THE LIGHTS OF CHANGKAT ASAH. 113 



I hasten to say that it had nothing to do with the 

 supernatural inhabitants of Changkat Asah; his ad- 

 venture had been with a tiger. On Changkat Asah 

 his apology for a house consisted of palm-leaf walls, 

 a split palm flooring, and a palm-leaf roof. It was 

 built on the side of the hill close to the summit, and 

 the slope of the ground was such that, while on one 

 side the flooring was on the level of the ground, on 

 the other it was some two feet above it. His Chinese 

 servant occupied a small lean-to, which was built a 

 few feet lower down the hill, and his Javanese coolies 

 lived nearly two hundred yards away by the source 

 of a small stream whence they got their water-supply. 

 The second night that he had slept on the hill he 

 had been awakened by some animal breathing and 

 moving outside his shanty, but, imagining the sound 

 to be that of wild pigs, had turned over and gone 

 to sleep again. The next morning his coolies pointed 

 out to him the tracks of a tiger that had walked 

 round and round him during the night. He had 

 no weapons with him, and very foolishly did not 

 think of sending down the hill for any. He went 

 to his day's work forgetting all about the matter, 

 and at night went to bed without a thought of any 

 danger. Soon after he had gone to sleep he awoke 

 with a start and heard the tiger close beside him 

 outside the house. 



His mattress lay on the floor close to the wall, on 

 the side near the summit, and here, as I have said, 

 the floor was on a level with the ground outside. 

 The tiger was on this side of the house, on the rising 

 ground above him, and only a few feet separated 



H 



