134 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 



Without tearing the creepers to the ground, we cut 

 back as far as sixty feet on all sides. I estimated 

 that the trees beyond would be well out of swinging 

 distance for the orangs. At the point where I 

 planned to have the big tree drop, I had an addi- 

 tional thirty feet cut. Then, when the creepers were 

 all simply hanging, we began work on the trees. 



First-rate native jungle men use their parangs 

 with astounding rapidity and accuracy. I doubt if 

 there are any finer woodsmen in the world. Their 

 greatest fault is that they like to stop working in 

 order to talk. Omar, Munshee and I, knowing this 

 weakness for conversation, circled through the jun- 

 gle constantly, urging our men on. Partly as a 

 result of this watchfulness, perhaps, I have never 

 seen natives do a piece of work more neatly and 

 rapidly. It was vitally important, of course, that 

 we finish before the big fellows came swinging back 

 home. 



The trees were cut so that they remained stand- 

 ing. We were trying to achieve something like a 

 flimsy structure built of cards or dominoes, which 

 one push will send toppling. At a signal, every tree 

 in the circle I had mapped out was to fall, those 

 at the center, first, and the others in order, until the 

 one in which the orang-outangs had their platform 

 was isolated. It was a nice problem in jungle-craft 

 to cut the trees so that they would bear the weight 

 of animals swinging in the branches, and yet be so 

 weak that they would all fall and in the proper 



