V.] THE OCEANIC NEGROES: NEGRITOES. 163 



others, are found now and then in the deep recesses of the forests. 

 A Semang chief tells how " many moons ago " he and his two 

 brothers, when following the trail of a wounded stag, found it 

 lying by a brook, killed by a larger arrow than theirs, and that 

 instant looking up, on hearing a loud threatening cry in a strange 

 tongue, he beheld a gigantic pale-skinned woman breaking through 

 the jungle, and then his elder brother fell pierced by an arrow. 

 He escaped by flight, and alone lived to tell the tale, for the two 

 brothers were never seen again. 



Mr Clifford, who relates this story 1 , and has perhaps been more 

 intimately associated with the "Orang-utan" (Wild men) as the 

 Malays often call them, than any other white man, 

 describes those of the Plus River valley as "like Appearance. 

 African Negroes seen through the reverse end of a 

 field-glass. They are sooty-black in colour ; their hair is short 

 and woolly, clinging to the scalp in little crisp curls ; their noses 

 are flat, their lips protrude, and their features are those of the 

 pure negroid type. They are sturdily built and well set upon 

 their legs, but in stature little better than dwarfs. They live by 

 hunting, and have no permanent dwellings, camping in little 

 family groups wherever, for the moment, game is most plentiful 2 ." 



Their shelters huts they cannot be called are exactly 

 like the frailest of the Andamanese, mere lean-to's 



Usages. 



of matted palm-leaves crazily propped on rough 

 uprights; clothes they have next to none, and their food is 

 chiefly yams and other jungle roots, fish from the stream, and 

 sun-dried monkey, venison and other game, this term having an 

 elastic meaning. Salt, being rarely obtainable, is a great luxury, 

 as amongst almost all wild tribes. Some Chinese rock-salt, once 

 brought to an encampment by Mr Clifford, was eagerly clutched 

 and swallowed in handfuls. "This coarse stuff would take the 

 skin off the tongues of most human beings who attempted 

 to eat it in this way, but I suppose that nature gives the Semang 

 the power to take in abnormally large quantities at one time, 

 because his opportunities of eating it in small daily instalments 



1 In Court and Kaiiipong, 1897, p. 179 sq. 

 ' Op. fit. p. 172. 



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