196 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 



tives would capture a good specimen that, after 

 attending to the business at the animal house, I 

 gathered my kit and started northward. At Treng- 

 ganu I found Ali and some of the headmen wait- 

 ing for me. Just as I had expected, they had 

 nothing to report. One of them said that he 

 thought I could find a rhinoceros near Rawang. 



"Why do you think so?" 



"Tuan," he replied, "there are traces." 



"But why haven't your men been digging pits 

 and capturing it?" 



He made some reply to the effect that his men 

 were busy planting rice, and I let the matter drop, 

 for I saw that he was unwilling to talk. After 

 the headman had left the house, I questioned Ali. 

 While waiting for me, Ali had drawn the headman 

 out on the subject. It seemed that the natives of 

 the headman's kampong were reluctant to go out 

 hunting the rhinoceros because they had seen the 

 tracks, not only of the beast they were after, but 

 also of beasts they wanted to avoid a pair of 

 seladangs. 



I could understand, then, why they were not 

 anxious to go out rhinoceros hunting, armed with 

 nothing but their knives and muzzle-loading guns ; 

 for the seladang is, to my mind, the most dangerous 

 animal on earth. It is the largest and fiercest of all 

 wild cattle; its sense of smell and its vision are 

 keen, and it charges with terrific speed. Except 

 for one baby seladang that died before it reached 



