dance
of good food.

The Major sent a boat, as he had promised, to take home my baggage,
while I walked through the forest with my two boys and a guide, about
fourteen miles. For the first half of the distance there was no path,
and we had often to cut our way through tangled rattans or thickets of
bamboo. In some of our turnings to find the most practicable route,
I expressed my fear that we were losing our way, as the sun being
vertical, I could see no possible clue to the right direction. My
conductors, however, laughed at the idea, which they seemed to
consider quite ludicrous; and sure enough, about half way, we suddenly
encountered a little hut where people from Licoupang came to hunt and
smoke wild pigs. My guide told me he had never before traversed the
forest between these two points; and this is what is considered by some
travellers as one of the savage "instincts," whereas it is merely the
result of wide general knowledge. The man knew the topography of the
whole district; the slope of the land, the direction of the streams, the
belts of bamboo or rattan, and many other indications of locality and
direction; and he was thus enabled to hit straight upon the hut, in
the vicinity of which he had often hunted. In a forest of which he knew
nothing, he would be quite as much at a loss as a European. Thus it is,
I am convinced, with all the wonderful accounts of Indians finding their
way through trackless forests to definite points; they may never have
passed straight between the two particular points before, but they
are well acquainted with the vicinity of both, and have such a general
knowledge of the whole country, its water system, its soil and its
vegetation, that as they approach the point they are to reach, many
easily-recognised indications enable them to hit upon it with certainty.

The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan palms
hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on the ground,
often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first how they can get
into such queer shapes; but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall
of the trees up which they have first climbed, after which they grow
along the ground until they meet with another trunk up which to ascend.
A tangled mass of twisted living rattan, is therefore, a sign that at
some former period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be
not the slightest vestige of it left. The rattan seems to have unlimited