pirit 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