Part 3

The entire population of Palembang came to marvel at the size of the python, and, before I realized it, I had acquired a wonderful and wide-spread reputation as a collector. I was soon besieged by requests to go out and capture all kinds of enormous animals--most of them imaginary, of course, for a Malay can imagine anything. Once he starts with "_Sahya fîkir_ (I think)," you may expect to hear many wonderful tales if you have time to stop and listen to him.

To Malays nothing seems impossible, and it is difficult to hold them down to actual facts. They will hedge about with "I think" and "_bârang-kâli_ (perhaps)" until you give up in disgust; and then they will offer to bring their brothers or other relatives, who will repeat the performance. Sometimes I used to spend hours in wondering how their minds worked, and I came to the conclusion that they talk merely with a desire to please. They want to tell anything you want to hear, regardless of whether it is true or not. It is exasperating and occasionally funny. For instance, several years after I left Sumatra, I was traveling through the jungle, looking for elephants. At one village I talked with the Malay headman, who represented the government in that locality, and the conversation turned to large elephants. Jumbo, who was eleven feet two inches, had died, and I had it in my mind that I should like to find an animal big enough to take his place. "Have you ever seen a twelve-foot elephant?" I asked the headman. And as quick as a flash, he answered, "How many do you want?" He could not understand why I rolled back on the floor and laughed until my jaws ached. The headman was a true Malay.

I found it best, in trying to get information from a Malay, to ask my question and then, before he had a chance to speak, say: "_Jângan fîkir--jawâb ya tîdak_. _Sahya bûlih fîkir_. (Don't think--answer yes or no. I'll do the thinking)." Then he would generally admit immediately that he didn't know, but he would always offer to bring his brother or some other person that he thought might know. It is a trait that makes business relations between the whites and the natives difficult, and is to a large degree responsible for the fact that much of the business in the Archipelago is done through the Chinese. The Chinese have sufficient patience and understanding to deal with the Malays, and they know how to make them work.

There are two distinct classes of Malay: the _Orang Ulu_, living in the jungle, and the _Orang Laut_, living on the coast. Through their association with the Chinese merchants, some of the latter develop into clever dealers, but for the most part they are content to spend their lives in loafing. They work when they need money, but they need so little of it that they can afford to idle along through life. When the supply of food runs low, they put out in their boats at daybreak and return at sundown with fish. These are sorted and left to dry, afterward sorted again, according to their market value, and sold to the Chinese, who ship them in palm-leaf baskets to Singapore. Then the Malays have finished their work for another month or so. Often the merchant advances money for future delivery, and the Malays find themselves obliged to work for long periods to keep from being punished for debt. That is a favorite method of making them work. They consider themselves gentlemen and despise the Chinese as pig-eating heathens. If they must submit to working for the Chinese merchants, they have the satisfaction of watching the coolies do most of the hard labor while they spend their days at games.

The day's routine while I stayed in Palembang with the old hadji was simple and pleasant. I lived with him and his first wife--he had three others. We rose early and went for a swim in the river, and then, squatting on the floor and eating with our fingers, we breakfasted on fish and rice. After breakfast, the hadji and I would stretch out on our mats and smoke and talk until my servant came to prepare my lunch. A Malay eats but two meals a day--always rice and fish--but I found that two weren't enough for me. After lunch I slept through the heat of the day, with the thermometer climbing up to about 125°. Then, when evening came, Palembang stirred into life.

The Malays liked games and they were continually after me to show them some new kind of kindergarten pastime. It made no difference whether it was tag or diving into buckets of treacle after money; if it was a game, they liked it. Some of them knew how to play chess and they gave whole days and nights to it. They are especially fond of gambling, and they repeatedly lose all their money and borrow from the kind merchant, with the result that, to make good their debts, they spend weeks in fishing.

Occasionally I went to the Dutch quarter to seek a few hours of companionship with white people, but I got little satisfaction out of these visits because I could speak better Malay than Dutch, and at Palambang there were few people who knew English. The white people could not understand why I preferred living with the natives, and some of them looked down on me for it. However, that fact did not trouble me, because I knew what I wanted and I was on the way to getting it. With the hadji I learned the Malay language rapidly, and before long I knew the natives far better than the average white man who goes to work in the Archipelago. For the most part, the whites make no effort to understand them and are thus largely responsible for the troubles that arise. In recent years, the attitude of the colonial governments has changed for the better and there have been fewer disturbances.

The natives came to have confidence in me, especially after the capture of the python, and accepted me as a friend. Often during the evening, when the hadji and I sat talking on the veranda, thirty or forty natives would squat near us, listening to the conversation. If the hadji or I cracked a joke, they would laugh uproariously--not that they understood what had been said, but simply because they wanted to do the proper thing.

The hadji's nephew, Ali, became my devoted servant. He was about twenty years old and far more intelligent than the average; also he was brave and resourceful--qualities that made him my most valuable aid until he was killed during one of our expeditions several years later.

When I went to Singapore with the python, I took Ali with me, and for weeks after, he entertained the natives of Palembang--and me--with his stories of what he had seen and done. It was an excellent example of the feats that Malay imagination can perform.

In Singapore I found an agent of Cross, of Liverpool, of whom I have spoken, and sold the snake to him for $300 (Mexican), which was considered a banner price. I was glad to have the opportunity of making myself known to the agent, because I foresaw future commissions. He, like many others, was tired of doing business with Mahommed Ariff, who took every possible advantage of his customers, and he was pleased to find a white man in the field of collecting.

We re-crated the python and shipped him off to Liverpool, after feeding him twelve ducks each day for five days. With that stomachful, he could last out the entire voyage and arrive in England with a good appetite.

It was difficult to get the Malays from the coast to go up into the jungle. They fear it and have superstitions about the _hantu_ that live there. Most of the men refused point-blank when I asked them to accompany me, and others thought of various things they had to do at Palembang. Ali was willing, however, and he developed into an expert jungle-man. Boatmen from the coast poled us up the rivers, but they returned to the coast immediately because they were unwilling to remain away from their families.

It was after my return to Palembang that I became acquainted with the inland of Sumatra and with the Orang Ulu, who are quite different from their brothers on the coast. They are more industrious and have not lost their simplicity and honesty by coming into contact with Chinese business methods. They received us kindly and I had no difficulty in making friends with them. During the next year I spent much of my time inland, in hunting and fishing, and I discovered that Sumatra was not the field for collecting that I had expected it to be. But it served my purposes of learning the language and becoming acquainted with the people quite as well as any other part of the Archipelago would have done; and I was too busy studying jungle-craft from the Orang Ulu to think of leaving. Ali, who was always with me, was an invaluable aid. He was a first-rate spear-thrower, but he wanted to be a good shot. He took great pride in my 50-110 express gun, which he carried behind me. He had a trait peculiar in Malays--he was always busy. And he spent a great deal of his energy in cleaning and polishing the gun, hoping for the great reward of being allowed to shoot it. Eventually he became a good marksman. The other servant who accompanied me on my trips into the jungle was a Chinese coolie. He had been my rickshaw boy and I promoted him to the position of cook and store-keeper. Ali was intensely jealous of him but they worked well together.

Though the natives made a sport of spear-throwing, they had given over that method of hunting. They were armed with guns that I honestly believe dated back to Revolutionary times--old, muzzle-loading flintlocks. Where they got them I have never been able to discover. They were fascinated by my 50-110, of course, and, when Ali cleaned it, they squatted about him, wide-eyed. Whenever I saw a native about to shoot his old muzzle-loader, I yelled to him to wait until I got well behind, because the thing sometimes exploded. It was a wonder to me that it didn't always explode. Except when he was after small game, a native loaded his gun nearly to the end of the muzzle with powder before putting in the wads and a huge slug of metal. When he pulled the trigger, he closed his eyes and flinched because the recoil always knocked him flat. But he expected that and cheerfully picked himself up from the ground with the question, "Did I hit it?" And often he did hit it--if the barrel did not explode. I have seen some of the natives with ordinary iron pipe fitted on their guns to replace the barrels that had not been able to stand the strain.

I learned in the jungle that the hunter must always be on the lookout for the unexpected. At first it was difficult for me to distinguish between all the sights and sounds and to interpret each of them, but I soon learned under the tuition of the natives. One great danger came from the leopards, both spotted and black, who lie along the limbs of trees and spring without warning. A tiger slinks away when disturbed in the daytime, but a leopard almost always stands his ground and springs as one passes beneath him. And he can do more biting and scratching in one minute than a tiger can in three or four minutes.

Ali's alertness saved me one day from a terrible mauling, if not from death. We were breaking through the jungle on our way to some traps; Ali shouted and pushed me to one side, shoving my gun into my hands. I looked up, setting my gun, just as a black leopard sprang. Ali's spear whizzed by my head, I fired, catching the animal in mid-air squarely in the chest with an explosive bullet. Ali's spear hit him in the side. I took it as a good lesson in carefulness. It was well enough to be on the alert for the animal I was trailing, but it was also important to be on the alert for the animal that might be trailing me.

A favorite native method of hunting is with birdlime, which is a mucilage made from the gum of a tree. In catching tigers or leopards, the hunter spreads out the birdlime where they will pass and carefully covers it with leaves. Immediately after a cat animal has put his foot in the stuff, he becomes so enraged and helpless that he is easily captured. It is very much like putting butter on a house cat's paws to keep him busy until he becomes accustomed to a new home. The tiger or leopard that steps in birdlime doesn't step gracefully out of it and run away; he tries to bite the stuff from his feet and then he gets it on his face. When he tries to rub it off, he plasters it over his eyes. Finally, when he is thoroughly covered with it, he is so helpless that without much danger he can be put into a cage; and there he spends weeks in working patiently to remove the gum from his fur. Birds and monkeys are captured in birdlime smeared on the limbs of trees; they stay in it until some one goes up and pulls them out.

Another way of capturing small monkeys is by means of a sweetened rag in a bottle. The bottle is covered with green rattan and tied to a tree. The monkey puts his hand through the neck and grabs the rag. He cannot pull his hand out while it is doubled up with the rag in it, and he hasn't sense enough to let go. There he sticks, fighting with the bottle, until the hunter comes along and, by pressing the nerves in his elbow, forces him to open his hand and leave the rag for the next monkey.

We snared and trapped many small animals and occasionally built pit-traps for tapirs. The natives sometimes used pits for marsh elephants, but I have never seen elephants captured in them without being injured. They are so heavy that they hurt themselves in falling.

The marsh elephants in Sumatra are not worth the trouble of capturing, since they are weaker, shorter lived and less intelligent than the other breeds. They bring a low price, and consequently only the babies, which can be handled and transported easily, ever reach the market. The usual procedure among the natives is to shoot the mother and take the baby. It is little like the real game of elephant hunting as I found it later in Trengganu and Siam.

Dynamiting for fish is a great sport among the Malays. It is done, of course, with the maximum chatter and excitement. The natives line the banks of the stream while the dynamite is dropped; then they rush off, some in boats and some of them swimming, to collect the fish that come to the surface.

Drugging fish is another method of capturing them wholesale without much trouble or work. For this purpose the natives use a mixture of lime and the sap from the roots of a tuba tree. They first warn the villages down-stream so that the people will not drink any of the water; then they pour out the white liquid. It spreads over the stream, making the fish _mâbok_ (drunk), as the Malays say. They rise to the surface and are gathered into boats.

Except for such annoyances as insects and leeches, which fastened on my skin as I walked through the jungle, those days in Sumatra were delightful. We hunted, fished and played games; there was nothing to worry about and little work to do. I was accepted by the natives as one of them. I wore a _sârong_ over my trousers, and I shouldn't have worn the trousers if my skin had not been so sensitive to the insects. And, of course, I had shoes--the great barrier between castes. The Malays of the coast towns sometimes, but not often, wear shoes, and even then it is more a matter of showing-off than of being comfortable. I did everything possible to minimize the differences between us because I wanted to know them as they were, not as they thought I wanted them to be. They rapidly lost their self-consciousness and treated me simply as a companion who knew more than they knew--and who had a wonderful gun and a kit of medicine.

In jungle countries white men are always supposed to possess great knowledge of medicines and curing, and I was often called upon to act as doctor. At first the Malays showed some hesitancy at accepting the _ôrang pûteh ûbat_ (the white man's medicine), but gradually they became less shy. During my circus days I had acquired a knowledge of first-aid work, and in the jungle I became quite proficient in patching people up. They believed that most ailments could be cured by their own doctors, who heal by magic, but they were glad to have me prescribe for them when magic failed to work.

The Malay doctor is supposed to be favored by a spirit, and a _bâtu bintang_ (star stone) is given to him while he sleeps. In other words, he is made and not born a doctor. His bâtu bintang is just one of the charms with which he effects cures. He has a bâtu that is a petrified part of a Sembilan fish. Water in which this has been soaked is given to the patient to drink or is rubbed on the part affected. Other charms are the _bâtu lintar_ (thunderbolt), which is rubbed wherever pain is felt; another bâtu, also a thunderbolt, which is a piece of crystal; a bâtu that is part of the backbone of some animal; one that is another piece of crystal; and, finally, the pelican stone. This last is the most highly prized of all. It secures the magic presence and coöperation of a spirit that dwells in the pelican. When the doctor is seeking to enter the spirit world in search of the soul of the sick person, this spirit ensures to him a swift passage there and back. The crystal stone is indispensable in discovering where the wandering soul of the sick person is in hiding and for detecting the spirit who is causing the sickness. And the backbone bâtu cures dysentery, indigestion and consumption.

In practicing medicine for the benefit of the natives, I worked out one theory in regard to leprosy, which is a fairly common ailment in the Archipelago. I asked myself why, since a snake sheds its skin, a man who is afflicted with disease should not be able to do the same thing.

In Singapore there was a rich Chinese leper, known as Ong Si Chou, who asked me repeatedly why I did not bring him some new remedy for his disease. Since he had a large household of servants who took care of him, and his own carriages and rickshaws when he traveled, he was allowed to live untroubled by the authorities; but he was very unhappy, because he had tried all the remedies of the native doctors and was steadily growing worse. At last I told him that I had something that might help. He asked me what it was but I would not tell him. When he insisted, I answered, "Snakes."

"Uh-la!" he exclaimed, waving his arms in the air. Then I explained my theory. The ability of a snake to shed his skin might be transferred to a human being if he ate snakes; and if so, the person would be able to shed his leprosy. Ong Si Chou did not care for the idea at all, but I told him it was worth trying and I argued that a snake is much cleaner than an eel. At last he consented, and I furnished him with a number of small pythons, with the instructions that they were to be killed and cleaned immediately before they were eaten. He was to eat them raw with his rice.

I left Singapore soon after that, and, when I returned, I found that Ong Si Chou had died. People thought it was a great joke on me because my patient had not survived the treatment, but I am far from being convinced that the cure will not work--or, at least, help to throw off leprosy. Ong Si Chou was in the last stages of the disease, and his case was not a fair test.

After living eighteen months with the Malays in Sumatra, I decided that I was well enough equipped to leave and begin the work of collecting wherever I could find the animals I wanted, I went to Singapore and found that Ariff had been maligning me to his heart's content I called upon him to see what he had to say for himself and he prophesied dismal failure for all my plans. However, I engaged passage on a coast steamer going northward, and stopped off at Kelantan, Patani and Singgora, in Lower Siam. At those places I gathered all the information I could about animals and made myself known to dealers. I wanted to make trips to the interior, but to do so I needed a special permit from Bangkok. Instead, I made agreements with all the dealers that they were to send their animals to me, and arranged with the captains and chinchus of the coast-boats for the transportation of the crates. By offering to pay the freight and give them a fair share of the profit, I cut off a large part of Ariff's business.

On my return to Singapore, I found a letter from the director of the Melbourne Zoölogical Society, suggesting that I come to Australia with a consignment of animals. A few weeks later I arrived at Melbourne with a black leopard, twenty-five small monkeys, two small orang-outangs, a pair of civet cats and numerous other animals. Mr. La Souef, the director, and his son, who had just been appointed director of the zoölogical gardens at Perth, met me at the dock. His son bought the entire consignment. The result of this visit was my appointment as agent of the Australian zoölogical gardens. In return for giving them first call on any animals that came into my hands, I was given a retaining fee. The most important part of the agreement was that the animals were to be shipped f.o.b. Singapore and that I was thus released from all the risks of transportation.

It happened too often that animals died aboard ship, after weeks had been spent in capturing them and bringing them to port, and this loss was invariably borne by the dealer. Since the agreement with the Australian zoölogical gardens was exactly what I wanted, I returned to Singapore elated. Ariff was crestfallen when he heard the news, and he became more crestfallen when I called on him and told him about the commission I had received from various societies in Australia. I did not want to have him as an enemy, and I foresaw that there would be war between us unless we came to some sort of terms. Consequently, I told him that I wanted to work with him, and that we could do a great deal of business together if he would treat me fairly. He considered the matter for a time, and then, when he saw that I was getting much higher prices for animals than he, he decided that I was right.

One of my Australian commissions was to secure for the New Gardens, at Perth, a pair of tigers--male and female and unrelated. I sent the word out among animal dealers, and, shortly after, I received a cable from a Calcutta dealer named Rutledge, asking me to come at once. I took the next boat to Calcutta and found that there were two tigers up-country near Hazaribagh, a mica mining district about three hundred miles northwest of Calcutta, off the line of the railroad.

I was warned that it was a dangerous country to go through and that the people were thieves. It was suggested to me that I hire a native of the locality to protect me. He would do all the stealing; he could, they told me, but he would prevent the others from stealing.

The trip was made with a retinue of servants, cooks, bearers and runners, each with his own little task. It was my first experience with the caste system, and I was amazed at the number of people I had to take with me. We traveled by the main road for two hundred miles; then by a branch road to a place called Pachamba. The remainder of the trip was made by ox-teams and bearers, along the line of the government rest-houses erected for the use of officials visiting the country.