SEA TRAGEDY OF THE JUNGLE FOLK 149 



ness and the excitement of traveling will kill them. 

 I had been lucky enough to find my captives eating 

 quietly and taking life calmly. 



The celebration lasted until dawn, but I excused 

 myself early and went to bed. Omar explained 

 to his people that I would become ill again unless 

 I rested, and they escorted me to the house with 

 all the ceremonious attention that they would have 

 shown to royalty. I did not appreciate at the time 

 quite how near I was to being a royal person in 

 their eyes ; but I found out later that AH, during my 

 absence, had been absolutely shameless in the tales 

 he told about me. I habitually dined with sultans 

 and rajas; I was an exorcist, renowned the world 

 over; I feared no hantu (ghost) and, in addition, 

 to all that, I was a master of hobatan (magic), who, 

 by using his powers, could capture elephants as if 

 they were monkeys. But, apart from Ali's stories, 

 the people liked me because I had engineered the 

 capture of the beasts that had been terrorizing them. 

 And I liked them better than any other people I 

 had met in all my travels. 



Before beginning the work of capturing other 

 animals, I turned my attention to preparing the 

 transportition cages. These were three feet wide, 

 three feet high and five and a half feet long just 

 large enough to hold the orangs, without giving 

 them any chance to wrench at the bars. They sat 

 clutching each other while we placed the transporta- 

 tion cages at each end of the big cage. Occasionally 



