Part 7

It seemed that when the tiger first attempted to break out of his cage on board the steamer and the carpenter was ordered to get some boards and cover the hole he had been tearing, as the head showed against the opening the carpenter struck it with his hammer. The deer and smaller animals became terrified, and in their endeavor to escape, the deer's legs got through the slats in the crates; they broke their legs and had to be killed. This I was told later by Captain Edwards, who said it all happened within a few minutes, Mr. La Souef running about like a madman, begging this and that, getting in the way of everybody, but no one paying any attention to him, and what with the excitement among the passengers, the roaring of the tigers, barking of the bears, chatter of monkeys and crying of the smaller cats, and the frantic efforts of the deer to break through the crates, he was only adding to the confusion and disorder, until Captain Edwards ordered the water hose brought into play to quiet the animals. He told the carpenter to get some boards and nail up the opening the tiger had made, then having a sling put about the cage with the tiger snarling and biting and tearing at the opening it had started, but now covered by the planks, swung it over the side of the ship and there it hung. The captain then had the cages taken off the hatch and placed against the side of the steamer, telling Mr. La Souef that if he did not keep quiet he would have the whole shipment put over the side and dumped into the harbor.

That was the story Captain Edwards told me on his return trip to Singapore, and he laughed heartily over the way he said Mr. La Souef was hopping about in his pajamas.

My bill against the Society for services, paying for the lighter the tiger was put into from the steamer, labor, recaging, feeding for twenty-one days, and enough food for eighteen to twenty-one days' voyage to Melbourne seemed to Mr. La Souef an overcharge and my bill of £50 all out of proportion; as the tiger was a gift from the Sultan of Johore and not purchased. I insisted and drew on him for that amount, at the same time resigning as agent for his society, telling him that although he was an older man, he had still to learn the art of caging, recaging and shipping animals, not receiving them, and that had he not insisted on having things done his own way with cheap material, and had left it to me, what happened could not have happened, as barely one-third of his shipment landed alive.

By the time I had disposed of the last of my elephants, I was so sick with the fever that I could not leave my bed. I was dangerously ill and I began to realize that I should be lucky if I escaped with my life.

Mr. Lambert, who had been my friend ever since I landed at Singapore to enter the animal business, engaged passage for me on a steamer bound for Europe and took charge of the affairs of my animal house in Orchard Road. When it was time to go to the steamer, my Chinese coolie boy carried me. He is the only Chinese I have ever seen cry; the tears rolled down his cheeks as he carried me up the gangplank and to my cabin, for he thought that he should never see me again. I rather thought so myself, but I figured that if they didn't drop me into the Red Sea, which is the last resting-place of so many people who have stayed too long in the tropics, I should recover and live to return.

Ali and the coolie waited faithfully for me during the next year, while I traveled in Europe and America, recuperating and gathering new commissions for animals. And, when I came back, they were on the dock to welcome me.

Though my health was much improved by the voyage I did not feel able to resume the active business of collecting, and so I concentrated my efforts upon my animal house and made it the largest place of its kind. I had a monopoly of the business. Mahommed Ariff, who had a large number of native collectors working for him, did much of his dealing through me, and I had no difficulty in disposing of all the animals brought in from the jungles by our various agents. My largest market was Australia, where I could sell the animals f.o.b. Singapore without any of the risk of transportation. Also, I made shipments to Hagenbeck, of Germany, and Cross, of Liverpool. Because of the high import duty, I sent comparatively few of my animals to the United States.

John Anderson, who was European adviser to the King of Siam and who had been created a Siamese nobleman, sent for me and offered me a commission that kept me busy for the next five years. The King of Siam was in the habit of making presents of wild animals to foreign rulers, and it became my work to select the animals and supervise all details of shipment. I was sent to interview the Minister of the Interior, H. H. Prince Damerong, who gave me a permit to travel wherever I pleased in Siam and to force labor. In Siam, I directed many hunts, especially for tuskers to be used in the teak forests. The driving was done entirely during the daytime, and on elephants, instead of on foot, as in Treagganu. The fever had left me in bad condition, and so I did not take an active part in the work.

On my trips between Bangkok and Singapore, I stopped off many times at Trengganu to renew my acquaintance with the Sultan and to talk with the native hunters, who were sending a steady stream of animals to me at Singapore. I was known to the natives throughout the Peninsula as _Túan Gâjah_--Sir Elephant--and I was amused to find that the story of the big elephant hunt had grown to incredible proportions. The herd of sixty elephants became larger each time the story was told.

After one exciting incident in the work of shipping animals for the King of Siam, I was allowed full authority. We were sending a pair of beautifully matched leopards to the Emperor of Austria, and they had reached Singapore in two large, poorly constructed cages. Mr. Anderson was there, and we disagreed on the advisability of recaging them. I thought that the cages looked weak and I wished to have my Chinese carpenter build two that would be smaller and stronger. Mr. Anderson, however, was impatient to start the leopards on their voyage, and, since he was boss, we loaded the cages on bullock-carts and headed for the docks. In unloading one of the bullock-carts, the natives allowed the case to slide to the ground too heavily; the cage broke, and out went Mr. Leopard like a flash of lightning, heading straight for the Chinese quarter. The Chinese saw him coming, and a panic started. They tumbled over one another in getting out of the way, and two of them were scratched. The leopard was quite as frightened as any of the Chinese. The natives in charge of the bullock-cart came running for me, and I went to the Chinese quarter to find the leopard. He had taken refuge in a house, and I finally discovered him hiding under the stairs, his eyes shining in the darkness. Since it was impossible to get rid of the mob of Chinese and recaging under the circumstances would have been too dangerous, we had to shoot the animal. We took the other leopard back to Orchard Road and built a new cage.

In 1902, just before the rainy season, I was resting in Singapore after six months of hard work. Just as I had almost decided to go to Europe, I happened to see in an old copy of the _New York Clipper_ an advertisement of a steam merry-go-round. That gave me an idea; there had never been a merry-go-round in the Malay Peninsula, and I was confident enough of my judgment of Malay nature to gamble that it would be a success. Mr. Lambert didn't agree with me. "Forget about it," he advised. "Take the steamer and have a good vacation." But I went to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and cabled $2,000 in gold to the factory at North Tonawanda, New York, with instructions to ship me the merry-go-round on the first boat, via London. It arrived nine weeks later, and it cost me £110 in freight. The rain was beating down steadily in Singapore, and so I transshipped it to Penang.

A few days later, I was in Penang, driving around in a rickshaw, looking for a good location, while the merry-go-round, still in crates, was coming ashore in sampans. Opposite the Hotel de la Paix I found a good open space, and I routed out of bed the Chinese merchant who owned it. I told him that I should like to rent the lot for a show and that, if he would come to terms with me, I would let him and his family ride free of charge. Now a Chinese likes a show better than anything else on earth, and so we were not long in closing a bargain. I was to pay him a rental of $1 Mexican a day and to have an option of two months on the lot. I had no paper on which to write out the agreement, and so, since I didn't want him to change his mind, I paid him $30 for one month, writing the receipt in my pith helmet. He signed in my hat; then we pasted a stamp in it and canceled the stamp by writing the date across it.

While Ali and my coolie boy were getting the merry-go-round unloaded, I collected a gang of laborers and an engineer. All that day we worked at uncrating the merry-go-round and putting it together. The natives stood around, watching us and speculating as to what this strange new thing could possibly be. The merry-go-round ran on wheels on a track and the horses were connected with eccentrics, which worked them up and down; a good loud organ was connected by a belt with one of the wheels. The merry-go-round carried fifty-six people.

I began business on the Chinese New Year's Day. The merry-go-round was the sensation of Penang. The crowds flocked to see it, and the natives lined up for several hundred yards, each with his dime in his hand, waiting for his turn. We were so busy that I could not even go to the hotel for a meal; the brassy organ of the merry-go-round shrieked from early in the morning until late at night. In two days, I took in $1,500 Mexican.

On the third day the merchant from whom I had rented the lot announced that he was going to build a fence around it and charge two cents for the privilege of standing and watching the merry-go-round. I told him that I wouldn't allow it; that all of Penang could come and see my show free. I was too busy taking in dimes to think about fences. He went away angry and disappointed. Four days later a lawyer representing him came to see me. He said that the rent had been raised to $10 a day, and that a dispossess order would be executed unless I paid it. I told the lawyer to wait and I went back to the hotel, to get my pith helmet.

The merchant had forgotten about the receipt. When the lawyer saw it, he told me that the merchant was unpopular with all the Malays and Chinese in Penang because he cheated them, and that they would be delighted if I sued for breach of contract. The result was that, for $1 a day, I got the use of the lot as long as I wanted it.

Within six weeks I had made up the entire cost of the merry-go-round and I was on velvet. The dimes were still rolling in as fast as I could collect them. Finally, when the novelty of my show had worn off and business began to slacken, I shipped to Rangoon, Burma, to collect dimes there. After the merry-go-round had been running two weeks, I was approached by a man who wished to buy me out. I had had all the fun I wanted, and so I sold it to him for 10,000 rupees--$4,500 in gold. He was a government official and consequently did not wish to appear in the transaction. The bill of sale was made out in his wife's name, and a man was hired to run the merry-go-round for him. I stayed for a week to get the enterprise started; then I went up to the lumber mills to see if the lumbermen needed elephants. When I returned to Singapore, I had a commission for six large elephants.

It was a better vacation than I could have had in Europe. I had made many friends and attended to some animal business and I had £700 clear profit in my pockets.

At my animal house I found a letter from Mr. La Soeuf, the director of the Perth Zoölogical Gardens, saying that he was anxious to get a rhinoceros and asking what I could do for him. I did not want to go into the jungle again immediately, for I was afraid of a return of the fever, but I replied that I would see what could be done and I sent out word to all my native agents. Both Mr. La Souef and his father, who was director of the gardens at Melbourne, were great friends of mine, and their gardens had been my best market for animals. Quite naturally, I wanted to do everything I could to help them, and so, when word came from an agent in Trengganu that some rhinoceroses had been located there, I packed up my kit and started out.

At Trengganu, the Sultan welcomed me, and I spent several days with him, telling him what was happening in the world and discussing his problems. The problems were largely financial. He owed some money, and, knowing that he had something in the treasury, I asked why he did not pay his debts.

He thought for a time and then replied: "Well, I'll tell you. If I pay those people, they will forget about the Sultan of Trengganu. If I don't pay them, they'll never forget me."

The conversation turned to the subject of prisoners. On my way to the palace I had passed the cages where the prisoners were kept. Many of them were starving to death, for, unless their friends or family cared for them, they got no food.

"Why don't you feed them?" I asked.

"Why should I?" he replied. "If I feed them, my whole country will want to go to jail."

Finally, after he had satisfied his craving for sociability, he gave me my official permit to go into the interior and to force labor. I started out for the upper end of his state, bordering on Lower Siam. At the mouth of the River Stu, I found my agent; we gathered a crew of ten men and went up the river as far as we could. When the weeds became so thick that we could not force the boats through, we took to the jungle and began cutting our way to the mud-puddle where the rhinoceroses came to wallow.

We took great precautions in approaching the puddle, for once a rhinoceros gets the scent of a hunter, he is off through the jungle as fast as he can go. The hunter, who spots his animal and shoots, has an easy time of it; but the collector, who must capture, has a more difficult Job. He must work and build his trap at the very spot frequented by the animal and he must do so without exciting suspicion. A rhinoceros seldom charges when he sees a man, and his charge is not dangerous, for he is short-sighted and cannot gauge his direction accurately. Most often he runs, and it is almost impossible, even when the collector can find him again, to chase or lure him back to the trap.

No animals were at the puddle when we arrived, and I had a good opportunity to examine the location. Then we withdrew and I told the men how we should go about making the capture. We made camp, building platforms between the trees for living-quarters, and I detailed some of the men to the work on a rattan net, which measured twenty by fifteen feet, with meshes ten inches square. I felt that we had a good chance of getting a rhinoceros in a net-trap and should save ourselves much time and labor if we could do so. When the net was ready, we put it in position at a likely-looking approach--half on the ground, where the animal would step into it, and half suspended, so that he would catch it with his head and bring it down about him.

Then we turned our attention to malting pits. As I have explained before, a heavy animal was sure to injure himself in falling into a square pit such as the natives generally dug, and, of course, an injured animal would have been of no use to me. Hence the four pits that we dug around the puddle were made wedge-shaped, instead of square. They were six feet wide, at the top and tapered to three feet at the bottom; they were eight feet deep and ten feet long, with the approach tapering down so there would be the least possible chance that the beast would injure himself when he fell.

Over the tops of the pits we built platforms of bamboo poles, and covered them with mud and leaves, taking care to leave no traces of our work. To the building of each pit we gave a whole day of hard labor and we were constantly on the alert for fear one of the rhinoceroses might surprise us. Lookouts were already stationed to catch the sounds of the beasts as they broke through the jungle, coming to their bath.

One morning a native came running with the news that a rhinoceros was trapped. We gathered our tools and hurried off to the puddle. There, grunting and fighting, lay a two-ton rhinoceros, firmly wedged in and helpless. When he saw us, he became furious, squirming in the slime of the pit, pounding with his feet and grunting.

I divided my crew, putting half at building a cage of heavy timbers and the others at digging away the ground in front of the beast. By the time the cage was put together and bound securely with rattan, we had an incline running down to the pit, with two feet of earth walling the rhinoceros in. Then we placed skids on the incline and let the cage slide down. A native, who had been sent back to the nearest kampong, or native village, to recruit men and water-buffaloes, had soon returned with a score of other natives, driving six water-buffaloes before them. Then I went through the usual business of holding a meeting and explaining carefully, in the greatest detail, exactly what we were about to do and how we were to do it; what each man was to do and when and how. When they understood perfectly, we set about digging away the wall that separated the rhinoceros from the open end of the cage. With a little more than one foot of earth remaining, we began to prod him. The immense beast pounded his feet on the bottom of the pit, grunting and moving forward as rapidly as he could get foothold. He put his head against the wall and rooted; the wall toppled over, and he lurched out of the pit and into the cage. The natives slipped the end-bar into place.

The capture was finished--but not the work. A rhinoceros cannot be broken and driven through the jungle like an elephant; he must be hauled every foot of the way. With the six water-buffaloes straining and every native giving a hand, we pulled the cage up the incline and mounted it on the runners. It took a week of steady cutting to clear the way, so that we could drag the cage to the Trengganu River. There we built a heavy raft and floated the cage down to port. Another two weeks passed before we could ship the beast to Singapore, for transshipment to Perth.

I received for the animal £200, which was about one quarter of its value. But it was as much as the Perth Zoölogical Gardens could afford to pay, and I was glad to be able to put so fine a specimen into the hands of Mr. La Souef.

One day when I was busy in my animal house, Ali came to me with the message that three natives from Pontianak, Borneo, were outside. They had something important to tell me, Ali said. When they came in, I found that I knew one of them; he was an animal trader from whom I had bought some birds and monkeys. The other two were head-men from the interior of Borneo.

The headmen had gone to the trader with the story of two large orang-outangs that were terrorizing their villages, and the trader was bringing them to me for advice. We sat down in the shade and discussed the situation. The orang-outangs had run off with a young girl and had recently killed one of the men. The natives had tried repeatedly to kill them, but without success, and now they were afraid to venture into the jungle.

For several years I had had a standing order from the Antwerp Zoölogical Gardens for a good specimen of orang-outang, and I had planned to go, just as soon as my health permitted, into Borneo, to see what I could find. Orang-outangs command unlimited prices because they are so hard to capture and, once captured, so difficult to deliver. On account of homesickness and sensitiveness to climatic changes, they die quickly in captivity. A caged orang-outang loses his spirit immediately; he sits brooding over his capture and often refuses all food. On one occasion I shipped eighteen small and medium-sized orang-outangs to San Francisco, hoping to land two or three alive, but they all died before reaching port. If I had been able to deliver a good specimen in the United States, I could have sold it for $5,000.

But here were two full-grown beasts, already located, and waiting for me to try my hand at capturing them. I was greatly interested in the story the two headmen had to tell, and I spent the entire afternoon in listening to them and asking them all manner of questions. They described the country where the orang-outangs made their home, and promised as many men as I needed.

I impressed them with the fact that I was not anxious to make the trip, and I made them promise, as a first consideration, that they would use all their power to prevent the natives from killing the animals if I captured them. I feared that the resentment of the natives against the orang-outangs might lead them to kill the animals for revenge, even after I had them safely caged. They agreed to do as I requested and once again begged me to return with them. I told them to come back the next day and talk with me again. I had already made up my mind, but it is always well to let a native think that one has not quite decided.

When I went to see the Dutch Consul-General and explained the situation, he issued passports for me, and, accompanied by the two headmen, the trader, Ali and my coolie boy, I took the next steamer to Pontianak. At Pontianak, I presented my credentials to the Dutch Resident. He was pleased to hear that I was going after the orang-outangs and he offered to let me have as many native officials as I wished to take along. I thanked him and declined his offer, explaining that I really did not know as yet just what I should need, or how long I should be up-country. As a matter of fact, I did not want his native officials because I knew; that the jungle people have no love for them, and I wanted to have my expedition entirely clear of everything that looked official.

We stayed there for several days, getting supplies together. The trader remained with the party at my request, because he was known by both the coast and the jungle people. From a Chinese he rented a houseboat that I could keep as long as I had need of it. The Borneo houseboats are twenty to twenty-five feet long and five feet wide; they have a bamboo shed, which makes a fairly comfortable room, and are rowed or paddled by six men. With a mattress spread on the floor and mosquito-netting hung about, I could take the trip up the river easily. Omar, one of the headmen, stayed with me in my boat, while Mahommed Munshee, the other headman, went ahead with some of the stores.

On the way up the river we came to the station of Dr. Van Erman, the Dutch medical officer who was in charge of the outlying districts. He insisted that I stay with him for two days at least, and I was glad to do so, for he was the last white man I should see before we tackled the orang-outangs. I was anxious to have the benefit of his knowledge of the natives and the country, and also I found it reassuring, under the circumstances, to have the friendship of a medical man. Later, I became his enforced guest and I have always been thankful for his care.