240 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and deuse forests clieiisli much more heathen notions and greater 

 elaborations of everyday superstitions than the more enlightened 

 and modernized Malays of towns and campongs. In the East, as 

 in the AVest, the man who lives close to Nature " holds communion 

 with her visible forms/' and likewise finds out, or thinks he does, 

 a good deal about her invisible shapes. 



The Malay has on his list of uncanny things the names of sev- 

 eral spirits. Disease is everywhere a great dread of men, and 

 often looked upon as an infliction of the supernatural powers. 

 There are several spirits of sickness recognized among the Malays, 

 but they reserve their greatest horror for the influences of the 

 Hantu Katumhohan, or spirit of smallpox. But other spirits 

 abound; there are some that inhabit the sources of streams, and 

 many that dwell in forests. Mines, too, have their patron gob- 

 lins, which are propitiated by the miners. The sea-going Malay, 

 also, whose vision has been clarified by bitter salt spray, knows 

 and frequently sees the spirits that inhabit certain parts of the 

 ocean. 



The JIaidu Pemhuro, or phantom hunter, is a spirit the Malays 

 take special account of; in general, he seems to resemble the wilde 

 Jdger of German folklore. Long ago, so the story has it, there 

 lived a certain man and his wife in Katapang, in Sumatra. One 



• lay the wife fell sick, and, thinking the flesh of a mouse-deer 

 might strengthen her, she asked her husband to kill one for her. 

 He went forth on the hunt, but was unsuccessful and soon re- 

 turned. His wife now became very angry, and told him to try 

 again — in fact, not to return till he could come home with the 

 covetod game. The man swore a mighty oath, called his dogs, 

 rook his weapons, and set out into the forest. - He wandered and 

 wandered, and always in vain. The days ran into months, the 

 months became years, and still no mouse-deer. At last, despair- 

 ing of finding the animal on earth, he ordered his dogs to bay 

 the stars, and they sprang away through the sky, and he followed. 

 As he walked with ujitnrnod gaze, a loaf foil into his mouth and 

 took root there. 



At home things were not going well. Plis son, born after his 

 departure, when he became a lad, was often taunted by the other 



• •iiildron of the rampovg, and twitted of the fact that his father 

 was a wandering ghost. After hearing the truth from his mother, 

 the boy wont- out into the forest to moot tlu^ hunt<5man. Far from 

 the haunts of riion, in tlio de])lhs <>( the foio^^t, they met and con- 

 versed. The l)oy told of his wrongs, and the father vowed to 

 avenge them, and ever since that time, say the Malays, he has 

 afflicted mankind. At night lie courses through the wood and 



