Trapping Wild Animals in Malay Jungles

by Charles Mayer

Overview

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781023489874
Publisher:	Anson Street Press
Publication date:	03/29/2025
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.31(d)

Read an Excerpt

II JUNGLE STRATAGEMS ' I VHE entire population of Palembang came to marvel at the size of the python, and, before I realized it, I had acquired a wonderful and widespread 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 fikir (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 "barang-kdli (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 in the side. I chest with an 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 atrue Malay. I found it best, in trying to get information from a Malay, to ask my questio...