(has, at the same time, to)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 139, "civilizied" changed to "civilized". (with what civilized)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 141, "obbliged" changed to "obliged". From author's original
+errata. (I have been obliged)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 141, "boudaries" changed to "boundaries". (the boundaries of
+village)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 141, "settlments" changed to "settlements". (these settlements that
+I have)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 143, "to-morow" changed to "to-morrow". (to-morrow a common danger)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 143, "betwen" changed to "between" (which exists between)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 146, "appetising" changed to "appetizing". From author's original
+errata. (into appetizing capons)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 150, "inventary" changed to "inventory". (the inventory of their
+kitchen)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 153, "Notwithslanding" changed to "Notwithstanding".
+(Notwithstanding this sharpening)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 158, glossary entry under "Evil", "sonnd" changed to "sound".
+(<i>alphabetical sound of</i> e)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 161, "scems" changed to "seems". (that seems to be composed)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 162, "attemps" changed to "attempts". (renounces all attempts)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 171, "indipendence" changed to "independence". (their "spirit of
+independence")</p>
+
+<p>Footnote 15, "chineloy" changed to "chinneloy". From author's original
+errata. (Pronounced <i>chinneloy</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 180, "contorsion" changed to "contortion". (every jump and
+contortion)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 184, "de" changed to "do". (Sakais do not refuse)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 184, "reasou" changed to "reason". (reason the terrible beast)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 184, "Spirt" changed to "Spirit". (Evil Spirit who is continually)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 184, "wcked" changed to "wicked". (play his wicked tricks)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 184, "serinity" changed to "serenity". (the serenity of their
+simple minds)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 184, "frequenty" changed to "frequently". (hurricanes that
+frequently)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 185, "thay" changed to "they". (evil spirits that they believe)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 186, "esixtence" changed to "existence". (the existence of a Good
+Spirit)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 186, "os" changed to "as". (so much so as never)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 186, "II" changed to "It". (It must also be considered)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 187, "falshood" changed to "falsehood". From author's original
+errata. (tell you a falsehood)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 188, "siezed" changed to "seized". (seized with great terror)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "imdetuous" presumed to be "impetuous". This text has several
+instances of inverted letters, as though the type-setter placed the
+type upside down. (The impetuous currents of air)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "twoo" changed to "two". (two-fold office)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "breaded" presumed to be "dreaded", which makes more sense in
+context (see the dreaded Being)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "scceeds" changed to "succeeds". (and succeeds in over-ruling)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "t&ograve;" changed to "to". (in order to ascertain)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "notwithstending" changed to "notwithstanding".
+(notwithstanding the cabalistic)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "sesisting" changed to "resisting". (resisting and defeating
+him)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "kflled" changed to "killed". has overcome and killed him)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 189, "upringht" changed to "upright". (in an upright position)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "dayu" changed to "days". (For seven days continual)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "provider" changed to "provided". (it is provided with)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "fother's" changed to "father's". (his father's dignity)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "keed" changed to "keep". (alone to keep watch)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "ir" changed to "in". (incense-pan in which he burns)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "spyng" changed to "spying". (of spying his actions)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "ningt's" changed to "night's". (the night's proceedings)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "alght" changed to "alight". (continues to keep alight)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "slinghtest" changed to "slightest". (the slightest movement
+of fear)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 190, "sciene" changed to "science". (the occult science of his)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 191, "the had watchad". Either a word is missing after "the", or
+"the" was meant to be "he". Changed to "he had watched". (proof that he
+had watched that night)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 191, "suol" changed to "soul". (soul of the dead man)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 191, "pzwer" changed to "power". (power would be lost)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 191, "moltals" changed to "mortals". (poor mortals around)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 191, "efficatious" changed to "efficacious". (venomous virtue more
+efficacious)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 192, "throug" changed to "through". (opening left through the)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 192, "patien's budy" changed to "patient's body". (from the
+patient's body)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 192, "thereforo be heriocally" changed to "therefore be
+heroically". (must therefore be heroically fought)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 192, "villagn" changed to "village". (The village in which the)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 192, "forbibben" changed to "forbidden". (light is absolutely
+forbidden)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 193, "But is" changed to "But it is". From author's original
+errata. (But it is intended)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 193, "succomb" changed to "succumb". (if he does not succumb)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 193, "corpe" changed to "corpse". (leave the corpse)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 194, "aud" changed to "and". (performed and they regularly)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 199, "aed" changed to "and". (and makes abundant ablutions)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 199, "Sakia" changed to "Sakai". Sakai is presumed to be the word
+most likely intended. (death of a Sakai)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 199, "aven" changed to "even". (not require even the intervention)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "bi" changed to "by". (by distraction of thought)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "partticular" changed to "particular". (have no particular)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, single quote mark changed to comma. (cooking their food,
+preparing their poisons)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "nigt" changed to "night". (warming them during the night)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "mathes" changed to "matches". (I gave them matches)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "Thek" changed to "They". (They may be briefly summed)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "stil" changed to "still". (are still under the thick)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200, "dobt" changed to "doubt". (bright light of a first doubt)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 200 "far" changed to "for", appears more appropriate in context.
+(creatures for whom the discouraging counsel)</p>
+
+<p>Footnote 18, "studyng" changed to "studying". (without studying it)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 201, "pratice" changed to "practice". (the practice of morality)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 201, added full-stop at end of sentence (they do not understand or
+cannot.)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 202, Chapter XV summary. An entire line "The <i>labar</i>, <i>lampat</i>,
+<i>mas&egrave;</i> and <i>loo</i>" appears to be missing as can be seen from the
+equivalent summary paragraph in the Table of Contents.</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 202, Chapter XV summary. "Nai Bretaks" is given as "Mai Bretaks" in
+the table of contents. Original text preserved in both cases.</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 207, "triomphantly" changed to "triumphantly". (victors carry it
+triumphantly)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 207, "sch" changed to "such". (There is such a rich)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 207, "areparation" changed to "preparation". (preparation of
+poisons)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 207, "famigliar" changed to "familiar" (most familiar are)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 207, "Jnst" changed to "Just". (Just as a gun)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 207, "Sakais doen" changed to "Sakai does". Includes author's
+original errata. (the Sakai does not waste)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 208, "frepuently" changed to "frequently". (the other is
+frequently)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 208, "properrties" changed to "properties". (contain miraculous
+properties)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 208, "soffee" changed to "coffee". (coffee, sugar, rice)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 209, "intollerably" changed to "intolerably". (that itch
+intolerably)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 211, "ealled" changed to "called". (climber called <i>lemmak
+kapiting</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 214, "ander" changed to "under". (its nest under the leaves of)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 215, "<i>of scudiscio</i>" changed to "of <i>scudiscio</i>". Author's style
+was to italicise non-English words but there did not seem to be a
+reason to italicise the word "of" and this is possibly a typographical
+error. (with a band of <i>scudiscio</i> and)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 216, "Lucretuis" changed to "Lucretius". (the poem of Lucretius
+Carus!)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 221, "Kedak" probably refers to the place now more commonly spelled
+"Kedah", however the original text has been preserved. (Kedak and
+Kelantan)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 224, "propogation" changed to "propagation". (propagation of the
+malady)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 225, "seream" changed to "scream". (Hearing her scream the husband)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 228, "nowithstanding" changed to "notwithstanding".
+(notwithstanding all this)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. "229" "to day" changed to "to-day" (that to-day the Sakais no
+longer)</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's My Friends the Savages, by Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Friends the Savages
+       Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula)
+
+Author: Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
+Translator: I. Stone Sanpietro
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #28189]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FRIENDS THE SAVAGES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by A Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
+digital material generously made available by the Internet
+Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  MY FRIENDS
+  THE SAVAGES
+
+
+  BY
+  Captain G. B. CERRUTI
+
+
+  TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN
+  BY I. STONE SANPIETRO
+
+
+  NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS OF A
+  PERAK SETTLER (MALAY PENINSULA).
+  RICHLY ILLUSTRATED WITH
+  ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY
+  THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+  COMO (Italy)
+  TIPOGRAFIA COOPERATIVA COMENSE
+  1908
+
+
+
+
+  _Every copy of this work not bearing the
+  author's signature will be retained by him
+  as an infringement of his rights._
+
+  [Signature of author]
+
+
+
+
+  These notes, the fruit of much
+  sacrifice, I dedicate to the memory
+  of my dear ones.
+
+  The fond embrace of parents and
+  a sister, which for me was a sweet
+  augury at my departure, greeted me
+  no more at my return!
+
+  _Varazze, June 1906._
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This table of contents was originally at the end
+of the book but has been moved here for the convenience of users.]
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  Chapter I: Malacca and its contrasts--Devourers of
+    the soul and devourers of the body--The realization
+    of a poet's dream--Temptations--A call from the
+    forest--Auri sacra fames--Baggage--Farewell to
+    civilization                                            _Page_    5
+
+  Chapter II: My escort--By steamer to Telok Anson--The
+    other bank of the Perak--Towards the forest--First
+    news--Blood-letting in the swamp--Robbed and
+    forsaken--Revenge in due time--The Malay's
+    instigation--My little Sam Sam's fidelity--
+    Philosophical reflections under a heavy weight             "     11
+
+  Chapter III: A fearful nocturnal concert--Fire!
+    Fire!--A clearing in the forest--A general
+    flight--Masters of the camp!--Mortal
+    weariness--A morning greeting without any
+    compliments--A first meeting--In the
+    village--_Ala_ against the Orang-putei                     "     22
+
+  Chapter IV: New friends--Gold--An English official--
+    The purchase of my future treasure--Administrative
+    simplicity--England teaches!--The "sla pui"--Bitter
+    disappointment--The Sam-Sam--The poison of the
+    Savage and the venom of the Civilized                      "     31
+
+  Chapter V: Great Mother Earth--A dangerous meeting--
+    A living statue--Here or there?--An unrelished
+    supper--A dreaded immigration--A glance into
+    the past--A rape which was not a rape--A noble
+    task--Towards the mountain--Tiger-shooting--The
+    Sakais in town--Alloyed sweets--Musical tastes--
+    Hurrah for the free forest!                                "     42
+
+  Chapter VI: The great Sorceress--The forest seen from
+    above--A struggle for life--The crimes of plants--
+    Everlasting twilight--Births and deaths--Concerts
+    by forest vocalists--The "durian"--The "ple-lok"--
+    Vastnesses unexplored by science--Treasures
+    intact--Para Rubber--The Samaritans of the
+    jungle--The forest and its history                         "     59
+
+  Chapter VII: The snares of civilized life--Faust's
+    invocation--The dangers of the forest--Serpents--
+    A perilous adventure--Carnivorous and herbivorous
+    animals--The "sladan"--The man of the wood                 "     75
+
+  Chapter VIII: 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                              "     85
+
+  Chapter IX: The origin of the Sakais--Hypothesis
+    and legend--Physical character--Thick tresses,
+    gay flowers and troublesome guests--Hereditary
+    antipathy--The five senses reduced to two--
+    Food and drink--Tranquil life--Intolerance of
+    authority--Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law--
+    Logical laziness--A Sakai journalist--The story
+    of a mattress                                              "    107
+
+  Chapter X: The Sakai woman--Conjugal fidelity--A life
+    of labour--Betrothals and nuptials--Love among
+    the Sakais--Divorcement--No kissing--Chastity--
+    Bigamy--Maternity and its excesses--Aged before the
+    time--Fashion and coquetry                                 "    125
+
+  Chapter XI: A Sakai village--The "elder"--The family--
+    Degrees of relationship--Humorists disoccupied--On
+    the march--Tender hearts--Kindling the fire--A
+    hecatomb of giants--The hut--Household goods and
+    utensils--Work and repose                                  "    141
+
+  Chapter XII: Intellectual development--Sakais of the
+    plain and Sakais of the hills--Laziness and
+    intelligence--Falsehood and the Evil Spirit--
+    The Sakai language--When the "Orang Putei" gets
+    angry--Counting time--Novel calendars--Moral gifts         "    152
+
+  Chapter XIII: First attempts at industry--The story of
+    a hat--Multiplicity--Primitive arts--Sakai music--
+    Songs--Instruments--Dances--Ball dresses--Serpentine
+    gracefulness--An unpublished Sakai song                    "    172
+
+  Chapter XIV: The beliefs and superstitions of the
+    Sakais--Metempsychosis--The Evil Spirit--
+    Superstition among savages and ignorance among
+    civilized people--The two sources of life--The
+    wind--The Ala priest and physician--A scientific
+    vigil--Venerable imposture!-_Tenac_ and _Cintok_--
+    Therapeutic torture--Contagion--A Sakai's
+    death--The deserted village--Mourning--Births--
+    Fire--Intellectual darkness--The Sakais and
+    Islamism                                                   "    183
+
+  Chapter XV: Sakai arms--Shooting--Serpent
+    catchers--The Sakai and his poisons--_Toalang_,
+    _rengas_ and _sagol_--_Sla dol_, _sla plek_
+    and _sla clob_--_Akar toka_--Ipok--An antidote--
+    The _labar_, _lampat_, _mase_ and _loo_--The
+    _legop_--The Mai Bretaks--The preparation of
+    _legop_--Curious and superfluous ingredients--The
+    effects of _legop_--Strange contradictions--
+    Experiments--Poisons and antidotes--The settler
+    and science                                                "    202
+
+  Chapter XVI: Past and future geography--Mountains
+    and plateaus--An attempt at a census--Temperature--
+    Maladies and remedies--_Ala_ a quack.                      "    221
+
+
+
+
+AMONG THE SAKAIS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  Malacca and its contrasts--Devourers of the soul and devourers of
+  the body--The realization of a poet's dream--Temptations--A call
+  from the forest--Auri sacra fames--Baggage--Farewell to
+  civilization.
+
+
+From the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Siam the Malay Peninsula, once
+known as the Golden Chersonese, jets out into the Indian Ocean like an
+arm stretched forth to unite once more within its embrace the
+innumerable isles that belt its coasts and that have probably been
+severed from the mainland by the combined force of Time and Sea.
+
+In these surrounding islands, some as large as continents, others as
+narrow as reefs, over which civilization passes in squalls of cupidity,
+are concealed the strangest contrasts, for whilst around the shore human
+wolves disguised as civilized men are devouring souls, or (with due
+observance of the law) are usurping and stealing their neighbour's
+property and products, (the cleverest and most respected being he who
+best dissembles his rapacity or who knows how best to substitute
+unscrupulous shrewdness for industrial activity) not far off towards
+the centre of these scattered lands other men, in primitive ignorance of
+the law, are devouring their neighbours' flesh and skin or stealing
+their live bodies to serve as slaves.
+
+But such curious contrasts are not after all so very striking when one
+considers that to devour souls and to devour flesh are both natural
+instincts of Man!
+
+Around the coast of the Peninsula are many flourishing towns where every
+modern and up-to-date accommodation is to be found. These seaside
+resorts are thronged with a cosmopolitan population composed of
+tourists, business men, nabobs and adventurers. There life rolls on in
+the refined corruption of fashionable society amidst sports and
+amusements, scandals and intrigues, every race and every tongue
+contributing its share of good and evil. A motley crowd swarms their
+streets, presenting to the eye of an onlooker the picturesque spectacle
+that the contrast of costumes always produces. They are people of
+different colours, dress and education, attracted thither by the
+loadstone of wealth. The fortunate, the clever, the unscrupulous have
+already gained the victory in Life's struggles and now ride about in
+motor-cars of the newest types; the others look at them, most likely
+envy them, and work all the harder to get rich themselves. Will they
+succeed? The way, here is a short one but can only be successfully
+trodden by those who possess sound energy and blind confidence in their
+own brains and in their own muscles. It must not be thought, however,
+that the motor-car is a prerogative, in these parts, of opulent
+Europeans and Chinese for it is also a powerful auxiliary for those who
+are striving to make their fortunes through agricultural and mining
+speculations in the wildest regions of the Peninsula.
+
+But whilst near the sea the inhabitants and travellers can enjoy all the
+luxuries and conveniences of the 20th century, in the interior of the
+Peninsula, leading a nomadic life in the thick of the jungle, which
+covers the range of mountains from north to south, a primitive people
+still exists. All unconscious of the violent passions and turbulent
+emotions that disturb the tranquillity of their fellow-creatures
+(civilized in form if not in fact) at some miles distant from them, they
+live quietly and peaceably in their forest homes preserving intact their
+original simplicity and ingenuousness.
+
+The hot breath of our fagging life, that generates every sort of nerve
+complaint, has not yet reached their mountain haunts. On those wild
+heights the nerves rest; the affections are not tormented; love is pure
+and, for this, lasting; ambition neither perverts the mind, nor consumes
+the conscience; there are no honours or favours to arouse envy; no
+artificial boundaries to liberty or difficult problems about Capital and
+Labour; there are no rich and no poor, for in that blessed spot money is
+an unknown article and what is more--strange triumph of the Savage over
+the Civilized--every man is a brother to the other!
+
+Up there in the forest there are neither princes nor subjects;
+Governments nor Police; no Tax-gatherers, public meetings or strikes so
+that if Stecchetti[1] were still living he might have been sent among
+the Sakais to find the ideal place of which he was always seeking the
+address.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The 15th of June 1891 I landed at Penang (the Prince of Wales's Island)
+on my return from an exploring tour in the Isle of Nias. I was feeling
+rather worn out with the fatigues lately undergone so resolved to rest
+awhile on British territory.
+
+I had brought with me a rich and interesting ethnographical collection I
+found no difficulty in selling to the Perak Government that destined it
+to the Museum at Taiping, a small town where is the British Residence.
+
+During my well-earned repose I often heard speak of the Mai Darats, a
+tribe of Aborigines dwelling in the interior of the Peninsula and who
+were called by the name of Sakais by the Malays, a scornful appellation
+which signifies _a people of slaves_, and this insulting term is
+explained by the fact that formerly their neighbours carried on an
+extensive slave-trade by making them victims and also took advantage of
+their simplicity and good faith in many other ways, until the British
+Protectorate was established and these poor wandering tribes were put
+upon a par with more civilized races.
+
+I began to gather information concerning these wild men of the bush and
+learnt that they inhabited the unfrequented parts of the Perak and
+Pahang States, that they were a nomadic race and that they passed most
+of their time in the abstraction and preparation of vegetable and animal
+poisons in which art they were exceptionally expert and that they were
+equally skilful in shooting poisoned arrows. Some of my informants
+wanted to make me believe that they were exceedingly ferocious by nature
+and so superstitious that they would aim their deadly dart at whatever
+stranger ventured to approach them, believing him to be the messenger of
+some Evil Spirit and that afterwards they would make of him a dainty
+meal to comfort their insatiable stomachs.
+
+But knowing something of the previous relations between the Sakais and
+the people surrounding them I was put on my guard against certain
+exaggerated and prejudiced reports and felt strongly tempted to try and
+dissipate the vague mystery--that I somehow guessed was based upon
+self-interest--in which they wished to envelop the Mai Darats.
+
+The more they told me about them the more I felt attracted towards the
+Sakais, it seeming to me that a people so foreign to every light of
+civilization, so bold as they were described to be, so free from every
+regime or authority, must needs afford an interesting study to one who
+sought to know them at close quarters. Perhaps, when once I had overcome
+the, not always surmountable, difficulty of getting into their company,
+I might find amongst them a tranquil life and settle down in their midst
+as a planter or agriculturist for I was already convinced that I was
+unfitted for commercial enterprises in which very often scruples of
+conscience and uprightness are encumbrances.
+
+My brief sojourn in civilized society made me long for the freedom and
+peace which, may be, awaited me there; I longed to know intimately these
+people who, I reasoned to myself, must be exempt from corruption as they
+were so much hated by those who lived in its midst, and who were
+surrounded by so much mystery.
+
+There was, I must confess, another reason that helped to draw me towards
+the Sakai camps. I know not how the germ took root, but in my brain the
+conviction was always growing that in the heart of the Peninsula,
+already proved to be rich in metals, a gold vein might be discovered.
+
+The Virgilian _auri sacra fames_ took possession of me little by little,
+solved every remaining doubt, conquered all my hesitations and removed
+every obstacle.
+
+This impetus united with the longing for new adventures, for profound
+emotions, for a life far different in every respect to that I was then
+passing in a sphere of elegant slavery, imposed by ridiculous
+conventionalisms, decided me, and I packed up my baggage.
+
+Just imagine: a strong piece of tarred canvas to be converted into a
+camp-bed by means of four wooden pegs; a hat, four shirts and some
+woollen undervests, a few pairs of trousers and socks, some very light
+canvas shoes, and one or two khaki jackets as used by the soldiers in
+Africa.
+
+I did not forget though that it was very possible to catch some sort of
+illness and as in those parts a malady followed by death may be
+considered an involuntary suicide but never a homicide because.... there
+are no doctors to cure you, I also provided myself with a small stock of
+purgative lozenges, quinine, some antiseptic preparations and a
+bistoury.
+
+Thus having quickly arranged for my new journey and having supplied
+myself with such elements as would be useful to me under the
+circumstances, I added to them a large quantity of tobacco and coloured
+beads--two things that exercise a great power over savages--and bidding
+farewell to all the culinary delicacies adapted to weak digestions, and
+turning my back upon all domestic comfort, I started forth towards the
+Unknown.
+
+[Illustration: A group of Mai Darats, called "Sakais".
+
+_p._ 8.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: An Italian poet who wrote many humorous
+verses.--Translator's Note.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+  My escort--By steamer to Telok Anson--The other bank of the
+  Perak--Towards the forest--First news--Blood-letting in the
+  swamp--Robbed and forsaken--Revenge in due time--The Malay's
+  instigation--My little Sam Sam's fidelity--Philosophical
+  reflections under a heavy weight.
+
+
+The kind reader who peruses these poor pages of notes and memories,
+accustomed to hear speak of expeditions organised for the purpose of
+penetrating into inhospitable lands or into regions encompassed by all
+the terrors of the unknown, will perhaps think that I was jesting when I
+gave the inventory of my luggage in the last chapter and that from sheer
+vaunt I did not mention the support of some Geographical or Commercial
+Society and neither the tons of goods which would follow in my wake, nor
+the numerous waggons and armed battalion that had to escort me.
+
+No, nothing of all this, for to tell the truth I have always found more
+harm than good done by these etceteras to an explorer's equipment, and
+for this reason, even in my most arduous travels, I always set out, as
+it were, alone, confiding only in my own forces. And let me explain why.
+
+From the very beginning of my wanderings in countries populated by
+savages, to some of whom is attributed the most sanguinary instincts, I
+reassured myself by a logical conclusion which experience has shown me
+to be quite right.
+
+If the fierceness of wild beasts, I reasoned to myself, is nothing else
+but a paroxysm of fear why should we consider the fierceness of the
+savages caused by other motives? Man, however wild may be his state, has
+been endowed with intelligence although in some cases this intellectual
+faculty is possessed in the smallest possible degree. Let us then make
+him understand that he has nothing to fear from us and little by little,
+if our patience does not fail, he will grow more gentle and become a
+friend instead of an enemy.
+
+Therefore to-day, as well as in the past, I carefully avoid warlike
+preparations, brigandish masquerades or any escort of a prepotent or
+menacing appearance. I go ahead like a simple wayfarer, with a smiling
+face and friendly gestures, leaving my gun (which is indispensable in
+defending oneself from the attacks of wild beasts) slung over my
+shoulder.
+
+The first welcome, I admit, is far from being cordial, and there is
+always the risk of falling into a trap dexterously laid for big game and
+strangers or of being ably struck by a poisoned dart, but once a meeting
+has been obtained without any serious consequences accruing, it is not
+so difficult as it might be supposed to follow it up with a parley, for
+the feared (and fearing) individual is dumbfounded at the extraordinary
+double event of either not having killed you or of not having been
+killed himself, according to the law of reciprocity which for him is
+inviolable.
+
+Under the impression of this very strange fact he will not oppose
+resistance to a peaceable understanding and afterwards in order to
+ensure his friendship there only needs a quick intuition of the poor
+creature's superstitions, beliefs and susceptibilities and a spirit of
+precaution against offending his puerile vanity or of in any way
+provoking jealousy or mistrust.
+
+When he is persuaded that the presence of his undesired guest brings him
+no evil he will give you his full confidence and spontaneously accept
+you as a benevolent and powerful protector.
+
+The perils, I grant, are many and great, but greater still are those
+that lie in wait for an armed traveller. The savage may be terrified and
+overpowered by the massacres with which civilization asserts its
+tyrannical superiority but the venom of hatred has entered his soul and
+he meditates and prepares an ambush which sooner or later, without fail,
+will give him his revenge.
+
+The use of brutal force (that for me is a political error) is an
+enormous damage to the study of the customs, beliefs, and psychological
+peculiarities of the people with whom we are in contact, for they will
+back out of every enquiry or investigation, will either refuse to
+respond or will tell you lies, and this accounts for the contradictory
+reports that different travellers give about the same tribe or race.
+
+This, kind reader, is my modest conviction as, from their method of
+proceeding, it is also of the English, who are Masters in everything
+that concerns colonization.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My baggage being ready it only remained for me to find some carriers who
+would be useful to me, if not as guides to the country of the Sakais, at
+least as interpreters between me and its inhabitants.
+
+Penang is populated chiefly by Malays but numerous other races are
+represented there, especially Chinese and Indians. Without much trouble
+I succeeded in engaging the services of five porters: a Malay, an
+Indian, a Chinese, a Siamese and a Sam-Sam, quite a lad. Together they
+formed a little Babel which I congratulated myself would prove of great
+help in making overtures with the Sakais.
+
+All my followers, with the exception of the Sam-Sam, had faces which
+would have graced the gallows and I am sure that Lombroso[2] would have
+classified them without hesitation as born-criminals. But their
+forbidding countenances did not alarm me as it is well known that the
+basest villain becomes timid and servile when confronted by unexpected
+danger, and I was well aware that the dread of tigers, snakes, traps and
+poisoned arrows, the thousand mysteries of Death which the wonderful
+forest encloses amidst its countless trees, amongst the confusion of its
+thick interlaced creepers and under its soft moss and long grass would
+have converted these ugly-faced, crooked-souled individuals into docile
+lambs. I knew that once they had entered a land, to them not known, they
+would not forsake me, for the Oriental has faith in the European and
+will follow whither the latter leads, attributing to him rare qualities
+of courage and energy as well as a marvellous ability in overcoming
+obstacles and getting out of difficult positions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We left Penang on a coasting steamer and after going up the River Perak
+for about 60 miles we reached the little town of Telok Anson where we
+landed.
+
+It was too early in the morning, when, we arrived for me to present
+myself to the British Authority and as the local officials did not in
+the slightest way interfere with my free passage nor subject me to any
+sort of inquisitorial interrogations (which in other colonies and under
+other Protectorates I had been obliged to undergo) I gave orders for our
+immediate departure as I was anxious to commence our march as soon as
+possible.
+
+Having divided our load of provisions in equal parts we crossed the
+Perak on a pontoon and with a "_slamat gialat_" (pleasant journey) from
+the man on board we found ourselves upon the shores where my adventures
+had to begin.
+
+I was there, then, with my face turned towards a new land, and a thrill
+of joyous emotion pervaded me. What surprises were reserved for me up on
+the wooded mountains towards which we were bending our steps? What
+things, what habits would be revealed to me when I reached my goal?
+
+I was leaving behind me civilized company. I was isolating myself from
+educated society but I was not perturbed at the thought of the hardship,
+the sufferings, the dangers that lay before me. Vague and pleasant hopes
+smiled upon me from the Future. Of what nature were they? I could not
+tell.
+
+"Forward!" I said to myself and my carriers. And the march began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first day passed very well, in spite of the intense heat, and
+nothing occurred worth mentioning. It was growing dark and we had
+already done about 20 miles when we came in sight of a hut erected
+amongst some cocoanut and banana trees. We soon found that it was
+occupied by a Malay, with his wife and children, who had come there for
+the cultivation of rice.
+
+My request for hospitality, until the morning, was received with evident
+distrust, but the hope of coveted gifts in the end, got the better of
+Islamatic superstition in the soul of the Malay, and a covered corner of
+his humble residence was accorded me and my men.
+
+During the night I tried to make the Malay talk about the Sakais but I
+could not ask him any direct questions as it would have been a serious
+affair if my companions came to suspect that our way through the forest
+was entirely new to me and that I was ignorant of the place where our
+journey would end.
+
+I managed, however, to find out that quite recently some Sakais had
+ventured as far as there to exchange _rattan_ (Malacca cane) and rubber,
+for tobacco and rice. They had then departed, but the Malay did not know
+from whence they had come or whither they had gone. He believed that
+they could not be very far off as a few days before he had distinctly
+heard their call-whistles.
+
+For various causes I felt obliged to doubt the truth of what the man
+related, not the least of which being his ill-disguised desire to rid
+himself of our company as soon as possible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At day-break we started off again, following an almost untracked path
+which led us over miasmatic marshes swarming with insects. Our poor legs
+were attacked by a perfect army of leeches and subjected to a most
+inopportune and undesirable bleeding. From time to time we were
+compelled to stop and free ourselves from their tenacious hold. They
+seemed to prefer European blood to Asiatic and made me suffer more than
+my escort, perhaps because my skin being more tender they could better
+succeed in their sanguinary intent, but although my flesh smarted and my
+strength failed it was necessary to keep cheerful and pretend, every
+now and then, to recognize our whereabouts just as if I had passed the
+same way other times. I even assured my five companions that when we
+reached the Sakais there would be no more difficulties, and so urged
+them on the faster.
+
+I hoped that the farther we penetrated into the vast wilds around us the
+more I might depend upon the fidelity of my carriers as they would have
+to rely upon my supposed knowledge of the country we were entering and
+so would be less likely to beat a retreat. As we went along, however, I
+leading the way which. I did not know myself, I could not help noticing
+that they paid particular attention to every characteristic point we
+passed, cutting notches in the trees with their _parang_, or knives,
+after we had waded through a brook or taken a sudden turn in our course,
+but my mind was too much occupied with the duties of my self-assumed
+pilotage for me to attach any importance to the fact.
+
+The weather was fine all day so that we were able to go a long way
+before night fell. Not having come across any sort of refuge we were
+obliged to improvise one for ourselves and in about an hour we were
+resting from our fatigues whilst the little Sam-Sam served us with
+boiled rice, dried fish and certain capsicums which would have made
+cayenne pepper seem sugar in comparison! There being nothing better to
+eat I too had to take my share of the frugal repast.
+
+Sleep soon stole over us all, but I was somehow uneasy, for certain
+strange demands my companions made me had reminded me of the marks I had
+seen them making on the trees a while before, and my suspicions were
+aroused without my knowing exactly how to define them; therefore, with
+the excuse of writing, I determined to keep watch. Until about four
+o'clock in the morning I was able to resist the somnolence which
+weighed down my eyelids but at last, exhausted with so many hours'
+march, with the high tension to which my nerves had been pitched and
+weakened by the abundant blood-letting in the swamp, my body triumphed
+over my will and I also slept.
+
+At dawn the little wild bird, the _cep plot_, broke the silent air with
+its characteristic and shrill _ci ti ria_. To him the smaller and tamer
+_cep rio_ replied with a sweetly modulated solfeggio of extraordinary
+precision, and I awoke. At the same time I felt myself being roughly
+shaken and the voice of my little Sam-Sam cried into my ear:
+
+"Tuan lakas bangun samoa Orang suda lari" (Wake up quickly, sir; the men
+have all run away)!
+
+Ah, then, my misgivings had not been unfounded and it was Slumber that
+had betrayed me. I jumped up and looked around. There was nobody to be
+seen and nothing to be heard. I turned anxiously towards our heap of
+provisions and discovered instantly that the four rascals had made off
+with a large booty of my rice, tobacco, and matches, things that were
+very precious to me at that moment.
+
+What was to be done? Follow them? And if we did not find them? It would
+be loss of time as well as goods. The only thing to do was to treat the
+incident with philosophy, comforting myself with the remote hope of some
+day meeting with the scoundrels and of making them pay dear for their
+knavish trick. This hope, I may say in parenthesis, was not a vain one,
+for a year later I met my Chinese culprit at Telok Anson and not long
+after, his Malay confederate at Penang, on both of which occasions I had
+the satisfaction--without troubling the legal authority to intercede for
+or against me--of giving them a lesson in honesty that I dare warrant
+will have made them lose the gust of treating others as they had treated
+me.
+
+I was glad to find that the Sam-Sam boy had not deserted me for I had
+taken a kind of liking to him. He told me that the Malay who had
+accorded us hospitality had narrated to his countryman most terrible
+things about the Sakais, describing so many perils, and such ferocious
+treatment, which awaited those who risked getting into their midst, that
+even a man of dauntless courage would have shuddered. Nothing was said
+to me of this, but the man had informed the other three, who understood
+the Malay language, and between the four it was quickly decided to
+escape.
+
+The boy had heard it all but did not give me any hint, never thinking
+that the wicked project of robbing and abandoning me would have been so
+speedily carried into effect.
+
+I asked the only companion left me if he was disposed to be faithful to
+his engagement and to me, no matter where we went, or whom we met with,
+and he expressed his readiness to accompany me. The answer put me into
+better spirits and I made arrangements for continuing our journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We boiled enough rice and broiled enough fish to last us for two meals
+and then divided both in two parts. We each took our own share and
+wrapped it up in some leaves ready to eat when we made a brief halt on
+the banks of the many streams flowing through the forest.
+
+With the remaining provisions we made two bundles, as bulky as seemed
+possible to carry, but their weight surpassed our strength so we were
+compelled to sacrifice a large quantity of our victuals which we put
+into a sack and left in the hut, hoping that there it would not be
+damaged by the rain, and afterwards, still well-laden, we once more set
+off.
+
+Under the scorching rays of the sun and the weight of my burden I
+plodded on, philosophizing to myself--like a Boetius lost in the
+jungle--in order to draw some comforting conclusion out of this, my
+first, unpleasant adventure. But my philosophy soon took the form of
+certain meditations and comparisons that were not all serene. My
+thoughts flew to the heroes of the Bar-room and the Club to whom Sport
+means fatigue, boldness, development of the muscles, and sacrifice
+provided.... that every athletic exercise, however slight, be followed
+up by a tepid or shower bath, massage, or the rest prescribed by the
+hygienist or trainer. I thought of those so-called explorers who
+enlighten the civilized part of the world upon the habits and customs of
+the uncivilized part; those literary swindlers who travel in a Pullman's
+car or some other vehicle, equally convenient and comfortable, to a safe
+place, near the land to be explored, there to make notes of the vague
+reports and yet more vague "they says" that circulate about the
+Aborigines in question, and afterwards with the help of their fertile
+imagination turn these mere voices into startling facts, add a few
+extraordinary occurrences in the Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver style (in
+which they themselves always play the principal part) and then present
+their interesting writings to the public as a scientific and instructive
+volume. I was inclined to envy them their ability and to admire the
+ineffable good-nature of Society that pays the expenses for these
+triumphs of Humbug.
+
+[Illustration: At our approach the Sakais fled terrified from the hut.
+
+_p._ 25.]
+
+"Ah!" I went on grumbling to myself, and it seemed to relieve me to thus
+apostrophize them in their absence, "if you were only here now, you
+gentlemen of sportive tastes and you, illustrious explorers of wonderful
+lands and mysterious islands, how I should like to see your virtue put
+to the test: here in the forest from whose black depths a poisoned dart
+may at any moment fly towards you as a Messenger of Death or from
+whence a huge wild beast may, unexpectedly, rush furiously forth: here
+where one's steps may be suddenly arrested by the up-rising of a
+venomous snake. Who knows what an assistance to your fervid fantasy it
+would be to hear in the freedom of Nature's own menagerie the sinister
+hissing of the serpent, the bellowing of the elephant, the lowing of the
+_sladan_, the roar of the tiger, the grunt of the wild-boar, the squeal
+of the monkey, and the peevish notes of the cockatoo all blended into a
+formidable concert, the accompaniment being the rustling of reeds and
+climbing plants, moved more by animal life than by the air; the
+fluttering of leaves; the humming and buzzing of myriads of insects: the
+murmuring of the brooks: voices and sounds that announce to the
+traveller a continual increase of danger".
+
+But I must apologize to my readers for this digression. The jungle and
+its concerts often make one commit the sin of philosophy, and, in thus
+sinning, I had involuntarily forgotten you.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: An Italian celebrated for his psychological
+studies.--Translator's note.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  A fearful nocturnal concert--Fire! Fire!--A clearing in
+  the forest--A general flight--Masters of the camp!--Mortal
+  weariness--A morning greeting without any compliments--A
+  first meeting--In the village--ALA against the Orang-putei.
+
+
+Not having found even a trace of human habitation either on the second
+day of our march we were once more compelled to prepare a shelter for
+the night as best we could. We made two little alcoves of boughs and
+leaves, and having satisfied the cravings of appetite we lighted a fire
+on each side of our miniature encampment, piled up enough wood at hand
+to keep them burning, and settled ourselves down to sleep, or rather one
+of us had to sleep whilst the other watched, as we had agreed to take
+turns. In our ignorance we had calculated upon finding ourselves
+surrounded by a solemn nocturnal stillness in these remote regions; such
+calm quietness as one enjoys during the night on the Alpine and
+Appennine woods. We were soon made aware of our mistake, however, for
+the monkeys, frightened at the glare of the fires, raised a hubbub of
+protests, their shrill cries and chattering voices reaching to the most
+acute notes. Leaping up to the very highest branches of the trees they
+began to shower down upon us broken twigs, leaves, nuts and other
+fruits. They seemed to be holding a meeting overhead at which each
+one--and they were a multitude--tried to gabble out a speech and to make
+himself heard above all the others.
+
+Deeper and more ominous notes were not long wanting to complete the
+infernal chorus. From the dense, dark forest came the blood-curdling
+roars of tigers, panthers, and bears mingled with the loud bellowing and
+heavy stampede of elephants; we could distinctly here the cracking of
+boughs hurled to the ground in their furious course, and the crashing of
+bamboo, which with them is a favourite food. One might have said that an
+immense legion of demons had invaded the forest, because in its intense,
+impenetrable obscurity, only dimly lighted for a yard or two by the
+blaze of our fires, everything seemed to turn into life. Every creature,
+every reed, every leaf had a voice of its own; a howl, a rustle, a sigh
+that filled the night air with diabolical sounds. It was a fearful
+pandemonium; a mighty strife twixt victim and victor; an insatiable lust
+for blood; a ferocious manifestation of ferocious love.
+
+"Fire! Fire! let us put on fuel!" and we threw log after log upon the
+burning piles whilst thousands of sparks flew upwards and the bright
+flames cast a red glow around.
+
+But the great voice of the forest did not cease; it still spoke on in
+the roars and the bellows of the strong and in the yells and wails of
+the weak. It rose up against us, as though pronouncing a malediction
+upon the intruders, upon the profaners of those mysteries that, in the
+inmost recesses of the jungle, great Mother Nature celebrates during the
+night.
+
+For hours we remained there, in a state it is useless for me even to
+attempt to describe, and then as day-break approached the fearful
+clamour began gradually to die away. Evidently at the first streak of
+dawn the wild beasts had returned to their dens. The monkeys were the
+last to finish as they had been the first to begin, but what was their
+chattering and gibbering compared to that terrible chorus which, with
+freezing veins and paralized brains, we had been obliged to listen to
+all night?
+
+It has never happened to me to greet a friend with such fervour as I did
+the sun that morning. At its appearance a new concert commenced, but now
+it was with the pleasant harmony of the buzzing and humming of insects,
+blended with the gay singing of birds.
+
+It reanimated us and we began to stretch our poor limbs which, besides
+being stiffened and benumbed by the horrors of the past night, and the
+thick dew that had fallen upon us, had also been an unconscious prey to
+leech and mosquito.
+
+Comparisons are odious. Granted. But between a tiger and a leech, a
+panther and a mosquito, notwithstanding their affinity in the liking of
+human blood, believe me there is a great difference, and it was perhaps
+for this reason that we had not previously noticed the onslaught made by
+these lesser carnivora upon our appalled flesh.
+
+A few hurried mouthfuls and we were on the tramp again. Our sleepless
+night, and the strong emotions that had kept us awake, made us feel
+tired and listless, but the bare idea of being exposed to the same
+torment and fear another time, gave us courage and strength to press on
+as far as possible in search of some nocturnal refuge, more secure from
+the four-footed inhabitants of the land, before sunset should have
+enticed them from their lairs.
+
+Weary, and mechanically, we trudged along, anxiously peering in front of
+us for some opening in the thick foliage and closely packed trees, or of
+some other sign of human life.
+
+It must have been about three o clock in the afternoon--for my watch had
+stopped--and it had begun to drizzle, when we saw, at not a great
+distance from us, the everlasting twilight of the wild forest dispersed
+by the full light of day.
+
+Our spirits revived at the sight, for in all probability it meant a vast
+clearing for the erection of huts and, in consequence, the presence of
+fellow beings, however savage they might be.
+
+We advanced with alacrity and soon came out in a large open space closed
+in by the felled trunks of enormous trees and planted with Indian corn,
+yams and sweet potatoes.
+
+In the middle stood two cabins made of the strong branches and gigantic
+leaves of the plants and trees which had been cut down. We were just
+able to catch a glimpse of some men lying about on the ground, whilst
+some women were busily cooking monkey's, serpents, and colossal rats,
+and several younger men were preparing poisoned arrows.
+
+We took in the whole scene in a rapid glance for in an instant the dogs
+began to bark and their masters were thrown into a state of alarm. We
+stopped, and they saw us, saw _me_--a white man--and full of fright they
+sprang to their feet. Like lightning they gathered up their provisions,
+the women slung the children on to their shoulders and they all
+disappeared, over the stout fence they had erected round their dwelling
+place, with the agility and the speed of a troop of monkeys.
+
+I really think that if the head of the Medusa, instead of turning into
+stone those who looked at it, had given them wings to escape they could
+not have flown away faster than did those poor savages at the sight of
+me.
+
+I had only time to see that they were quite naked and that their skin
+was of a light brownish tint, but this for the moment satisfied me as I
+knew that at last I had come into contact with the May Darats in search
+of whom I had ventured there.
+
+But I was so thoroughly exhausted in every way that I had even lost the
+power of thinking about them or anything else.
+
+I, and my faithful follower, entered the abandoned huts where we found
+some hot potatoes (which were quickly devoured) and a curious stringed
+instrument that had been left behind in the hasty flight.
+
+Having taken the usual precautions for the night, too tired out to care
+for the dangers that might be menacing us, dangers that might prove
+worse than those we had experienced the previous night (for we knew what
+we had to expect from quadruped enemies, but were ignorant of how our
+biped foes would treat our presence in their domain) unmindful and
+heedless of everything, dizzy with the need of rest, I threw myself down
+on the rude floor and fell heavily asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards two o'clock in the morning (as far as we could judge) my
+Sam-Sam, who had been keeping watch, awoke me. It was his turn to sleep.
+Nothing had happened, as yet, to excite suspicion or inquietude and this
+made me hope that we should not receive any serious hostility from the
+Aborigines.
+
+By straining my gaze into the darkness of the forest I discerned that
+some fires were lighted not very far off, a sure sign that the Sakais
+were still near us. Was this a good or a bad omen? Day would without
+doubt bring the answer. And day soon came, gladly welcomed by all
+Creation save by those people and beasts whose deeds are better suited
+to obscurity.
+
+I was preparing a nice strong cup of tea to refresh my stomach and cheer
+up my spirits (for recent events had greatly depressed them) when
+something lightly whistled above my ear and glided over my head.
+
+I gave a violent start and taking off my hat discovered that it had two
+little holes in it, one on each side. At a few steps from me lay an
+arrow, which had just fallen there, after having perforated my
+head-covering and softly touched my thin locks. It was a hair breadth
+escape, in a true sense of the saying, for the sharp missile shot at me
+from the Sakais infallible blow-pipe had first been carefully poisoned.
+
+That unexpected and not very friendly "good morning" called me back to
+the bitter reality of my position, and warned me not to delay coming to
+an understanding with them at once.
+
+Prudence forbade my presenting myself in their midst because the colour
+of my skin, although well sunburnt, would have drawn upon me certain
+death. I was convinced that in their primitive superstition they would
+have believed me an evil spirit and as such would have speedily
+despatched me to another world. The only thing to be done was to send
+hither my intelligent Sam-Sam who willingly allowed himself to be loaded
+with tobacco, coloured beads, _sirih_ and matches and then sallied forth
+to make a truce.
+
+He was accorded an audience without any difficulty which fact was
+perhaps due to the similitude of his race with theirs but more probably
+to the gifts he carried with him.
+
+My ambassador was interrogated with eagerness and curiosity about the
+_orang putei_ (white man), and he told them that I had come laden with
+gifts and full of good-will towards them. But the Sakais would not hear
+of my approaching their new encampment and sent word that they would
+soon favour me with a visit.
+
+And they kept their promise without losing any time in making a toilet
+or getting into a dress suit. They were in three, two stalwart youths
+and a man of between forty and fifty, all armed with their _sumpitans_
+(blow-pipes).
+
+By means of the Malay language and the universal one of gestures, I
+explained to them that I did not mean them any harm, that on the
+contrary it was my desire to help them in whatever way I could and that
+I should like to live amongst them if they would let me, as I wanted to
+initiate some plantations in their part.
+
+They replied by first trying to dissuade me from taking up my abode with
+them, and then suggested that it would be better for me to go to a small
+village at a short distance off, whither they offered to accompany me.
+
+I thanked them and accepted the offer, telling them, as a recompense,
+where we had left our sack of provisions. I afterwards heard that they
+had succeeded in finding it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I felt so contented at having made the first step--which is always the
+most difficult--that notwithstanding the thoroughly exhausted state in
+which I knew myself to be, I re-commenced my journey with a light heart,
+escorted by the three Sakais and my Sam-Sam. But arrived at a certain
+point it was impossible for me to proceed.
+
+Besides the stiffness of my joints, my flesh was tingling and bleeding
+with the bites and stings of many insects. In order to prove my
+sufferings to my companions I showed my livid limbs to them and I saw an
+expression of pity pass over their countenances. It seemed to me a good
+augury for one who was joining their tribe.
+
+We stopped, and the Sakais quickly built up the huts, lighted the fires
+and afterwards ate some rice with us. We then lay down to repose for the
+night, but if Sleep closed our eyes I think Mistrust opened them and
+none of us enjoyed much slumber in the end.
+
+Early the next morning we continued our course and reached the group of
+cabins dignified by the name of village. Here the same thing took place
+as on the previous day. In spite of my being in the company of three of
+their own people, which I thought would have reassured them, at my
+appearance the huts were rapidly deserted amidst cries of terror.
+
+My three guides, however, managed to get into communication with their
+brethren and after a while led them to me without their making any
+resistance.
+
+I got their consent to let me settle down near them on the condition
+that I did not seek to enter their huts. The reason of this interdiction
+I learnt later on. It had been a prescription of the Ala, a sort of
+sorcerer, who believed, or made believe that my presence would have an
+evil effect upon a sick mother and her new-born babe.
+
+The Sakais, stimulated by my presents, built me a solid and pretty
+comfortable cabin near a rivulet and not far from them, and I installed
+myself there forthwith.
+
+The first day of our acquaintance it happened that I accidentally called
+them Sakais. They changed face and some of them protested angrily:
+
+"You are not good, because you insult us and call us bad names!".
+
+It was a dangerous slip of the tongue and I hastened to make my peace by
+explaining that I had heard the term used by the other people but that I
+knew they were really May Darats whose kindness and gentleness had
+often been abused by their neighbours, and in the future I meant to save
+them from being cheated and deceived by their former aggressors.
+
+This declaration calmed their resentment and I was able to begin a
+quiet, tranquil life amongst those simple, sincere beings, a life so
+calm and undisturbed that I have never had cause, then or now, to regret
+the civilized society from which I had voluntarily withdrawn myself,
+persuaded that if my character and habits incapacitated me for the
+dubious and not always straightforward transactions of the commercial
+world, the same moral qualities which impeded me from becoming a
+business man might find good ground for bringing forth fruit in the pure
+hearts and minds of a primitive people, who knew neither fraud, nor
+hypocrisy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  New friends--Gold--An English official--The purchase of my future
+  treasure--Administrative simplicity--England teaches!--The "sla
+  pui"--Bitter disappointment--The Sam-Sam--The poison of the Savage
+  and the venom of the Civilized.
+
+
+My strength and health, which had suffered in consequence of those few
+days' strain of muscle and nerve, soon returned to their normal state in
+that peaceful retreat upon the grassy banks of the stream that is an
+affluent of the Bidor.
+
+My friendship with the Sakais increased every day because little by
+little their suspicions concerning me were allayed and the curiosity
+with which they watched my every act was no longer mixed with fear. They
+did not attempt to run away when I bent my steps towards their rough
+habitations in spite of the Ala's veto to my passage through their
+village and it was not a rare thing for my gifts of tobacco and _sirih_
+to be exchanged with pheasants and other game and sometimes even with a
+chicken. I found it easy to talk with the men and prized these
+conversations as a means of studying their characters and of learning
+their language, which is composed of short, strongly accented words. It
+was very seldom that I could find any sort of derivation from the Malay
+tongue in these terse syllables.
+
+At the same time that I sought to get upon a familiar footing with my
+new friends I did not forget one of the principal motives that had
+induced me to wander so far from the haunts of ordinary men, so one day
+I cracked a cocoanut in half and, cleaning it well out, I dipped the
+shell into the bed of the stream and drew it out again full of water and
+sand.
+
+I examined the contents with great care and found a few grains of gold
+in the alluvion! This was joy indeed, and mentally I bade goodbye to the
+life of a planter (although I had not yet begun it) and there on the
+spot decided to dedicate my time and energy to the gathering of gold
+which would be far the quickest way of making a fortune.
+
+All at once, however, an unpleasant thought crossed my mind and dimmed
+my bright hopes.
+
+In my chats with the Sakais they had told me that there was another
+_orang putei_ at Tapah. I endeavoured to discover who this person was,
+and what he was doing, in the little Malay town, but I was unable to
+obtain any information about him.
+
+Now the idea suggested itself that this white man could be no other than
+a British Government Officer to whom, from a feeling of delicacy,
+respect of the law, and as a means of avoiding future trouble, I was
+bound to explain what I wished to do before setting myself to work, as
+his permission would be necessary for the execution of my desire.
+
+My unfortunate experience of other colonial authorities inspired me with
+very little confidence in that of the English and nothing seemed to me
+more likely than to find myself expelled from the Protected States
+instead of having my petition granted.
+
+But on the other hand it would be very rash to commence work in earnest
+without legal authorization, so one day, accompanied by some Sakais to
+the confines of the forest, I betook myself to Tapah.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I could not help wondering to myself what sort of a gruff, bureaucratic
+functionary I should find to deny me my fortune. Who knew how my Italian
+enterprise would be judged on territory protected by H. B. M.?
+
+But calling up my courage I was introduced into the presence of a young
+and pleasant-mannered gentleman who received me with much politeness.
+
+He had already been informed that a white man was to be found amongst
+the Sakais and he had been greatly surprised, not understanding what
+attractions anyone could find in the midst of a people so ignorant and
+savage. He congratulated himself upon the opportunity of meeting and
+knowing me, was pleased to hear that I was an Italian and wound up with
+the stereotyped demand:
+
+"What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?".
+
+Encouraged by his kindness, but not without a little secret misgiving, I
+told him frankly what I proposed doing and related all particulars.
+
+Mr. Wise (for this was his name) listened to everything attentively, now
+and then expressing a word of sympathy or approval and finally, for the
+sum of a few dollars, made me the owner of the tract of land upon which
+I had fixed my mind.
+
+Thus it was that in the short space of an hour, without having to
+surmount any obstacles, and at an almost ridiculous price I became the
+legitimate possessor of a piece of ground that perhaps concealed a
+treasure in its bosom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I had never before been at Tapah I took advantage of the time spared
+in my business affairs to visit it a little and to form an opinion upon
+the expedients used in a half-desert Eastern country, scorched by the
+sun, populated by different tribes, infested by poisonous insects and
+terrible microbes, to say nothing of a host of wild beasts!
+
+Tapah is a modern little town, all villas and gardens. It rises white
+and coquettishly at the foot of green hills and its smiling panorama,
+although without the magnificent background of the sea, recalled to my
+sight the sweet vision of my native Varazze, one of the most beautiful
+gems that adorn the Riviera Ponente.
+
+It is the chief-town of a district counting 30,000 inhabitants amongst
+which about a thousand of diverse races and nationalities. It has two
+large streets lined with shops where Malays, Indians, and Chinese offer
+a varied and heterogeneous stock of goods for sale.
+
+It is divided in the middle by the big river Batang Padang which
+afterwards discharges itself into the Bidor, that too.
+
+As capital of the district it possesses a Post Office, a very large room
+where two Indian clerks perform their duties under the direction of an
+English Postmaster who has also to overlook the branch offices of the
+circuit.
+
+My attention was attracted by an unpretending edifice in front of which
+some Malay and Indian soldiers were seated. I was asking them what
+building it was when an Englishman came out and courteously told me that
+it was the Head Police Station of which he was the inspector.
+
+During a subsequent conversation I learnt that the Police Service was
+everything that could be desired as also that of all the other Public
+Offices and that Indigenes and Indians were everywhere employed under
+the direction of English chiefs. The number of clerks, as in other
+British colonies, was according to strict necessity; no extra posts were
+ever created for political or personal interest but when assistance was
+required there was never any difficulty in selecting local aspirant, as
+long as they had a sufficient knowledge of the official language.
+
+So I found that Tapah, the chief-town of the district, is under the
+direction of an Englishman, who is called the District Officer, and who
+performs all administrative and magisterial functions.
+
+Not much time lost here in the labyrinths of Bureaucracy! And yet I
+heard that both the District Officer and the Police Inspector who are
+under the control of the Authority residing in Taiping, capital of Perak
+but who in reality enjoy almost complete liberty of action, find the
+time not only to discharge all the various duties of their office but
+also to take recreation in a little football and cricket. It is said
+that sometimes the menservants too are called in to take part in these
+national sports and for an hour freely compete with their masters in the
+art of kicking and batting, returning serious and respectful to their
+proper places at the end of the game.
+
+Whilst I was passing the time pleasantly, talking with one and the other
+I saw a little party approaching that was the object of great respect
+from the bystanders.
+
+It was Mr. Wise the District Officer who had received me so politely a
+few hours before.
+
+He was on his return from a survey made in order to define the boundary
+of some land belonging to two Malays. Without donning any sort of
+uniform or insignia, this British delegate had known how to preserve
+all the solemnity and dignity of form due to the occasion, a virtue
+peculiar to the English who are always and everywhere the most rigorous
+observers of social and official etiquette.
+
+Mr. Wise kindly invited me to follow him the Club where he kept me in
+friendly conservation, answering all the questions I could not refrain
+from asking him in my desire to become better acquainted with the colony
+and its method of government.
+
+Now Mr. Wise is no more, but in him his country lost a model functionary
+for intelligence, solicitude and uprightness.
+
+He died at the very moment his future seemed to smile its brightest;
+when his fondest hopes were about to be crowned by matrimony with the
+young lady of his choice.
+
+Let me, through these pages, render to his memory the modest,
+affectionate homage of admiration and deferential friendship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That day, having made my peace with the authorities, I returned with a
+clear conscience to the quiet nook I had found in the vast forest; to
+that domestic corner reserved for me in Dame Nature's grand and wondrous
+saloon: to that rude home so far removed from the generality of mankind,
+but so close to the kings and princes of the animal kingdom, commonly
+called--wild beasts.
+
+[Illustration: A young Sakai with his inseparable blowpipe.
+
+_p._ 40.]
+
+Keeping tight hold of the receipt which had suddenly made me the owner
+of a possible gold mine, I alternately made castles in the air and
+meditated upon the simplicity of English administration that in a few
+short instants had conceded to me an extensive zone of land with which
+to do what I liked, without any need of setting in motion the intricate
+machinery of the bureaucracy; without any stamped legal forms, surveys
+and expensive reports; the presentation of birth certificate and that of
+British citizenship; without digging into the past and the future, into
+the state and position of one's family, etc. etc.
+
+And because everything that happens to one abroad recalls one's
+fatherland (a natural habit that neither distance nor time can change) I
+thought of my native country and of the complicated organization of its
+many bureaucratic departments that only too often clogs the boldest
+Italian enterprise and raises an insurmountable barrier before creative
+and inventive genius compelling it to seek elsewhere its fortune.
+
+From my heart I longed that Italy might before long be liberated from
+these toils which hinder the free expansion of its young and vigorous
+forces.
+
+One thing had particularly struck me during my intercourse with Mr.
+Wise. The fact of my being an Italian was no obstacle to my request
+being favourably received. This surprised me, for under other
+governments I had seen that foreigners were considered anything but
+necessary to the colony and after having opposed, more or less openly,
+the intruder's initiative, the Authority seized the slightest pretext,
+that offered itself under a decent aspect, to send the new-comer back
+over the frontier for fear that their digestion might suffer from his
+presence.
+
+England on the contrary does not search into, nor care for, the origin
+of those who bring energy or any other useful quality to her colonies.
+In her dominions she only aims at reaching the highest point of
+prosperity, she desires only the accumulation of riches, and whoever
+promises well to further her interests, becomes an appreciated
+collaborator, be he Italian, German, Portuguese or Turk.
+
+England never repells talent or aptitude from an absurd prejudice of
+Chauvinism. Considering the length and breadth of her possessions she
+may well say that the world is her tributary, no wonder then that she
+avails herself of the hands and brains of every one who knows how to use
+them well, instead of confining herself exclusively to the merits of
+those born on British soil.
+
+In this broad way of seeing and treating things--which proves the
+tranquil and perfect consciousness the English nation has of its own
+strength--I believe lies the secret of its colonial success.
+
+The well-known satire according to which it is impossible to find in the
+world a rock or strip of land, however barren or sterile, without an
+owner, for the simple reason that an Englishman is always prompt to
+unfold and hoist the Union Jack there, is in reality the highest and
+most just homage that can be paid to the spirit of enterprise that
+characterizes this people. Where others only see sand and reefs, not
+worth the trouble of cultivation, the Englishman discovers some
+productive germ that with his indefatigable energy brings forth a
+thousand fold. Nor is Colonial work, industrial activity and commercial
+thrift disturbed by bureaucratic sophistry or immoderate fiscal
+pretentions, that so frequently suffocate the most promising and
+audacious undertakings in other places.
+
+Colonial success very often depends upon the ability of its
+administrative body in directing all available force to this one end:
+the increase of its wealth. Bureaucracy is a cancer which paralyzes all
+life and motion that it finds within reach of its tentacles.
+
+Old England has understood this for a long time, ever since, from the
+island once fruitless and barren, she spread her wings and flew to the
+conquest of the World's markets.
+
+When will certain other nations comprehend that antiquity and past
+glory, instead of offering the precious fruit of experience, has
+brought upon them a palsied decrepitude?
+
+When wilt thou understand this, my Italy, risen as thou art to the third
+maturity of thy civilization and glory?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I set myself at once, with a good will, to the extraction of gold, and
+engaged the services of a few Malays and Chinese coolies, who were
+expert enough, to assist me in my work.
+
+The method we followed was a very primitive one. We filled some round
+wooden bowls with the water and sand, then by gently stirring the mass,
+particles of tin and gold were separated from the sand and went to the
+bottom. This deposit carefully gathered up was passed into other bowls
+full of water, into which we threw a well-pounded leaf of the _sla
+piu_.
+
+The juice of these leaves possesses a chemical property which I cannot
+explain but it draws up to the surface the sand still sticking to the
+metals, leaving them quite pure.
+
+But the yellow tempter was not at all profuse in his favours and the
+golden metal came in very small quantities. I did not lose courage,
+however, and persevered for a long time without any change of luck. I
+even tried to trace out the auriferous bed from whence the waters of the
+stream transported the metals. I made innumerable attempts to find it,
+but in vain, and the day came when I was constrained to confess to
+myself that alluvial mining for me was a failure.
+
+After all my hopes and dreams it was a melancholy confession to make but
+it was evident that I must turn in another direction if I wished for
+fortune, so I settled my account with the workmen and dismissed them.
+
+At their departure my Sam-Sam who had become in the meantime a robust
+young man, begged me to let him return to his own part, saying that
+there was a young Sakai willing to take his place in my service.
+Although very sorry to lose the faithful companion of that never to be
+forgotten journey through the forest, I could not refuse his request and
+let him do as he wished.
+
+It was with real pleasure that I fell in with him again some years after
+when I was travelling through the interior of Kedah and he too evinced
+great joy at the meeting.
+
+He told me that what he had earned from me had been the means of making
+his fortune, for with it he had bought a piece of ground and some oxen,
+and now kept himself, his wife and two children, by agricultural work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I have said, the gold was very scarce. After the coolies had left I
+tried to persuade the Sakais to take their post, which would have saved
+expense in gathering it, but every effort was useless for these people
+do not and will not understand what works means, or the pleasure it
+gives, beyond that of preparing poisons.
+
+Poison is the principal topic of conversation with them and their only
+boast is the discovery of new or more deadly mixtures. The children
+listen to these discourses with lively interest and pay anxious
+attention to the experiments made by their elders in this primitive kind
+of chemistry, and in this way the passion is propagated from father to
+son and so it will continue until the breath of civilization reaches
+that far-off spot and those good, simple men learn that, in the struggle
+for life, civilized persons no longer use poisons that kill the body,
+but those which are much more terrible and without an antidote, such as
+envy, calumny, hatred and luxury, which destroy the mind and soul.
+
+These are the venemous elements that my forest friends do not yet know,
+those poor savages who extract their poisons from the _ipok_[3] and
+other, trees to defend themselves against wild beasts and to procure
+them food in their wild abode.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 3: The _ipok_, known in science by the Javenese name of
+_upas_, is a tree that affords a very baneful poison as explained in the
+chapter upon poisons.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  Great Mother Earth--A dangerous meeting--A living statue--Here or
+  there?--An unrelished supper--A dreaded immigration--A glance into
+  the past--A rape which was not a rape--A noble task--Towards the
+  mountain--Tiger-shooting--The Sakais in town--Alloyed sweets--
+  Musical tastes--Hurrah for the free forest!
+
+
+My gold mania was transient. My spirit was very soon liberated from its
+thrall and I turned with alacrity to the study of a more practical and
+satisfactory enterprise.
+
+In that brief period of uncertainty I had somehow felt convinced that
+fortune (if indeed fortune was reserved for me) would have to come to me
+through the ground. But in what way?
+
+I often accompanied the Sakais in their visits into the thick of the
+forest where they were in the habit of going in search of poisons, and
+sometimes I would even go by myself. During these excursions I tortured
+my brain with the everlasting question of how to initiate a new line of
+work and gain.
+
+One day the forest itself answered my puzzling query!
+
+There were extensive woods of rattan, and other magnificent reeds which
+are called in England Indian and Malacca cane; there was resin oozing
+copiously from the trunks of the trees. What more could be desired?
+
+I began gently to make my Sakais comprehend how much I should like to
+gather these products and transport them to where I might exchange them
+for other articles that we were without. It was of no use to speak to
+them of money because they had not the smallest idea of what it meant.
+
+At first they responded roughly that they did not care anything at all
+about the matter, for, as I before said, the Sakais from habit and an
+innate spirit of independence will never hear of submitting themselves
+to any regular, ordinate labour. Knowing, however, with whom I had to
+deal, and divining what a great amount of patience would be necessary to
+bring them round to my way of thinking, I began to distribute gifts,
+especially tobacco, freely and frequently amongst them, only mentioning
+my wish occasionally, as if by chance. And my prodigality had its
+reward.
+
+One day I saw them returning from the forest abundantly laden with the
+products I wanted.
+
+It was a good beginning and was followed up by a constant supply. I
+stored up the bamboo and gum and when I had accumulated enough I went to
+the coast to sell my merchandise coming back well provided with tobacco,
+iron, coloured beads, matches, salt, rice padi and maize. These things I
+dispensed amongst my friends and they, seeing the good result of their
+fatigue in the form of articles which excited their cupidity, ended by
+keeping me plentifully furnished with the goods in question.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The new branch of commerce, which I had started, required a good deal of
+energy, but I let no grass grow under my feet and went frequently to
+Tapah in order to open up a sale for my products.
+
+It was on my return from one of these journeys that something happened
+to me worth relating.
+
+Only a few hours of daylight remained when I set out from Tapah for my
+forest habitation. I was carrying with me six nice loaves and a piece of
+venison that I had bought in town and I thought with keen appreciation
+of the savoury supper I should have that night.
+
+I hurried along as fast as possible in order to traverse the 2 miles of
+highroad and the other of woodland track, which lay before me, ere night
+fell. In spite of the 30 miles already done that day my legs continued
+to serve me well and I walked rapidly on with a bent head, full of
+thought.
+
+At a sudden turning of the path I raised my eyes to scrutinize the way.
+About 50 yards in front of me I saw a dark and confused mass slowly
+moving. Thinking to meet with a party of coolies from a neighbouring
+mine, who were perhaps going for provisions, I advanced for another 40
+paces, then stopped short and was fixed to the spot. The formless mass
+had taken the shape of nothing less than an enormous tiger!
+
+There was no fear that step or gesture of mine would attract its
+attention for at the sight I had become petrified, like Lot's wife! In
+that atom of time, which seemed to me a century, I could not even think,
+but across the deadened faculty of my mind flashed a warning I had
+recently received from the Sakais: never make a movement in the presence
+of a tiger, and never look it straight in the face.
+
+[Illustration: Towards the mountains.
+
+_p._ 52.]
+
+The first part of this injunction was instinctively obeyed for I
+remained there rooted to the ground, utterly unable to stir even if such
+an imprudent idea had suggested itself. My senses were so paralyzed by
+the unexpected encounter that I did not entirely realize my position and
+had only a vague perception that when those fierce eyes once rested upon
+me the end of the world would have come, as far as I was concerned.
+
+Sideways I saw that the huge beast, which had been sniffing the ground,
+to find out what animal had lately passed by, now raised its head and
+looked slowly around with an indolent but suspicious air.
+
+After a painful vibration, some of my muscles became rigid. The monster
+cautiously advanced; it was certainly preparing to pounce upon me! I
+could hardly resist the impulse of looking towards it. All my nerves
+were quivering with anguish as if in a supreme protest against the
+imminent slaughter. Already I felt the terrible creature's hot breath as
+it opened wide its greedy jaws; already my trembling flesh felt the
+fatal touch of its death-dealing claws--one instant--two....!
+
+With a quick, irrepressible motion my eyes turned in its direction.
+
+The tiger was leisurely crossing the path and disappeared into the
+forest without taking even the least notice of me! Why, it was almost a
+personal offence!
+
+But although the blood began to flow once more through heart and brain,
+and Life--which had been momentarily suspended--again ran through all my
+being, filling the veins and relaxing muscles and nerves, I did not then
+think of the slight offered me by the animal's indifference, for with
+renewal of life had come an atrocious spasm of horror and of fear.
+
+In those few seconds a drama, full of strange sensations, awful
+impressions, and maddening effect had been enacted within me!
+
+After the first moment of relief, and whilst I was still stretching and
+rubbing my limbs, a serious problem presented itself for solution.
+
+On entering the forest the tiger had gone the very way I had to go
+myself. What had I better do? It was impossible for me to retrace my
+steps, for my previous tiredness had increased to a singular degree
+after my fright. It was equally impossible for me to think of stopping
+where I was. And to penetrate into the forest following in the
+creature's wake, would it not be like going to seek the ghastly end from
+which I had just so narrowly escaped, thanks perhaps to the tiger's
+defective sense of smell?
+
+And yet, after having carefully pondered which course to take I was
+obliged to make my decision in favour of the one that seemed the most
+insensate of the three.
+
+My cabin was not very far off. I should only have to quicken my pace, by
+making a supreme effort, in order to arrive before it got dark.
+
+And the tiger? But might I not have met a dozen of them on my road from
+Tapah? And besides, who could say that the one I had seen was really
+gone towards my home? It would indeed have proved a curious
+predilection, especially after the affront just received!
+
+So armed with these subtle reasonings, with which I sought to persuade
+myself, I left the tragical spot where, according to the brief agony of
+my feelings and the likelihood of procedure, I had been torn to pieces
+and eaten by a wild beast, and I continued my homeward journey.
+
+How the faintest sound startled me! A falling leaf; a blade of grass
+moved by an insect; a snake or a lizard gliding out of my path; the
+squeal of a monkey; the fluttering of a bird's wings as it flew up to
+its perch, all subjected me to spasmodic thrills.
+
+I always had in my sight that dreadful beast with gaping mouth, and
+cruelly glittering eyes. The horrible vision gave new vigour to my body,
+extraordinary suppleness to my legs and--wings to my feet.
+
+Kind reader, who knows how many times in your sitting-room or perhaps in
+somebody else's even dearer to you--_honi soit qui mal y pense_!--you
+have found yourself in front of a tiger, leopard or panther whose
+brindled and glossy skin you have admired; who knows how many times you
+have absently played with its head, still ferocious-looking, in spite of
+its glass eyes and red cloth tongue; who knows how often you have toyed
+with its fangs and claws whilst you were persuing a pleasant thought or
+inebriating your spirit with the soft tones of a certain voice!
+
+Well, have you ever tried to imagine what emotions you would experience
+if quite unexpectedly those glassy eyes should become animated; if that
+ugly mouth should open wider; if those white fangs should gleam with
+life; if those splendid claws should be stretched out in the act of
+lacerating you: if that magnificent skin should once more be
+incorporated and rise up to face you?
+
+I confess the truth when I say, that the dainty supper I had brought
+with me from Tapah, lost its flavour for me that evening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A report of my flourishing trade and the news that gold was to be found
+at the bottom of the little river which flowed past my humble dwelling
+soon spread outside the Sakai region. The consequence was quite an
+invasion of our tranquil village.
+
+This immigration greatly alarmed the poor Indigenes who cannot easily
+forget how they were once treated by those not of their own race.
+
+They still remembered with terror how the strangers had plundered their
+villages, carrying off everything they could lay their hands upon, even
+their young men and women to serve as slaves and concubines.
+
+The majority of these poor victims, torn from the unlimited freedom of
+the jungle, unused to any sort of work that was not voluntary, and
+faithful to their traditions and superstitions did not long survive
+their separation from kin and tribe. The others, who managed to adapt
+themselves to their new conditions, as a matter of course, had their
+primitive simplicity corrupted, and little by little learnt the vices
+and habits of their masters. For this they were considered by their
+brethren as inferior beings and were looked upon with grave suspicion,
+when, taking advantage of the first occasion that offered itself, they
+fled back to the forest. Although by their return to their own people
+they foreswore their past moral and material bondage they could not help
+bringing with them some of the depravity they had seen, or endured, in
+their exile which clashed with the customs and sensibilities of the pure
+type of May Darats, remarkable for their sincerity and integrity.
+
+In this way, by degrees, the original Sakai race diminished whilst new
+clans sprang up around them, formed of those who had been, and continued
+to be, in contact with comparatively civilized people, who knew their
+languages and their craftiness, notwithstanding which they frequently
+became their dupes under the show of good-feeling and cordiality.
+
+The British Protectorate came as a blessing to the Sakais because it
+officially abolished slavery and shortened their neighbours' talons,
+that had grown a little too long.
+
+But in spite of the vigilance exercised by their white protectors the
+others still found the means of depredating and imposing upon these good
+but ignorant creatures. Instead of devastating their rude homes and
+arbitrarily taking possession of everyone and everything they pleased,
+they soon established another system for achieving their end.
+
+They supplied them with goods of the very worst quality, charging them
+at the highest prices, and as these consisted principally of tobacco,
+salt, iron, _sirih_ and pieces of calico they lasted no time, and had to
+be frequently replaced. As a matter of course this fraudulent manner of
+trading made the poor Sakais' debts amount to fabulous proportions and
+then their swindling creditor dictated the conditions he best liked: the
+man had to follow and serve him or if there was some woman in the family
+he preferred, he would carry her off either to keep for himself, or
+privately sell to another.
+
+To better succeed in their roguery they depicted the white man as an
+incarnate devil, never tired of doing evil, who had come there for
+nothing else but to ravage their land and disperse its inhabitants. The
+_orang putei_ was described to the credulent Sakais as the most terrible
+and cruel enemy that one could possibly imagine.
+
+Thus the real persecutors of this primitive people were regarded by them
+as true friends, whilst the relation of imaginary and fantastic perils
+distracted their minds from the more practical dangers of this false
+friendship.
+
+By instilling in them fear of the white man there was less chance that
+the wretched individuals, whose good faith and domestic affections had
+been abused and outraged, would appeal to a British magistrate for
+justice, believing him to be a worse enemy than the actual one, and if
+sometimes a complaint was brought before this functionary through a
+third party, a most distressing scene ensued.
+
+The victim, under the influence of his injurer's glance and presence,
+would acknowledge whatever misdeed, debt, and even crime was attributed
+to him, responding to the demand if what his accuser said was true,
+with the invariable and laconic words: "What he says is true".
+
+I may here cite a case in which I took an active part when I was the
+Superintendent of Sakais under the British Government.
+
+One day a family of these Sakais who have dealings with other races,
+rushed wildly into my hut, crying desperately. The parents, sobbing,
+told me that a Chinese, to whom they owed a great deal, had seized and
+led away their daughter.
+
+I set myself to find the blackguard and after some difficulty succeeded.
+I rescued the girl and restored her to her relations and then sent in a
+report of the incident to the Magistrate. A case for abduction was made
+out, and the English law does not jest on such matters. The Chinese
+declared that as his debtors could not pay him his due he had agreed, if
+the girl consented, to take her as his wife or servant, and so cancel
+their debt towards him.
+
+Whilst he spoke he never took his eyes off his accusers. The father and
+mother of the young woman were interrogated and although they were in my
+presence they replied, after a momentary hesitation:
+
+"What he says is true".
+
+The girl was then asked if she had followed the Chinese of her own free
+will or if violence had been used in taking possession of her and she
+too repeated like an automaton:
+
+"What he says is true".
+
+Nothing availed to get other words than these out of the poor wretches'
+mouths, nor the magistrate's clever cross-questioning, nor my entreaties
+to tell the whole truth. I re-called to their memory the pitiful state
+they had been in when they ran into my house, crying and invoking
+justice. It was all in vain; but fortunately for them the legal officer
+himself was convinced that the Chinese--who stood by with a sarcastic
+smile upon his lips--was guilty, and closed the process by condemning
+him to six months' imprisonment.
+
+[Illustration: A forest shooting-box.
+
+_p._ 54.]
+
+I made up my mind to go to the bottom of the affair if only to discover
+why the Sakais, by nature so far removed from falsehood, had denied the
+truth.
+
+My investigations proved that the Chinese had threatened to revenge
+himself by utterly destroying the whole family if they made any
+complaint about his way of proceeding, and had also terrified them by
+stories of the inhuman tortures to which they would be subjected by the
+British magistrate if they spoke against him.
+
+The confession came too late because, if they had spoken in time the
+scoundrel would have had a much heavier sentence.
+
+From this simple episode one can understand what an amount of energy,
+boldness, and resolution the English Authorities need in order to
+liberate the poor Sakais from the moral tyranny that still oppresses
+them. But the British Government is quite equal to the task it has
+undertaken, and there is no reason to doubt that before long it will
+have reduced to impotency these dregs of Society who creep in amongst
+the Sakai tribes, that are far removed from civilization and justice,
+there to work out their wicked schemes and practise their crafty wiles.
+
+I have written the word "dregs" on purpose, as of course peoples in a
+collective sense cannot be held responsible for the bad-doings of a
+small number of their countrymen, and I wish it here to be distinctly
+understood that when I speak of the villainous acts and thievish
+propensities of these latter (who being too well-known and despised in
+their own place, to be able to succeed in their base tricks go elsewhere
+in search of victims) I do not mean to offend, or cast a slight upon
+Malays, Chinese, or Indians in general.
+
+On the contrary, I have the highest esteem and respect for all three,
+especially those who faithfully follow the ways of Progress, and have
+certain virtues peculiarly theirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After this rapid glance into the past it is not difficult to understand
+with what inquietude and uneasiness the Sakais saw their little
+settlement invaded by those they feared.
+
+The new-comers, though, no longer found such a credulous and frightened
+people as they had been accustomed to on other occasions. Their
+calumnious stories of the white man (whose vigilant and not very lenient
+control troubled them a great deal) made little or no impression. They
+knew the white man by now, he had been among them for some time and they
+had even come to look upon him as a good protector.
+
+So by mutual agreement we let our unwelcome visitors choose their sites
+and erect their huts, allowing them to enjoy the ecstasy of a vigorous
+abuse of the humble Sakai village and everything they could find within
+reach; then one fine morning, to their infinite wonder, we left them to
+their own devices and betook ourselves to the heights from whence flowed
+down the little river Bidor. This sudden change of locality did not
+cause me any serious sacrifice as the spot where we had been living was
+not very healthy owing to the frequently stagnant condition of the
+stream and, apart from hygienic motives, I was not altogether sorry at
+being thus compelled to seek new quarters as I was anxious to get well
+acquainted with the whole district, studying its products and its
+fitness for colonization, hoping in the end to succeed in inducing the
+Sakais to abandon their nomadic life for one of honest work, in the
+field of agriculture. Besides so teaching my good friends the value and
+the nobleness of labour I should have a useful occasion myself for
+employing latent energy.
+
+We selected a beautiful place in the forest for our new encampment, and
+the men set to with a good will to cutting down the splendid timber and
+luxuriant climbers within the circle drawn out for the clearing. The
+thick interlaced boughs and bushy underwood were alive with reptiles,
+and our advent, with the noisy and destructive blows with which we broke
+the drowsy stillness of the air, brought an indescribable panic in that
+little centre of animal life.
+
+Our huts were quickly raised and we were soon able to resume our
+habitual occupations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some time passed without our camp being disturbed by any sort of
+incident when one day a tiger was seen to stealthily approach our
+clearing and snatching up a dog in its mouth, it fled back into the
+forest, the poor little beast yelping pitifully as it was being carried
+off.
+
+The fact was a graver one than the mere loss of the dog would have made
+it seem because if the animal had been constrained to commit such an
+audacious act by the pangs of hunger, it would most probably return
+again, and who could say that there would always be a dog ready for its
+meal? It is however well known, that this dreadful feline creature does
+not devour its prey all at once but invariably leaves a part of the
+flesh sticking to the carcass, reserving the picking of its bones for
+the following night. Therefore there was a good chance of speedily
+liberating ourselves from our ferocious enemy, if the Sakais had not
+regarded the tiger with superstitious respect, for a reason which I will
+explain later on, a vague belief in metempsychosis that also has the
+effect of making them fond of their domestic animals.
+
+I had the greatest difficulty in convincing my ignorant companions that
+the tiger must be killed if we wished to remain in peace and safety. It
+was a long time before I could overcome their reluctance and terror at
+my proposal.
+
+At last they consented to let me rid them of their dangerous friend and
+built me a small house up one of the trees we considered to be in the
+best position. Armed with a first class _Martini_ I took my place there
+with two or three Sakais.
+
+What I had expected came to pass: at dead of night the beast returned.
+We could see it crawling cautiously through the high grass. I took
+careful aim and fired. The sharp report was instantly answered by a
+fearful roar, and the formidable creature, after giving a tremendous
+jump into the air, once more disappeared into the darkness of the
+forest.
+
+The Sakais were awed and dismayed by the thunder and lightning of my
+gun.
+
+We could still hear the furious laments of the wounded animal so we
+thought it advisable not to stir from our posts until morning.
+
+At the first streak of day, as the groans of the evidently fallen tiger
+had not ceased, some of the men went to ascertain its refuge whilst I,
+with my loaded rifle, kept myself prompt to defend them in case of an
+unlikely attack.
+
+The beast was soon found, stretched out on the turf In spite of its fury
+it was unable to move as one or two of its legs had been shattered by my
+lead.
+
+I finished it with another shot. Its skull now displays its beauties at
+the Ethnographic Museum at Rome.
+
+Not much later on I was obliged to repeat the same sport.
+
+Another tiger had stolen a dog, and we had found its half-eaten body.
+Knowing that the rest would be devoured within a few hours by the same
+beast of prey we made a little shelter of leaves and branches up a tree
+close by and remained there to await his majesty.
+
+At nightfall he punctually arrived and was received, according to his
+merit, by my rifle. My shot did not miss its mark and he rushed off
+howling with pain and rage. All night long the forest echoes were
+awakened by his horrible cries but towards morning we managed to trace
+him out and he too was finished by a second shot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the year 1898 the ever increasing solicitude of the Sakays had
+enabled me to accumulate a considerable quantity of Malacca cane,
+rattan, resin and orchids which I had made up my mind to take to Penang
+for sale.
+
+But I wanted to indulge myself in the pleasure of conducting with me
+some of my friends, the savages, that they might for the first time see
+a modern town.
+
+It was no easy matter to prevail upon them to follow up my desire but
+finally I persuaded five of them to come with me as carriers.
+
+Keeping always along the banks of the Bidor we descended as far as the
+Perak which we crossed in order to do a part of the journey in train and
+then board one of the steamers that ply between Telok Ansom and the
+island of Penang.
+
+During the voyage I noticed nothing particular in my companions beyond a
+great wonder, not unmixed with fear, when they felt themselves
+travelling upon water.
+
+They observed everything with grand curiosity, and were immensely
+interested in the noisy movement of the ship's engines and its steam
+sirens.
+
+Arrived at Penang, where I met with numerous friends, they soon became
+the centre of attraction.
+
+Dainties of every kind were pressed upon them, and they were offered
+loads of the finest sweetmeats and white sugar. They accepted it all
+without enthusiasm but threw away the sweetmeats as soon as they had
+tasted them. When I asked them why they did so they replied that there
+was something not perfectly sweet in their flavour and they feared that
+whatever it was would do them harm.
+
+The gifts which they seemed to appreciate the most were cigars, tobacco
+and white sugar.
+
+My five Sakais divided their presents with each other, putting away some
+for the dear ones at home, and I often noticed that in the midst of the
+bewilderment which those simple souls must have experienced at being
+surrounded by people and things so totally new to them, they never
+seemed to forget for a moment the beloved persons they had left behind
+in the jungle.
+
+The Town-Band gave a concert and I accompanied my proteges to hear it.
+The bass instruments with their deep notes jarred upon the acoustic
+sense of the poor fellows and visibly inspired them with terror. They
+stopped their ears with their fingers and gave clear signs of the
+unpleasant feelings they were suffering from. But it was quite different
+when they heard the higher-toned instruments, especially those of wood,
+as the flute, the clarionet and the oboe. The pure, vibrating notes gave
+them intense enjoyment judging from the pleased expression of their
+countenances and their singularly brilliant eyes.
+
+I also took them to a Chinese theatre, but the skill of the yellow
+artistes did not find its way to the Sakai heart and after having
+witnessed the spectacle for a few minutes they frankly declared that
+they were not at all amused.
+
+Their artless natures and simple affections remained unpolluted by the
+seductions of civilization. Nothing was wanting to content them: they
+were caressed by the English, received heaps of gifts and lived without
+the slightest fatigue, yet they were not happy. I saw them change humour
+and become more melancholy hour by hour. The distractions with which I
+tried to cure their home-sickness tended only to increase it.
+
+The third day of our sojourn at Penang they implored me so earnestly to
+let them return to their families that, impressed by their sickly looks
+and disconsolate air, I promised at once to grant their desire.
+
+This promise put them into better spirits and their good humour was
+quite restored when the steamer left the harbour at Penang and bore us
+towards the river Perak. No one would imagine the transformation that
+had taken place in my five fellow-travellers.
+
+Four days of town-life had told upon them physically and morally. They
+were tired and disgusted with everything. Accustomed, on an average, to
+walk twenty miles a day, at Penang, after strolling through a few
+streets, they had been weary. Exposed to privations and hardships in the
+Jungle (often owing to their own improvidence) they were soon nauseated
+with the ease and abundance offered them in the city.
+
+Where the climate, the charms of the place and the security from wild
+beasts were all calculated to captivate their fancy and render them
+contented, the poor Sakais drooped and pined for the vicissitudes of
+their wild life in the woods where comfort was unknown and food was
+sometimes scarce. Their thoughts, their very souls were always back in
+the remote forest, in that enchanting wilderness whose magic spell
+blinded them to its mortal perils and inconveniences. Up yonder there
+was perfect liberty of action; up yonder there were their families!
+
+That sudden transition from a primitive existence to the progress of
+many centuries had been a severe shock to them. In the same way that an
+abrupt change from profound darkness to the most dazzling light, or from
+the temperature of the pole to that of the equator, inevitably produces
+grave disorders in the organism if it does not actually prove fatal, so
+the turning of a savage into a citizen at a day's notice incurs a
+dangerous risk.
+
+The popular idea amongst us that anyone can quickly habituate himself to
+the luxuries and commodities of modern life finds a check when applied
+to primeval people like the Sakais. They may observe, enquire, and seek
+to understand--as far as their intelligence permits--everything they see
+around them; they remember well all they have heard and seen, and will
+mimic and describe it in their poor, strange language to their relations
+and friends; they carry with them presents which are a tangible record
+of their travels; they explain to the others how the houses were
+protected from wind, sun and rain; they will teach how to imitate the
+engine whistles, the roar of the steam flowing out of the open valves,
+and the hollow sound of that mysterious monster, the motor-car, but
+their enthusiasm and affections are firmly fixed upon their native
+forest, wondrous in its riches and allurements.
+
+Though it may bring to its lovers death and suffering it is always the
+best beloved of the savage and only a very slow, patient and--to
+them--imperceptible introduction of civilizing elements in their midst
+will be able to weaken this attachment for savage surroundings and turn
+those treasures of affection and fidelity to a more useful and logical
+end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+  The great Sorceress--The forest seen from above--A struggle
+  for life--The crimes of plants--Everlasting twilight--Births
+  and deaths--Concerts by forest vocalists--The "durian"--The
+  "ple-lok"--Vastnesses unexplored by science--Treasures
+  intact--Para Rubber--The Samaritans of the jungle--The
+  forest and its history.
+
+
+To speak of the forest without having seen it, and after having seen it,
+to describe its marvellous beauties, are equally impossible tasks.
+
+When Art shall have re-produced faithfully the magnificent harmonies of
+colour, voice and outline peculiar to the jungle, it may be said that
+there are no more secrets of beauty for it to penetrate, because nowhere
+else has Nature been so profuse in bestowing her multifarious tints or
+has manifested Life with such triumphal glory of fecundity; nowhere else
+can be found such a prodigious variety of forms and attitudes or such
+ineffable multiplicity of sounds.
+
+Like a paean of love the forest breaks forth from the bosom of its
+great Mother and rises eagerly, passionately towards the sun, its
+Benefactor.
+
+Were it possible to soar on high and look down upon that wide verdant
+sea, its infinite gradations of green, enlivened here and there by the
+audacious brightness of a thousand wondrous flowers, we should have
+under our eyes the most complete, artistic and suggestive representation
+of life and its struggles.
+
+The gigantic trees shoot up straight towards the sun, each one seeming
+to strive to outstrip the other; but a thick and even more ambitious
+undergrowth of plants twine round their trunks and enclose them in a
+tenacious embrace, then twisting, and creeping, amongst the spreading
+boughs, reach and cover the highest tops where they at last unfold their
+several leaves and flowers under the sun's most ardent gaze.
+
+The tree, thus encircled and suffocated by the baneful hold of the
+climbers, lacks light and breath; the sap flows in scarce quantities
+throughout its organism and it languishes under the shade of the close
+tendrils; swarms of insects increase its agony by making their food and
+their nests of its bark; reptiles make love within the hollows of its
+trunk and at last the day comes when the lifeless giant falls with a
+frightful crash bearing with it the murderous parasite that is the
+victim of its own tenacity, which first raised it to bask in the
+sunshine and then caused it to be crushed under the rotten weight of its
+former supporter.
+
+These are furious embraces of envy and jealousy; phrenzies of egotism in
+the vegetable kingdom: strange expressions of formidable hate and love,
+of oppression and vengeance.
+
+All these myriads of plants are invaded by the irrepressible mania to
+ascend as high as possible and to receive the first, the most burning,
+perhaps the most pernicious, but the most liberal kiss of the sun. And
+they all hasten to arrive as though fearing to be superseded in the
+ascent as much by the colossal tree destined to brave centuries--if its
+massive roots are not ruined by its minute foes--as by those slender
+growths of a month or a day.
+
+"Higher still! Always higher!" the green-leafed multitude seem to cry,
+"Excelsior!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun never penetrates under this tangled mass of vegetation except
+where an opening has been made by the hands of the savages or by the
+work of lightning and hurricane.
+
+In the dim light of its damp atmosphere the interminable rows of tall
+straight trunks, some stout and some slight, assume the oddest shapes
+which can appeal to the observer's phantasy. Now they are colonnades,
+adorned with pendant festoons stretching away into the distance; now
+they are mysterious aisles of monster temples; now they are the
+unfinished design of some giant architect whose undertaking was arrested
+by a sudden, mystic command. However fruitful may be the imagination of
+the artist he would here always find fresh and superb inspiration from
+the enthralling sight of Nature's virginal beauties.
+
+The stagnant waters of the ponds, round which the frogs croak and the
+leeches crawl, are plentifully strewn with water-lilies, reeds and other
+aquatic plants.
+
+On the hoary trunks of ancient trees whole families of orchids have
+insinuated themselves into little clefts in the bark, and flower there
+in the brightest of colours: red, purple, blue and also white.
+
+Everywhere there is a joyous exuberance of life and vigour. Each day
+begins or ends the cycle of time destined to the vegetable inhabitants
+of the jungle, because as there is no regular round of seasons the
+plants and flowers finish their course according to the short or long
+existence prescribed them by natural laws, and one continually sees
+dried and withered leaves and flowers falling to the ground whilst
+others open and blossom in their stead. Those that die to-day afford
+nourishment to the new-born generation and in this manner there is a
+ceaseless renovation of the various species without any need of a
+gardener to prepare the soil.
+
+The exuberance of animal life is in equal proportion, as there is
+abundance of food for all.
+
+A deep and uninterrupted buzz fills the air; it comes from the cicadas
+whose monotonous note wearies the ear, and from hornets and bees of
+every description that keep up an incessant hum as they suck Juices from
+the plants or dive their antennae into the ripe fruit or perhaps into
+some carrion lying near. The bassoon-like sound never ceases a single
+instant and tells the listener how innumerable are the populations of
+insects which live and generate their sort under the shade of their
+jungle retreat. Other inexplicable noises--far off crashes, mysterious
+sounds that chill one's veins, howls that make one shiver--for a sole
+moment break the noon-day silence. What is their origin? Nobody can say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The different animal sounds to be heard in the forest follow a rule
+which knows no exception.
+
+The day is hailed by a full concert warbled from the throats of
+feathered songsters. This morning hymn rises in all its innocent purity
+to the skies whilst the fierce protaganists of the past night's bloody
+tragedies slink off to their dens and leave the field free to the more
+gentle herbivorous animals.
+
+[Illustration: The durian tree.
+
+_p._ 64.]
+
+But at noon, when the sun is casting down its hottest rays upon that
+vast emerald palace of life, gay voices are hushed and the forest echoes
+only with the drowsy buzzing of insects.
+
+As evening draws near the birds once more begin to chirp and trill, they
+salute the setting sun and fly away to rest. Then the monkeys commence
+their screeching and chattering and soon after the owls and other night
+birds take their turn, making the now dense darkness more terrible with
+their harsh, sinister cries. Little by little as the night deepens,
+bellows, roars and howls resound upon every part in a slow crescendo
+until they are fused into a general and appalling uproar which could not
+be more awful if the gates of Hell were to be opened on Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am not an artist and still less a scientist but as a simple observer I
+like to take note of all that is worthy of notice and that is possible
+for me to transmit in an intelligible form.
+
+Having depicted, to the best of my ability, the characteristics of
+forest life, I think it will be well--setting aside its magic charms and
+manifold wonders which would make a poet even of one who has no tendency
+for poetry--to describe, in a more practical way, some of its products.
+
+I will begin with the durian, or _sumpa_, the fruit of which is unknown
+in our country.
+
+It is a very large tree, growing to the height of 40 or 50 metres and
+distends around it a huge pavilion of rich branches, covered with little
+leaves.
+
+It is to be found sometimes singly and sometimes in clumps and is the
+only tree that the Sakais show any interest in multiplying, and this
+cultivation, if we may so call it, is done by them almost
+unconsciously, not from any sentimental feeling but rather from the
+effect of a sentiment and a superstition.[4] It produces a most
+extraordinary quantity of fruit, the exquisite flavour of which it is
+difficult to match. It has been calculated that every tree bears, on an
+average, about 600 durians but some have even reached the enormous
+figure of 1000.
+
+If one were treating of berries or nuts this would not be so remarkable
+but each fruit of the durian weighs about two kilograms and is as large
+as a child's head. For this reason it is a dangerous thing to stand or
+pass under one of these trees when the fruit is quite ripe as so heavy a
+ball falling from a height of forty or more metres would suffice to
+split open one's head even if the long prickles with which it is covered
+did not make it more to be feared.
+
+The Sakais are quite greedy over durians and Mr Wallace writes that its
+delicate flavour is so exquisite it would well repay the expense and
+disturbance of a journey Eastward on purpose to taste it.
+
+This assertion of the English writer may be somewhat exaggerated but for
+my own part, I must say that I have never tasted anything more
+delicious. But not everyone can enjoy or appreciate this strange fruit
+for the disgusting smell that distinguishes it and that is apt to cause
+nausea to a weak stomach.
+
+Imagine to have under your nose a heap of rotten onions and you will
+still have but a faint idea of the insupportable odour which emanates
+from these trees and when its fruit is opened the offensive smell
+becomes even stronger.
+
+When mature, that is to say in the months of August and September, the
+durians fall to the ground and are eagerly gathered up by the natives,
+who at the period of their ripening, leave the women and children, the
+old and the sick in their villages and encamp themselves in the forest
+around these precious trees.
+
+The outside of the durian is ligneous and is covered with strong
+prickles of nearly an inch long. The interior consists of a great many
+small eggs each one being wrapped in a fine film which, when broken,
+reveals a pulp of the consistency and colour of thick custard. A big
+seed is embedded in the centre of each egg, almond-like in size and
+form, although not so flat.
+
+I cannot describe in any way the flavour of this fruit which the real
+Sakai calls _sumpa_. I can but repeat that it is exquisite and far
+superior to any sweet dainty prepared by cook or confectioner. There is
+nothing to equal it, and in eating one does not discern the least smell
+as the disagreeable stench comes from the husk alone and the worse it
+is, the more delicate is the taste of the pulp.
+
+This fruit is too perishable for it to be exported to far countries even
+if there was any chance of its finding favour in European markets, in
+consequence of its horrible smell, which does not however protect it
+from the voracity of the monkeys and their rodent companions--especially
+the squirrels--that manage, in spite of its formidable prickles, to make
+a hole in the husk and nibble out some of its contents leaving the rest
+to rot inside.
+
+To my knowledge the durian is not subject to any malady which might
+effect the annual quantity of fruit to be gathered, this depending
+entirely upon whether the wind has blown violently, or not, during the
+time it was in flower.
+
+This King of Trees, as it is called by the Sakai, will grow and prosper
+nearly to the height of a thousand metres, and its fruit is preserved by
+pressing it into large tubes of bamboo after the seeds have been picked
+out.
+
+The Sakais frequently exchange these original pots of jam for other
+articles equally prized by them, such as tobacco and beads.
+
+Another fruit, so delicious that it may almost be said to rival the
+durian, is the _ple lok_.
+
+The tree on which it grows cannot be ranked amongst the giants of the
+forest. It has big and long leaves something like those of the orange
+but whilst on the top they are a glossy black in under they are of a
+still glossier green.
+
+The fruit, that ripens between September and November, is the size of a
+peach but it is covered with a very thick husk (nearly black outside,
+and a rusty red inside) after the sort of our walnuts. The pulp is
+divided into a lot of quarters each one enclosed in a very thin skin. It
+looks like snow-white Jelly and in fact melts in the mouth at once,
+leaving only a little kernel. The flavour is sweet and exceedingly
+pleasant.
+
+The husk is utilized by the Sakais for producing a dye with which to
+paint their faces and also for making a decoction as a remedy against
+diarrhaea and pains in the stomach.
+
+The Sakais are immensely fond of this fruit as indeed any European,
+accustomed to the finest sweets, might be, the more so as it never does
+any harm or brings about an indigestion, even when eaten in large
+quantities.
+
+Besides these two grand lords of the forest I will also mention the _ple
+pra_, a colossus that, modestly, but without avarice, supplies the Sakai
+with excellent chestnuts.
+
+It is impossible, notwithstanding my desire, to describe the many other
+trees and fruits which form the richness of the forest, as it would take
+too long. Further on, in a chapter dedicated to poisons, I have named
+some of the most dangerous in this respect, but between those that are
+the ministers of Death and those that are the means of Life to the
+simple jungle-dweller, there are countless species to which it would be
+difficult to assign a particular class.
+
+Many of these latter are regarded by the natives with distrust, perhaps
+without any reason, but from who knows what strange belief transmitted
+from father to son? And in the heart of the forest who is there to study
+and make experiments upon such leaves and fruits in order to ascertain
+if they are perfectly edible?
+
+I, for instance, am of opinion that the fruit of the _giu u ba a_ could
+be safety used and to a great extent.
+
+It is like a little pumpkin, green outside and yellowish-white inside. A
+kind of oil is extracted from its pulp which, when cooked, is not of a
+disagreeable taste and does one no harm. But the _giu u ba a_ is a
+creeper and it is among these parasites that poisons abound and this is
+why the fruits obtained from them are used with reluctance and if
+possible, avoided altogether.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Treasures not to be imagined are still hidden in the profound recesses
+of the Malay forest; priceless treasures for medical science and for
+industry.
+
+Could the former but discover the exact therapeutic and venomous virtues
+of some of those plants, many of which are quite unknown to botanists,
+what innumerable new and potent remedies might be found to enrich the
+pharmacopoeia of civilized people!
+
+Agriculture, in all its varied branches, could here find incalculable
+treasures of fertility!
+
+Without counting the rice that gives a wonderful annual product, the
+Indian-corn that gives two harvests a year and the sweet potatoes that
+give three, there is the yam, the _sikoi_,[5] the sugar-cane, coffee,
+pepper, tea, the banana, the ananas, indigo, sago, tapioca, gambier,
+various sorts of rubber, gigantic trees for shipbuilding, and so on.
+
+The Para Rubber, from which is extracted our gutta percha grows
+marvellously well in the Malay soil and requires very little attention
+or expense.
+
+There is the _ramie_ whose fibres will by degrees supplant the silk we
+get from cocoons, or mixed together will form an excellent quality of
+stuff. It is a herb with long, fibrous stems which when well beaten out
+and bleached become like a soft mass of wool. After being carded it can
+be spun into the finest threads as shiny and pliant as silk itself.
+
+[Illustration: The Durian.
+
+_p._ 65.]
+
+This plant flourishes to a great extent in Perak and its stems may be
+cut off twice a year. It only needs to be cultivated, for industry to be
+provided with a new and precious element. In fact there are few who do
+not know that the greater part of Chinese silk stuffs are woven with the
+_ramie_ fibres, but its utility might have a much larger extension if it
+were made an object of study by those capable of drawing from it
+profitable results.
+
+Very few lands, I think, have been so favoured by capricious Nature as
+the Malay Peninsula where she seems to have taken delight in bestowing
+her treasures of flora and fauna as well as underground ones, for
+several gold and tin mines are being worked, whilst lead, copper, zinc,
+antimony, arsenic and many other metals are constantly being found,
+besides some rich veins of wolfram, although a real bed of the latter
+ore has not yet been discovered.
+
+If once the still lazy but honest forces of the Sakais could be utilized
+by turning them towards agriculture, all this natural wealth might be
+sent to the World's markets and a sparse but good people, susceptible of
+great progress, would be gradually civilized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Para Rubber, referred to above, constitutes one of the greatest
+riches of the Malay agricultural industry.
+
+Both soil and climate are very favourable for its cultivation in the
+Peninsula, so much so that a tree attains the maturity necessary for the
+production of this valuable article in four years, if special care and
+attention is given it, or in five or six if left to its natural growth
+(as in Ceylon), whilst in other places it takes eight and even ten
+years.
+
+Not many years ago the British Government had a limited space of ground
+planted, with seeds brought from Brazil, as a simple experiment. The
+result was encouraging enough to induce the Institute of Tropical
+Researches--initiated under the auspices of the Liverpool University,
+with the object of developing Colonial commerce--to make plantations
+which in one season yielded no less than 150,000 pounds of gum.
+
+About three years ago 60,000 acres of land were planted with Para
+Rubber, the Government providing the seed at a very low rate.
+
+It is calculated that each acre contains from 125 to 250 trees according
+to the quality of the ground and its position.
+
+These plantations continue to increase with surprising rapidity and it
+may be said, at the present day, that four million trees are to be found
+in an area of 200,000 acres.
+
+When one considers that each tree renders, on an average, from 5 to 6
+pounds of gum, and that that of Perak--chemically proved to be pure--is
+quoted on the market at 6/10 per pound--whilst the best produced by
+other countries does not exceed 5/7--one can form a pretty correct
+estimate of the enormous sum derived from the Para rubber of Perak.
+
+It was generally supposed that this valuable tree would suffer if it
+surpassed a thousand metres in height but in the Malay Peninsula it
+grows and nourishes even higher than 1,600 metres, especially the
+so-called _ficus elasticus_ and India-rubber.
+
+The British Government is doing its best to increase this cultivation,
+and "its best" in this case really means "the very best" because besides
+concession of land, and the providing of seed at a low rate, the
+Government aids this industry, in which so many millions are invested,
+by the making of fine, wide high-roads as well as by maintaining
+railways for the conveyance of goods, fixing a minimum tariff for the
+transport.
+
+Perhaps some one will accuse me of being too partial in my remarks upon
+the work done by the British Government in this its remote Eastern
+Protectorate, but having assisted for many years in the ever increasing
+agricultural and commercial development of the peninsula, and having
+seen the steady conquest civilization has made by means of the most
+practical and surest methods--such as the patient training of the
+natives to the love of work, and the prompt and conscientious
+administration of justice--I cannot but admire the enlightened and
+benificent activity displayed by the English in those parts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Closed this parenthesis about the plantations, which are now spreading
+far and wide over the forest (the wood-cutter's hatchet continually
+clearing new tracts of land for agricultural enterprises), I want you to
+return with me to the jungle which is still almost untrodden and where
+Nature reigns supreme over the thick tropical vegetation.
+
+Having already spoken briefly and in a disorderly way of the riches
+which are here gratuitously offered--not the riches of Midas and
+Pymalion, because mother Nature does not refuse food to her children
+even if they are profaners of that wonderful temple of her fecundity--it
+is right that I should now draw your attention to two great friends of
+travellers in the forest. One is the bamboo and the other a creeper
+called the "water vine".
+
+The bamboo, known to us only as one of the plants least considered in a
+large, well-kept garden, or as a polished walking stick, as the legs of
+a fancy table of uncertain equilibrium or as a tobacco box ably worked
+by Chinese or Japanese fingers, in the free forest becomes a colossal
+inhabitant. Its canes, at first tender and supple, grow to such a size,
+and so strong as to be used for water conduits. It is a vigorous and
+invasive plant that covers the surrounding ground with new shoots
+whilst in under its long roots spread out and suck up all the vital
+nutriment to be found in the earth around.
+
+To one who lives in the forest, the bamboo is as necessary as food
+itself. It provides light, solid huts; it makes the blowpipe, arrow and
+quiver; it serves for carrying water and preserving fruit; it forms a
+safe recipient for poisonous juices; it is bottle and glass, and finally
+supplies the native cooks with a saucepan that only they can use because
+they have the knack of cooking their food without burning the bamboo. I
+have often tried to do the same but the result has always been that pot
+and pottage have been burnt together.
+
+The bamboo has also a secret virtue of incalculable value to the thirsty
+wayfarer, overcome by the heat of a tropical sun: it is a perfect
+reservoir of water.
+
+By boring a hole just under the joints of each cane more than half a
+litre of clear water, not very fresh, but wholesome and good, gushes
+out. It is rather bitter to the taste and serves to restore one's forces
+as well as to quench one's thirst.
+
+The water-vine also acts as a Samaritan in the jungle. Like all the
+others of its sort this climbing plant closes some giant king of the
+forest in its cruel embrace (thus depriving it of its strength) and then
+falls in rich festoons from its boughs, swaying and rustling with every
+breath of air.
+
+By making a cut at the extremity of one of the sprays that hang down
+towards the ground, a fresh, drinkable water flows out.
+
+It is superfluous, perhaps, to add that this grand necessity for the
+traveller on foot may be obtained from other sources: the streams that
+are to be found trickling along here and there, and the huge leaves that
+upon drying up secrete a certain quantity of rain water within them.
+
+So the jungle gives to eat and to drink, with wonderful abundance and
+variety, but woe to him who does not know her well, for she also
+proffers Death in a thousand unsuspected and seductive forms!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How many times in the solemn, languid hour of noontide, when bird and
+beast were drowsing from the heat, I have stood in the shade and
+interrogated the forest upon its first violators and their descendants!
+But my demands remained unanswered; in its superb grandeur it does not
+interest itself in the tragic vicissitudes of animal or vegetable lives,
+it makes no records, on the contrary, it quickly cancels all traces of
+past events.
+
+I have vainly asked: from whence came those who have found shelter and
+solitude in the obscure depths of its wooded hills? How many centuries
+have they dwelt in those lone, wild parts? I have asked if that shy and
+dispersed tribe was not the remains of a once great and strong people
+eclipsed by a younger, stronger, and more savage race? Sometimes
+watching, with admiring eyes, the strange architectural forms taken by
+the massive trunks and graceful vines, fantastic but always majestic, I
+have asked the forest if it had not arisen upon the ruins of some long
+ago and lost civilization and if those same forms were not an
+inexplicable evocation of the gigantic creations of vanished genii of
+which I seemed in imagination to catch faint glimpses?
+
+But the forest remained mute and kept its impenetrable secret.
+
+Only here and there, groups of trees, lower than the surrounding ones,
+and between them spaces of ground, which had evidently once been
+clearings and were not yet totally re-covered by jungle growth, gave
+proof of Sakai nomadism even in other ages. No other sign of the past,
+and my query, perhaps absurd, repeats itself. Am I before the savage
+infancy of a people, or the spent senility of a race, lost sight of in
+the course of centuries? If the latter, would there not be some relic
+left of its existence; a fragment of stone or concrete substance
+inscribed with the figures of its period? Is it possible that everything
+has been buried from the sight of modern man, under the rank luxuriance
+of grass and bush? Or is it not I who vainly dream under the impression
+of the forest's mute grandeur and the thousands of voices that to-day
+awake its echoes and to-morrow leave none behind?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 4: In another chapter, wherein I describe the superstitions
+and beliefs of the Sakais, I have spoken of the custom they have of
+depositing food, tobacco, etc., on the tombs of their dead for a week
+after they have been buried. Naturally everything, not devoured by beast
+or insect, rots upon the spot and the seeds of the fruit find their way
+into the ground. For this reason many new trees spring up in groups,
+obtaining their first alimentation from the dissolution of the corpse.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The _sikoi_ grows on high mountains and the women have to
+take great pains in cleaning it before it is cooked. It is a grain
+something like our millet and has good nutritive qualities.
+
+The Sakays mix it with water and make a sort of "polenta" cooking it, as
+usual, in their bamboo saucepans. It is a favourite dish with them when
+eaten with monkey flesh, rats, pieces of snake, lizards, beetles and
+various other insects which would be of rare entomological value to any
+museum that possessed them.
+
+Ignorant of the repugnant compound, that gave such a savoury taste to
+the _sikoi_, at the beginning of my sojourn with the Sakays, I ate it
+with relish after seasoning it with a little salt, an article not much
+used amongst my mountain friends. But when I came to know what
+ingredients gave it flavour I refused it, as kindly as I could not to
+offend their susceptibilities, because my stomach rebelled against the
+mess.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+  The snares of civilized life--Faust's invocation--The dangers
+  of the forest--Serpents--A perilous adventure--Carnivorous
+  and herbivorous animals--The "sladan"--The man of the wood.
+
+
+The young man who incautiously ventures into the mysterious parts of
+Drury Lane--where vice and crime have a classical reputation--or strolls
+through the old Latin Quarter of Paris (where some of the streets are
+anything but safe to pass through), or who finds himself, for whatsoever
+reason you will, in one of those questionable labyrinths still existing
+in the most civilized Italian cities, would certainly not run less risk
+than in facing the dangers of the forest. The dart, the trap, the attack
+of beast and reptile may be, with courage and calmness, averted or
+parried, but the evils which menace man, under the hypocritical
+euphemisms of Society (ever ready to vaunt its impeachableness) injure
+not only the body but, what is worse, the spirit.
+
+Those who succumb to the latter are ofttimes induced to lament that
+death does not come swift enough to kill their flesh, after their souls
+and intellects have been long since slain and consumed.
+
+In the thick of the jungle the spirit rises and wanders free; there are
+no restraints or limits to its flight. It is inebriated by the simple
+and serene joys of living; it is pervaded by a current of new, potent
+energy that makes one feel--alone, in Nature's realm--either immensely
+great or infinitely small; exquisitely good or miserably wicked.
+
+It is not prudent, when travelling in the forest, to let philosophy make
+us linger long on the way, but there are some moments in which one's
+inner life is so intense, in which thought and sentiment are so
+impetuous that that fleeting atom of time is in itself sufficient to
+mark an indelible epoch in the existence of men. Who knows but what if
+Mephistopheles had lead Faust into the virgin forest, and there left him
+free to his speculations, if the famous invocation would ever have
+escaped from the fevered lips of the doctor?
+
+But... what is this hissing? It is not the spirit that denies; it is a
+snake I have disturbed along my path and that has not found my
+philosophizing over pleasant (like you, perhaps, kind reader) and so I
+will cut short my digression.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The forest abounds in reptiles. There are innumerable varieties of
+serpents, big and small, venomous and harmless. It may almost be said
+(especially towards the plain) that every bush and every tree has one of
+these inhabitants.
+
+The commonest species are the _tigi rilo_, the _tigi paa_ and the _tigi
+dolo_ but the most feared are the _sendok_ and the _bimaa_.
+
+[Illustration: Cooking in a bamboo saucepan.
+
+_p._ 72.]
+
+As a rule none of these snakes will assail a person unless they have
+been molested. They remain either rolled up close to a tree or lazily
+swinging from one of its branches, keeping hold of it with its powerful
+tail and so it is necessary to proceed very carefully and to look
+attentively both up and down in order not to disturb them.
+
+The serpent, when stumbled against, hurls itself as quick as lightning
+upon the unhappy offender, encircling and suffocating him with its coils
+and biting him with its sharp fangs even when they are not poisoned.
+Like all other animals it becomes ferocious and seeks to kill from fear.
+He who disturbs it is a foe to be vanquished.
+
+But if you pass him without being afraid and without hurrying, with a
+slow gliding step, taking care not to move your hands or arms, it will
+let you go on your way and take no notice of you.
+
+And this I can affirm from experiments I have myself made upon the
+terrible _sendok_.
+
+One day I was able, in this way, to pass quite close, almost touching
+one of these most venomous reptiles. He never moved as I crept by but he
+did not lose sight of me for a single instant. I am quite sure that if
+my inward fear had betrayed itself by the slightest gesture, I should
+have been a dead man.
+
+Sometimes I have succeeded, very, very gently, in placing upon it a
+stick about two metres long. Well, the horrid serpent just lazily
+unfolded its coils and softly slipped from under it. Very different
+would have been the result if I had put the stick upon its head roughly!
+
+From this you will see that danger from snakes is much less than one
+might believe from the thrilling adventures narrated by friends (between
+a roast chestnut and a sip of wine), as they are snugly gathered round a
+cosy fireside, adventures which they have read in the fabulous pages
+written by one of those story-tellers who gull the respectable public
+with the loveliest or the most terrifying descriptions of places, men
+and beasts of which they scarcely know the name.
+
+Serpents are always attacked and beaten down with sticks, except the
+very large ones, that are taken by lassoes as I will explain in another
+chapter. It is a quick and simple means of getting free, in a few
+minutes, of a venomous enemy which it never fails to do when fear does
+not make the eye and the hand miss its aim, precision in the blow being
+all that is needed.
+
+Not very long since I had an adventure with one of these reptiles which
+threatened to be my last. I was quietly strolling in the forest and had
+with me neither weapon nor stick. My thoughts were far away but a
+rustling sound and a loud hiss brought them quickly back and arrested my
+steps. A large, venomous snake was right in front of me! Erect, with
+open mouth and protruding tongue, the embodiment of hatred, it was
+there, prompt for an assault. My case was desperate and only a miracle
+of _sang-froid_ could save me. Fixing my eyes steadily upon those of the
+serpent, very gradually and with the slowest possible movement I bent my
+knees and crouched down towards the ground, where, in an equally slow
+and methodical way I groped for some sort of stick with which to strike
+my adversary. Having found what I wanted, I drew myself up in the same
+cautious manner and with a sudden, rapid gesture I hit the beast with
+all my might. Fortunately for me, my blow told and I had an addition to
+my collection of jungle foes.
+
+The traveller in Malay who is not a thorough alien to timorous feelings
+would do well to never leave his comfortable post in the railway
+carriage between one place and another or at least to keep within a safe
+distance of the forest, for although its perils have been greatly
+exaggerated there are some, all the same, that require a stout heart and
+firm nerves.
+
+When there is no big game to put your courage and your pulse to the test
+there is always a troop of smaller animals that make game of you and
+prove your force of resistance. A rat bites your heel whilst you are
+asleep; the leeches suck your blood; all sorts of insects sting you.
+These little annoying incidents irritate flesh and spirit and may be the
+cause of feverishness, but a dose of quinine and a compress over the
+wound soon have a good effect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is not sufficient to bravely face bodily danger, support physical
+pain and endure with grace the mortifications inflicted upon one's flesh
+by the more minute inhabitants of those regions, for the jungle also
+exacts certain moral virtues which civilization does not always
+appreciate or admire, nay, on the contrary, that it often laughs at.
+
+The great Sorceress, for whom one feels a strange nostalgia after having
+once known her magnificence and her horrors, kills the man who is not
+temperate in his habits.
+
+Moderation in eating is the first consideration for prolonging life in
+the forest. The stomach must never be overladen and no strong drinks
+must be used.
+
+By following this method of living and allowing myself very rarely even
+a glass of wine I managed to keep in excellent health in 1889 when an
+epidemic raged violently in the island of Nias and made sad havoc
+amongst the natives.
+
+The human organism, especially that of a European, is beset by numerous
+inconveniences which may generate illness; the burning sun, that seems
+to cook one's brain; the cold nights and heavy dews; the violent storms
+that quite suddenly break over your head, and the food that must be put
+up with even when it is not actually hygienic.
+
+For all this a strict regime, based upon moderation, is indispensable.
+
+It is true that in my forest cabin I have an assortment of the best
+wines and whiskies, notwithstanding the improbability of being able to
+offer a glass to my friends, but those bottles remain well corked,
+waiting for their legitimate owner to feel indisposed, when a draught of
+their contents will restore his lost strength without resorting to
+medicine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The greatest dangers in the jungle are those which cannot be met with
+impunity; those that render every defence inefficacious when a man is
+taken unawares.
+
+I speak of the tigers and panthers that are very numerous and audacious;
+of the bears, that do not act so jocosely here as in our streets and
+menageries but vie with other wild beasts in blood-thirstiness; of the
+rhinoceros, the elephant, the terrible _sladan_, the wild dogs that,
+fierce as wolves, wander about in large packs.
+
+A dissertation upon the tiger and its like does not seem to me a
+sufficiently interesting subject for my readers who will have seen, who
+knows how many, at the fairs and museums and will have learnt their
+character and habits from Natural History books or from the description
+(not always correct) of someone who has only set foot on the land where
+they live. I must, however, make special mention of the _sladan_, the
+only survivor of an almost extinct fauna.
+
+This animal belongs to the herbivorous class but is more ferocious than
+any of the carnivorous species. It does not kill from hunger or for
+self-defence, but for the mere sake of killing.
+
+It is a sort of buffalo or bison with two very solid, strongly planted
+horns on its thick-set head. This animal possesses such vigour and
+agility as to enable it to attack victoriously all other wild beasts.
+Only the elephant sometimes succeeds, with difficulty, in mastering it.
+
+Its den is in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the forest and
+by day and by night it scours the neighbourhood, rending the air with
+its awful roars. One is never sure of not meeting it, and to meet it
+either means to kill it or to be killed.
+
+It is very fond of the tender shoots of sweet potatoes and for this will
+often visit the crops cultivated by the Sakais who, for fear of this
+dreaded enemy, do not plant very much. Generally, though, the _sladan_
+devastates the potato fields during the night.
+
+The ferocity of this beast surpasses that of all others, for whilst the
+lion, the bear and even the tiger and panther have been known to show
+some feeling of respect, gratitude or fear, the _sladan_ never exhibits
+one or the other. It would almost seem that in him is concentrated all
+the hatred of a race of animals, fast dying out, against every living
+creature whose species is still destined to remain in the world.
+
+And yet quite close to the haunts of these champions in savagery, always
+on the look out for blood and carnage, live other quiet and harmless
+animals. I will say nothing of the wild boar (that in comparison with
+the _sladan_, might pass for a lamb) of the wild goat or of the deer
+which are in great numbers, but there are little rodent quadrupeds of
+every sort, size, and fur, besides perfect crowds of monkeys of
+different kinds. They belong to the herbivorous order and go about by
+day in search of food, hiding themselves when the first shades of night
+call forth from their dens the heroes of nocturnal tragedies.
+
+A garrulous population of birds enliven the forest; they are
+insectivorous, granivorous, and omnivorous but all are beautiful in
+their rich and wonderful variety of colour. Amongst these the pheasant
+for its oriental plumage and the cockatoo for its querulous voice are
+remarkable as the largest.
+
+A gay concert is given in honour of the dawning and the dying day but
+long before the birds of prey have unfolded their wings and soar, like
+phantoms, through the darkness, the pretty carol-singers hush their
+warblings and hide themselves from the horrors of the night.
+
+A collector of butterflies would go into ecstasies over the splendid
+varieties that flutter and flit in the air, and the countless multitude
+of different insects would be well worth special study; amongst the
+latter are verified the most curious mimetic facts that ever the
+unprejudiced mind of a man of politics could imagine!
+
+And yet, in the midst of so many contrasts, in the midst of so many
+dangers which exact exceptional presence of mind and strong nerves, life
+in the forest is full of charm and allurements.
+
+The spirit is strengthened and elevated by this continuous warfare, open
+and pronounced, so unlike those depressing struggles against narrow
+minds, and tiger-hearts, which distinguish town-life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is very rare that one meets a man in the Malay forest. You may walk
+on for weeks without encountering a soul. I happened once, though, to
+fall in with one who was a primitive being in the strictest sense of the
+term.
+
+[Illustration: Trap for reptiles and rats.
+
+_p._ 86.]
+
+I was trudging along one day with my Sakai servant, when at the foot
+of the hill (Chentok) I saw a little cot and wished to visit it.
+Inside I found a man. At seeing me he caught up his blow-pipe--a
+miserable-looking instrument--and his poisoned darts, and was about to
+run away. I hastily made my companion offer him a few cooked potatoes
+and a little maize which he accepted without saying a word and began to
+devour ravenously.
+
+In those brief moments I took stock of the poor creature. He was
+painfully thin; his skeleton could be clearly seen under the unadorned
+skin; his sunken eyes gleamed with mistrust and inquietude from out of
+his fleshless face, and his long black hair lay in tangled masses round
+his neck.
+
+I had before me the true type of a wild man of the wood, less vivacious
+and less loquacious than his brother, the ape.
+
+I gave him some tobacco, that he eagerly crammed into his mouth and
+then, keeping fast hold of his weapon he hurried off, without uttering a
+single syllable, although I asked him many things in his own tongue.
+
+Neither did he in any way express satisfaction, or gratitude for what he
+had received but vanished mute, contemptuous and silently into the
+thickest part of the jungle.
+
+My little Sakai was not so surprised as I at this strange person and his
+way of proceeding, because he had seen him before and could tell me
+something about him.
+
+He was known by the name of _Ala Lag_, or the sorcerer. He had no wife,
+no children, no friends, and lived quite alone, far from everyone,
+wandering about the forest, feeding upon wild-honey and the fruit he
+found upon the ground. If he happened to catch some game he would light
+up a bit of fire and seem to cook it but in reality he ate it raw.
+Sometimes he came across a settlement when he would enter the first hut
+which lay in his way, and by gesture more than by word, would ask for
+food and after having obtained it, started off again.
+
+The good Sakais pitied the poor vagabond and had often tried to make him
+stop with them as a brother or a guest but he always resolutely refused
+whatever proposal they made him and they were of opinion that not even
+old age would have any effect upon the misanthropy of this poor
+inoffensive being who isolated himself so obstinately from all his kind.
+
+I thought to myself, is the poor fellow wise or mad in thus seeking to
+live alone as Nature produced him, in the unlimited liberty of his
+native jungle where he is secure from delusions and sorrows?
+
+Men, little less savage than he, feel compassion for him as he passes
+by. Nobody would dare to laugh at or injure such a harmless soul and so
+he is allowed to ramble from hut to hut undisturbed, his eccentricities
+and his odd behaviour being his safeguard.
+
+It is not always so amongst people more advanced in civilization!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  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 plot_ and the _cep rio_ 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._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  The origin of the Sakais--Hypothesis and legend--Physical
+  character--Thick tresses, gay flowers and troublesome
+  guests--Hereditary antipathy--The five senses reduced to
+  two--Food and drink--Tranquil life--Intolerance of
+  authority--Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law--Logical
+  laziness--A Sakai journalist--The story of a mattress.
+
+
+Paolo Mantegazza, the scientific poet writes:
+
+"Man is eternally tormenting himself with unanswered questions: Where
+did our species first come from? When did this life first begin?
+
+"This is his real original sin, as it is also the source of his true
+greatness. He is but a single link in an endless chain; he is but one
+imperceptible moment enclosed by a Past which he does not know and a
+Future which he will never see. But he feels the need of looking back
+and asking: where did we begin? And of looking forward, asking: where
+shall we finish?".
+
+I, too, have often made much the same demands, not about myself, for I
+have no inclination for metaphysical reflections, but about the Sakais
+who have unconsciously given me a difficult problem to solve: who are
+they? From whence did they come?
+
+There is absolutely nothing that speaks of them, and in the absence of
+positive fact we can only fall back upon mere hypothesis, more or less
+probable, until an accurate investigation with regard to the origin of
+this primitive people may present us with a convincing theory.
+
+But in order to make these studies it would be necessary to live in
+their midst (and not many could adapt themselves to the various
+inconveniences of such a life) because the live Sakai never abandons his
+native forest and to have a dead one for the purpose would be next to
+impossible, as he who attempted to carry away a corpse would expose
+himself to serious danger, there being no greater sacrilege, according
+to the idea of these bushmen, than that of touching a dead body or of
+digging up the ground where a skeleton lies.
+
+Therefore there does not seem to be any near chance of arriving at a
+definite conclusion upon the subject.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is generally believed that anciently a people, called Benuas, not
+willing to submit themselves to the laws imposed upon them by the then
+flourishing and civilized India and fearing to fall into slavery,
+advanced through Indo-China till they reached the Malay Peninsula. Here
+also they found themselves pursued and surrounded by civilization, so,
+instead of settling round the rich and smiling shores, they turned
+towards the forest and encamped there. This version of their immigration
+would account for the Sakais not having the least idea of the sea which
+they never mention, not even in their legends or superstitions.
+
+Shunning-all contact with the other inhabitants of the country they had
+chosen as a refuge, they concealed themselves in the jungle, thus
+preserving their independence and the purity of their race.
+
+Some centuries later, in an era of fanaticism, invasions were made upon
+them with the object of converting them to Mohammedism but the only
+result was fire and bloodshed and after each conflict the surviving
+Sakais fled further into the forest (into those parts which had never
+been before explored) or to the natural strongholds of the far off
+mountains.
+
+If this hypothesis holds good then the Sakais must be a very ancient
+people. It is an accepted fact that as far back as the 8th century
+Arabian merchants traded with the inhabitants of the Peninsula and that
+a very remote intercourse existed between these and Hindostan, and
+although there is no substantial proof, no analogies of language,
+customs or creed upon which to base such a conjecture, neither, as yet,
+has anything been proved to the contrary whilst many primeval
+superstitions prevalent amongst the Sakais are still to be found in
+other tribes living in proximity with believers in Buddha and Brahma.
+
+Another legend, sustained by the Kurumbus themselves, would make one
+suppose that the Sakais belong to that people, once grand, but now
+broken up and dispersed. In fact, even at the present time, there are
+many popular songs amongst the Malays in which the Kurumbus and Sakais
+are mixed up together.
+
+Dr. Short, in his ethnological studies of India, describes certain
+characteristics and habits of the Kurumbus, inhabiting the forest, which
+perfectly coincide with those to be met with amongst the Sakais.
+
+I refer to those regarding physiognomy, structure, and stature, the
+primitive mode of cultivating corn, the choice of food, and the
+improvidence shown in eating, with the consequence that deficiency
+follows upon excess.
+
+Naturally these points of similarity are no proof that the two peoples
+are of the same origin but they give to the question a certain
+argumentative value.
+
+What seems to me sure is that the Sakais have nothing in common with the
+Malays or with the various other races that surround them. This may
+perhaps be owing to the contact the latter have with each other, the
+result being a modification of customs, traditions and purity of blood.
+I find, however, many traits which connect them with the Mongolian and
+Caucasian races (Indians and Semitics) and there is much in them which
+resembles other peoples living in Indo-China and India.
+
+It must be understood, though, that I speak only of the Sakais of the
+hills and not those of the plains who have in a great measure lost the
+characteristics which should distinguish them through their mixing with
+Kampongs, Malays and Chinese Ghedes.
+
+But let us now leave aside all the vague suppositions that for several
+reasons I have felt bound to mention (not the least of which being
+perhaps the need we all feel of investigating our neighbour's past), and
+let us rather examine the Sakai as he is in the 20th century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evidently he has not perceived the passing away of nineteen or more
+centuries because they have left no inheritance for him.
+
+The Sakai, then, is somewhat short in stature but sufficiently hardy and
+well-formed, except in the lower limbs which render him slightly
+bow-legged.
+
+The cause of this trifling deformity is to be found in the habit they
+have, from their earliest childhood, of sitting upon their heels, as it
+were, thus leaving the knees wide apart.
+
+This posture, however, is not a particularity of the jungle inhabitants
+as I have frequently seen Italians in the same position, but the latter
+lean their shoulders against a tree or wall for support so that there is
+less strain upon the legs.
+
+When they are eating or listening to something that interests them the
+Sakai men and women will remain for whole hours in this attitude without
+showing any fatigue whatever.
+
+Their feet are rather large and properly arched. The big toe is well
+separated from the others and is very strong.
+
+The muscles of their arms are not much developed and sometimes these
+members are too long in proportion to the rest of the body. Their hands
+are also very long and slender. The chest muscles, on the contrary, are
+very well developed owing probably to the continual habit of climbing
+trees, rocks, rifts and the like in search of food or for any other
+motive that their nomadic life may make necessary.
+
+Altogether the figure of the Sakai does not reveal any large amount of
+vigour perhaps because he is usually thin and is what might be termed
+pot-bellied, owing to the sort of food he eats and the cold he suffers
+during the night, but he is much more robust and taller (the average
+height of an adult is a little past one metre and a half)[7] than the
+other tribes and races around him who are in close reports with
+civilization. This fact would almost make one believe that civilization
+is detrimental to the physical development of an individual.
+
+These Aborigines are endowed with wonderful agility, as may be seen when
+they clamber up certain clefts that we should judge impossible of ascent
+and also when they spring from one part to another with a nimbleness
+that might excite the envy of our best gymnasts.
+
+They have not much muscular force, as I have said, but they are second
+to none in enduring fatigue, especially in the case of long marches, to
+which they are well accustomed as every day they walk about 20 miles,
+carrying upon their shoulders the by no means light product of the
+chase, together with the various roots and bulbs they find in the
+forest, as well as their inseparable blow-pipes and well-filled quivers.
+
+They also resist very well the privations to which they are sometimes
+subjected by their own improvidence. All that they bring back with them
+they will eat at once, be it animal or vegetable food, and when they
+cannot finish it up by themselves they invite people from another
+village or tribe to come and help them devour it, laughing at every idea
+of domestic economy that I have vainly tried to impress upon their
+minds.
+
+But are they wrong, after all? They know for certain that the forest
+will not leave them to starve and when there is no more rice, durian,
+mangosteen etc., it is never difficult to catch a pheasant, monkey, rat,
+serpent or even a wild boar.
+
+Were they acquainted with Italian operas their favourite lines would
+certainly be:
+
+    Non curiamo l'incerto domani
+    Se quest' oggi n'e dato goder.[8]
+
+and their choice would be appropriate, for where else could the Borgias
+be so well remembered as in a land famous for its poisons?
+
+The Sakais' skin is of a colour between light and burnt ochre, the tint
+getting darker as they grow older (in consequence of their long exposure
+to the sun), at which period the whole body becomes rough and wrinkled.
+The children are of a much lighter colour until they begin their life in
+the open air.
+
+[Illustration: Another.
+
+_p._ 113.]
+
+The woman, as a type, differs very little from the man. She is rather
+shorter as is the case with all the pure and mixed Mongolian races.
+
+As a girl she has a rounded form and is not without grace. As long as
+she is healthy and blooming she may be considered a beauty.... in the
+forest, but she soon gets faded because of the fatiguing life she leads
+and also because of her early marriage, for she is already a wife when
+our girls are at the beginning of their teens.
+
+The boys are generally healthy, sturdy little fellows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai's head is regular in form and size like that of the Mongolian
+race; the cheek-bones, however, are less prominent than those of the
+Tartars and the eyes are wider open and less oblique.
+
+The forehead neither retreats nor protrudes and is high and spacious
+enough. The nose is large and slightly flattened at the root. The facial
+angle measures pretty much the same as that of the Chinese.
+
+The mouth, well-cut and not too large, with rather thick lips, would be
+beautified by two rows of sound regular teeth if the latter were not so
+blackened by the constant chewing of tobacco, betel-nut and sirih.
+
+The chin is sharp.
+
+All the features, in fact, are very marked and the jaws are a little
+projecting but the countenance is not an unpleasant one and wears an
+expression of frankness and goodness that soon wins sympathy.
+
+The head is covered with a rich, crisp growth of very black hair but few
+hairs are to be seen on the face or body. Those rare ones, whose
+appearance would be rapturously hailed by our youths as the forerunners
+of a possible mustache or beard, are plucked out by the Sakais in their
+spare time!
+
+A great many ladies would be highly contented to possess the beautiful
+tresses that the Sakai woman generally has, but whilst amongst us an
+artistic arrangement of the hair is an attraction which often makes us
+forget the lesser charms of the face, the raven locks of these women
+sometimes cause a feeling of disgust.
+
+They do not take the least care of this splendid ornament bestowed upon
+them by Nature; when they do not let their hair hang dirty and
+dishevelled upon their shoulders they just tie it up badly with a strip
+of many-coloured upas bark (a remedy against migraine) stick in some
+roughly carved combs and hair-pins (amulets against the malignant spirit
+of the wind) and adorn it with fresh flowers.
+
+But alas! under that bow of natural ribbon, under those combs and
+flowers there is a tiny world of restless inhabitants and the poor
+primitive Eve is obliged to scratch her head furiously now and then.
+
+And not less furiously does the man also scratch his though he takes
+much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to
+divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes the
+parting.
+
+Frequently both the men and the women rub into their heads the finely
+pounded root of a plant to which they attribute the virtue of softening
+their rough, luxuriant locks and of destroying the inmates.
+
+Even the men sometimes wear combs and hair-pins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cleanliness as the reader will have understood from the example given
+above is not the highest quality of the Sakai any more than it is of
+other primitive peoples. Hygienic practices march alongside civil
+progress. The bath, as a pleasure or a necessity, is quite unknown to
+them, and those who dwell amongst the mountains have the greatest fear
+of water. The foaming torrents and noisy cascades that dash down the
+ravines have inspired them with terror and as they have no notion
+whatever of being able to keep afloat, they are afraid to venture near a
+stream, however quietly it may flow, unless it is shallow enough for
+them to see the bottom.
+
+[Illustration: A Sakai beauty.
+
+_p._ 119]
+
+Not only have they no idea of swimming but they are equally ignorant of
+any other means, of remaining on the water's surface. They have no
+canoes of any kind and when they want to cross from one shore to the
+other they either throw a huge tree into the river to serve as a bridge
+or they walk on round the bank until they find a fordable point and can
+reach the opposite side by jumping from stone to stone.
+
+I am glad to say that my lectures upon cleanliness have not been
+completely fruitless for many of the young people make their ablutions
+now from time to time, especially the females, and come to me asking for
+soap. Though not a great step towards progress this is always better
+than nothing. The old people, of course, do not regard the bathing
+innovation with kindly eyes. They are always filthy to a repugnant
+degree, begrimed with ashes and earth from lying about round the fire,
+day, and night; the smell that emanates from them certainly does not
+invite one to approach them.
+
+But their fathers and their grandfathers never washed themselves and so
+it is their duty to follow their questionable example.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The five senses with the Sakais are practically reduced to two for
+whilst they are very quick in hearing and seeing, the same cannot be
+said of smelling, feeling and tasting.
+
+The acuteness of the two first is due to the continual need they have,
+in the forest, of keeping the ear and the eye open. To be on their guard
+against enemies they must either hear or see them.
+
+The weakness of the smelling faculty may be explained by the bad way the
+Sakai men and women treat their noses, boring holes through them large
+enough to pass a little bamboo stick, which they wear, partly for
+ornament, and partly as a charm, against I do not exactly know what
+danger. And not only this, but they are in the habit of playing a sort
+of flute with their nose, stopping up the right nostril with leaves, so
+it is easy to comprehend what little sensibility this unfortunate
+appendix of the face can have.
+
+Owing to their almost complete nudity their skin is not very susceptible
+to touch for it is hardened and toughened by the effects of sun, rain,
+cold and dew which makes it as weather-beaten as that of any old salt's;
+besides this they are accustomed from childhood to be stung by insects
+and nettles, to be pricked and scratched by thorns and brambles, and to
+be cut by the dry stiff blades of the long grasses of their native
+place. Habit is second nature.
+
+Their deficient sense of taste results from the practices mentioned
+further on.
+
+[Illustration: Another Sakai beauty.
+
+_p._ 119.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sakai cookery does not require much study or experience.
+
+The vegetable food they have at their disposition consists of: sweet
+potatoes, yams, maize, sikoi, different bulbs and tubers that they find
+in the forest like we do truffles, many edible leaves and all sorts of
+fruit, mushrooms, _nanka_, _guaccicous_, _gua pra_,[9] etc. Rice is an
+imported luxury which they use when they can get it.
+
+Here are the necessaries for a variety of dishes, but the Sakais know no
+variety in the culinary art and with the exception of the fruit, the
+yams and potatoes that are cooked under the hot ashes, the whole lot is
+put, with a little water, into cooking-pots made out of large bamboo
+canes, and boiled up together into a kind of paste with pieces of
+serpents, rats, toads, lizards, beetles and other similar delicacies to
+give it flavour.
+
+The monkey, deer, wild-boar, wild-sheep and any other big game caught in
+traps they just burn at the fire without taking the trouble to skin the
+animal, and then they eat it nearly raw.
+
+They season the meat with salt, when they have any, which is not often,
+and with a capsicum that sets your mouth on fire. The use of this
+capsicum, and the continual chewing of tobacco, and betel has ruined the
+palate of the Sakais, and left them with little power of relishing.
+
+Fish is rarely seen at the board (I use the word in a figurative sense
+as the thing it signifies does not exist for them) of the mountain
+tribes for the double motive that they have no fishing tackle and their
+fear of the water makes them avoid it as much as possible. Nevertheless
+when there is a dearth of other food they will throw in some beaten
+_ple-pra_ and the fish, of a fair size, that rise to the surface to bite
+it are deftly hit by a knife, the Sakai seldom failing in his mark.
+
+To the simplicity of their cooking corresponds the still greater
+simplicity of their drinks which are--of the singular number.
+
+The inhabitants of the forest drink nothing but water but this they
+require clear and fresh. Should it not be perfectly pure in colour and
+taste they will not drink it. They always seek a spring to satisfy their
+thirst and supply their families with the necessary liquid.
+
+Sometimes, when I was first living amongst them, I happened to stoop
+over a torrent or stream to drink some water but my companions protested
+vehemently declaring that it might do me a great deal of harm.
+
+They are afraid of poisons in every shape and form as they are also of
+contagion and would even be frightened if in drinking they were to touch
+their bamboo bottles and glasses with their lips. They are very clever
+in pouring the contents down their throats without letting the
+receptacle come in contact with their mouths, an accomplishment which we
+should not be able to achieve until after many damp trials.
+
+It might almost be desired that our civilization would imitate this
+hygienic custom of the savages. How many infections the less! How much
+fewer the microbes that poison the blood of our poor people!
+
+The Sakais do not drink milk, not only from the difficulty in obtaining
+it but also from a strange prejudice which I have never succeeded well
+in understanding.
+
+Once they are weaned they never swallow a single drop of milk.
+
+Neither do they drink alcoholic beverages for the simple reason that
+they have not got them and do not know what they are.
+
+If they should ever come to taste them and procure them easily will they
+not crave for them like all other savages?
+
+As soon as the Sakai's frugal meal is finished he fills his mouth with
+tobacco, or if he has none, with sirih.
+
+[Illustration: Resting from work.
+
+_p._ 123.]
+
+This is composed of a leaf or two of betel--a plant that possesses a
+certain narcotic virtue--smeared with lime and rolled up round a little
+tobacco and a piece of areca nut. Both men and women chew these quids
+with great relish, spitting out the juice from time to time.
+
+The old people, whose want of teeth makes mastication next to
+impossible, put the ingredients into a bamboo and pound them until they
+are reduced to, what they consider, a delicious paste.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young Sakai reaches the height of his vigour at about eighteen years
+old, after which he has a brief stationary period, followed by a rapid
+falling off that I think must be caused by his being continually exposed
+to the inclemency of the weather.
+
+The woman begins to decline soon after her first confinement. From the
+age of 13 to 15 she becomes a wife and in two years from that date she
+is but the ghost of her former self. Thin, and with a wrinkled skin, not
+even a shadow remains of her youthful freshness and the attractive
+points she had as a girl.
+
+But what does this matter to her? Her husband is faithful to her, with a
+fidelity that knows no hypocrisy; she is happy and is proud of her
+maternity; she can still dance and strike chords upon her _krob_,
+modulate a plaintive ditty on her _ciniloi_ and sing whilst she beats on
+her bamboo sticks an accompaniment that tortures well-tuned ears. For
+the rest, if her beauty soon fades, her ugliness does not create the
+least feeling of disgust amongst the Sakais of the masculine gender, who
+have aesthetic ideas peculiarly their own.
+
+It is enough to say that the ugliest of the female sex are the prettiest
+and the most admired.
+
+I am speaking in earnest.
+
+They, as well as the men, are in the habit of painting themselves in
+grotesque stripes and hieroglyphics, in imitation of medicinal plants,
+the principal colours used being red and black. Sometimes they add a
+little white but very rarely yellow.
+
+When I tell you that these strange designs are not only the
+manifestation of coquetry or vanity but that they are also made to
+frighten away the Evil Spirit you may well imagine how they each try to
+arabesque their skin in a more horrible way than the other, in order to
+look uglier and be more admired.
+
+How many, even in civilized places, would like to adopt such a mode of
+winning the admiration which their forbidding features cannot command!
+
+One of these artistic creations cannot last more than a day. It is
+carefully scraped off and replaced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai's life is tranquil and serene. He does not pass much of his
+time in the hut because every morning he goes off into the forest in
+search of game and vegetable food. He is accompanied by his boys who
+either practise with their blow-pipe or with a pointed stick dig in the
+ground for roots and bulbs, or they catch insects and reptiles to fill
+the baskets they carry on their backs.
+
+When the Sakai is not out hunting, or visiting friends and relations in
+other villages, he remains quietly in his hut sleeping, smoking, chewing
+a nice quid or in preparing poisons and poisoned arrows.
+
+He is good-tempered and good-hearted, and never quarrels with his wife.
+I have never heard of one of these savages beating his wife or children,
+or of ill-treating them in any way and neither of using violence with
+any one else unless with a declared foe or one who has offended his
+sentiments and superstitions.
+
+One day I ordered a child to do something, I don't remember what, and he
+answered me impertinently with a curt _neay_ (no). I turned to his
+mother who was present and told her that the boy ought to have his ears
+boxed.
+
+The woman gave me a look of mingled wonder and irritation, then said:
+"You are a bad man if you would hurt my son when he did not mean any
+harm!".
+
+Yet in spite of this kind of reasoning and the clemency shown towards
+children (which would make a pedagogue of the educational rod system
+commit suicide) the Sakais are honest and respectful to their parents
+and the old; they are affectionate in their family and, poor savages!
+are still a long way off from such a degree of civilization as to cut up
+a cross wife or a troublesome lover into pieces and send them in a
+mysterious valise to take a sea-bath or in a butcher's sack to take a
+fresh water one in a convenient river.
+
+But the answer given me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval
+were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom
+that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never what
+others command.
+
+In fact, even taking him as a guide or travelling companion it is always
+wise to let him have his own way without interfering at all. He will
+rest, eat, smoke, and walk on just as he chooses and if you contradict
+him in his desire he will turn his back upon you and abandon you in the
+midst of the forest.
+
+Every act of his life reveals and marks this mania of independence. I
+will quote a rare case. Should a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law not
+be able to agree in consequence of the difference in their characters no
+tragic scenes or petty quarrels occur; the young couple merely take up
+their scanty belongings, destroy their own hut and march off to build
+another at a sufficient distance to avoid troublesome contact or the
+possibility of further misunderstandings and discord.
+
+It is so: nobody will submit to the will of another and even when
+settling some particular question unless they are all of the same
+identical opinion the matter has to be abandoned.
+
+Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law love their fathers-in-law and
+mothers-in-law well enough and _viceversa_, and they all respect each
+other and can live peaceably together, but no one can impose his own
+will without determining a strike.
+
+They put into practice the same simple remedy when there is not very
+good harmony in the conjugal state. A man and woman cannot exactly agree
+as husband and wife? They cheerfully divorce themselves instead of
+poisoning their existence by continual altercations and the reluctance
+they both feel at doing what the other wishes.
+
+How much regarding the human spirit civilized people have yet to learn
+from savages! Do you not think so, kind reader?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai is commonly believed to be lazy by nature. This is an error,
+for their so-called laziness is nothing but the result of the
+circumstances amidst which they live.
+
+Once their daily food is provided and they have prepared a good supply
+of poisons and darts what remains for them to do in the depth of the
+forest, where there is no thirst for riches (because unknown to them),
+for honours (of which they have no idea at all), or for power (which
+their individual independence repudiates)?
+
+[Illustration: Manufacturing poisoned arrows.
+
+_p._ 123.]
+
+There is no race for wealth, position or fame in their parts, no
+struggle for life which amongst us is the inexhaustible source of
+progress as well as the incentive to crime and corruption.
+
+The desire expressed by Henry IV that each one of his subjects might
+boil his own fowl in his own pot is more than realized amongst the
+Sakais.
+
+They do not cook their fowls because they are only reared as a means of
+barter, but it seldom happens that they cannot enjoy a choice bit of
+monkey, snake, deer or wild boar, which they like much better. If (a
+very strange case) somebody should be without, he goes to the nearest
+hut, enters without speaking, and sits down without being greeted. Some
+food is placed before him that he devours without being invited to do so
+and then departs as he came without any one saying a word beyond perhaps
+(in an excess of courtesy) a muttered "_abor_" (meaning "very good" and
+used as "good-bye" by the Sakais), from the visitor as he leaves.
+
+The Sakai does not understand the reason of working when there seems to
+be no need, but what he finds strictly necessary he does with alacrity
+and good will. Whatever they have to do they all work together, the head
+of the family, the elder, the young men, the boys, everyone gives a hand
+to the best of his capacity. When they have finished, the oldest of the
+company lie down to doze and chew tobacco or sirih, the other men squat
+themselves about to chat and prepare poisons or make blow-pipes and
+arrows, whilst the children play and the women busy themselves over the
+cooking.
+
+The terms of indolent and lazy as erroneously applied to these savages
+might be used with the same force in speaking of many who live in the
+vortex of civilized society.
+
+We frequently see, amongst us, inexhaustible treasures of energy
+displayed when ambition or pure need demands it but when one or the
+other has been satisfied, or the necessity for such continual effort no
+longer seems imperative, or either the desired point has been attained
+or the future has been fully assured, then little by little energy gives
+place to a longing for repose.
+
+As I have before said, the Sakai never provides for the morrow. His work
+begins and finishes with the day. Give him some tobacco and in his
+happiness he will stay awake all the night to smoke or chew it.
+
+He works only in proportion to the urgency of the moment and then throws
+himself down to rest upon the ground, because beds and chairs are
+unknown to him, and it is not always that dried leaves and grasses are
+used as a substitute for the former.
+
+The evolution of our society has brought us on the contrary to this
+curious condition: he who does not work at all and consequently has no
+honest fatigue to rest from, lies upon a soft feather bed, there to
+restore his strength wasted in fast living and dissipation, whilst....
+But I had better stop or I may be mistaken for a dangerous class
+agitator!
+
+I will only say this: that could the Sakai look into some of our houses
+and palaces he would make haste to return to his own forest and if he
+were obliged or knew how to write his impressions he would certainly
+commence: "The men of the West are effeminate, lazy and indolent".
+
+But he would do wrong to generalize for they are Western men who have
+conquered his forest.
+
+I will conclude this chapter by confessing a remorse. Out of pity for
+these poor creatures sleeping on the cold ground, huddled together to
+keep each other warm, I, one day, gave a hair mattress to a Sakai
+family.
+
+All of them took their places on it and slept soundly, but in the
+morning their bones ached so much that they gave me back my mattress in
+a hurry and without a single word of thanks.
+
+And I could not blame them for this.
+
+[Illustration: Boys practising shooting.
+
+_p._ 127.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 7: A little more than five feet. Translator's Note.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Let to-morrow take care of itself If to-day is ours to
+enjoy.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The latter is a sort of acorn which keeps good for a long
+time. When pounded into an oily paste it is not altogether disagreeable
+to the taste.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+  The Sakai woman--Conjugal fidelity--A life of labour--Betrothals
+  and nuptials--Love among the Sakais--Divorcement--No kissing--
+  Chastity--Bigamy--Maternity and its excesses--Aged before the
+  time--Fashion and coquetry.
+
+
+Woman, who has been compared to nearly every sort of animal that flies,
+creeps, swims or runs by poets and others of chivalrous sentiments,
+amongst the Sakais is simply a woman. In speaking of her those good sons
+of the East neither calumniate the dove nor the gazelle, and they do not
+slander the tiger and the snake but when they are inclined to praise her
+charms they do so with affection and brevity And this is not to be
+wondered at when one considers that the female sex in the jungle,
+although not beautiful to our taste (but very much so according to the
+Sakay criterion) is good, laborious and incorruptible. These three
+virtues, if they were better known in our parts would spare poor,
+suffering humanity a great deal of prose, as well as poetry, without the
+least damage to Art.
+
+It is for this reason that the savages in the Malay States have always
+considered, and still consider, the Woman as the faithful companion of
+their life and as the mother of their children. They have never imputed
+to her the sin committed by Eve, which in other countries, where ever so
+little of Sacred History is known, has made her the butt of every
+insulting, sarcastic and opprobrious term. They have never discussed, as
+at the Macon council, the probability of a woman having a soul or not;
+what little is necessary to harmonize with their own they have
+recognized without any argument and they have found it in the care and
+affection shown towards her dear ones and in her unswerving
+faithfulness.
+
+Amongst these uncivilized people there are no chivalrous traditions, it
+is true, but neither have their women been driven to seek emancipation,
+because, sharing with perfect equality the rights of the men, none
+remain for them to claim, and they have no wrongs to revenge!
+
+[Illustration: Boys practising shooting.
+
+_p._ 127.]
+
+The men, for their part, never dream of what Demosthenes said of the
+corrupt Athenians of his time, words which are repeated and acted upon
+by some of our leading men in this the twentieth century: "We marry a
+woman to have legitimate children and to possess a faithful housekeeper;
+we keep concubines and pay harlots for our convenience and for the
+enjoyments of love".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I say, among the Sakais the one sex is not the slave of the other.
+They live in perfect harmony. The male is considered the head of the
+family, although there is nothing to be administered or directed and the
+female shows herself sufficiently deferential towards him, but the
+custom does not exist among them that one should passively submit to a
+will with which his, or her own does not agree.
+
+The man provides food by hunting in the forest, fishing, gathering fruit
+and cultivating a little land around; the woman helps him in the work of
+agriculture, sometimes follows him into the jungle, prepares his meals
+and attends to other domestic duties. She looks well after her children
+and is very jealous of them. When they are too little to walk she straps
+them to her back with long strips of bark, resting their legs upon her
+hips.
+
+This burden does not prevent her from moving about and working. If they
+go for a long march the parents take turns in carrying the child.
+
+As soon as a boy reaches the age of six seasons (6 years) he passes from
+his mother's to his father's guardianship and under the latter's
+guidance begins to make trips into the forest where he catches insects,
+picks up fruit and bulbs, learns, little by little, to handle the
+blow-pipe and to take part in the hunting and fishing as well as to
+distinguish poisons and assist in their extraction.
+
+This is the educational period of the little Sakai.
+
+The girl, on the contrary, remains with her mother and is taught to help
+in household (?) work, doing her part with a good will and cheerful
+temper.
+
+She goes with her mother to plant and pull up potatoes and yams, to
+gather fire-wood, and fill the bamboo buckets with water; she learns to
+cook and take care of the little ones.
+
+Quite early she begins a life of great activity. Her arms are still weak
+and she can scarcely lift some of the weights allotted her, but they
+gradually become nerved for heavier ones.
+
+Her fatiguing duties always increase, and yet as a little girl, a
+maiden, and also a woman she accepts it all with a light heart and is
+so contented with her hard life that I have often heard one of these
+good, laborious creatures declare that she was completely happy. How
+many ladies in civilized Europe and America would be prepared to make a
+similar avowal?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At about 15 years of age, when our girls are still in short dresses and
+are not always dignified by the term "young lady", the female Sakai is
+generally a wife.
+
+From her infancy a baby-girl may be betrothed by her parents to some boy
+of another tribe. But if when the time comes to unite in matrimony the
+two young people engaged from babyhood, one no longer likes the other in
+the quality of a life-partner, they exchange a quiet _gne_ (no) and the
+engagement is at a complete end.[10]
+
+Neither one nor the other is offended at this refusal for they are of
+full accord that it is better not to be bound together unless the desire
+is mutual, as heartache and suffering would be the sure result.
+
+Wonderful philosophy, in all its simplicity, that liberates the little
+Sakai world from an enormous number of martyrs, and sensational crimes.
+
+The girl is left free in the choice of a husband. Of course advice is
+readily given her, favourable or otherwise to the suitor, but nobody can
+compel her to wed a man she is not inclined to.
+
+This total absence of coercion is no marvel, however, for in the forest
+there are no fortune-hunters, dowries being unknown, and there are no
+Dianas to join in the chase after a rent-roll. There is no ambition with
+regard to title, position or lineage because all are equal. They are
+human creatures, made in the same form and invested with the same right
+of living. There is no difference of blood amongst them for it is always
+red.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young Sakai that wishes to form a family, accompanied by some near
+relations (grandfather, father or brothers) leaves his own village and
+goes to a more distant encampment.
+
+It often happens that hunger, dusk, or some other circumstance
+determines this Pilgrim of Love and his companions, to stop at one hut
+rather than another.
+
+They enter, as is their custom, without saying a word; they sit down on
+their heels and eat what is offered them.
+
+In the meantime the young man looks about him and carefully eyes the
+girls, should there be any and if there is one that pleases him he
+points her out to one of his companions who immediately rises and tells
+the fortunate damsel what his relative desires.
+
+The young woman, when she does not utter a curt _gne_, murmurs, "_Eh!
+eh! ngot_" (Yes, I am willing), a phrase which seems a hiccough but is
+not.
+
+Then the gallant youth draws near the girl and offers her a necklace of
+glass beads, and, if he has any, some brass wire to make bracelets,
+receiving in exchange from his future bride a quid or two of betel.
+
+Without any delay the father of the girl and that of the young man, or
+some one who represents them, commence the more prosaic part of the
+business, that is: they decide upon the sort of presents that the
+bridegroom must give the parents and sisters of his spouse on the
+wedding-day, to compensate them for the girl he is taking away.
+
+They discuss if the gifts must consist of only one earthen-ware
+cooking-pot (an article of luxury in the jungle where bamboo utensils
+are in common use) instead of two, and if a pair of _parangs_
+(woodcutter's knives) should be added; then there must be some coloured
+beads, brass wire and perhaps even a piece of bright coloured calico.
+
+These very important matters being settled, the wedding-day is fixed,
+after which the affianced couple part without either tears or sighs, the
+young man returning with his relations to their own habitation.
+
+The great day comes.
+
+The bridegroom accompanied by all the men of his family and by some of
+the women, betakes himself to the far-off hut of the bride, carrying
+with him the promised gifts.
+
+There is a large gathering of Sakais from every part, because joys and
+pains, plenty and famine are equally and fraternally shared by them.
+
+The Elder gets up and says in a loud voice:
+
+"Hearken! hearken, all you who are here assembled: they who were at a
+distance are now together; they who were separate are now united".
+
+The bridal couple then take each other tenderly by the hand, and some
+rice is presented to them upon a leaf. The woman takes up a few grains
+and puts them into the mouth of her husband and then they both partake
+of that light, symbolical repast from the same leaf. The nuptial
+ceremony finishes here, without the intervention of _Ala_ or any sort of
+ecclesiastical or civil authority. How they are to be envied!
+
+A banquet immediately follows and the company cram down everything that
+they find eatable. The _menu_ consists of every sort of edible article
+known in the Sakai cuisine, and when they have stuffed themselves to
+their utmost, they dance, sing and draw from their instruments the
+sharpest notes that ever rent the human ear whilst the furious beating
+of bamboos give out the sound of wooden bells. Terminated in this way
+the wedding festival, the newly-made husband and wife return, with the
+relations of the former, to their own group of huts, where a new one, a
+nest of love, has been prepared for them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Love among the Sakais never becomes a passion or a delirium. It is a
+quiet calm sentiment, a physiological necessity such as the good soul of
+Schopenhauer interpreted it, to the great scandal of a certain class of
+lovers.
+
+Men and women are united from a feeling of cordial sympathy, by a
+spontaneous act of their own wills which would never suffer the least
+restraint.
+
+No personal or family interest suggests or determines the important
+step. The only thing that may be said to inspire love (and bring about a
+marriage) in the jungle is that supreme and inviolable law of nature for
+the conservation of the species.
+
+But what is to be admired in the unions of these good, simple people is
+the fidelity which follows them throughout life.
+
+The Sakais are not, I repeat, very ardent spirits, nor are they
+excessive in sacrificing to Venus perhaps because sensual satisfaction
+arrives when physiological development imposes it, instead--as too often
+happens in civilized society, with great damage to morality and race--of
+after a long and wearisome vigil, always waiting for financial
+conditions to permit the formation of a family.
+
+It is a fact to be noted that neither the men nor the women feel drawn
+toward other than their rightful partner, which naturally contributes a
+great deal in maintaining faithfulness between the two.
+
+Sometimes, but very rarely, one may find a couple whose difference of
+character renders cohabitation impossible.
+
+There are no scenes of fury, no violent quarrels and, still less, no
+reciprocal blows.
+
+The two interested parties merely declare that his or her heart suffers
+too much from a life of such perpetual misunderstandings and they decide
+to part good friends, hoping to find better luck next time.
+
+They will then separate with the best and most sincere wishes for each
+other's future happiness.
+
+The woman only takes away with her the youngest of her children who have
+most need of her care, leaving those over six years of age to the
+father, and she returns to her own place where she is affectionately
+received.
+
+She often finds another husband, even in the first days of her
+separation; her new companion adopts her little ones and considers them
+as his, after which the relationship with their real father is annulled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Divorce, as is here seen, is performed without the intervention of
+others. The Sakais are as free to marry as they are to part when they
+find that they cannot live in peace and quietness. They attribute to the
+heart the same impulse of union as of separation. It is then Sentiment
+that takes the form of Law amongst them and regulates their acts. How
+much it is to be deplored that a similar law is not recognized in
+civilized countries, where that imposed by legislature creates so many
+unhappy beings and provocates so many tragedies and so much infamy.
+
+[Illustration: Sleeping children.
+
+_p._ 135.]
+
+And yet, in spite of this facility in obtaining a divorce, there are
+very few who recur to it, a circumstance that ought to have weight with
+those persons who fight furiously against a measure so conducive to the
+real defence of the family, defence in the sense that its condition and
+functions would be improved without the crushing and suppression of
+those rights (by a prejudice that is made to pass as a religious
+precept) which the soul itself asserts.
+
+Nowadays the holy state of matrimony is viewed by the majority with
+sceptical diffidence, almost as an abyss that swallows up freedom,
+energy, scruples of honour, morality, will and every kindliness of
+sentiment that has survived the shipwreck of many hopes and illusions.
+
+Among the Sakais no such feeling prevails. The men voluntarily bind
+their own existence to that of a woman and sanctify their new state with
+the sincere virtues of fidelity and chastity.
+
+But--these virtues belong to savages and I am a savage to speak of them!
+
+Let me then, briefly finish up the argument. Divorce cases are rare
+because they are almost exclusively based upon incompatibility of temper
+or persistent sterility.
+
+Neither the man nor the woman can reconcile themselves to stay without
+children; if their union is without fruit there is no longer need for
+them to live together.
+
+In an exceptional case it sometimes happens that the two parties do not
+agree over a divorce, in which circumstance the decision is left to the
+Elder who pronounces a sentence without the possibility of appeal.
+
+The immediate consequence of an annulled matrimony is the return of the
+presents given by the husband to the family of the wife. The latter at
+once abandons the tribe to which she belonged after her marriage and
+becomes a stranger to those who, a short time before, were her closest
+relations.
+
+This is not the end of a love-dream but the calm and reasonable decision
+of two beings who, finding that their characters do not agree and that
+they no longer feel pleasure in each other's company, are not
+sufficiently cruel towards themselves and their better or worse halves
+(as the case may be) as to simulate and continue a union which renders
+them unhappy.
+
+In our parts the question of divorced people's children serves as a
+weighty argument to the opposers of divorce and gives to its partisans a
+difficult problem to study. To the Sakais the solution is easy enough.
+The age of the children decides with whom they have to remain, and those
+left to the father's charge are taken care of by the womenfolk around,
+who from a pure impulse of maternity and without any hope of reward,
+treat them with motherly tenderness. It is as though their mother was
+dead and their natural female guardians become the sisters or mother of
+the father. In default of these close relations the man is free to
+contract a second marriage at once, his term of mourning being condoned.
+
+Any way, the little ones always become the object of affectionate
+interest to all the women of the village.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai people do not kiss each other. They know neither the kiss of
+Judas nor that of Romeo. They express their sympathy and love by some
+rough fondling or the scratching of each other's nose, neck or chin.
+
+Yonder, in the jungle, there are no poets, novelists, dramatists or
+painters; a new (and original) field would here be opened to the
+excellence of their arts. Can you not imagine, kind reader, how
+irresistible the effect would be if, at the most passionate point of
+their love scenes, instead of "their trembling lips meeting in a
+thrilling kiss" the hero and heroine were to furiously scratch each
+other's noses?
+
+Although, now and then, in the interest of true Art, it might be a good
+thing for some of our pseudo artists to go to that distant land in
+search of strong inspirations that would, at least, increase the glory
+of common sense in civilized places, I would certainly not advise them
+to emigrate into the Malay forest for it would be like condemning them
+to death by starvation as there they would find no sort of tool or
+material with which to do their work. There are no suicides, murders,
+robberies, adultery, coveted legacies and suppressed wills, forgeries,
+lost women and illegitimate children, there are no alcohol drinkers,
+opium eaters etc.
+
+It would be utterly impossible for even a "Sherlock Holmes" to satisfy
+the cravings of appetite if he had been created in those parts.
+
+But let us return to my good friends the savages after this involuntary
+ramble.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais manifest their love and gallantry by scratching nose, chin or
+neck but when they want to express a milder sentiment, such as sincere
+affection or friendship, they do so by a smile, at the same time
+embracing each other.
+
+I have sometimes noticed both men and women, when far from their other
+halves, indulge in a few caresses and a little nose-scratching, as also
+young men not engaged, but I can affirm with the fullest certainty that
+these demonstrations of tenderness go no further; they finish where they
+begin.
+
+It may seem strange, but it is true. Both sexes are in continual
+contact. In the cold nights they will all sleep close together to keep
+themselves warm and yet nothing wrong results from this promiscuous
+proximity.
+
+As I have already said, chastity is a natural virtue among the Sakais,
+and even that which relates to legitimate love is veiled in a coy
+mystery. Neither the male or the female are given to sexual caprices.
+
+If a young man should happen to be in love with a girl before he can
+handle his blowpipe with dexterity and profit, or is able to procure the
+wedding presents prescribed by habit, he will perhaps persuade his
+sweetheart to meet him in the forest.
+
+It is extremely seldom that any harm comes to the girl through such an
+appointment, because it is not in their character to give way to lust,
+but should this occur, and the fact become known, a marriage is arranged
+without any loss of time. The woman who will not consent to a matrimony
+with her lover or who is known to have been on intimate terms with more
+than one young man is held in great disdain by the rest of her people.
+
+There are very few spinsters to be found in these tribes but those who
+do remain in the single state owe it to some moral or physical defect.
+Such persons live with their nearest relations.
+
+Polygamy is never thought of by the Sakais but bigamy is not an absolute
+exclusion although it very rarely takes place because as soon as a woman
+sees that her husband is enamoured of another she is the first to
+propose a divorce and no recriminations follow her suggestion.
+
+"Your heart" she says "suffers with me, when with her it would be glad.
+Well, then, let us separate for I feel that I could not live happily
+with another wife of yours".
+
+Should a woman, however, be contented to share the nuptial bed with a
+rival you may be quite sure that the very best harmony would reign in
+that _menage a trois_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai women are born with the instinct of maternity and will never
+renounce nursing their own babes unless scarcity of milk or a weak
+constitution compels them to do so. These exceptions are, however
+extraordinarily rare and they are at the height of their pride when
+their little ones are drawing life and strength from their breasts.[11]
+
+There are very few cases of complete sterility or excessive fecundity
+amongst them. Hardly ever does a woman have more than four or five
+children.
+
+She nurses and takes care of them with great tenderness, delighted at
+seeing them grow strong and healthy.
+
+Children are weaned at from seven months (reckoned roughly by the moon)
+to two years of age (two seasons of fruit) but generally when they are
+about a year old (one season).
+
+The first food given to the baby is a well-cooked pap made with a
+certain bulb and the tender leaves of a little plant whose names I do
+not remember.
+
+When the little fellow has become accustomed to his new food (whether he
+likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name
+that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event
+of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, or
+of pronouncing it badly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The good-heartedness and maternal kindness of the Sakai woman is
+extended even to young animals that have been deprived of their mother.
+They will adopt them and bring them up with the same care they bestow
+upon their own children or human orphans.
+
+One day a she-boar was caught in a trap, and, as a matter of course, was
+cooked and eaten, but soon after a litter, belonging to the victim, was
+found and the tiny beasts, only just born, were taken and nursed by the
+women of the village.
+
+I once saw a big boar that followed a Sakai tribe with wonderful
+docility even allowing the children to play tricks upon it; it had been
+brought up by the women.
+
+I have also seen rats, that have been reared by these foster-mothers, go
+backwards and forwards from the hut at their will, and I remember that
+one night when I had taken shelter in one of these cabins and had
+selected a particular corner for my night's rest, the dark lady of the
+house, without raising any objection to my choice, warned me that during
+the night a rat would return to repose in the same spot and begged me
+not to do any harm to the poor thing, as he was one of the family, but
+to call her if it gave me any disturbance.
+
+In fact I was fast asleep when some warm fur softly caressed me, and
+waking up I understood that the dissolute rodent--almost bigger than a
+cat--had returned home in the small hours, just as if he had been
+provided with a latch-key.
+
+I hastily called the woman who tenderly took it up and carried it away
+to sleep with her.
+
+It was an adopted child!
+
+Is not this the acme of maternal feeling? And does it not approach
+foolishness?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The birth, and subsequent suckling, of her first child put an end to the
+grace and bloom of a Sakai woman.
+
+[Illustration: A child being tattooed.
+
+_p._ 140.]
+
+She fulfils with incomparable zeal the functions confided to her by
+Nature, but as she has, at the same time, to attend to the heavy duties
+allotted her by man she becomes over-worked and worn-out with excessive
+fatigue.
+
+When thirty years old she looks almost as old and withered as one of our
+hard-worked countrywomen does at fifty, and the poor creature cannot in
+any way conceal this premature falling off because of--the extreme
+lightness of her attire.
+
+"The tailor tree of our great father Adam" has no leaves for the
+inhabitants of the jungle, for both male and female only wear a strip of
+bark (well beaten to render it flexible) wound round the body and
+fastened on the hips.
+
+That worn by the men never exceeds four inches in breadth, but the women
+use lists of from six to eight inches wide. Another piece of bark-cloth
+is passed between the legs and tied, in front and behind, to this belt.
+
+The women, although daughters of the forest, are not without a certain
+amount of coquetry and will often decorate their girdles with flowers or
+medicinal and sweet-smelling herbs, but they never think of making a
+chaste veil of large leaves with which to cover those parts of their
+persons that ought to be kept secret from the public gaze.
+
+The costume that they are wearing in the photographs was prepared by me
+in order to present these ochre-coloured Eves to my readers in a more
+decent state, or rather, a little more in accordance with what civilized
+society requires, because "to the pure all things are pure" and in my
+opinion the perfect innocence in which these women go about naked is
+preferable to that consciousness of their natural form which leads so
+many of our society ladies and other females, to resort to artificial
+means that they may deceive their admirers, and gain a name for beauty.
+
+The men, too, are even to be envied, for in the total absence of
+nether-garments their better-halves can never claim "to wear the
+trousers" as sometimes happens amongst us.
+
+Necklaces are very much worn by Sakai girls and women. They are made of
+beads (which are considered the most elegant) serpents' teeth, animals'
+claws, shells, berries or seeds.
+
+The men, instead, finish off their toilet by loading their wrists with
+bracelets. These are of brass-wire, bamboo or _akar batu_ which it is
+believed preserves them from the fever.
+
+Their faces are always disfigured by coloured stripes or hieroglyphics.
+
+They have not the custom of wearing rings through their noses but only a
+little bamboo stick that is supposed to have the virtue of keeping off I
+don't exactly know what sort of malady or spirit.
+
+The mother bores a hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a
+porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly,
+without closing. Afterwards she passes through a light piece of this
+reed.
+
+The same operation is made upon the ears, which from being generally
+well-shaped, become deformed, as the hole through the lobe has to be
+very large. It is not sufficient to pierce the tissue with a quill; a
+little bamboo cane has to be at once inserted; the day after a larger
+one is substituted and so on until it is possible to hang from the ears
+pendants made of bamboo and ornamented with flowers, leaves and perhaps
+even cigarettes.
+
+A strip of _upas_ bark twisted round the head bestows the finishing
+touch to the Sakais' toilet. Happy people! They have no tailor's,
+dressmaker's or milliner's bills to pay!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 10: _Gne_ would be pronounced in English as _neay_.
+_Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 11: In chapter XIV speaking of the superstitions of this
+people I have mentioned those which refer to the birth of a child and
+the strange ideas they have concerning this event.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+  A Sakai village--The "elder"--The family--Degrees of
+  relationship--Humorists disoccupied--On the march--Tender
+  hearts--Kindling the fire--A hecatomb of giants--The
+  hut--Household goods and utensils--Work and repose.
+
+
+A real village, such as we understand it to be, does not exist among the
+Sakais, but I have been obliged to make use of the word for want of a
+better one to explain the meaning. Each hut is some hundreds of yards
+distant from the other so that altogether a village covers an area of
+from twenty to forty miles. Nearly always the boundaries of village
+territory are marked by secondary water-courses (the true Sakais never
+encamp near a navigable river) which give their names to the people
+living round the shores.
+
+Only the width of a brook or torrent divides two of these settlements
+that I have called villages, therefore the distance is much less than
+that lying between the two extremities of a single village.
+
+And yet, beyond being on neighbourly and friendly terms, they have
+nothing to do with each other, for one Sakai tribe does not like mixing
+with another and will not recognize any tone of authority, or receive
+any word of advice unless proceeding from a close relation, and even
+then it must be given in the form of fatherly counsel or affectionate
+exhortation otherwise the person to whom it is addressed would probably
+leave his own people, not to have further annoyance from them, and go to
+live among his wife's kinsfolk.
+
+The inhabitants of a village are all one family, belonging to the first,
+second, third and even fourth generation for they are all descended from
+the same old man, who is called the "Elder" and who is regarded with
+esteem and consideration by everybody.
+
+It is he who acts as magistrate or arbitrator in any dispute or quarrel
+(that very rarely takes place) amongst his offspring and the sentence
+pronounced by him is rigorously respected. It is he, too, who selects
+the spot for a clearing when, as often happens, the Sakais change their
+place of encampment, forming their village in quite another part of the
+forest.
+
+Besides this he has nothing else to do, unless he is still able to work.
+
+The Elders of the various villages are upon a perfect footing of
+cordiality and never incite to or permit the shedding of blood, or even
+a conflict between their tribes.
+
+If upon the death of an Elder there happens to be two or more brothers
+still living the oldest one succeeds him, and should any
+misunderstanding eventually arise between them, or should the number of
+those composing the village become too great, the other emigrates to a
+far off corner of the forest, followed by all the families which are, in
+a direct line, closely related to him, thus forming the nucleus of a new
+Sakai village which never exceeds a few hundreds of inhabitants.
+
+In the plains, however, a great many families may be found living
+together in the same village, sometimes even to three thousand persons.
+
+But it is not here that one is able to study and observe the habits and
+customs of the genuine Sakais.
+
+Notwithstanding the practice of living in groups, one family isolated
+from the other, fraternity of race is very profoundly felt and if
+to-morrow a common danger should be menaced they would all unite like
+one man to resist and overcome it, besides being always ready to help
+each other in time of need.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many degrees of relationship are recognized by the Sakai.
+
+The male and female children of the same father and mother are
+considered, as with us, brothers and sisters, but also the sons and
+daughters of brothers (who among us would only be cousins) are classed
+the same and call all their uncles "father".
+
+That established for the descendants of females is quite different, and
+this is natural because the girls of one village marry into another.
+
+The children of a woman are supposed to bear no relationship to those of
+their mother's brothers and very little attention is paid to that which
+exists between them and their uncles.
+
+Sisters' children are considered brothers instead of cousins, and the
+aunts are all called mothers, even when they live in other villages.
+
+The wives of brothers call themselves sisters and are known by the name
+of "mother" by their nephews and nieces but sisters' husbands have no
+claim to relationship, other than that of cordial friendship.
+
+Grandchildren give the title of "father" also to their grandfather and
+great-grandfather and that of "mother" to their grandmother so that
+these two words which have such a sacred significance to us, to the
+Sakais are but common appellations.
+
+No tie whatever exists between the parents of the husband and those of
+the wife and neither between the latter (the father and mother of the
+wife) and their sons-in-law. They are only upon simple friendly terms.
+
+Humourists who are fond of exercising their wit upon the eternal
+mother-in-law question would find no ground for their jokes among this
+people.
+
+The daughter-in-law, on the contrary, recognizes her husband's parents
+as her own father and mother.
+
+This does not, however, prevent her from still feeling and cherishing a
+fond affection for those who are nearest to her in blood and who were
+the authors of her being.
+
+She goes very often to see them and is welcomed with great joy. At
+parting they give her good wishes and advice.
+
+"Go, follow thy husband!".
+
+"Take care not to fall by the way!".
+
+"Abor!".
+
+"Abor!".
+
+As far as I know there are no other relations acknowledged by the Sakais
+who dwell on the forest heights, beyond these I have mentioned and even
+these are reduced to four names: father, mother, sister and brother. It
+is very difficult, though, to get information about the bonds of
+kinship.
+
+Judging from the youthful age at which they marry and have children and
+assuming that the greatest age which they reach is that of 60 years old
+(a calculation purely by guess as it is impossible to ascertain
+precisely) it may be said that every village is populated by the second,
+third, fourth and even fifth generation of the same people.
+
+[Illustration: A primitive method of lighting a fire.
+
+_p._ 147.]
+
+In fact, establishing the date of his first paternity at 16 years old,
+it is evident that at 32 a Sakai may be a grandfather, at 48 a
+great-grandfather and at 64 a great-great-grandfather.
+
+The closer and more direct the relationship the stronger is their
+affection.
+
+The tenderest love that a Sakai can bestow is poured out upon his son,
+especially when the child is little, but gradually, with the passing of
+years, and the formation of new families around, the warmth of this
+attachment somewhat cools down, perhaps because there is no longer any
+need of his care.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kind reader, I have introduced you (as best I could) to my good friends
+of the Malay forest; I have made you know their virtues and their
+defects, their habits and their family ties and now I should like you to
+follow with me the little tribe marching from one end of their territory
+to the other in order to fix upon a new dwelling-place.
+
+The long procession moves along without any order whatever. Everybody
+carries something that they did not want to leave behind in the
+abandoned village. The very little children are fastened to their
+mother's backs, the others caper merrily round the women, and the old
+people walk slowly on, sometimes leaning on their sticks.
+
+All the men and the youths are armed with their deadly cane and poisoned
+arrows.
+
+Several dogs--not unlike little setters--escort the company and give the
+alarm when danger threatens. With them, in friendly intimacy, are
+monkeys, squirrels and tame wild-boars, while fowls cackle in the
+dossers where they have been put for fear of being lost in the jungle.
+
+This is an emigrating tribe. Are they then taking a long journey that
+they are so well provided with food?
+
+Such a supposition would be erroneous. Those fowls, boars, squirrels and
+monkeys are not a reserve stock of provisions for the travelling Sakais
+but are their friends and companions, brought up by them with kind care
+and which are considered as a part of the family.
+
+A Sakai never eats an animal that he has reared; it would seem to him to
+commit a crime. He uses the fowls, however (which are a trifle smaller
+than those in Europe) as a means of exchange for tobacco, rice and other
+articles but he would never eat one himself unless reduced to the verge
+of starvation.
+
+How different to civilized persons who breed animals and poultry on
+purpose to devour them, who fatten fowls in coops, cruelly convert
+cockrels into appetizing capons, peg geese to the ground that their
+liver may supply an extra dainty for the table and protect the poetic
+love of pigeons in order to cook their little ones!
+
+Oh, yes! we protect animals, even the birds that fly wild in the woods,
+we surround them with attention, we make laws in their favour, why? for
+what? That we may have the pleasure of eating them!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A halt is called. The Elder, assisted by some of the men inspect the
+site to see if in its vicinity there are any sort of flowers or birds of
+ill-omen. If any such are discovered the journey is continued but if
+there are none they begin at once to kindle a fire.
+
+[Illustration: Felling a tree.
+
+_p._ 147.]
+
+A little bamboo reed is taken and a hole made in it through which is
+passed a towy substance found upon palm-trees and known by the name of
+_lulup_ among the Malays. Round this reed is wound two or three times a
+long piece of very flexible Indian cane and he who has undertaken to
+light the fire now holds the two ends of the latter, and pressing the
+bamboo hard with his foot, pulls first one and then the other, sharply
+and rapidly.
+
+The violent friction soon brings about combustion for the larger reed is
+heated to such a point that the tow ignites. Leaves and dry grasses are
+thrown on and the Elder watches the smoke.
+
+If this goes up in a straight column the position is good, otherwise it
+is not a suitable one.
+
+The decision having been made in this manner, work commences in right
+earnest and a febrile activity pervades the spot.
+
+The men carefully observe in what direction the trees are inclined, and
+with a small axe (that cuts into the wood wonderfully well) they begin
+to chop round the roots of the smaller ones.
+
+This done they attack one of the superb giants of the forest. With
+primitive, but not for that less practical, ladders made of bamboo, they
+ascend the tree they mean to fell, and after having planted some stout
+poles around it they construct an ingenious platform some yards from the
+ground.
+
+Up there they again make use of their little, but terrible hatchet,
+which is pointed in shape and marvellously resistant. It is of a
+moderate size, scarcely measuring 8 inches in length, 4 in breadth and 2
+in thickness. Firmly fixed on a pliant bamboo cane the blows given by it
+have marvellous force.
+
+The Sakais of the mountain obtain this instrument (which is never used
+by them as a weapon of offence or defence) from their brethren of the
+plain who, in their turn, get it from the Malays by bartering.
+
+When the preliminary work has been finished the huge tree is attacked
+(upon one side only) and its wood is soon reduced to chips under the
+terrific strokes which are repeated in rapid succession.
+
+In the meantime nimble youths climb up the trunk and near the top tie
+two stout and very long Indian canes, letting the ends dangle to the
+ground. As soon as the tree gives the slightest sign of vacillation the
+men hurry down, grasp a rattan upon each side and with all their might,
+rhythmically and simultaneously, pull the vanquished colossus towards
+the other trees whose roots have been already recised.
+
+The enormous tree, for a while, seems to withstand all their efforts,
+then begins to bend and sway, shaking as though seized by a fit of
+trembling; it totters for a minute or two and at last crashes down with
+awful violence, in its fall hurling to the ground the nearest ones that
+have been prepared on purpose, and these in their turn knock down those
+which are behind.
+
+Everybody has fled to a safe place but are deafened for a time by the
+loud noise of falling trunks, broken boughs, the crackling of leaves and
+the snapping asunder of the thick masses of foliage that the creepers
+have woven amongst the branches. The turmoil is indescribable. Reptiles,
+birds, squirrels, insects frightened at the unexpected disaster are
+moving wildly about in search of shelter, filling the air with their
+cries and buzz.
+
+Through the gap made in the green roof of the forest the sun enters
+triumphantly and illuminates the prostrate forms of the gigantic victims
+(lying about like Cyclopses fulminated by the ire of Jupiter) that ever
+and anon still give convulsive starts at the breaking of some huge bough
+in under that can no longer bear their tremendous weight.
+
+The opening has been made; it must now be cleared out. The work
+continues with feverish haste; all take part in it.
+
+[Illustration: An elevated residence.
+
+_p._ 149.]
+
+One after the other trees are stripped and maimed and, with miracles of
+strength and ingenuity, are pushed away as far as possible in order to
+make with them a solid and reliable enclosure all round.
+
+Before night comes, in the space thus prepared, rise groups of temporary
+huts, and large bon-fires burn.
+
+Following the method here described, the Sakais in a few hours succeed
+in clearing the forest for several miles round.
+
+The next day they begin afresh and go on until the clearing is big
+enough to contain the number of huts necessary, separated, as is the
+use, two or three hundred yards each one from the other.
+
+These are immense breaches which are opened in the forest but the latter
+also is immense and does not suffer from this raid upon its land, the
+less so because with its amazing power of fecundity it will soon have
+covered anew with vegetable life the abandoned village of the wandering
+tribe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hut (_dop_) of the Elder is the centre around which all the others
+are erected.
+
+To defend themselves against wild beasts and other animals, as well as
+against the humidity of marshy ground, the Sakais of the plain often
+build their huts either up a tree or suspended between stout poles.
+
+But on the hills there is no necessity to do this and the rude
+habitation is constructed on the ground with green branches and leaves,
+the roof and walls being of such poor consistency that they do not
+afford the very least protection. Wild beasts, as a rule, never venture
+into open spaces and besides are kept afar by the glare of the fires but
+the inclemency of the climate on those heights would render a more
+substantial residence desirable for comfort.
+
+There is no furniture or other sort of household goods in the Sakai's
+_dop_. His bed consists of dry leaves and the same bark they use for
+their waist-cloths, strewn upon the ground. Some of them possess a
+coverlet, worth only a few pence, but for which the poor creatures have
+paid its weight in gold by means of articles given in exchange. The
+majority have not even this.
+
+The hearth is placed in the middle of the hut and is made of four pieces
+of wood surrounding and closing in a heap of earth.
+
+Three stones placed upon this serve to sustain the cooking-pot.
+
+As I have said, they have no tables, chairs, stools or cupboards, and
+also the inventory of their kitchen utensils is very short: one or two
+earthen-ware pots (when they have not these they use bamboo canes for
+cooking), a couple of roughly-made knives, a few basins composed of
+cocoanut shells, and some bamboo receptacles which officiate as bucket,
+bottle and glass. The ladle with which they distribute their food is
+also of cocoanut shell.
+
+Their plates are... banana or other leaves, adapted for the purpose,
+that are thrown away after they have finished eating.
+
+At the top of the hut are hung the blow-pipes, and well-filled quivers.
+They are kept there for a little heat to reach them, this being
+considered essential to the efficacy of the poisons.
+
+Above these, twined amongst the green, are preserved strips of bark for
+a change of... dress when required, together with the Sakais' musical
+instruments which are never forgotten.
+
+[Illustration: A tree-hut.
+
+_p._ 149.]
+
+Such total poverty of shelter and chattels I think must be explained as
+cause and effect of the nomadic life these people live (although I
+should not know how to define the former from the latter) as well as the
+result of their indolence and the excessive simplicity of their wants.
+
+If once the continual migrations, from one point of the forest to the
+other, could be prevented the huts would certainly be improved both in
+construction and adornment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Round the hut a piece of ground is prepared for the cultivation of
+potatoes, yams and maize, but the harvest is very scanty, and the whole
+is frequently destroyed by the visit of a _sladan_. Here, too, the
+good-wife devotes a part of her time to fowl-breeding.
+
+She, like all the Sakais, sleeps at her pleasure in the morning. As soon
+as she gets up, with the help of her daughters she prepares the morning
+meal and serves it out as she thinks proper without the slightest remark
+being heard as to the quality or quantity of the food given to each.
+
+After breakfast every one goes about their own business; the men
+shooting, searching for poisons, or setting traps; the women and girls
+gathering tubers, bulbs and mushrooms, or catching insects, lizards and
+frogs, whilst the old people no longer able to go to the forest remain
+behind chewing tobacco or _sirih_ and looking after the children.
+
+Sunrise and sunset keep each other company!
+
+Towards noon all who can, return to the village, those who cannot, after
+having eaten in the forest, squat themselves on the ground to rest. It
+is the solemn hour of silence and repose, observed by man and beast.
+
+Only when the sun, from being right overhead, has begun to decline
+westward is the interrupted work or march resumed. At the first sign of
+twilight, which is very brief, the Sakais may be seen hastening back to
+their huts, on their return from labour or from other villages, where an
+abundant meal and ineffable peace awaits them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+  Intellectual development--Sakais of the plain and Sakais of
+  the hills--Laziness and intelligence--Falsehood and the Evil
+  Spirit--The Sakai language--When the "Orang Putei" gets
+  angry--Counting time--Novel calendars--Moral gifts.
+
+
+Intellectual development amongst the Sakais of the hills is very limited
+and as a consequence requires little or no study but much more is to be
+met with amongst those of the plain for two reasons which I have already
+explained: one their traffic and consequent intercourse with more
+civilized races; and the other the mixture of blood from their parents'
+concubinage with strangers, thus destroying the purity of their own.
+After the establishment of the British Protectorate and the abolition of
+slavery in the Federated Malay States the Sakai men and women returned
+to their native places, the latter taking with them the children born of
+their masters and the former entered into business relations with their
+quondam owners by the exchange of forest products for trifles of little
+or no value.
+
+This explains why in the tribes dwelling on the plains we meet with
+certain cunning and malicious intents which are in strange contrast with
+their primitive ingenuity and sincerity. But although in comparison to
+their brethren of the mountains they might and do pass for artful, they
+themselves are continually cheated and deceived by their more skilful
+neighbours who barter inferior qualities of tobacco, iron, calico and
+other trash, worth nothing, for real treasures in rattan, cane, rubber,
+poisons, fruit and fishing gear which the Sakai of the plain is very
+clever in making.
+
+Notwithstanding this sharpening of their intellect due to sojourn
+amongst their more astute neighbours or to the inheritance of
+insincerity, theirs by birth when born in exile, they are not yet
+capable of understanding what profit they might make by exciting
+competition between their covetous barterers, and the latter, each one
+for self-interest, are very careful not to open the eyes of those who
+are so ready to let themselves be cheated. Moreover, the ill-treatment
+to which they were once subjected, and the imperfect knowledge they
+still have of what the British Protectorate means, renders them timid
+and too much afraid of these rapacious merchants to dare resent, in any
+way, the prepotence which damages them.
+
+In spite of the corruption which has infected them from their
+companionship or relationship with corrupted people the Sakai of the
+plain still preserves some of his original goodness and uprightness.
+Only too well it may be said that once he has rid himself of these moral
+encumbrances which leave him defenceless in the hands of the
+unscrupulous he will have taken a new step towards civilization but
+there will be two virtues the less in his spiritual patrimony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai who has taken refuge in the hilly part of the forest in order
+to escape from the influences of Civilization which may now be said to
+beset him on all sides, still preserves and defends the original purity
+of his race.
+
+His intellectual development is inferior to that of his brother living
+in the plain because he keeps himself alien to everything that might
+effect his physical laziness and the utter inertia of his brain.
+
+He lives because the forest gives him abundant food, and he lives idly,
+immersed in innumerable superstitions that _Ala_ (the sorcerer) enjoins
+him to always preserve intact.
+
+If, quite suddenly, a change should come in the life and conditions of
+these Sakais they would never be able to adapt themselves to a different
+regime until after extreme suffering and sacrifice had strewn the new
+path with many victims.
+
+And yet, in spite of all, I believe him to be endowed with a fair amount
+of intelligence, dormant for the present, but susceptible of development
+when once awakened and with great patience he has, by slow degrees
+(almost imperceptibly) been taught to overcome his strange fears and to
+lose those curious ideas concerning life which the old forest
+philosopher revealed to me.
+
+I say "almost imperceptibly"--as for some years I have been doing
+myself--that no suspicions may be raised and that _Ala_ may have no
+cause to rebel against the introduction of modern sentiments by
+outsiders who insinuate themselves into the tribe, persons whom he does
+not view with benevolent eyes, especially if they are white. This sort
+of priest obstinately opposes every element of progress and obliges his
+people to do the same.
+
+[Illustration: Preparing the supper.
+
+_p._ 151.]
+
+I have my reasons for believing in the latent intelligence of the
+mountain Sakai as I have noticed in him a great facility in imitating
+sounds, movements and even the way of doing things and also of learning
+and remembering what he has been taught or has seen. I have perceived in
+him, too, a pronounced rectitude of judgment and a remarkable sharpness
+of observation when his superstitious terrors do not throw a veil over
+his mind.
+
+But he is incorrigibly lazy and will not engage in any kind of work that
+requires fatigue unless it be by his own spontaneous will. The spirit of
+independence within him is so profound and indomitable as to induce him
+perhaps to renounce a benefit to himself for fear of obtaining it
+through satisfying the desire of another.
+
+He is also very touchy; a harsh word or an impatient gesture is enough
+to offend him.
+
+In compensation he is hospitable, generous, sincere and averse to
+falseness and intrigue. If sometimes he tells a lie he does so from the
+dread of an imaginary or possible evil which might otherwise befall him
+or his, as for instance when somebody he does not know asks his name or
+seeks information about his place of abode. In such a case the Sakai,
+with something like childish impudence, will give a fictitious name or
+information quite contrary to the truth because he is convinced that
+every stranger brings with him an evil spirit to let loose upon the
+person or place he seeks, and that by not saying the truth he tricks
+both the man and the spirit that cannot injure him as he is not the
+person declared.
+
+As can be seen, this their way of reasoning does not lack a certain
+ingenuity which leads one to think that the poor things' brains might be
+educated to more agility in thinking and understanding.
+
+Unfortunately the means are very scarce for making new impressions upon
+the grey matter enclosed in the bony case of their thoughtless pates.
+The first difficulty to be met with is the incredible poverty of their
+language which impedes the communication and development of an idea.
+
+I endeavour to remedy this deficiency by employing English words and
+phrases because this is the official language in the Protected Malay
+States, and the British Government wishes to make it popular.
+
+The Sakais catch the meaning and make use of the terms the same as they
+often learn a word in Italian or Genoese that I sometimes utter when
+speaking to myself.
+
+I remember well, one day, that in a moment of irritation about something
+that did not go right, I exclaimed "_Sacramento_" (I apologize to those
+who know what a naughty word it is).
+
+My little servant boy who was present looked at me frightened, then
+began to cry and darted away as if mad, although he had nothing to do
+with my bad temper.
+
+Well, what do you think? Now it has passed amongst the Sakai boys that
+when the _Orang Putei_ gets angry he says "_Sacramento_!". And they
+repeat the oath with all the emphasis and air of a trooper, yet I had
+not taught them it nor should I have wished them to learn the
+exclamation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakai language is, as I have said, very poor indeed, so much so that
+it is impossible to form a long phrase or keep up the most simple
+conversation because there are no means of connecting the various words
+one with the other.
+
+An idea is expressed by a single word or perhaps by three or four
+together so that it requires a great deal of practice, attention and
+also a special study of the mimicry which accompanies and explains these
+terse vocal sounds, to enable one to follow out the thought.
+
+[Illustration: A group of Bretak boys.
+
+_p._ 156.]
+
+Their vocabulary is soon exhausted for it is composed only of those
+words which are strictly necessary to make known their daily wants, the
+necessity of defence and their superstitious feelings. They refuse to
+adopt any of those expressions that their brethren of the plain have
+learnt from other races, considering them as impure and perilous as the
+people themselves. This is an implacable application of the maxim
+"_timeo danaos et dona ferentes_" by folks who do not understand Latin
+and who ignore the existence of the Greeks but who know thoroughly well
+their stranger neighbours.
+
+It is therefore vain to seek among the Sakais those poetical metaphors
+and that flowery, figurative style of speech which is attributed by us
+to all Orientals without distinction.
+
+I am not a student or professor of glottology, contenting myself with
+being able to speak one or two languages without troubling my head over
+their origin, so I dare not judge upon the affinity more or less remote
+of the not too sweet Sakai idioms with others, but there seemed to me
+such a marked difference between the Malay and Sakai phraseologies that
+I should have declared them to be absolutely distinct one from the
+other.
+
+However, the recent studies of the German, W. Schmidt, and the more
+profound ones of the Italian, A. Trombetti, have proved that all the
+tongues spoken by the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula as well as
+those to be heard in the neighbouring isles are in connection with each
+other.
+
+The most part of the words used by the Sakais are of only one syllable,
+polysyllables being very rare, and the way in which these accents are
+shot out from the lips would make a foreigner decide at once that the
+best method of translating their talk would be by a volley of shots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the curious and the studious I have here added a short list of the
+words commonly used amongst the Sakais but as their language is totally
+exempt from every rule of orthography I have tried as well as I can to
+give a phonetic interpretation of the same.
+
+
+  Arm                    -- _glahk_
+
+  Arrow                  -- _grog_
+
+    " (poisoned)         -- _grog mahng tshegrah'_
+
+    " (not poisoned)     -- _grog pe' m tshegrah_
+
+
+  Bamboo                 -- _annahd'_
+
+  Banana                 -- _tellah'e_
+
+  Betelnut               -- _blook_
+
+  Bird                   -- _chep_
+
+  Body                   -- _brock_
+
+  Born                   -- _egoy_ (_alphabetical sound of_ e)
+
+  Blow-pipe              -- _blahoo'_
+
+  Brother                -- _tennah'_
+
+    " (elder)            -- _tennah' bop_
+
+    " (younger)          -- _manang se ne_ (_e sounded as in_ met, men)
+
+
+  Child                  -- _kennon_
+
+  Cigarette              -- _rocko_
+
+  Come soon              -- _hawl aghit_ (_a_ as in _father_)
+
+  Cover                  -- _tshenkop_
+
+
+  Day                    -- _e eah top_
+
+  Dead                   -- _daht_
+
+  Death                  -- _daht_
+
+  Dog                    -- _chaw_
+
+
+  Ear                    -- _garetook_
+
+  Earth                  -- _in noos_
+
+  Evening                -- _danwee_
+
+  Evil                   -- _ne' ghne' e'_ (_alphabetical sound of_ e)
+
+  Eye                    -- _maht_
+
+
+  Father                 -- _abbay'_, _abboo'_, _appah'_
+
+    " (in-law)           -- _tennah' amay_
+
+  Fear                   -- _sayoo neot_
+
+  Female                 -- _knah_
+
+  Fish                   -- _kah_
+
+  Flute                  -- _tshinelloi_
+
+  Foe                    -- _pay kabaad_
+
+  Foot                   -- _jehoo_
+
+  Forest                 -- _dahraht_
+
+  Fowl                   -- _poo_
+
+  Fruit                  -- _pla'_
+
+
+  Good                   -- _bawr_
+
+  Good-bye               -- _abbawr_
+
+
+  Hail                   -- _tayho oontoy_
+
+  Hand                   -- _tahk_
+
+  Harm                   -- _ne'_, _ghne' e'_ (_like_ evil)
+
+  Head                   -- _kovey_
+
+  Heart                  -- _noos_
+
+  Hen                    -- _poo_
+
+  Hill                   -- _loop_
+
+  Hot                    -- _baykahk_
+
+  Hunger                 -- _chewahr_
+
+  Husband                -- _care lore_
+
+  Hut                    -- _dop_
+
+
+  Illness                -- _nigh_
+
+
+  Leaf                   -- _slah_
+
+  Leg                    -- _kaymung_
+
+  Lightning              -- _bled_
+
+
+  Malay                  -- _my gope_
+
+  Male                   -- _crahl_
+
+  Man                    -- _sing no_
+
+  Mandoline              -- _krob_
+
+  Mangosteen             -- _play semmetah_
+
+  Many                   -- _jeho e_
+
+  Medicine               -- _penglie_ (ie _as in_ lie)
+
+  Moon                   -- _ghecheck_
+
+  Monkey                 -- _dak_
+
+    " (with long tail)   -- _raoh_
+
+  Mouth                  -- _eneoong_
+
+  Morning                -- _pawr_
+
+  Mother                 -- _amay_, _kennen_, _kenung_
+
+    " (in-law)           -- _tennah abbay_
+
+  Mountain               -- _lot, loop_
+
+
+  Night                  -- _sin oar_
+
+  No                     -- _pay neay'_
+
+  Noon                   -- _dahjis_
+
+  Nose                   -- _moh_
+
+
+  Old                    -- _din grah_
+
+  One                    -- _nahnaw_
+
+
+  People                 -- _my_
+
+  Plain                  -- _barrow_
+
+  Pond                   -- _tebbahov_
+
+  Poison                 -- _chingrah_
+
+
+  Quiver                 -- _lock_
+
+
+  Rage                   -- _roh_
+
+  Rain                   -- _mahny_
+
+  Rat                    -- _hay loy_
+
+  Rice                   -- _bah_
+
+  River                  -- _tayhoo_
+
+
+  Season                 -- _moosin_
+
+  Sing                   -- _jeoolah_
+
+  Sister                 -- _kaynah_
+
+    " (elder)            -- _taynah kaynah_
+
+    " (younger)          -- _mennang kaynah_
+
+  Sky                    -- _sooey_
+
+  Sleep                  -- _bet bet_
+
+  Slumber                -- _n' tahk_
+
+  Snake                  -- _teegee_
+
+  Sorcerer               -- _ahlah_
+
+  Spirit                 -- _ghenigh nee_
+
+    " (Evil)             -- _ahtoo_
+
+  Star                   -- _pearloy_
+
+  Storm                  -- _poss_
+
+  Sun                    -- _mahjis_
+
+
+  Thunder                -- _nghoo_
+
+  Thunder-bolt           -- _nahkoo_
+
+  Tiger                  -- _mah moot_, _mah noos_
+
+  Tobacco                -- _bahkoo_
+
+  Tree                   -- _jehoo oo_
+
+  Two                    -- _nahr_
+
+
+  Valley                 -- _wawk_
+
+
+  Water                  -- _tayhoo_
+
+    " for drinking       --   "  _engot_
+
+  Wedding                -- _ba' kaynah_
+
+  Wife                   -- _kay el_
+
+  Wild boar              -- _loo_
+
+  Will, wish, want       -- _engot_
+
+  Wind                   -- _poy_
+
+  Woman                  -- _knah_, _caredawl_
+
+
+  Yes                    -- _aye ay._[12]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This poor language that seems to be composed of short coughs does not
+even lose its roughness in song, if I may so term the musical (?) sounds
+that proceed from the Sakais' mouths, because real songs they have none.
+They are accustomed, however, to improvise something of the sort in
+which they always allude to facts of the day but as there is nobody to
+collect these fragments of extemporaneous ballads they disappear from
+the world of memories as quickly as they have been put together.
+
+It is for this that all my endeavours have been in vain to find amongst
+them some song transmitted from father to son which by referring to an
+event more or less remote might serve as a clue to the legends or
+history of this mysterious people. But nothing of the kind exists and
+not even in talking can they narrate anything farther, back than three
+or four generations. They could not tell you if the sun and the forest
+were in existence before their great-grandfather lived. One cannot
+wonder much at this, though, when it is known that these poor
+inhabitants of the wildest parts of the jungle can scarcely reckon
+beyond three and have no means of counting time.
+
+With them the first three numbers are not followed by a series of others
+which always increase by one but from _neer_ (three) it is rare that
+they pass to _neer nahno_ (three one) jumping instead to _neer neer_
+(three three), and by this addition they express number six. They use
+the words _neer neer nahno_ for seven and then jump again to _neer neer
+neer_ which means nine.
+
+When a birth, a death or any other event takes place which requires the
+exact period of seven days for the accomplishment of certain ceremonies
+according to their habit, the Sakai takes a strip of reed or rattan
+(splitting it into parts to make it flexible) with which he ties two
+groups of three knots each and a single one apart. Every day he undoes
+one of these knots and so knows when the time prescribed is finished.
+
+If you ask him whether it would not be better for him to learn to count
+at least as far as seven, a number that for one thing or another is
+frequently necessary in his life, he answers you invariably:
+
+"We know nothing. Our fathers did so and we too will do the same without
+being too fantastical".
+
+Thus we see that the saying: "My father did so", may be an inveterate
+enemy of arithmetic whilst it establishes a close relationship between
+those who in civilized society put it into practice and the savages
+dwelling on the heights of Perak.
+
+The Sakai renounces all attempts at counting more than nine, and his
+total abstention from commercial persuits permits him to spare his brain
+this fatigue.
+
+[Illustration: Two more solid huts.
+
+_p._ 166.]
+
+Returning from a day's shooting, if they have had luck, my good friends
+do not trouble themselves much over counting the heads of game they have
+brought home. They will perhaps begin by placing their victims in groups
+of _neer_ (three) until they amount to three threes but should the
+number exceed nine they simply declare them to be _jeho e_ (many) and do
+not care about knowing anything more precise as they are satisfied at
+the fact that they, and any of their relations who like to partake of
+the feast, can live upon game until it is all finished.
+
+Many times I have amused myself by asking a prolific father or mother
+how many children they had. My friends would get as far as three but
+then becoming confused would beg me to count them for myself, and their
+offspring had to pass in front of me whilst they called each by name,
+for example: _Roy_ (boy) _No_ (boy) _Taynah_ (girl) _Po lo_ (boy) _Tay
+lep_ (girl) _Betah_ (girl).
+
+Counting them upon my fingers I would tell the parent or parents that
+they were six, to which they agreed with:
+
+"If you say they are six, they are six".
+
+It is more difficult still for the Sakais to count time. They imagine
+pretty nearly what hour it is by the position of the sun overhead or
+from the various sounds which come from the forest announcing, as I have
+already said, morning, noon, and evening, and during the night the
+_crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ of the wild beasts' roaring proclaim the
+hours before and after midnight.
+
+The shortest measure of time that the Sakais understand is that employed
+in smoking a cigarette.
+
+They observe, although not with much precision, the phases of the moon
+that they gladly greet at her appearance but they do not feel any
+curiosity in knowing where she has gone and where she remains when they
+do not enjoy her soft light at night and during their dances.
+
+The flowering of certain plants and the ripening of certain fruits gives
+the Sakai a faint idea of the longest period of time they are capable of
+imagining and which is about equal to our year. The seasons, which
+cannot here be recognized by diversity of temperature, are distinguished
+by the gathering and storing away of those fruits that supply them with
+food at regular intervals of time, such as the _durian_ season, that of
+the _bua pra_, the _dukon_ and the _giu blo lol_.
+
+I think it would be quite impossible to find out the right age of a
+Sakai. Sometimes after the birth of a child its parents will cut a notch
+in the bark of a tree every time the season when he was born returns.
+But these signs never continue very long because even if the father or
+mother have not been compelled to abandon their tree-register to follow
+their clan to another part of the forest, after the third or fourth
+incision they easily forget to keep up the practice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When as often happens a Sakai has to undertake a journey of more than
+three days as in the case of seeking a wife or of making a large
+provision of tobacco for all the encampment, both he and those left
+behind have recourse to a novel calendar in order to remember how many
+days he is absent. They pick up some small stones or little sticks and
+dividing them into threes the traveller carries away a half with him
+leaving the rest with his family. At the end of every day those at home
+and the one who has departed throw away one of these stones or sticks.
+When the little stock is finished the Sakai is sure to return because he
+knows very well that any further delay would be the cause of grave
+apprehensions and anxiety to his dear ones which he is eager to spare
+them.
+
+Some of them adopt the same system on this occasion as when counting the
+days of traditional ceremonies, that is by the tying and untying of
+knots in a strip of _scudiscio_.[13]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amongst those Oriental peoples not yet civilized the Sakais are the
+least known, and yet I firmly believe that they could surpass the others
+in intelligence--as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral
+qualities--if they were to be made the object of assiduous care and
+benevolent interest.
+
+Once these poor jungle dwellers could be brought to have full confidence
+in their white protectors, it seems to me that the best thing which
+could be done for them would be to induce them, by degrees, to dedicate
+themselves to agriculture.
+
+But their aversion to any kind of labour cannot be overcome by coercive
+means or evangelical preaching. They would rebel as much against one as
+the other for they wish to be absolute masters of their own will and
+their own conscience. And this liberty of thought and action must be
+left them whilst very slowly and with great patience, by force of
+example and gentle persuasion, they are made to understand that by doing
+what we want they are giving us a pleasure which will be largely
+compensated with tobacco and with the numerous trifles that are the joy
+and vanity of savages.
+
+He who would dream of redeeming them from their present ignorant state
+by treating them arbitrarily and thereby hurting their feelings and
+insulting their beliefs would find his undertaking not only fruitless
+but also dangerous because he would be immediately considered an enemy
+and the _Ala_ would not fail to incite vengeance upon him in the
+troubled spirits of the tribe.
+
+I think the method most promising in its results is that which I myself
+have proved. I slipped in amidst them, living the life that they live
+and respecting their opinions and superstitions, at the same time
+seeking indirectly to cure them of their natural laziness.
+
+The Sakais are nomadic for two reasons: first, because when they have
+exhausted, by their prodigality, the edible treasures that the forest
+soil produces for them without need of toil, in the tract of land within
+reach of their settlement, they change their residence to a fresh
+quarter where this uncultivated product is for a long time in
+superabundance; secondly, because when somebody of their number dies
+they believe that an evil spirit has entered their village and that to
+free themselves from its malignant influence it is necessary to fly to
+another part.
+
+Well, more than once I have made a point of sleeping in a hut lately
+visited by death to show them how absurd the idea is. At first they
+stood afar, looking at the forsaken spot and believing that I, too, was
+dead, but afterwards finding, to their immense wonder, that I was still
+alive and well, they began to doubt their own superstition and to build
+their huts a little more solid so that they might be of greater
+durability.
+
+Overthrown in a definite manner one of the motives of their wanderings
+the other would cease to exist from the moment they were taught to work
+the ground. With this scope in view, from time to time, I make a
+distribution of padi or maize and am glad to see that little by little
+the miserable plots once rudely sown with corn are now becoming ample
+fields.
+
+Like the old philosopher I found in the forest, the other Sakais have
+never thought, or rather let themselves think, what a boon it would be
+for them to grow the things they like best, around their huts, instead
+of feeling obliged to get it from others, and they evidently shared his
+dislike to torturing the earth with iron, for before my advent and
+sojourn amongst them they simply burnt the pith of the trees and plants
+they felled and into the bed formed by the ashes they cast
+indiscriminately bulb and grain, covering up both with their feet or
+with a piece of wood, and afterwards they took no more care of it.
+
+But this pretence of cultivation was nothing less than a greedy caprice
+and did not in any way help their domestic economy. The products of the
+planting which had cost them so little fatigue was deemed surplus food
+and they would eat up in a few days what might have lasted them for
+months, inviting friends even lazier than themselves (who had not taken
+the trouble so much as to imitate this rudimental mode of agriculture)
+to take part in the gorging feast.
+
+It would be a real blessing to those Sakais who have already begun to
+cultivate their fields, to work with me in the plantations I am making,
+to help me in gathering in jungle produce and to apply themselves to
+some simple industry, if a few good-hearted, thrifty families of
+European agriculturists were to come and dwell amongst them. In this way
+my forest friends would make rapid and immense progress for they have
+already shown their aptitude and ability and the British Government
+would in a very short time have a flourishing colony by thus bringing
+them into direct contact with a wholesome civilization consisting of
+kindness, rectitude and honest work without their losing any of their
+characteristic integrity through the contaminating influence of spurious
+evolutionary principles.
+
+It is true that the wide dominions of England claim an immense amount of
+care and energy but her rulers display sufficient activity and wisdom
+for the need and would have no cause to regret, but rather rejoice, if
+they were to extend their beneficence to the far off worthy tribes of
+Sakais now wandering over Perak and Pahang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Returning to the character of my no-longer new friends I must really
+repeat that we should be fortunate if we could find similar traits in
+many of the persons belonging to civilized society.
+
+Whether I am prejudiced by the sympathy I feel for this people amongst
+whom I live, and who have granted me hospitality without any limit, I
+will leave you to judge, kind reader, you who have the patience to
+peruse these modest pages written, not from an impulse of personal
+vanity, but in all sincerity, and whose only aim is to do good to the
+poor Sakais, unknown to the world in general and slandered by those who
+know them and who are interested in preventing any sort of intercourse
+with other outsiders besides themselves.
+
+Nobody has ever been to teach the Sakai to be honest and as no kind of
+moral maxims are known by them it stands to reason that this honesty
+which speaks in their looks, words and acts depends upon their natural
+sweet temper and their way of living.
+
+The real Sakai recoils from everything approaching violence and never
+assaults a fellow creature unless he believes himself or his family
+seriously menaced or badly treated.
+
+[Illustration: A young man procuring food with his blowpipe.
+
+_p._ 169.]
+
+Paolo Mantegazza has written that the nature of a weapon indicates not
+only the technical ability of a race but also its degree of ferocity.
+All those arms which serve to make suffer instead of to kill are certain
+signs of cruelty.
+
+Well, the Sakai inflicts no suffering upon his foe. The terrible poisons
+with which he tinges his fatal arrows cause almost immediate death, and
+his sole motive for killing is to rid himself of one whom he thinks will
+do him harm, but should his enemy run away before he can hit him he
+would neither follow nor lay an ambush for him. He might almost take as
+his motto the celebrated line by Niccolini:
+
+    Ripassi l'Alpi e tornera fratello.[14]
+
+Even if their gentle, peaceable characters did not disincline them for a
+deed of crime, if their indolence and lack of passionate feelings were
+not safe-guards from evil-doing the entire absence of incentive power
+prevents them from committing a guilty action. Why should they rob when
+their neighbours' goods are also theirs? When everything is everybody's,
+be it a rich supply of meat, fruit, grain, tobacco or accomodation in a
+sheltered hut? And why should they kill anybody?
+
+For pure malignity? Because there is no other reason to prompt such a
+wickedness. They have no excuse for jealousy, even if they were capable
+of entertaining it, for when two young people are fond of each other no
+pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their
+affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical
+respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his
+blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous
+desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature
+couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a
+woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) or should they have met
+with somebody else that they like better, no demoralizing
+love-intrigue, or guilty flirtation is the consequence; they simply
+announce their change of feeling to their conjugal half and if the
+latter still cherishes a sincere attachment for the faithless partner in
+wedlock he or she will hasten to make the other happy by giving up all
+claim upon the loved one and they agree to part upon the best of terms,
+as also they do when by chance they are reciprocally tired of one
+another's company. The fact does not give rise to drama, tragedy or
+Othello-like fury.
+
+Now tell me under what impulse can the Sakai become a criminal?
+
+He is honest and sincere from the kindness and indolence of his
+character, because of the free life which is his, and the society of
+people like himself, not because he fears being punished or has any hope
+of a prize in Heaven.
+
+Will not this strange fact induce some genius of the State to meditate
+the subject, there being full proof that the alliance of Prison and Hell
+does not succeed in eradicating the seeds of corruption and crime in
+civilized nations?
+
+This innate honesty of the Sakai is especially revealed in the manner he
+respects whatever engagement he has, of his own accord, assumed.
+Mistrustful in dealing with others, violent and apparently overmastering
+from the vivacity with which he speaks and gesticulates, as soon as the
+bargain is fixed he will keep it faithfully to the very letter.
+
+In conformity with the custom that both the Sakai of the hills and his
+brother of the plain have of not providing for the future, he will
+consume even beforehand his share of the exchange agreed upon, but all
+the same he will perform his duties towards the other with the most
+scrupulous punctuality.
+
+Many times I have intentionally left outside my cabin such articles as
+would excite in the Sakais a desire of possession, but upon my return I
+have always found them intact and in their right place. My habitation is
+always open, even when I am far away but I have never missed a single
+object.
+
+A little from habit, a little from the virtue I have frequently
+mentioned, and a little, very likely, because he is too lazy to be
+otherwise, the Sakai is a just and upright man. He has a great respect
+for the old, seeks their advice, and--what is much more--follows it; he
+has a deep sense of gratitude, is unselfish, open-hearted and
+open-handed, and ever ready to do a service to those who belong to his
+own village. And this exclusiveness is one of the curious contrasts that
+may sometimes be noted in human nature.
+
+Meeting upon his road a person who is evidently suffering and has need
+of aid, if he does not recognize in him, or her, one of his own tribe he
+will pass on with indifference and grumble out cynically: "All the worse
+for them". But if the same person were to make an appeal to his charity
+on the threshold of his rude home, he or she would receive hospitality
+without being known, and in the event of an accident or any other
+misfortune which has occasioned grief or trouble to a kinsman, however
+distant, he will share in their affliction, and do all he can to relieve
+them in their distress.
+
+After all this, that close and continual observation permits me to
+affirm, may I not ask the public, or at least those who have followed me
+in my rambling notes until now: might not this type of savage be held up
+as an example of perfection to many of our acquaintances in the
+civilized world whose boundary line of honesty is where it ceases to
+bring profit, who scorn the thought of gratitude for a favour received
+as being inconsistent with their "spirit of independence" and who never
+lose an occasion for exemplifying the tender brotherly love of Cain?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 12: The author of this book has given the pronunciation of the
+above words according to the sounds and rules of Italian and it has been
+a difficult task to present them in a sufficiently orthoepical form for
+English readers to understand, for the reason that all the vowels and
+many of the consonants are so differently articulated in the two
+languages.
+
+Where _a_ is followed by _h_ it should be pronounced as in _father_; by
+_w_ as in _all_; by _y_ as in _may_. The consonants _g_ _k_ and _n_
+which precede certain words and which would be mute in English must be
+very lightly accented with the same sound they have in the
+alphabet.--_Translator's Notes._]
+
+[Footnote 13: The _scudiscio_ is a very large fungus that grows upon
+trees. It is easily broken into strips which the Indigines use for tying
+up things and for putting round their necks to protect them from fever.
+The Sakais call it _tennak kahrah_ that means literally "the root of a
+stone".]
+
+[Footnote 14: Go back over the Alps and we shall be brothers again.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  First attempts at industry--The story of a hat--Multiplicity--
+  Primitive arts--Sakai music--Songs--Instruments--Dances--Ball
+  dresses--Serpentine gracefulness--An unpublished Sakai song.
+
+
+Primitive, like their language and their agriculture, are also Art and
+Industry among the Sakais.
+
+They make blowpipes, arrows and quivers from bamboo, strings from
+twisted vegetable fibres, ear-rings and ornamental combs for the women.
+Now, under my direction, they have begun to plait mats with dried
+grasses, as well as bags and even hats, using for the latter the fibrous
+part of the pandanus, and copying one of Panama which I gave them as a
+model. I cannot give an estimate of the time and patience I spent over
+this new branch of industry.
+
+The first time I mentioned such a thing to the women I had the
+unenviable success of making them laugh heartily. And I laughed with
+them, remarking however, that as they were so good and clever they would
+have no difficulty in accomplishing the feat if they would only set
+themselves to try.
+
+Vanity is the great spring of a woman's soul that cannot resist the
+charm of flattery. This is proved by History from the time of Eve to our
+days and I myself proved it when I again spoke on the subject of hats.
+The laughter was not so loud and soon ceased altogether. At last the
+women answered me, with an annoyed and discontented air, that my
+insistance vexed them. Then I knew that the fortress was about to
+capitulate and re-doubled my attacks.
+
+The day of surrender was near.
+
+A girl, accompanied by a group of inquisitive, mocking companions,
+presented herself at my hut bringing with her something in the shape of
+a hat which was meant to be an imitation of mine. It was full of knots,
+puckers and other defects.
+
+The little artist was very confused and mortified but I praised her work
+a great deal and after showing her the mistakes she had made I gave her
+several bead-necklaces.
+
+In a few days the hats multiplied. The other girls and the women, seeing
+the presents I had given their companion, felt offended and devoted
+themselves with fury to the manufacture of the head-covering I desired,
+improving the form so much as to obtain an exact copy of the pattern
+one.
+
+When some were finished they brought them to me and throwing them on the
+ground with a gesture of scorn cried:
+
+"There! take your hats!". But a generous distribution of beads soon made
+their good-temper return.
+
+Thus I was able to start this new industry by flattering the vanity of
+the Sakai females ("oh, Vanity, thy name is Woman" even among the
+savages) and the goods produced, after having been awarded a silver
+medal and a diploma at Penang were the object of general admiration at
+the Milan Exhibition of 1906.
+
+It is some time now that I have got the men to work in iron. I provide
+them with the raw material and it is really a wonder to see how well
+they manage to make knives without possessing any of the tools used in
+the trade.
+
+When they understood the necessity of a very fierce fire for reducing
+the metal into such a state as to enable them to make it take the
+wished-for form, they attempted to put together a sort of bellows and at
+length succeeded in the following way.
+
+At the bottom of a very big piece of bamboo, they cut a hole into which
+they inserted a smaller one, joining and fixing them together with gum
+that the air might not escape from the wrong part. Then at the extremity
+of a thick stick they fastened a bunch of leaves and grasses large
+enough to pass with difficulty into the bamboo tube. By working this as
+a piston the air was expelled from the lower bamboo cane and kindled a
+bright fire.
+
+After the iron has taken the form required, whilst it is still red-hot,
+they throw it into a bluish-coloured mud which smells of sulphur and
+leave it there to temper.
+
+In fact the metal tempers and becomes very hard but I could not tell
+anyone what properties this slimy earth contains or how the Sakais came
+to know its value in connection with iron. I only know that they have to
+dig very deep in the ground before getting at it, a thing that is not
+either easy or agreeable owing to the lack of necessary implements.
+
+Steel being a very scarce article amongst my good friends they have
+learnt to make great economy with it using it solely for the blades of
+the knives and for other purposes. They mix the two metals with
+surprising skill.
+
+This is the boldest and most intelligent step that the Sakais have made
+as yet in the field of industry.
+
+[Illustration: Dancing.
+
+_p._ 176.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Art which expresses elevated thought and refinement of spirit, in
+whatever form it manifests itself, is at its lowest ebb among the Sakais
+and especially representative art, although it is curious to notice how
+much more they prefer (I speak of the male sex) this latter to that of
+sounds. Music may procure some moments of bliss to those who yield
+themselves to its charms but it is transitory and, with them, leaves no
+reminiscence for the performer or the listener; on the contrary
+representative art remains and can also give satisfaction to the self
+love of the artist. It is limited to some rough designs and still more
+rough incisions on the blowpipes, quivers and the women's combs and
+their earrings.
+
+Bamboo is the principal material used in making their hunting
+requisites, their personal ornaments and their domestic utensils.
+
+The combs are large and their teeth vary from 2 to 4 in number. Across
+them are carved, more or less deeply cut, various signs, some of an
+angular form that display a pretty correct geometrical precision and
+others in curved lines, all of which are intended by the several artists
+to represent birds' heads, snakes or plants. Sometimes this intention is
+expressed sufficiently clearly; at others there is need of
+interpretation.
+
+The plants reproduced in this way are always medicinal or those to which
+superstition attributes some virtue, so that the primitive art is in a
+great measure due to the desire of possessing an amulet.
+
+The same designs are repeated on the ear-rings, blowpipes and quivers.
+The Sakais are very proud of these incisions and he who has the most
+upon his weapon enjoys a certain fame. As a natural consequence this
+makes him somewhat jealous of his finely decorated cane, much more so
+than he is of his wife, that for her part gives him no motive for
+cultivating the yellow demon's acquaintance.
+
+Up to the time I am writing the Sakais' artistic genius has not passed
+this limit, unless we reckon the horrible paintings upon their faces and
+bodies, but this branch of art--it may seem irreverent, though none the
+less true, to say so--brings to the mind dainty toilet-rooms and cosy
+boudoirs in other parts of the world, in the very heart of civilization,
+where its devotees think to beautify (but often damage) Nature.
+
+Oh! what a chorus of silvery voices are calling me too, a savage!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais like music but nearly always the notes are accompanied by a
+dancing movement, sometimes lightly as if to mark the time, but at
+others they kick their legs about so furiously, at the same time
+twisting and writhing their bodies in such a strange series of
+contortions that an uninitiated looker-on would surely receive the
+impression that they were suffering from spasmodic pains in the stomach,
+whereas in reality they are only imitating the wriggling of a serpent.
+
+The woman is particularly fond of dancing and with it she measures the
+cadencies of her own songs and gives point to the words themselves
+whilst her companions repeat a sort of chorus which completes the
+musical passage.
+
+[Illustration: Playing the "ciniloi".
+
+_p._ 178.]
+
+It must not be thought, however, that song as it is known among the
+Sakais is the melodious sound we are in the habit of considering as
+such. With them it is an emission of notes, generally guttural ones
+which are capriciously alternated without any variety of tune and which
+in their integrity fail to express any musical thought.
+
+The women sing with greater monotony, but more sweetly, than the men.
+Often they join in groups singing and dancing, and this, I believe, is
+the gayest moment of their lives and to this honest pleasure they will
+abandon themselves with rapture, forgetting the fatigue of the day. Then
+feminine coquetry triumphs before the other girls and the young men.
+
+When night falls the air becomes cool, and even cold later on. Having
+finished their evening meal the old folk and the children stretch
+themselves out to sleep round the fire which is always kept lighted. The
+women sit about weaving bags, mats and hats, their work illuminated by
+flaring torches composed of sticks and leaves covered with the resin
+found in the forest. To the extent permitted by their poor language they
+chat and jest among themselves, laughing noisily the while.
+
+The young men are scattered around preparing their arrows for the next
+day's hunt, dipping them into the poisonous decoction when it is well
+heated.
+
+It is not long before work gets tedious to the girls. They jump up and
+daub their faces in a grotesque manner. With palm leaves they mark out a
+space of some yards square that has to be reserved for the dancers, and
+then commences the women's song to which is soon added the stronger
+voices of the men. At times the chorus is accompanied by an orchestra of
+those instruments that the Sakais know how to play.
+
+They will take two bamboo canes of six, eight or more inches in
+diameter, being careful to select a male and female reed. These they
+beat violently one against the other, the result being a deep note with
+prolonged vibrations which awake the forest echoes but not the old
+people and the children who are sleeping.
+
+There is also the _krob_ a very primitive kind of lyre that consists of
+a short but stout piece of bamboo on which two vegetable fibres are
+tightly drawn. The plectrum used by the player is equally primitive
+being a fish-bone, a thorn or a bit of wood. The sound caused by grating
+the two strings is more harmonious than one might suppose.
+
+But the Sakais possess besides a wind instrument that claims more study
+both in the making and the playing.
+
+It belongs to the flute family and, of course, is made of bamboo. Like
+all its brothers in the world it is open at one end, with three or four
+holes on the top side.
+
+Before playing it the performer carefully stops up one of his nostrils
+with leaves and then applies the other to the first hole into which he
+gently blows with his nose. From the instrument issues a sweet,
+melancholy note. By leaving all the holes open a clear _sol_ (G) is
+obtained; by shutting them all a _mi bemolle_ (E flat); the first hole
+gives the note _mi_ (E) and the second _fa_ (F).
+
+The _ciniloi_[15] (for so it is called) is not artistic to the eye and
+loses all its poetry when one sees its owner blowing his nose into it
+but the notes emanating from it breathe a vague sense of melody and
+sadness not entirely unpleasant.
+
+Some of the Sakais are quite masters of this instrument and the women
+too prefer it to the _krob_. They seem to find extreme delight in
+sending forth those long sustained and plaintive sounds as though lulled
+by a dream, or absorbed in some pathetic thought.
+
+On festive occasions when the solemnity of the entertainment increases
+in proportion to the noise made, there is a full orchestra. The choruses
+bawl, the bamboos deafen one with their loud noise like that of huge
+wooden bells, the _krobs_ sob desperately at the way they are treated
+by the plectrum, the _ciniloi_ whistles and laments, and all without any
+fixed measure of time or modulation of tones, in a confusion of sounds
+so discordant as to recall a very, very faint echo of the infernal
+nocturnal concerts of the forest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The orchestra prompt and the singing begun the female dancers advance by
+twos and threes into the open space confined by palm leaves. Their
+features are incognizable so disfigured are they with stripes and daubs
+in red, white, black and sometimes yellow.
+
+Their ball costume is exceedingly simple. They just lay aside the girdle
+of beauty or chastity which they ordinarily wear and present themselves
+to the public as Eve did to Adam; or like so many brown-skinned Venuses
+with variegated masks.
+
+They are however, profusely adorned with flowers.
+
+The first time I saw a similar sight I was struck with surprise but then
+remembering the cut of some of the evening dresses worn by our Society
+ladies I came to the conclusion that comparing the clothes with which
+the latter and the Sakai women are habitually covered there was nothing
+to be said about the difference made in the toilet on grand and festive
+occasions.
+
+But to return to the dancers. They hold in their right hands a bunch of
+palm leaves and begin their performance with curtsies, skips and the
+contortions I have spoken of; then follows an undulating movement of the
+flanks as they hurry forward, something in the same position as
+"cake-walk" dancers, lightly beating the leaves in their hand against
+others of the same kind they have fastened on their right hip.
+
+The dance is a continual exercise of the joints and muscles, but its
+swaying motion is not without grace and displays all the seductive
+beauty of the girls whose freshness has not been destroyed by love and
+maternity.
+
+A little innocent vanity may be found in this Terpichorean competition
+because every movement, every jump and contortion receive the greatest
+attention and are followed by admiration and applause, when worthy of
+the demonstration, from those who have danced before or have to do so
+afterwards.
+
+The men sometimes take an active part in the dance but their steps and
+their movements are always the same as the women's.
+
+The strange thing is that they take the serpent as their model of
+gracefulness and elegance and seek to copy as closely as possible the
+flexibility of its body and the gliding motion peculiar to that reptile.
+
+A malignant person would perhaps find here the subject of a witty
+sarcasm thinking that in the forest serpents in the guise of women dance
+alone but with us, if we wish to dance at all, we are obliged to embrace
+them!
+
+These dances will often last until dawn, just as it is at our own
+evening parties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Neither song, nor dance, nor the sound of those primitive instruments
+ever take the character of a religious demonstration.
+
+Only on the nights enlivened by bright moonlight, whilst dancing in the
+open air, their impromptu songs contain a greeting to the shining orb
+that presides over their festivity and with its silvery rays enhances
+its enjoyment. But in this there is nothing to suggest a special cult.
+
+[Illustration: A trio for Sakai instruments.
+
+_p._ 178.]
+
+Over yonder they do not dance with any intention of intrigue in their
+minds, or with the pretext and hope of meeting young persons of
+opposite sexes in order to kindle the fatal spark that will lead them to
+matrimony; there they dance for the pure pleasure of dancing, for
+sincere, hearty enjoyment without any other scope or desire, because, as
+I mention in another place, the young men and maidens of the same
+village being all relations, marriage is not permitted between them; the
+wives must be chosen from a different tribe. This wise custom was
+evidently established to exclude consanguineous unions (with their
+degenerating consequences) and perhaps also to consolidate the brotherly
+ties between people of the same race.
+
+I think if Mantegazza had ever been present at one of these dances of
+the Sakai girls, he would have added another beautiful page to his
+_estasi umane_ ("Human Ecstasies") because at these little festivals,
+whether they are held in the hut or outside, one never sees pouting
+faces, frowning brows or any other indication of preoccupation or
+passion. Everybody is merry and their delight can be read upon their
+countenances (notwithstanding the frightful way they are besmeared with
+paint), and shines in their eyes; happy are the women who blow into the
+flute or grate the _krob_ or beat the bamboo sticks; happy are the girls
+that dance; happy are the youths who join in the chorus. It is an
+innocent amusement for innocent souls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To finish off this chapter I here give a very free translation of a
+song, whose words I was able to catch and remember, which came from the
+lips of my dear friends upon my returning among them after a long
+absence:
+
+"O'er mountains and rivers you have passed to come amongst us as a
+friend, as a friend who will not hurt us, and behold we are here to
+meet you bearing with us all that the forest has yielded us to-day.
+
+"The clear and beautiful mountain announced the good news and now you
+have returned to us who rejoice at seeing you again".
+
+The form was not so but I have given the thought exactly, a thought, as
+you see, full of affection and with a very faint perfume of poetry about
+it. You will not accuse me, therefore, of being too optimistic when I
+affirm that the Sakai, in spite of his semblance to a wild man of the
+bush, savage, suspicious and superstitious as he is, is susceptible of
+rapid intellectual progress whenever the right means are used in his
+favour, and towards that end.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 15: Pronounced _chinneloy_--_Translator's Note._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  The beliefs and superstitions of the Sakais--Metempsychosis--The
+  Evil Spirit--Superstition among savages and ignorance among
+  civilized people--The two sources of life--The wind --The ALA
+  priest and physician--The scientific vigil--Venerable imposture!--
+  TENAC and CINTOK[16]--Therapeutic torture--Contagion--A Sakai's
+  death--The deserted village--Mourning--Births--Fire--Intellectual
+  darkness--The Sakais and Islamism.
+
+
+The good notary Chirichillo, born in the fervid fancy of Ippolito Nievo
+firmly believed that the many tribulations of his modest life would be
+compensated one day by God, and that this recompense would be a second
+birth, when he would relive in another person, under another name and
+under a luckier star.
+
+Although less learned and although they have but a vague intuition of
+the idea relating to the soul immortality, the Sakais do not refuse the
+theory of reward or punishment hereafter. According to them the spirit
+freed from the body wanders about in the air and often, in a transitory
+way, retakes a corporal form in the shape of certain animals (more
+especially the tiger, for which reason the terrible beast is respected
+as almost sacred by them) or it takes refuge in certain herbs which thus
+acquist healing properties.
+
+In no case will a Sakai willingly kill, wound or lay a trap for the
+animals he thinks consecrated by the indwelling of a spirit, this is so
+true that even whilst preparing one of the usual traps for catching big
+game he will turn himself towards the thickest part of the forest and
+murmur, "this is not for thee" to warn the tiger to be on his guard. And
+should one happen to be caught it causes real grief to the Sakai who you
+may be sure would give it back its liberty at once if he had not found
+it dead or did not fear to be killed himself as soon as it was free. The
+Sakai does not believe in the natural death of a person but attributes
+the decease to the spell of the Evil Spirit who is continually on the
+watch to play his wicked tricks. So ready is he to do harm that he even
+slips into the little holes made in their darts thus carrying death
+where they strike, otherwise the poison would not have the force to
+kill.
+
+This is the superstition that inspires every sort of terror in the
+inhabitants of the jungle and which renders it so difficult to approach
+them and so dangerous to disturb the serenity of their simple minds. The
+wind, the thunder-storms, the violent hurricanes that frequently invade
+the forest, bringing destruction and fear in their course are the
+vehicles used by this Evil Spirit to declare open warfare against the
+frightened savages.
+
+When the clouds begin to gather thick and ominously, and first with a
+distant roar and then with the fury and the voice of a hurricane, the
+wind sweeps fiercely on, howling and whistling over the great green sea
+that is quickly strewn with wreckage; when the colossal champions of the
+forest are struck by lightning and the fall of their huge branches and
+gigantic trunks increase the general uproar, whilst the boom of Heaven's
+artillery thunders around their huts, then the trembling Sakais throng
+together. They paint themselves in a manner to scare the devil himself
+(which is however their intention) and shoot out from their blow-pipes a
+volley of poisoned arrows, directed against the tumultuous messengers of
+the awful Being they fear; the women, keeping their children close at
+their side as if to defend them, throw pieces of burning wood into the
+air, and beat their big bamboo sticks till the noise is insupportable,
+at the same time screaming to the wind:
+
+"Go away and leave us alone! We have not harmed thee, so do not harm
+us!".
+
+So they implore and imprecate, turning themselves into the ugliest and
+fiercest creatures they can, to frighten the evil spirits that they
+believe have come against them on the outspread wings of the storm.
+
+To the wild cries, arrow shots and loud noise of the bamboos, the
+mothers add an exorcism. They burn locks of their little ones' hair and
+disperse the ashes to the wind whilst the _Ala_ energetically spits.
+
+And in civilized Italy is there not a superstition very like this of the
+poor savages? I refer to the odd custom still observed in the country,
+or at least in some of the villages (and which not so very long ago was
+put into practice also in towns) of trying to arrest a heavy thunder
+storm, by the tocsin, the deep noted ringing increasing the general
+alarm amongst the timid of the place. The women too, will go to the door
+and rattle together the shovel and tongs just as their Sakai sisters
+beat their bamboos, and olive branches (that previously have received
+the priest's benediction) are burnt with incense that the smoke may
+rise up to appease the fury of the elements just as over there locks of
+the children's hair are burnt for the same purpose.
+
+These are superstitions that vary a little in form but are exactly
+equivalent in the substance and show how much remains in us of primitive
+ignorance and how our boasted civilization is still bound to the antique
+customs and childish beliefs of the uncivilized, over whom we sing the
+glory of our own triumph.
+
+The Sakais also admit the existence of a Good Spirit but precisely
+because he is good, so much so as never to reveal himself, they do not
+deem it necessary to bother him. To the Good Spirit the Sakais oppose in
+their mind, the Evil Spirit exercising his empire upon the souls of
+their ancestors. To him they make many and different exorcisms and
+supplications, with the hope not to be molested by him after death if
+they keep good. Such a belief may be considered as a kind of
+demonclatry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To learn thoroughly the beliefs of a people still in a savage state, and
+who are totally without any written guide to their faith, would be
+indeed a difficult undertaking. First of all they always fear that a
+stranger, particularly if white, brings with him a whole legion of bad
+spirits, and secondly because they are extremely jealous of their
+superstitions and are afraid of incurring evil by revealing them to
+others.
+
+It must also be considered that the Sakais (like all the other peoples
+to be found on the same level of intellectual development) have ideas so
+fragmentary and undetermined about religious matters that they are quite
+incapable of giving an explicit description of their spiritual feelings
+and convictions. It is only by living amongst them for a long time in
+confidence and familiarity that one can obtain any correct knowledge,
+and even then only by intent observation of facts which pass under one's
+eyes, as it is useless to attempt to get an explanation or ask
+questions, for the Sakais, truthful as they are by nature, would most
+certainly tell you a falsehood for the reasons alluded to in another
+chapter. Superstition always prevails over veracity when treating with
+persons not belonging to their race.
+
+Wilken so writes in his book _Animism_: "With all the peoples in a
+primitive natural state nearly every daily event, every illness, every
+misfortune, every phenomenon, when not attributed to the souls of their
+dead, has a special spirit as the author. Lakes, seas, rivers, springs,
+mountains, caverns, trees, bushes, villages, towns, houses, roads, air,
+sky, the ground in under, in short all nature and the principal things
+they see, are, in their opinion, populated by supernatural beings. I
+need hardly say that not all the innumerable spirits in whom they
+believe have the same importance in their minds and therefore are not
+all venerated to the same extent. In the animist's cult fear reigns over
+every other sentiment, such as gratitude, trust, devotion, etc., and the
+spirits that inspire the most fear are those invocated with the most
+fervour; in this way the bad spirits are installed in the place of the
+good ones".
+
+We see then that the Sakais form no exception to this summary
+description of Mr. Wilken's.
+
+They believe that only their sorcerers have the faculty of beholding
+spirits which satisfactorily explains to them the strange fact that they
+are always invisible to other eyes. For the rest, though, the Sakais,
+like all those on the same par in intellectual capacity, do not trouble
+their heads at all over whatever natural phenomena.
+
+He feels deep veneration for the sun and water as being the two great
+sources of Life; he venerates also the moon and the stars without
+however applying any sacred rites to this sentiment but they do not care
+in the least to know of what these luminaries are composed, where they
+come from or where they go when they are not in sight. When the day
+arrives for the Sakai to put such questions to his brain he too will
+enter triumphantly into the vortex of civilization, impatient to find
+out the reason of everything he sees around and above him.
+
+From force of habit he does not wonder at the change of day into night
+and the different phases of the moon but he is seized with great terror
+when an eclipse of the sun or moon takes place. He weeps and despairs,
+making horrible noises to put to flight the accursed spirit that is
+devouring one or other of the heavenly bodies, and as soon as the
+eclipse in over, he seems mad with joy that the _mahgis_ (sun) and
+getcheck (moon) have got the better of their enemy.
+
+He is equally overcome with fright at the appearance of a rainbow, or at
+a shock of earthquake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais have no idols of any kind, but they have great faith in the
+amulets which they make themselves by incising upon their combs and
+hair-pins (as before written) the form of certain plants, fruits, leaves
+and roots that they are fully persuaded are possessed of prodigious
+virtue.
+
+In fact when a storm is approaching and the wind begins to agitate the
+forest, before commencing their usual invocations, both men and women
+hasten to stick in their hair all their combs and hairpins with the firm
+conviction that the wind, blowing upon these miraculous carvings will
+lose its power to do them harm.
+
+[Illustration: Trap for big game.
+
+_p._ 184.]
+
+Here it must be observed that, apart from the superstitious character of
+the fear the Sakais (especially those of the hills) have of the wind,
+this terror may be said to be almost justified.
+
+The impetuous currents of air coming from below often bring amongst them
+the germs of various infections and in particular malarial fevers.
+
+The poor natives in their ignorance of this, when they see their dear
+ones fall ill and often die after the wind's raging believe that it has
+brought into their village and left there, an invisible enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Ala_, sorcerer, physician, and magician of the local superstitions
+does all he can to keep unshaken the belief in spirits and exorcism. He
+fulfils the functions of his two-fold office with all the ignorance and
+the deception which is possible to him; ignorance, because he shares
+with the others a sincere terror of the Evil Spirit, and deception
+because he makes the others think that he can see the dreaded Being and
+has a certain power over him by means of words and gestures.
+
+He is, upon a close and vigorous analysis, nothing but a vulgar swindler
+who obtains some sort of advantage by his artefices and succeeds in
+over-ruling his own people by giving advice which is often sought and
+always followed.
+
+The _Ala_ is generally the son of an _Ala_, a circumstance that might
+lead someone, who is fond of similar studies, to make accurate
+researches in order to ascertain if imposture should be considered as a
+hereditary disease.
+
+When the Evil Spirit, notwithstanding the cabalistic signs and
+mysterious words that proclaim the _Ala's_ prerogative in resisting and
+defeating him, has overcome and killed him, the corpse is not buried but
+is placed in an upright position between the roots of a tree not very
+far from his late residence. For seven days continual watch is kept over
+it and it is provided with food, tobacco and betel.
+
+An old tradition, which I have managed with difficulty to piece together
+from fragments unconsciously dropped now and then, pretends that _ab
+antiquo_ a covenant was made between the tigers and sorcerers that after
+one of the latter had been dead a week his soul should enter a feline
+body.
+
+If a son of the deceased _Ala_ wishes to succeed to his father's
+dignity, he must, at the end of the seven days established, go alone to
+keep watch over the corpse, taking with him a sort of incense-pan in
+which he burns a great quantity of perfumed resin in honour of the dead
+(an honour that is most opportune for his own nostrils!). He passes the
+night in this way, or it is believed that he does, for nobody sets
+himself the task of spying his actions or of learning something about
+the night's proceedings fearing that evil would overtake him in
+consequence.
+
+Whilst still engaged in this sanitary act, the tiger, animated by the
+soul of the defunct sorcerer, presents itself to the man who is
+engrossed in his scientific vigil and feigns to spring upon him to tear
+him to pieces. But he continues to keep alight the sweet-smelling resin
+and does not betray his inward perturbation or give the slightest
+movement of fear, which would, without emission, cost him his life. Then
+the terrible scene changes; the wild beast suddenly disappears and
+encircled by a soft light two beautiful fairies come forward to teach
+the new _Ala_ the occult science of his chosen ministry including
+cabalistic words and medical art. The two elves then become the familiar
+spirits of the sorcerer who is in this manner consecrated.
+
+No witness is allowed to be present. No profane eye may see those two
+good spirits.
+
+If it happens that the aspirant never makes his return it is immediately
+decided that he showed he was afraid and had been eaten up by the not
+too fatherly tiger. It would be, at least, a sure proof that he had
+watched that night in the forest!
+
+The succession of a son to his father in the office of _Ala_ is not
+obligatory but all the Sakais wish it to be so as otherwise the soul of
+the dead man would always remain in the body of a tiger and treasures of
+wisdom and power would be lost to the tribe he had belonged to.
+
+Not all the villages have the fortune to possess an _Ala_ of their own
+who--by the way--does not differ in his domestic life from any of the
+poor mortals around him. He has a wife, and children, makes poisons,
+chews tobacco and _sirih_, sleeps and goes out shooting. Those
+settlements that have no _Ala_ in their midst go in search of one in the
+nearest encampment and the physician-priest responds quickly to the
+invitation by hastening to the spot indicated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There being no ritual in the Sakai ceremonies, the simple functions of
+the _Ala_ are very limited.
+
+He has to mumble in an unintelligible manner mysterious words (the
+meaning of which he does not know himself) when a poisonous mixture is
+being boiled in order to render its venomous virtue more efficacious. He
+makes exorcisms against the evil spirits when the wind arises or a heavy
+storm breaks or he is called to visit a sick person.
+
+In the latter case duties are merged in those of the physician's for
+whilst preparing some remedies with herbs possessing medicinal
+properties (of which he knows very few out of the multitude that grows
+in the Malai forests) he proceeds to exercise the authority reposed in
+him, according to the Sakai beliefs by attempting to cast out the evil
+spirit from his patient.
+
+This act is called the _tay nak_. He first asks the sufferer where the
+pain is, then making a sort of brush with some palm leaves he holds it
+in left hand. The right he closes loosely and lays it on the place that
+aches, puts his mouth to the opening left through the lightly closed
+fingers and begins to pull in his breath as hard as he can. Sometimes he
+is able in this way to draw out the demon which has caused the illness,
+from the patient's body into his hand and drives it away by
+energetically beating it with the brush.
+
+The sorcerer is aware if the spirit has come out by a very pale light,
+which only he can see, though!
+
+But if the malady is a serious one this cure fails, a sure proof that
+the spirit is one of the most dreaded class and must therefore be
+heroically fought by means of the _chintok_, as follows.
+
+The village in which the afflicted person lives is closed in by numerous
+traps, and planted all round with poisoned arrows so that nobody can
+come near, even if someone were to succeed in crossing that original
+_cordon sanitaire_ without any fatal consequence he would most certainly
+be killed inside it as it is feared that another evil spirit may be
+imported by an outsider, in aid of the one they are trying to get rid
+of.
+
+Over the body of the infirm they form a canopy of medicinal herbs; the
+_Ala_ and the company present paint themselves in the most horrible
+manner possible and as soon as it is quite dark (any sort of light is
+absolutely forbidden) they dispose themselves around the invalid and
+begin to madly beat their big bamboo canes. Their frenzy and the noise
+they make cannot be described; it makes one shudder, and the sound can
+be heard several miles off.
+
+[Illustration: Abandoned because of contagious disease.
+
+_p._ 193.]
+
+But it is intended to heal the poor wretch in the middle who, if he does
+not succumb to the violence of his disease, has a good chance of dying
+from the torture endured.
+
+The diabolical concert lasts until the garrulous harbingers of the sun
+announce the dawn but is repeated after sunset for seven days during
+which period only the men are permitted to go into the forest in search
+of food.
+
+If on the seventh day the patient is still alive he is left in peace
+unless a relapse should render another night of music necessary, and if
+he dies it is believed that the malignant spirit would not depart
+without taking the soul of his victim with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most frequent illnesses to which the Sakais are subject are
+rheumatic complaints and very heavy colds which not rarely turn into
+severe bronchial and pulmonary ailments. Both are due to the cold at
+night against which they take no pains at all to protect themselves.
+Their huts shelter them from the rain but not from the air.
+
+Some contagious skin diseases are also prevalent amongst them.
+
+Directly somebody is seized with this malady a tree is selected at some
+distance from the settlement up which a little bower is hurriedly made
+and the person attacked is placed there and left with a little food at
+hand. Next day the relatives go to see if he or she is living and call
+out their demands, in a loud voice, a long way off. If there is a
+movement or an answer they go nearer and throw up some food but if there
+is no sign of life they hasten back and leave the corpse to decompose in
+the bower that now serves as a sepulchre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No rites whatever are performed at the death and burial of an
+individual.
+
+When the sufferer has breathed its last all the people in the village
+unite in making grand lamentations. They cry, moan and howl worse than
+at the proverbial Irish funeral, they blacken their faces with charcoal
+and daub it with other colours to frighten away the bad spirit whilst
+the family crowd round the dead body and let their tears flow freely,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Alas! Look at us, don't leave us! Who will take care of us now! Who
+will defend us? Thou has departed before us and we shall follow thee".
+
+The first moments of grief over they quickly destroy the hut visited by
+Death, then taking up the corpse they carry it into a thick part of the
+forest.
+
+Here a grave is dug, from five to six feet deep and the body is placed
+in it, sometimes lying on its back, and sometimes in a sitting posture
+but always with its face turned towards the west. Some tobacco, betel
+and personal objects of the deceased are put near and then it is covered
+up with the ground. Sometimes these articles are strewn on the top of
+the grave and sometimes too instead of interring the corpse it is laid
+upon pieces of wood placed horizontally across the branches of a large
+tree, close to the trunk.
+
+But whether buried or not, for seven days the dead person's relatives
+carry water, fruit, tobacco and sirih to the spot, over or under the
+last resting-place of their lost one, taking care to always keep a
+bright fire burning within the vicinity.
+
+It is however with fear and trembling that this duty is performed and
+they regularly implore:
+
+"Here is thy portion, but don't hurt us!"
+
+[Illustration: Tomb of a woman.
+
+_p._ 194.]
+
+Finished the seven days mourning the memory of the dead fades, only
+awakening afresh when somebody passes by the burial place when they
+deposit there a part of whatever they have with them, game or fruit.
+
+For the sake of truth, though, I must say that the grief of parents for
+a child is not so soon cancelled, for I have seen some moved to tears at
+the remembrance of one who had been dead perhaps for many seasons.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The immediate consequence of a Sakai's death is the forsaking of the
+village by all the survivors for fear that the evil spirit which has
+bereaved them of a kinsman may do the same with another.
+
+Then follows the march in search of a desirable spot, as I have already
+described. Taking the children and the little domestic goods they
+possess upon their shoulders they troop away seeking suitable ground for
+the erection of their new huts. The Elder, as head of the immense
+family, gives the signal for stopping where he thinks best and if there
+is an _Ala_ in their midst he consults with him about the choice of
+position.
+
+When the site seems favourable a fire is quickly lighted and if the
+smoke goes up straight they settle there otherwise they continue their
+wanderings for the Sakai thinks that his whereabouts will be betrayed if
+the smoke is dispersed in the forest and that it will serve as a guide
+to some bad spirit--eager to do harm--that will cast its fatal influence
+over the company fleeing from the cruel spell of another.
+
+Once the decision is made, with wonderful rapidity trees, and bushes are
+cut down and the huts are raised.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As in civilized countries. Death amongst the Sakais exacts an exterior
+manifestation of mourning, with this difference perhaps that with them
+it is much more sincere because they have not the comfort of a long
+expected and coveted legacy to make it a farce.
+
+All ornaments have to be put aside; ear-rings, bracelets, necklaces,
+nasal sticks, flowers, tattooing etc, for a period of time determined by
+the Elder but generally for not less than six months.
+
+Those in mourning are rigorously prohibited to sing, play, dance, marry
+and even (quite a Lenten sin) to eat fish and meat on the some day.
+
+The Sakais observe all these prescriptions with the greatest strictness
+and are scandalized should any of them be infringed before the appointed
+time. Whoever violates them is judged a heartless being and if a woman
+loses all the consideration that was hers before.
+
+The duration of mourning varies according to relationship. That for a
+father or a mother is the same, but it is shorter for brothers and
+sisters and for little children there is none at all.
+
+In this respect the Sakais are not dissimilar to their civilized
+fellow-beings who measure their grief by the black clothes they wear and
+at the demise of a baby, notwithstanding its parents' desolation, make
+the church-bells ring out the liveliest tunes.[17]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a little Sakai opens its eyes to the light of this world no
+religious ceremony greets its arrival.
+
+The woman who is about to become a mother separates herself from the
+rest of the family and retires by herself to a hut apart, where the
+floor is very high. Nobody assists her at her confinement because there
+is perhaps no other event in the existence of a Sakai so involved in
+tenacious and perilous superstition as is that of birth. Her own husband
+and the father of the new-born babe dare not cross the threshold of the
+hut or make the acquaintance of his child until a long time after, that
+is, until it has got some strength.
+
+[Illustration: Grave of a Sakai man.
+
+_p._ 194.]
+
+It is always feared that by entering the cabin the smell of the child
+may be carried into the forest by means of which the Evil Spirit would
+be able to trace it out and do it some mischief. And for the same reason
+the newly-made mother dare not have contact with any of the adults who
+go into the jungle to hunt or for other purposes, but has food and water
+taken her by the children.
+
+It is superfluous to add that for a given time before and after a
+confinement the presence of a stranger in the village is not tolerated,
+worse still if he is a white man.
+
+The _Ala_, seconded by all, both males and females, is inflexible about
+this, asserting that it would be the death of the babe, and it is a
+prudent thing to accept the veto with a good grace and to obey the
+sorcerer's orders without hesitation. Sometimes a stranger is not even
+allowed to look upon a woman who is in an interesting state, as it once
+happened to me.
+
+Another time upon arriving at a village where a child had been born a
+few hours before, I was flatly refused hospitality, some Sakais
+preferring to accompany me a long way off and there erect a hut for my
+use on the formal understanding that I should not for any motive
+whatever attempt to approach the settlement. Had I not kept to this
+condition I should probably have been killed.
+
+One cannot reason with terror.
+
+The hut in which the poor woman is fulfilling the noblest of Nature's
+missions is jealously guarded by day and by night.
+
+Woe to the unfortunate individual who is found loitering around it if he
+is not one of the village!
+
+The floor of the hut does not touch the ground that the odour of
+excrements may not penetrate into the earth and proclaim to the Evil
+Spirit: Here a babe is born!
+
+The mother herself, with extreme caution places everything of this sort
+in vessels of bamboo which she hangs high up on the bough of a tree.
+
+There the torrid sun quickly dries it all up and the smell emanating
+from it being diffused in the upper air the spirit cannot find out the
+sick woman or her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as the period of gestation commences neither the woman nor her
+husband must eat the flesh of monkey or serpent in order not to transfer
+to the unborn child the tendencies of a quadruped or reptile.
+
+They must also abstain from eating fish and meat on the same day and are
+obliged to be very careful not to enter a hut whilst it rains, this
+being always a very bad omen but especially so when an increase is
+expected in the family.
+
+Another very bad sign is when the _cep plui_ sings near the encampment.
+The Sakais consider it quite as unlucky as the grating screech of the
+night owl (birds kept in awe by the Sakais as being in familiarity with
+the Evil Spirit) on the roof of a house, or the spilling of salt is
+believed to be in many countries we know.
+
+A few days before her confinement the woman picks up some leaves of the
+_bakau_ which have fallen to the ground and makes a decoction with them.
+She drinks a little every day, continuing the cure even after
+child-birth. I do not know the wherefore of this but the women seem to
+think it exercises a particular effect upon them at this period.
+
+Immediately the child is born its mother takes the fruit of the _bua
+kaluna_ and squeezes out a few drops into the little thing's mouth.
+
+I have never been able to understand the reason of such a practice but
+believe that it is inspired by some superstition or hygienic rule of the
+natives.
+
+The fruit of the _bua kaluna_ is sweet but has also a rather tart
+flavour.
+
+After seven days have passed the newly made mother leaves the hut and
+makes abundant ablutions that have the same character and scope as the
+religious duty imposed upon the Israelite women; that of respect for
+elementary hygiene.
+
+From this moment the wife may return to her husband but she is not
+allowed to go into the forest and is obliged to wear upon her stomach a
+hot stone, which serves her as a cure and exorcism.
+
+She returns to her faithful mate but she does not abandon her child
+whose separation from all other human beings, including its own father,
+cannot last for less than six months.
+
+The birth and death of a Sakai, as here seen, is devoid of every rite or
+ceremony, as in the case of matrimony or divorce and do not require even
+the intervention of the _Ala_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fact of their being strictly forbidden, when kindling a fire, to
+lift their eyes from it until the wood has been well ignited and smoke
+proceeds from it would suggest the idea that there is either a
+superstition attached to this operation or that fire is also an object
+of veneration with them. But this concentration of the gaze may be
+simply a precaution (become a habit) not to retard the act of combustion
+by distraction of thought.
+
+The only thing in connection with this custom I have succeeded in
+ascertaining is that the Sakais have no particular cult for the Sacred
+Fire like the priests of Baal the Brahmins in India and the Vestals of
+Rome but appreciate it as a means of cooking their food, preparing their
+poisons, of warming them during the night and of keeping wild beasts far
+from their huts. And I was convinced of this the first time I gave them
+matches and taught them their use.
+
+Their wonder was mixed with satisfaction but had there been any
+pronounced religious sentiment they would have rejected the modern
+innovation and continued the old method of making fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have here given a rough idea of the superstitions and beliefs of the
+Sakais as best I have been able to understand them from close
+observation and words inadvertently let fall now and then. They may be
+briefly summed up thus: a supreme terror of Evil spirits; a vague
+principle of the soul's transmigration (a strange degeneration from the
+primitive conception of the Pythagorean theory).
+
+The people of the jungle are still under the thick shade of cerebral
+inertia. They have not yet seen the swift, bright light of a first doubt
+flash across the darkness of their brain giving to it a shock of
+unsuspected vibrations. As yet no glorious Prometheus has arisen amongst
+those primitive creatures far whom the discouraging counsel of the
+Italian poet might seem to have been in part written:
+
+    Meglio oprando obliar, senza indagarlo,
+    Quest'enorme mister dell' universo![18]
+
+The Sakais have no real religion; they only have fear for everything
+they do not understand or cannot. And yet in the practice of morality
+they are much more forward than other uncivilized and even civilized
+peoples.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 16: Pronounced _tay nak_ and _chintok_.--_Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 17: A custom in Italy when a little child is buried.
+_Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 18: Better by work to forget, without studying it,
+              This tremendous mystery of the Universe.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+  Sakai arms--Shooting--Serpent catchers--The Sakai and his
+  poisons--TOALANG, RENGAS AND SAGOL--SLA DOL, SLA PLEK and SLA
+  CLOB--AKAR TOKA--Ipok[19]--An antidote--The LEGOP--The Nai
+  Bretaks--The preparation of LEGOP--Curious and superfluous
+  ingredients--The effects of LEGOP--Strange contradictions--
+  Experiments--Poisons and antidotes--The settler and science.
+
+
+The Sakai possesses only one weapon: the "_blau_" (pr. blahoo) called
+"_sumpitam_" by the Malays.
+
+This reveals the peaceful character of these forest inhabitants who
+never seek adventures or commit aggressions.
+
+[Illustration: Quivers and poisoned arrows.
+
+_p._ 203.]
+
+The strong ugly knives which he procures from his brethren of the plain
+or manufactures for himself, and the little hatchets I have already
+described, are not for him arms in the exact meaning of the word but
+are simply instruments necessary for those living in the jungle. He
+employs them for cutting down bamboos, creepers and trees and for
+preparing food, but very likely he would not know how to use them for an
+assault or in defence.
+
+His weapon in this case is always the _blau_ (blow-pipe) which he
+carries about with him constantly even if he only goes just outside his
+hut.
+
+It is a cane of bamboo from two metres and a half to three in length not
+very large in diameter but perfectly round, especially inside. At one
+end there is applied a mouth-piece similar to that of a trumpet.
+
+Having introduced a dart the Sakai puts the cane to his lips and first
+drawing a very long breath he then blows into it with all his might. The
+little arrow flies out with the greatest velocity reaching to the
+distance of 40, 50, or 60 metres.
+
+It is a pea-shooter but with the difference that the projectiles shot
+out are deadly in their effect, particularly so when in the hands of
+persons who, like the Sakais, seldom or never fail to hit the mark.
+
+This dangerous weapon, which at first might be mistaken for a toy, is
+ornamented with designs lightly incised in the cane. It is kept with
+great care and when not in immediate use it is slipped into a bamboo of
+a larger size (this too decorated with incisions) which serves it as
+sheath.
+
+The arrow is a little stick made of very hard wood of about 12 or 14
+inches long and not much bigger than a big knitting needle. At one
+extremity is fixed a tiny cone made of palm-pith that stopping up the
+tube, receives the impulsion of the air blown into it so violently.
+
+The other extremity finishes in an exceedingly sharp point (sometimes of
+bone or metal well inserted into the wood) contrived in such a mode
+that when the dart strikes an object the point breaks off and remains
+there. The force of penetration is however so great that the body of a
+man standing 30 metres off may be pierced through without its being
+broken.
+
+No animal, except pachyderms, can challenge with impunity the Sakai's
+arrow. It is always, and for all, a terrible messenger of Death, either
+in the precision of aim, the violence with which it hits, or the poison
+it inoculates.
+
+In the same way as the aborigenes of Australia throw their boomerang
+with inimitable dexterity and security, the Sakai manages his blowpipe
+with a cleverness it is impossible to imitate or learn. The Malays, who
+have studied to make themselves masters of this weapon, are but poor
+shooters compared to their forest neighbours.
+
+Together with the _blau_ the Sakai always carries with him his _lok_
+(quiver) suspended from a girdle of bark, called _bo gnan_ (pr. bo
+nean).
+
+This quiver is also composed of bamboo measuring from 3 to 7 inches
+round and 13 or 14 long. It is very rare that the darts are placed in it
+without being first enclosed in thin reeds, known by the name of _dama_
+which preserve the points and prevent the poison from being rubbed off
+as well as saving it from getting damp, when it would lose its force. In
+its turn the quiver is enclosed in the _tchenkop_, a covering of ratan
+or palm-fibres woven so intricately as to render it water-tight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With his blowpipe ready the Sakai penetrates into the forest, creeping
+softly among the tall grasses and bushes. No rustling, no crackling of
+dry leaves denounces the presence of the man who advances cautiously
+under the broad green roof, casting keen and restless glances towards
+the branches of the trees. His ear catches the faintest flapping of
+wings. From time to time he utters a cry like that of a bird or a
+monkey, and quickly a feathered biped, moved by curiosity descends from
+a higher to a lower bough; a monkey swings itself down in answer to the
+call, or a pretty little head with a sharp nose and bright eyes peeps
+out of a hollow in the tree.
+
+[Illustration: Blowpipes, quivers and poisoned arrows.
+
+_p._ 203.]
+
+Very slowly and quietly the Sakai crouches down, lifts his blowpipe and
+fixing his eyes upon the black mark he has made at the end of the cane,
+he takes a long and steady aim.
+
+The bird and the monkey 30 metres above him are trying to provocate
+another cry from the voice they heard before; the squirrel looks puzzled
+and uncertain but neither of the three suspects the mortal danger that
+awaits them from below.
+
+The Sakai blows into his _blau_, the dart flies out with a slight whiz
+and perforates the victim's flesh. There is a cry and a fall, then the
+sportsman runs to pick up his prey.
+
+Sometimes a wounded bird will fly away from the spot where it has been
+hit, but the savage knows perfectly well the infallibility of his
+poisons which will bring it to the ground in a few minutes, so he
+follows the way it has taken.
+
+Something of the same sort may also happen with a monkey. Although it is
+usually cowardly enough to let itself fall a dead weight as soon as it
+is touched (so breaking all its bones) it may by chance cling to the
+bough upon which the Sakai shot it, but if the arrow itself does not
+succeed in killing it, the poison never fails to do so and nothing can
+save it from the fatal effect. The monkey holds on convulsively but the
+_legop's_ influence cannot be resisted, there is a brief struggle
+against death and then the animal is precipitated heavily to the ground.
+
+The Sakai runs to pick it up but perhaps is arrested by seeing an
+enormous boa constrictor twisting itself round the crushed body of the
+little beast.
+
+But at this sight the hunter does not despair. He observes the
+surrounding trees with great attention and discovers that the one upon
+which he had found the monkey has a large hole beneath, where the huge
+reptile has taken up its abode.
+
+He hurries away to let his comrades know, for a boa constrictor excites
+the spirit of gluttony amongst the Sakais.
+
+They instantly and unanimously resolve upon its capture and accompany
+him to the scene.
+
+Guessing nearabouts the length of the serpent they cut down a very
+strong bamboo cane that if not longer is not shorter than the reptile
+and at the end they fasten a stout piece of rattan ably folded into a
+noose.
+
+Terminated his repast the boa retires to his den and settles down for a
+little nap that will help his digestion.
+
+This is the right moment: two men, with great caution approach the
+hollow, keeping in their hands the knot made of the Indian cane. Very
+gently but with a rapid movement they lift up the snake's head and slip
+it through the noose. The snake gives a shake but it is too late. At a
+sign from the two who have disturbed its slumber, the others pull hard
+the bamboos that they are holding in their hands. The noose is pulled
+tighter and the boa constrictor fights furiously to get free. But the
+more it resists the closer the knot becomes. The struggle between captor
+and captured is not soon finished. The monster pulls, jumps, writhes,
+sometimes giving such sudden springs as to make the tenacious Sakais run
+here and there to keep their equilibrium and to stay out of its reach.
+
+[Illustration: Shooting poisoned arrows through the blowpipe.
+
+_p._ 205.]
+
+Often they strive so for more than an hour but at last the serpent is
+suffocated and is reduced to a lifeless mass. Then its victors carry it
+triumphantly to their village where it makes a banquet for almost all
+the inhabitants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sakais would find but a scanty result from their hunting and
+shooting-, and their own lives would not be sufficiently protected if
+the forest did not provide them with an inexhaustible and infallible
+means of dealing death with their blowpipes and darts.
+
+There is such a rich and varied quantity of plants growing in the jungle
+which produce poison, that Man has the choice of using the one he deems
+more adapted for this or that particular need.
+
+The Sakai is enthusiastic over his poisons, so much is he engrossed in
+the science that it takes with him the post of a besetting. Like a
+maniac which always speaks of his strange fancies, so this poor savage
+speaks all day long of his poisons, and studies their qualities.
+
+And they provide him with all the necessaries for his primitive
+existence for he utilizes them in shooting, fishing, and in setting
+traps for big and small animals, they are a defence for himself and the
+whole village where he lives, besides furnishing him with the means (by
+barter) of obtaining tobacco, rice or any other article that cannot be
+found in the forest.
+
+All his best intellectual faculty is consecrated to the research and
+preparation of poisons because it must not be thought that he uses one
+instead of the other indifferently. Those with which he is most familiar
+are each used as the occasion may require.
+
+Just as a gun is not loaded with the same sized shot when shooting small
+birds and partridges, the Sakai does not waste his strong poisons when a
+weaker one would be equally effectual.
+
+His selection of one rather than the other is frequently regulated by
+the state of the atmosphere (damp being pernicious to venomous
+productions) and sometimes by the phases of the moon.
+
+These plants are herbaceous, arboreous and often creepers, but not all
+those that grow in the forest, nor even those known to the savage for
+their efficacy, are yet in the knowledge of Science.
+
+This is a very great pity as I fear that these medicinal treasures,
+which may contain miraculous properties, will be inevitably lost if a
+scientific study of this wild jungle produce is not quickly initiated.
+
+The fever of colonization has attacked the forest and here and there it
+rages; for certain it will not be a long time before that vast extension
+of tropical vegetation with the extraordinary fertility of its soil will
+give place to plantations of Parah-rubber, gutta-percha, coffee, sugar,
+rice, tobacco, etc.
+
+For this reason I shall be very pleased to give what aid I can to the
+cause of Science by means of notes, collections and specimens of paints
+and animals not yet thoroughly known or studied, should anyone feel
+inclined to respond to the offer before it is too late. Such help would
+seem to me a sweet chain of thought, linking the mind of the colonist in
+the remote depths of the Malay Forest, to the Mother Country and that
+civilization from which he has withdrawn himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The "_giu u toalang_" is one of the colossal trees of the Jungle for it
+reaches from 40 to 46 yards in height. It may be said that its whole
+organism is poisonous because its deadly properties have the same force
+in the juice under the bark as in the leaves, when they are rubbed or
+broken. If this sap finds its way under the skin, in contact with the
+flesh or blood-vessels it has a quick and mortal effect. It seems to me
+that even the smell might produce fatal consequences but of this I am
+not sure, although it is a certain fact that it makes one feel very ill
+and the indisposition can only be cured by keeping the patient in a high
+temperature.
+
+Almost the same poisonous power has the "_giu u rangas_", a tree of
+more modest dimensions, and the "_giu u sagol_" smaller still. It is
+dangerous to touch the leaves of these two plants because they bring
+about a severe irritation of the skin, covering it with pimples and
+little bladders, that itch intolerably, whilst the body becomes
+swollen. And yet the temptation to scratch must be resisted or
+ulceration follows with the probability of gangrene. When one is able
+to renounce the momentary relief procured by rubbing or scratching the
+inconvenience passes in a couple of days.
+
+The _toalang_, _rengas_, and _sagol_ are to be found scattered profusely
+over the forest but the Sakai does not interest himself in their
+venomous properties because he finds that those of which he already
+knows the secret fully satisfy his wants in promptness and effect. On
+the contrary he wages a continual war against these noxious plants
+beating them down and destroying them wherever he comes across them. He
+is very careful, however not to touch them with his hatchet but chops
+down one of the giants growing near which bears them to the ground in
+its ponderous fall.
+
+As soon as the dangerous trees are down the trunk and branches of their
+involuntary assassin are pulled away and they are left on the spot for
+one or two months to dry, and when completely withered they are burnt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is also a large and varied number of plants in the forest whose
+leaves are very dangerous. I will mention for an example the _sla dol_,
+_sla plek_ and the _sla clob_ the leaves of which, if eaten, may
+engender fatal consequences according to the Sakais.
+
+In some the poisonous qualities are located only in the roots. Of the
+_legop_, which belongs to this class I will speak further on, for now I
+will only name the _akar toba_.
+
+This root is first well pounded and then left to soak in some water for
+a few days after which the venomous liquid is thrown into a pond and a
+perfect massacre of big and little fish follows, all of which may be
+eaten without doing any harm to the persons.
+
+What sort of poison this is I cannot say for it has never been made the
+object of special study. I have proved its utility in destroying insects
+and particularly the larva of mosquitoes and the little worms that ruin
+fruit and vegetables.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _ipok_ called "_upas_" by the Malays and "_antiaris toxicaria_" by
+botanists is a tree which supplies a poisonous juice to the Sakais of
+the plain. It is a colossus of the forest, and belongs to the nettle
+family.
+
+It has broad, shiny leaves something like those of the magnolia, and
+numerous species are to be found in the Malay Jungle.
+
+When the season is not too damp and there is a full moon the Sakais make
+some deep cuts in the bark of this tree and place some bamboo tubes
+around it in order to catch the sap which flows out abundantly. This
+juice has a gluey, resinous appearance and is white or yellow according
+to whether it is extracted from the trunk or from a young bough.
+
+[Illustration: A branch of the poison-tree "Upas".
+
+_p._ 210.]
+
+Then, whilst still in the thick of the forest, they light up a fire and
+boil the liquid during which process the _Ala_, who presides over the
+work, mutters the magical words without which the poison would not have
+the desired force.
+
+It is not taken from the fire until it presents the aspect of tar, in
+thickness and colour. Finished to boil, some lemons are squeezed over it
+and after throwing in red arsenic and other drugs it is all stirred up
+together and the mixture is ready for use.
+
+The substances added to the _ipok_--with the exception of the
+arsenic--are not toxical but are only the expression of Sakai
+prejudices.
+
+The flesh of animals killed with arrows dipped in _ipok_ are perfectly
+eatable after being cooked a little, but the precaution must be taken of
+cutting away for about an inch round the wound which turns purple
+immediately from the action of the poison.
+
+An antidote against _ipok_ poisoning is found in the juice of a climber
+called _lemmak kapiting_. By energetically rubbing the wound with this
+juice all baneful effects of the _ipok_ are checked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I believe that it is amongst creepers that the most powerful poisons
+must be sought.
+
+The Sakai is on confidential terms with the _giu u legop_, _giu u
+labor_, _giu u lampat_, _giu u mase_ and the _giu u loo_, but the
+_lampon_ and _broial_ are not forgotten either.[20]
+
+The roots of these two plants yield poisons that are amongst the most
+terrible of those which abound in the forest.
+
+It seems to me that the only difference passing between these creepers
+is in the intensity of virulence, but not in the nature of the venomous
+substances, and it is just for this that the Sakais favour the _legop_
+and make it the centre of their primitive chemical studies because it
+furnishes them with the strongest and most fatal of poisons.
+
+This parasite, as soon as it is long enough, clings to one of the superb
+vegetable kings of the forest, twining round it with a tenacious hold.
+
+Its trunk is from 2 to 4 inches in diameter and gives vigorous life to
+about 5000 feet of its offspring.
+
+The _legop_ leaves are green, smooth and glossy, similar in form to
+those of the lemon, but they are larger. They are covered longitudinally
+by prominent nervures.
+
+The fruit borne by this dangerous plant is of the size and form of a
+small orange, slightly depressed at the stalk and the opposite part. It
+is very black and hard to break, a hammer or its substitute being
+necessary to disclose its contents which consist in a great number of
+little seeds embedded in a scanty pulp.
+
+All the Sakais extract and prepare poison from the _legop_ but there is
+a tribe living in the most remote parts of the forest, severed from all
+intercourse with civilized beings, and in consequence pure barbarians,
+who are renowned for their ability in the preparation of the same, and
+whose products are considered much superior in strength.
+
+[Illustration: Extracting poison from the "Upas" tree.
+
+_p._ 210.]
+
+It is the Mai Bretak tribe to whom all the other Sakais have recourse,
+carrying with them a large tribute of the goods usual in exchange. This
+speciality mixed with _ipok_ is the Essence of Death in drops. The
+minutest particle that enters the blood means imminent extinction of
+life. The sentence is irrevocable for no remedy is known with which to
+avert it. The utter impossibility of saving a creature that has fallen a
+victim to this terrible poison has given rise to a superstition among
+the Sakais that an evil spirit hovers over, or goes into the mixture
+when it is being prepared and for this they do not set themselves to the
+work without taking numerous precautions.
+
+_Ipok_ is extracted and condensed (under the exorcism of _Ala_) in the
+presence of, perhaps, all the village but no women or girls may assist
+at the preparation of _legop_ lest the invisible enemy should do them
+some injury. (The spirit is evidently a woman hater!).
+
+The man who prepares it may not eat fish or meat on the day fixed for
+the important operation and once he has begun it he must remain fasting
+until he has finished. He is scrupulously attentive not to expose
+himself to the steam escaping from the bubbling liquid and often (here
+superstition comes to the aid of cleanliness and hygiene) has to wash
+his face and hands. But even all this caution is not sufficient and he
+is considered as a sick person for some days.
+
+The earthenware pot or bamboo used for the purpose must be new, nothing
+must have been cooked in it before, and nothing after. Directly the
+_legop_ has been poured out it is thrown away because contaminated.
+
+The perfect newness of these vessels serves to increase the power of the
+poison.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A couple of days before the Sakai wishes to prepare the deadly mixture
+he goes in search of the creeper, which having found he uncovers its
+roots and to assure himself that he has not made a mistake, he tries if
+it has the bitter taste natural to it. Secure upon this point he digs
+up a nice lot and then fills up his dosser with two sorts of bulbous
+plants which secrete a glutinous substance but whose name and quality I
+have never found out. This done he rambles about the forest until he is
+able to find two kinds of wasps or bees (whichever they are); one is
+very big and black the sting of which causes a high fever, and which
+generally has its nest on the ground; the other is little and red,
+stings like a nettle and has its nest under the leaves of a tree.
+
+If he has in store some teeth of the _sendok_ snake, or of any other
+equally venomous, he now returns to the village, otherwise he looks for
+one, kills it and possesses himself of its fangs.
+
+Having thus all the necessary ingredients, the Sakai begins to pound the
+roots into a paste. This mass he then puts into a tube stopped up by
+leaves which lets pass a liquid but not a substance. Keeping this
+primitive filter suspended over the receptacle to be used for boiling,
+he slowly empties some water into it which soaking through the paste
+becomes of a brown colour before it reaches the vessel beneath.
+
+Terminated the filtering process he takes the two bulbous plants and
+squeezing them in his hand he sprinkles as much of their juice as he
+thinks fit, into the same vessel. The serpent's teeth and the bees are
+then pounded, they too, and cast in with all the rest which is at once
+placed on a slow fire. When the mixture begins to boil the Sakai skims
+off the impurities floating on the surface and adds a little more
+_legop_ if it seems to him necessary, taking great care, meanwhile, not
+to breath or to be enveloped by the fumes rising from the pot.
+
+[Illustration: Root of the poisonous creeper "Legop".
+
+_p._ 212.]
+
+The poison is lifted off the fire as soon as it has got to the
+consistency of a syrup and is of a dark reddish colour, the darts are
+dipped into it and its virulence is put to the test without waste of
+time. If the proof is satisfactory the thick fluid is poured into bamboo
+receptacles, covered with leaves, and a piece of deer-skin fastened over
+them with a band of _scudiscio_ and finally the vases are collocated in
+the driest corner of the hut, from whence from time to time, they are
+carried near the fire to prevent that their contents should lose force
+through humidity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now the question is this: do the ingredients which the Bretak Sakai
+believes indispensable in this concoction augment the virulence of the
+_legop_?
+
+I am inclined to doubt it a great deal as I do not think those two
+plants containing the glutinous juice are poisonous, or at least very
+little so, but that they are added merely to give denseness to the
+mixture or else from a false supposition of the indigenes.
+
+And less still can serpents' teeth or crushed wasps have any influence
+in increasing the power of this poison, which is in itself intense.
+
+Evidently the Sakais, well aware of the lethal effect of a bite from a
+serpent, think that by introducing into the wound, by means of their
+dart, a tiny portion of the organ which determines this effect, an equal
+result will follow.
+
+He neither knows nor imagines that the tooth exercises a simple
+mechanical action in consequence of which the little reservoir of
+poison, being compressed, lets a drop fall into the wound produced by
+the bite.
+
+But there is nothing to be surprised at in this because in history we
+learn that the superstitions and sorceries practised by more advanced
+races than the Sakais offer the most curious documents in proof of such
+odd reasoning.
+
+It is enough to remember that in the time of Augustus the jaw bone of a
+female dog, which had been kept fasting, and a quill plucked from a
+screech-owl were required for the enchantments of Canidia, _ossa ab ore
+rapta jejunae canis, plumanque nocturna strigis_. And yet it was just at
+that period Rome had inherited from Greece the Philosophy of the
+Epicureans and that of the Sceptics and was maturing the poem of
+Lucretius Carus!
+
+And quite recently has it not been narrated by Parson Evans, of Wales,
+how he had been badly treated by a spirit because he had forgotten a
+fumigation during one of his enchantments?
+
+If there has been so much imposture or hallucination amongst advanced
+peoples (or supposed to be such) we cannot reproach the poor Sakai for
+his ignorance if in all good faith he thinks that a pinch of pounded
+bees and serpents' teeth increases the virulence of the _legop_ poison.
+Does he not also believe that the mysterious words muttered by the _Ala_
+give greater force to his murderous preparations?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As to the effects of the _legop_ strange and contradictory versions are
+given.
+
+Some affirm that the smallest possible quantity brought into contact
+with the blood, causes instantaneous death; others declare that it is
+not sufficiently powerful to kill a man or a beast if the quantity
+inoculated is not in proportion to the size or if they are strong enough
+to resist it.
+
+It is my opinion that both these assertions are exaggerated.
+
+One day I asked a Sakai if he thought it possible to kill a man with
+_legop_.
+
+He replied that nearly every day animals of double the bulk and strength
+of a man were killed in the forest, and that the poison supplied by this
+creeper speedily fulfils its mission. As a proof of this he related that
+once he was standing near a Javanese who had been guilty of violating a
+woman. This man was hit by a poisoned dart and died almost immediately.
+
+Without appearing in the least to doubt the fact I begged him to show me
+the exact spot where the dart entered the poor fellow, and where it came
+out, and from his indications I could convince myself that the dart
+having penetrated under the shoulder blade had passed through the heart
+from part to part and had been arrested in its course by the muscles of
+the thorax.
+
+It was therefore clear to me that death was due to the passage of the
+dart through the victim's body and had nothing to do with the poison in
+which the missile had been previously steeped. To my knowledge no
+recognized studies have ever been made to ascertain the true force of
+_legop_, so one is free to calculate it at its maximum or minimum,
+especially when its susceptibility to atmospheric changes is considered.
+
+When the weather is dry it carries death on the wing of the arrow, but
+if it should be wet, or damp, the poison becomes moist and remains on
+the surface of the wound (where it can be easily rubbed off) instead of
+penetrating with the dart into the object aimed at.
+
+And this was the disillusion of one who wanted to try its effects on a
+dog. The poor beast howled with the pain but did not present any symptom
+of poisoning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Science alone can pronounce accurately upon the toxical qualities of the
+_legop_ and I am always ready to assist it with my modest experience.
+
+Wishing to solve every doubt and also to find out an antidote to this
+poison I sacrificed many innocent creatures, but I will relate the
+pitiful end of only two.
+
+I selected a fine fowl full of healthy vigour and taking one of these
+poisoned darts I made a wound of not more than a half an inch long upon
+the upper part of its leg.
+
+For a minute after it moved about slowly without even noticing the
+wound, then it stopped as if overcome by a strange sense of stupor, but
+soon began to peck the ground.
+
+Two minutes and a half later it opened and shut its beak and let its
+tail and wings fall limply on the ground. Another half a minute and with
+its legs bent under, as though sitting, it sought to raise and shake its
+drooping head. For an-instant it succeeded but the poor member wagged
+without energy (as happens to us when in travelling we get sleepy but
+have no place to repose ourselves) whilst its eyes now shut, and now
+wide open wore an expression of unconsciousness.
+
+About the fourth minute the animal was seized with violent convulsions
+and at the fifth it was quite dead.
+
+I made the same trial upon a middle-sized dog, wounding this also upon a
+leg in order not to touch a vital part.
+
+At first it seemed quite insensible to what I had done but after three
+or four minutes had passed it got very inquiet and sniffed the ground
+and everything that was around as if to find out what was the matter,
+turning round its head from time to time towards its thigh which it
+evidently felt was the seat of its uneasiness. It gave a jump, a
+prolonged shudder and then lay down.
+
+Once it feebly barked but when it made a second attempt it entirely
+failed. The cry was not one of pain but seemed to be a sound emitted
+under the impulse of profound bewilderment.
+
+[Illustration: Branch and fruit of the poisonous creeper "Legop".
+
+_p._ 212.]
+
+Its head rested for a moment upon its fore-legs but was soon lifted up
+as the animal rolled over on one side of its body which had the
+appearance of being paralyzed. Its eyes became fixed, expressionless.
+The body shivered and gave little starts but the head remained
+motionless, lying heavily on the ground, and the eyes in their glassy
+stare revealed the absence of all perception of the senses rather than
+pain or mortal anguish.
+
+At this point I turned my attention to its heart which was beating
+quickly and violently. It stopped an instant, then continued but very,
+very weakly whilst the whole body began to take a rigid form.
+
+A quarter of an hour after the inoculation of _legop_, the dog was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If I do not mistake, the first and almost immediate effect of this
+poison is upon the nerve centres. For certain the blood remains
+unaltered, or at least no change is visible and the flesh of animals
+killed with _legop_ does not lose any of its flavour nor is there any
+danger in eating it.
+
+But I dare not speak with any precision about the nature of certain
+venomous products because where the vast field for scientific research
+begins, the unpretending labour of the colonist, who collects, refers
+and describes, finishes, leaving to the chemical student and the
+physiologist the task of drawing from the information given, those
+results which may be for the good of humanity in general.
+
+The poisonous flora of the forest is not limited to trees and climbing
+plants; it extends also to countless herbs, to an infinite variety of
+fungi, berries, flowers and tempting fruits.
+
+The realm of poison is known but very little. It still reserves the
+greatest surprises for the scientist who wishes to explore it. And
+because provident Nature in every manifestation of its fecundity has the
+habit of putting different qualities in contrast I think that amongst
+such an abundant vegetation of dangerous plants there may be another,
+perhaps less plentiful but which would serve to oppose the deadly
+effects of the first.
+
+The Sakai knows no antidote except those I have mentioned: the _lemmah
+kapiting_ and the one empirically prepared with quicklime and urine.
+Neither of them, however, can be warranted as genuine articles, so in
+this field Science would have everything to discover.
+
+The great Sorceress, the great and incomparable Malayan Forest, offers
+wonderful treasures to the world, some of which give charms to Life and
+others conceal the snares of Death.
+
+It is for the _homo sapiens_ to distinguish this from that and to make
+himself the master of their secrets as he has done with Electricity,
+thereby making it the means of illumination, motive power, and the
+alleviation of many physical sufferings.
+
+This forest, which would have answered to all the criminal exigencies of
+the Borgias as regards poisons, is still a waste land, notwithstanding
+its extraordinary riches.
+
+Let Science tell us of the immense treasures there produced for the
+welfare of Mankind.
+
+[Illustration: Preparing "Legop" poisons.
+
+_p._ 214.]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 19: The _i_ is almost an _e_ and the _a_ in all these words
+are pronounced as _ha_. _Translator's Note._]
+
+[Footnote 20: The professors, A. Benedicenti and G. B. De Toni, of the
+Camerino University have published the result of their studies upon the
+roots and some juice extracted from the _broial_ which I sent them for
+the purpose in 1902. I think, however, that the conclusions of these two
+scientists would have been in favour of a greater and quicker effect of
+this poison if, in spite of all my care, the samples had not suffered
+from the change of climate and, very likely, been exposed to dampness.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  Past and future geography--Mountains and plateaus--An attempt at a
+  census--Temperature--Maladies and remedies--ALA a quack.
+
+
+Thirty years ago, even in our best geographies, very little mention was
+made of the Malay Peninsula.
+
+Something was said about its coasts and a scanty product of tin,
+antimony and coal but there was not a single word about the wide stretch
+of land far from the shores, partly unexplored and partly inhabited by
+savages, beyond stating that a chain of mountains ran the whole length,
+beginning at Kedak and Kelantan and terminating at the extreme end of
+the peninsula, so dividing it almost in the middle.
+
+But a geographer in our days would have to write a great deal more, for
+the interior of this country is no longer a deep inviolated mystery, and
+its aspect has proved very different from what studies, made at a
+prudent distance, had led us to imagine.
+
+The high mountains (the Berumbun reaches 6530 feet in height) present to
+the gaze scenery which would satisfy an artist. Some of the tops are
+covered with a rich, wild vegetation, some are rugged or have sharp
+peaks from which torrents of sparkling white foam dash down the narrow
+dark crevices with roaring fury.
+
+From those superb masses extend a series of plateaus like so many
+terraces which the more they descend the more they unfold the
+fruitfulness of the soil, irrigated by smooth rivers and rills.
+
+There, where mountainous fertility ceases, one to the east and the other
+to the west, lie the plains of Pahang and Perak whose industrious hands
+guided by civilized ideas are carrying on a work of redemption from
+abandonment and malaria by the extension of cultivation and sanitary
+principles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The forest--the territory of the Sakais--covers the central part of the
+Peninsula. On the outskirts live those less savage because of their
+contact and dealings with the Malays, Siamese, Chinese and Indians, by
+whom they are surrounded. The others press always closer on towards the
+mountains at the same rate that civilization approaches them, fixing
+their abode at an elevation of not more than from 1500 to 2000 feet. I
+have found some, but a very rare case, at a height of 4000 feet.
+
+It is true that up there, there are not so many dangers to be met with,
+for wild beasts (with the exception of an occasional bear) and serpents
+do not frequent the heights but the cold is too intense to be well
+supported by individuals who do not wear clothes and who do not build
+houses to protect themselves from the inclemency of the weather.
+
+[Illustration: Poisoning the arrows.
+
+_p._ 214.]
+
+The tract of land inhabited by the Sakais is, at a rough guess,
+comprised between 3 deg. 50' and 5 deg. 50' North latitude and 101 deg. and 102 deg.
+East longitude (Greenwich). But for such an extension they are very few
+in numbers because in the year 1903, passing from one village to another
+in 25 days, I could not count more than 6800 persons camping round the
+durians at the ingathering season.
+
+Reckoning the women left behind because of a recent confinement, the old
+and infirm and the little children I do not think that altogether they
+can be many more than 10,000 souls. It is truly the case to say: "_rari
+nantes in gurgite vasto_!".
+
+It would be impossible to take a real census of the Sakais owing to
+their distrust of everything they do not understand and the difficulty
+their nomadic life presents.
+
+The climate where they live, although damp, is good, for the thick
+foliage of the forest and the breezes that often hail from the mountains
+mitigate the heat of the sun's rays.
+
+There are no alternations of seasons as in temperate zones but only the
+distinction of dry and rainy ones, the former being determined by the
+monsoon blowing from the east, and the latter from that coming from the
+west.
+
+It is not unusual for the heat at noon to surpass 40 deg. (centigrade) but
+to the torrid temperature of the day follows a cold night and the hotter
+the day is, the colder the night. From 40 deg. it easily falls under 20 deg..
+The Sakais who possess no garments, or rugs and whose huts are very open
+and airy, sleep all huddled together (to keep each other warm) round a
+large fire but they frequently suffer from these variations of
+temperature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I have before mentioned severe colds are very prevalent among the
+Sakais against which they have no efficacious remedy so that it often
+happens for a simple attack of influenza to turn into a serious
+bronchial or lung affection and finally result in consumption.
+
+Neither the _tenak_ or _cintok_ is of any use then; the evil spirit
+never leaves hold of his prey.
+
+Cases of fever are very rare and these few must be attributed to the
+wind which ascends from the plain bringing with it germs of infection.
+It is extremely seldom that a woman dies in child-birth, but a great
+many succumb to senile decay at about 60 years of age.
+
+Both men and women are very subject to a cutaneous disease which covers
+the body with large blotches of a lighter colour than their skin, giving
+a repugnant appearance to the poor wretch so afflicted. But it is
+neither a serious nor a contagious illness, nor does it excite amongst
+the jungle-dwellers that loathing which it would with us because this
+discoloration does not prevent them from getting married and having
+children as healthy as other peoples'.
+
+Sometimes one of them is struck down by an infectious disease for which
+they know no remedy or cure. The sick person is at once isolated from
+all the rest and is almost entirely abandoned in order to check any
+propagation of the malady.
+
+I have never noticed any illness which might be considered as peculiar
+to the people themselves or the region they inhabit but I have been able
+to establish the fact (from a special study made by me as to the causes
+of death among the Sakais) that the victims of wild beasts and serpents
+are on a very low average.
+
+It is quite an extraordinary thing for anybody to lose their life in
+this way if they have not by some imprudence brought death upon
+themselves.
+
+I only remember, perhaps because it took place not long ago, that a
+young woman incautiously wandered away from her hut one evening, as it
+was getting dark, and was attacked by a panther which fastened its teeth
+into her lower jaw. Hearing her scream the husband rushed out just in
+time to kill the animal and save his poor wife's life, but she, of
+course, remained deformed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The pharmacopoeia of these foresters, freed from all superstition, is of
+truly primitive simplicity and only contains vegetable remedies. A
+decoction of the root _tenak celes_ is an excellent purgative. A
+poultice made of its leaves pounded with lime and _sirih_ and applied to
+the forehead is intended to cure headache.
+
+The _sla delok_ (a bitter leaf) serves in the place of our worm powders
+for children.
+
+Another leaf (the _sla poo_) is used for curing dysentry.
+
+They have also several other medicines (whose virtues are kept secret by
+the _Ala_) for complaints of the stomach or that may be used at will
+without any precise knowledge of the illness needing treatment.
+
+The gum extracted from the _singret_ is employed for stopping decayed
+teeth and is also rubbed over the cheek during a fit of tooth-ache to
+preserve it from the air, without putting on bandages.
+
+The Sakai makes great use of charcoal powder in his medicinal
+preparations, dressing sores, wounds and the bites of animals with it.
+This might make one suppose that he either knows or divines the
+disinfecting properties of charcoal. He also makes it a means of defence
+against the invasions of ants which change their direction when they
+find the black line across their way.
+
+The water in which a piece of charcoal, made from bitter wood, has been
+for a long time infused, is according to them a first-rate remedy
+against debility of the organism and coughs.
+
+The _Ala_ wisely acting for--his own good, reserves for himself the
+prerogative of mixing certain pharmaceutical specialities which make
+the patient recover if the indisposition is merely a passing one, but
+help to kill him if the conditions of his health are serious.
+
+He always keeps prompt some plasters prepared from herbs, either of a
+soothing or irritating nature, in case of fractures, sprains, or
+dislocations caused by accidental falls.
+
+But it is scarcely worth while to discuss the merits of these
+cataplasms, for the Sakai, who is the first person interested in the
+question, acknowledges and admits their healing virtues.
+
+All the world is akin, and the much respected _Ala_ of the forest is
+nothing less than an uncivilized colleague of those charlatans,
+inventors of miracles, who by the sale of powders, lotions, medicinal
+waters and ointments make their fortune in the midst of civilized
+society, often deceiving science and common sense by means of well
+placed advertisements.
+
+One is an educated and the other an uneducated quack.
+
+
+
+
+My notes finish here. They are wanting in order and art but not in
+verity because above all I have dedicated this writing to the truth,
+prompted by feelings of gratitude and good will towards my kind friends
+the savages. I have wished to illustrate the customs and character of a
+people very much calumniated, amongst whom I have found strong and
+devoted friendship free from every taint of jealousy or self-interest.
+
+Sixteen years of a tranquil, laborious life have I passed among the
+Sakais and still to-day I feel a pang of home-sickness thinking of that
+wonderfully fertile land and its good and simple inhabitants.
+
+If my words have been clear to you, dear reader, you must have remarked
+that in those savages are to be found real treasures of uprightness,
+honesty and common sense. And the first seeds of these virtues were sown
+by nobody for they bud and blossom in their souls as spontaneously as
+from the bosom of great Mother Nature the marvellous multitude of flora
+rises up towards the sun, seeking light and heat.
+
+It is not so amongst us. Civilization teaches virtue: sermons preach it;
+moralists condense it into precepts and aphorisms; historians honour it
+in the ancients in order to inspire it in the moderns; laws, and the
+menaces of Hell, want to impose it. And yet, notwithstanding all this,
+it cannot flower well for too often it is fettered by the frenzy of
+"getting ahead" and by the spasms of passions which in the superb
+majesty of the forest, and under its sublime influence, are neither
+known nor understood. Here one works serenely, undisturbed by the fear
+that others will rob you of your profit.
+
+I mention the fact but leave others to draw the conclusion because if I
+arrived at that which would seem most logical after the premise, I
+should be called a worse savage than those I have held up to public
+admiration and if I arrived at any other I should be accused (and with
+reason) of contradiction.
+
+I will instead declare that, in spite of certain discouraging proofs, I
+firmly keep my faith in human progress, believing that Science will one
+day succeed in lessening the grand anguish accruing from the incessant
+and cruel "struggle for life".
+
+My chief reason for illustrating the virtues and defects of the
+little-known Sakais is to present them more closely to the attention of
+England, that, by delivering them from the contempt and able trickery of
+other races, might easily lead them to civilization and at the same time
+form important and lucrative centres of agricultural product in the
+interior of the Peninsula.
+
+It is without the slightest idea of boasting that I state I have always
+remained among the Sakais alone and unarmed, in my work as a colonist.
+In this way it was possible for me to overcome hostility and mistrust,
+winning confidence and affection from one of the most uncivilized of
+peoples. And the fact gives me the greatest satisfaction for it
+demonstrates in a modest, but not for that less eloquent manner, that
+armed expeditions however fine and imposing in appearance (according to
+taste) have not the practical or lasting value of peaceful, friendly
+overtures. Civilization which pretends to impose itself by violence,
+slaughter and sackage only sows hatred. The pretended saviours become
+oppressors, and having begun by force they are compelled to resort to
+force if they wish to keep the dominion which a ferment of hatred,
+little by little, is undermining.
+
+Therefore no arms, no missions (tending to substitute one terror for
+another) but only patience and calmness are necessary for the conquest
+of those simple souls and to subsequently teach them, through example,
+to devote themselves to work. They must be made to feel that
+civilization is useful, the inspirer of good and not an insidious
+injurer.
+
+What can savages think when they are subjected to depredation and
+bloodshed by those who, with these measures, have come to them to
+proclaim the principles of respect for other people's property and the
+inviolability of human life?
+
+It is indeed a great pleasure to me finding that to-day the Sakais no
+longer distrust civilization and some of them, especially the younger
+ones, do not refuse or shrink from work as they once did and neither do
+they oppose such an obstinate resistance to those innovations which I
+too had a part in introducing among them.
+
+I leave it to my readers to judge if I am guilty of vanity in thus
+expressing my contentment.
+
+And now I have finished.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This errata prepared by the author/translator is
+included for historical and archival interest only. All the changes
+specified by this errata have already been implemented in the etext.]
+
+
+ERRATA
+
+
+  Page    14  line  26      -- _qualities_.
+
+  "       39    "   32      -- _wished_.
+
+  "       50    "   16      -- read _debtors_ for _creditors_.
+
+  Chap.   IV    "    3      -- _twilight_.
+
+  Page    61    "    3      -- _centuries_.
+
+  "       80    "   14      -- _inefficacious_.
+
+  "       84    "   19      -- _safeguard_.
+
+  Chap. VIII    "    7      -- _coronation_.
+
+  Page    85    "   12      -- _gratify_.
+
+  "       96    "   30      -- _previous_.
+
+  "      107    "   12      -- _too_.
+
+  "      111    "   13      -- _too_.
+
+  "       "     "   17      -- _search_.
+
+  "      112    " last line -- _enjoy_.
+
+  "      124    "    1      -- _attained_.
+
+  "      128    " last line -- _equal_.
+
+  "      131    "   28      -- for _economic_ read _financial_.
+
+  "      133    "   29      -- _consequence_.
+
+  "      134    "   13      -- _without_.
+
+  "      139    "    2      -- _read same time_.
+
+  "      141    "    2      -- _obliged_.
+
+  "      146    "   16      -- _appetizing_.
+
+  "      178    " footnote  -- _chinneloy_.
+
+  "      187    "    6      -- _falsehood_.
+
+  "      193    "    1      -- _But it is_.
+
+  "      207    "   32      -- _Sakai_.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+Every effort has been made to preserve the original text, including
+non-standard spelling and grammar as well as inconsistencies in the
+transliteration of non-English words (both in spelling and use of
+diacritics.) Non-standard spelling has been preserved if the word is
+understandable in context. Changes to the text have only been made in
+the case of obvious typographical errors and where not making a
+correction would leave the text confusing or difficult to read. All
+changes are documented in the notes below. The original text also
+included an errata page by the author/translator. The changes specified
+in this errata have been implemented and are also documented in the
+notes below.
+
+Treatment of quotation marks. In the original text, the
+author/translator used a variant of a European convention in which
+quoted text began with double quotation marks and ended with double
+low-9 quotation marks (present in unicode as U+201E). For the
+convenience of users who may not be able to display unicode, the double
+low-9 quotation marks have been replaced by regular double quotation
+marks.
+
+In the author/translator's original style of punctuation, full-stops
+were always placed outside of the closing quotation marks. Where quoted
+text ended with an exclamation or question mark, these would be placed
+inside the closing quotation mark and then a terminating full-stop
+would be added outside the quotation mark as in this example:
+"_Sacramento_!". This style of punctuation has been preserved.
+
+Some blocks of quoted text were enclosed in double angle quotation
+marks (or guillemets). This style of punctuation has been preserved.
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words have been preserved.
+(blowpipe/s, blow-pipe/s; earrings, ear-rings; earthenware,
+earthen-ware; goodbye, good-bye; hairpins, hair-pins; midnight,
+mid-night; recalled, re-called; recommenced, re-commenced; reproduced,
+re-produced; woodcutter's, wood-cutter's)
+
+Pg. 12, "meetins" changed to "meeting". (but once a meeting has)
+
+Pg. 12, "sould" changed to "should". (why should we consider the
+fierceness)
+
+Pg. 14, "qualilies" changed to "qualities". From author's original
+errata. (qualities of courage and energy)
+
+Pg. 20, "philosphy" changed to "philosophy". (But my philosophy soon
+took the)
+
+Pg. 20, "come" changed to "some". (a Pullman's car or some other
+vehicle)
+
+Pg. 21, closing quote inserted to end at end of paragraph. (a continual
+increase of danger".)
+
+Pg. 25, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (in conseguence, the
+presence of)
+
+Pg. 28, "stiffiness" changed to "stiffness". (Besides the stiffness of
+my joints)
+
+Pg. 29, "as" changed to "us". (you insult us and call)
+
+Pg. 35, "dutieu" changed to "duties". (all the various duties of)
+
+Pg. 35, "kiching" changed to "kicking". (kicking and batting)
+
+Pg. 35, "belongig" changed to "belonging". (of some land belonging to
+two)
+
+Pg. 36, "te" changed to "to". (my desire to become better acquainted)
+
+Pg. 36, "contry" changed to "country". (but in him his country lost)
+
+Pg. 36, "recipt" changed to "receipt". (tight hold of the receipt)
+
+Pg. 38, "indefaticable" changed to "indefatigable". (his indefatigable
+energy brings forth)
+
+Pg. 39, duplicated "a" removed. (we threw a well-pounded leaf)
+
+Pg. 39, "wishcd" changed to "wished". From author's original errata.
+(if I wished for fortune)
+
+Pg. 47, "af" changed to "of". (in spite of its glass eyes)
+
+Pg. 47, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (The consequence was
+quite)
+
+Pg. 50, "creditors" changed to "debtors". From author's original
+errata. (as his debtors could not pay)
+
+Pg. 51, "equal" changed to "equal". (is quite equal to the task)
+
+Pg. 59, Chapter VI summary, "Everlasting twlight" changed to
+"Everlasting twilight". From author's original errata.
+
+Pg. 55, "sirene" changed to "sirens". (and its steam sirens?)
+
+Pg. 55, "Telok Ansom". Author's original text retained, although he
+probably intended to refer to the town more commonly called "Telok
+Anson".
+
+Pg. 55, "Sakay" occurs here and in a few other instances in the text.
+Elsewhere it is spelled "Sakai". The original spelling has been
+preserved in all instances.
+
+Pg. 60, "incease" changed to "increase". (swarms of insects increase
+its agony by making)
+
+Pg. 60, "miriads" changed to "myriads". (these myriads of plants)
+
+Pg. 61, "centures" changed to "centuries". From author's original
+errata. (destined to brave centuries)
+
+Footnote 5, "i" changed to "I". (I ate it with relish)
+
+Pg. 71, "Proctectorate" changed to "Protectorate". (remote Eastern
+Protectorate)
+
+Pg. 71, "Pymalion". Author's original text retained, although more
+commonly spelled "Pygmalion".
+
+Pg. 76, "varities" changed to "varieties". (varieties of serpents, big
+and small)
+
+Pg. 77, "smakes" changed to "snakes". (danger from snakes)
+
+Pg. 80, "inefficatious" changed to "inefficacious". From author's
+original errata. (inefficacious when a man
+
+Pg. 84, "safe-quard" changed to "safeguard". From author's original
+errata. (behaviour being his safeguard)
+
+Pg. 85, Chapter VIII summary. "incoronation" changed to "coronation".
+From author's original errata. (coronation of King Edward VII)
+
+Pg. 85, "gratisfy" changed to "gratify". (such as to gratify a little
+ambition)
+
+Pg. 87, "responsable" changed to "responsible". (to establish the
+responsibility)
+
+Pg. 93, quotation marks fixed. '"By thus living separate, "he said"
+each family....' changed to '"By this living separate," he said "each
+family....'.
+
+Pg. 96, "aud" changed to "and". (produces and causes)
+
+Pg. 96, "previons" changed to "previous". From author's original
+errata. (to my previous position)
+
+Pg. 97, "angiush" changed to "anguish". (that awful anguish I had)
+
+Pg. 107, "two" changed to "too". From author's original errata. (I,
+too, have often made)
+
+Pg. 110, duplicated word "of" removed. (I speak only of the Sakais)
+
+Pg. 110, "investicating" changed to "investigating". (feel of
+investigating our neighbour's past)
+
+Pg. 111, "two" changed to "too". From author's original errata. (are
+too long in proportion)
+
+Pg. 111, "scarch" changed to "search". From author's original errata.
+(the like in search)
+
+Footnote 8, "eujoy" changed to "enjoy". (If to-day is ours to enjoy.)
+
+Pg. 112, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (in consequence of
+their long exposure) )
+
+Pg. 117, extraneous comma in "etc., Rice" removed as it appears a new
+sentence is being started. (etc. Rice is an imported luxury)
+
+Pg. 118, "elever" changed to "clever". (are very clever)
+
+Pg. 120, "off" changed to "of" (or of ill-treating them in any way)
+
+Pg. 121, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". (agree in consequence
+of the difference)
+
+Pg. 122, "risult" changed to "result". (but the result of the
+circumstances)
+
+Pg. 124, "altained" changed to "attained". From author's original
+errata. (attained or the future)
+
+Pg. 126, caption of illustration following this page, "Bois practising
+shooting" changed to "Boys practising shooting".
+
+Pg. 128, "egual" changed to "equal". From author's original errata.
+(all are equal)
+
+Pg. 131, "economic" changed to "financial". From author's original
+errata. (financial conditions to permit the formation)
+
+Pg. 133, "conseguence" changed to "consequence". From author's original
+errata. (The immediate consequence of)
+
+Pg. 134, "withont" changed to "without". From author's original errata.
+(and without any hope of reward)
+
+Pg. 139, "same" changed to "same time". From author's original errata.
+(has, at the same time, to)
+
+Pg. 139, "civilizied" changed to "civilized". (with what civilized)
+
+Pg. 141, "obbliged" changed to "obliged". From author's original
+errata. (I have been obliged)
+
+Pg. 141, "boudaries" changed to "boundaries". (the boundaries of
+village)
+
+Pg. 141, "settlments" changed to "settlements". (these settlements that
+I have)
+
+Pg. 143, "to-morow" changed to "to-morrow". (to-morrow a common danger)
+
+Pg. 143, "betwen" changed to "between" (which exists between)
+
+Pg. 146, "appetising" changed to "appetizing". From author's original
+errata. (into appetizing capons)
+
+Pg. 150, "inventary" changed to "inventory". (the inventory of their
+kitchen)
+
+Pg. 153, "Notwithslanding" changed to "Notwithstanding".
+(Notwithstanding this sharpening)
+
+Pg. 158, glossary entry under "Evil", "sonnd" changed to "sound".
+(_alphabetical sound of_ e)
+
+Pg. 161, "scems" changed to "seems". (that seems to be composed)
+
+Pg. 162, "attemps" changed to "attempts". (renounces all attempts)
+
+Pg. 171, "indipendence" changed to "independence". (their "spirit of
+independence")
+
+Footnote 15, "chineloy" changed to "chinneloy". From author's original
+errata. (Pronounced _chinneloy_)
+
+Pg. 180, "contorsion" changed to "contortion". (every jump and
+contortion)
+
+Pg. 184, "de" changed to "do". (Sakais do not refuse)
+
+Pg. 184, "reasou" changed to "reason". (reason the terrible beast)
+
+Pg. 184, "Spirt" changed to "Spirit". (Evil Spirit who is continually)
+
+Pg. 184, "wcked" changed to "wicked". (play his wicked tricks)
+
+Pg. 184, "serinity" changed to "serenity". (the serenity of their
+simple minds)
+
+Pg. 184, "frequenty" changed to "frequently". (hurricanes that
+frequently)
+
+Pg. 185, "thay" changed to "they". (evil spirits that they believe)
+
+Pg. 186, "esixtence" changed to "existence". (the existence of a Good
+Spirit)
+
+Pg. 186, "os" changed to "as". (so much so as never)
+
+Pg. 186, "II" changed to "It". (It must also be considered)
+
+Pg. 187, "falshood" changed to "falsehood". From author's original
+errata. (tell you a falsehood)
+
+Pg. 188, "siezed" changed to "seized". (seized with great terror)
+
+Pg. 189, "imdetuous" presumed to be "impetuous". This text has several
+instances of inverted letters, as though the type-setter placed the
+type upside down. (The impetuous currents of air)
+
+Pg. 189, "twoo" changed to "two". (two-fold office)
+
+Pg. 189, "breaded" presumed to be "dreaded", which makes more sense in
+context (see the dreaded Being)
+
+Pg. 189, "scceeds" changed to "succeeds". (and succeeds in over-ruling)
+
+Pg. 189, "to" changed to "to". (in order to ascertain)
+
+Pg. 189, "notwithstending" changed to "notwithstanding".
+(notwithstanding the cabalistic)
+
+Pg. 189, "sesisting" changed to "resisting". (resisting and defeating
+him)
+
+Pg. 189, "kflled" changed to "killed". has overcome and killed him)
+
+Pg. 189, "upringht" changed to "upright". (in an upright position)
+
+Pg. 190, "dayu" changed to "days". (For seven days continual)
+
+Pg. 190, "provider" changed to "provided". (it is provided with)
+
+Pg. 190, "fother's" changed to "father's". (his father's dignity)
+
+Pg. 190, "keed" changed to "keep". (alone to keep watch)
+
+Pg. 190, "ir" changed to "in". (incense-pan in which he burns)
+
+Pg. 190, "spyng" changed to "spying". (of spying his actions)
+
+Pg. 190, "ningt's" changed to "night's". (the night's proceedings)
+
+Pg. 190, "alght" changed to "alight". (continues to keep alight)
+
+Pg. 190, "slinghtest" changed to "slightest". (the slightest movement
+of fear)
+
+Pg. 190, "sciene" changed to "science". (the occult science of his)
+
+Pg. 191, "the had watchad". Either a word is missing after "the", or
+"the" was meant to be "he". Changed to "he had watched". (proof that he
+had watched that night)
+
+Pg. 191, "suol" changed to "soul". (soul of the dead man)
+
+Pg. 191, "pzwer" changed to "power". (power would be lost)
+
+Pg. 191, "moltals" changed to "mortals". (poor mortals around)
+
+Pg. 191, "efficatious" changed to "efficacious". (venomous virtue more
+efficacious)
+
+Pg. 192, "throug" changed to "through". (opening left through the)
+
+Pg. 192, "patien's budy" changed to "patient's body". (from the
+patient's body)
+
+Pg. 192, "thereforo be heriocally" changed to "therefore be
+heroically". (must therefore be heroically fought)
+
+Pg. 192, "villagn" changed to "village". (The village in which the)
+
+Pg. 192, "forbibben" changed to "forbidden". (light is absolutely
+forbidden)
+
+Pg. 193, "But is" changed to "But it is". From author's original
+errata. (But it is intended)
+
+Pg. 193, "succomb" changed to "succumb". (if he does not succumb)
+
+Pg. 193, "corpe" changed to "corpse". (leave the corpse)
+
+Pg. 194, "aud" changed to "and". (performed and they regularly)
+
+Pg. 199, "aed" changed to "and". (and makes abundant ablutions)
+
+Pg. 199, "Sakia" changed to "Sakai". Sakai is presumed to be the word
+most likely intended. (death of a Sakai)
+
+Pg. 199, "aven" changed to "even". (not require even the intervention)
+
+Pg. 200, "bi" changed to "by". (by distraction of thought)
+
+Pg. 200, "partticular" changed to "particular". (have no particular)
+
+Pg. 200, single quote mark changed to comma. (cooking their food,
+preparing their poisons)
+
+Pg. 200, "nigt" changed to "night". (warming them during the night)
+
+Pg. 200, "mathes" changed to "matches". (I gave them matches)
+
+Pg. 200, "Thek" changed to "They". (They may be briefly summed)
+
+Pg. 200, "stil" changed to "still". (are still under the thick)
+
+Pg. 200, "dobt" changed to "doubt". (bright light of a first doubt)
+
+Pg. 200 "far" changed to "for", appears more appropriate in context.
+(creatures for whom the discouraging counsel)
+
+Footnote 18, "studyng" changed to "studying". (without studying it)
+
+Pg. 201, "pratice" changed to "practice". (the practice of morality)
+
+Pg. 201, added full-stop at end of sentence (they do not understand or
+cannot.)
+
+Pg. 202, Chapter XV summary. An entire line "The _labar_, _lampat_,
+_mase_ and _loo_" appears to be missing as can be seen from the
+equivalent summary paragraph in the Table of Contents.
+
+Pg. 202, Chapter XV summary. "Nai Bretaks" is given as "Mai Bretaks" in
+the table of contents. Original text preserved in both cases.
+
+Pg. 207, "triomphantly" changed to "triumphantly". (victors carry it
+triumphantly)
+
+Pg. 207, "sch" changed to "such". (There is such a rich)
+
+Pg. 207, "areparation" changed to "preparation". (preparation of
+poisons)
+
+Pg. 207, "famigliar" changed to "familiar" (most familiar are)
+
+Pg. 207, "Jnst" changed to "Just". (Just as a gun)
+
+Pg. 207, "Sakais doen" changed to "Sakai does". Includes author's
+original errata. (the Sakai does not waste)
+
+Pg. 208, "frepuently" changed to "frequently". (the other is
+frequently)
+
+Pg. 208, "properrties" changed to "properties". (contain miraculous
+properties)
+
+Pg. 208, "soffee" changed to "coffee". (coffee, sugar, rice)
+
+Pg. 209, "intollerably" changed to "intolerably". (that itch
+intolerably)
+
+Pg. 211, "ealled" changed to "called". (climber called _lemmak
+kapiting_)
+
+Pg. 214, "ander" changed to "under". (its nest under the leaves of)
+
+Pg. 215, "_of scudiscio_" changed to "of _scudiscio_". Author's style
+was to italicise non-English words but there did not seem to be a
+reason to italicise the word "of" and this is possibly a typographical
+error. (with a band of _scudiscio_ and)
+
+Pg. 216, "Lucretuis" changed to "Lucretius". (the poem of Lucretius
+Carus!)
+
+Pg. 221, "Kedak" probably refers to the place now more commonly spelled
+"Kedah", however the original text has been preserved. (Kedak and
+Kelantan)
+
+Pg. 224, "propogation" changed to "propagation". (propagation of the
+malady)
+
+Pg. 225, "seream" changed to "scream". (Hearing her scream the husband)
+
+Pg. 228, "nowithstanding" changed to "notwithstanding".
+(notwithstanding all this)
+
+Pg. "229" "to day" changed to "to-day" (that to-day the Sakais no
+longer)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Friends the Savages, by
+Giovanni Battista Cerruti
+
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