28 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 



with practically no interference from Mahommed 

 Ariff. I was in constant communication with Gay- 

 lord, who encouraged me in my idea of becoming 

 a collector; also I put myself in touch with the 

 Australian Zoological Society. 



The district in which the hadji lived had a popu- 

 lation of about 100,000, made up of Dutch, Malays 

 and Chinese. Back of the settlement lay the jun- 

 gle; a dense virgin forest of trees that were bound 

 together by a woven mass of creepers and vines. 

 The trunks, rising straight and smooth for fifty or 

 sixty feet, burst into foliage that formed a thick, 

 green canopy, through which the sun rarely filtered. 

 On the ground, the vines, palm ferns, tall grasses 

 and rattan made a wall that only parangs, the native 

 knives, cutting foot by foot, could penetrate. The 

 heat of the open spaces in the tropics is blistering, 

 but that of the jungle is damp and stifling; moisture 

 accumulates, and the light breezes that blow over- 

 head have no chance of moving the air below, which 

 is filled with the smell of rotting vegetation. Espe- 

 cially in the morning, before the sun has a chance 

 to bake the water out, it is a drenching business to 

 go into the jungle. 



Notwithstanding the climate, the sight of such 

 country made me anxious to begin work, and I lost 

 no time in reporting to the Dutch Resident. The 

 Dutch are strict in their colonial government, and, 

 for the most part, they have good reason to be strict. 

 One white man who does not understand the natives 



