placing their victims in groups
of _neer_ (three) until they amount to three threes but should the
number exceed nine they simply declare them to be _jeho e_ (many) and do
not care about knowing anything more precise as they are satisfied at
the fact that they, and any of their relations who like to partake of
the feast, can live upon game until it is all finished.

Many times I have amused myself by asking a prolific father or mother
how many children they had. My friends would get as far as three but
then becoming confused would beg me to count them for myself, and their
offspring had to pass in front of me whilst they called each by name,
for example: _Roy_ (boy) _No_ (boy) _Taynah_ (girl) _Po lo_ (boy) _Tay
lep_ (girl) _Betah_ (girl).

Counting them upon my fingers I would tell the parent or parents that
they were six, to which they agreed with:

"If you say they are six, they are six".

It is more difficult still for the Sakais to count time. They imagine
pretty nearly what hour it is by the position of the sun overhead or
from the various sounds which come from the forest announcing, as I have
already said, morning, noon, and evening, and during the night the
_crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ of the wild beasts' roaring proclaim the
hours before and after midnight.

The shortest measure of time that the Sakais understand is that employed
in smoking a cigarette.

They observe, although not with much precision, the phases of the moon
that they gladly greet at her appearance but they do not feel any
curiosity in knowing where she has gone and where she remains when they
do not enjoy her soft light at night and during their dances.

The flowering of certain plants and the ripening of certain fruits gives
the Sakai a faint idea of the longest period of time they are capable of
imagining and which is about equal to our year. The seasons, which
cannot here be recognized by diversity of temperature, are distinguished
by the gathering and storing away of those fruits that supply them with
food at regular intervals of time, such as the _durian_ season, that of
the _bua pra_, the _dukon_ and the _giu blo lol_.

I think it would be quite impossible to find out the right age of a
Sakai. Sometimes after the birth of a child its parents will cut a notch
in the bark of a tree every time the season when he was born returns.
But these signs never continue very long because even if the father or
mother have not been compelled to