A TIGER-DRIVE. 209 



thicket or by some overhanging rock, whence it 

 was calling to a royal wooer. The patch of forest 

 in which it lay was so situated that it could be 

 beaten without much difficulty ; and it was in answer 

 to an urgent message from the local chief, who was 

 confident that he could show certainly one and prob- 

 ably two tigers, that the Sultan's son and the District 

 Officer had got up a party of guns, and had made 

 the other necessary arrangements for a drive. 



A youth seated himself at a great brass gong hung 

 in the raja's boat, and began to beat the assembly 

 call. Before long a distant boat was seen to shoot 

 out into mid-stream, and to move in the direction 

 of the sound. Then on all sides the bright surface 

 of the water became dotted with black specks of 

 various size that all converged on the one point. 

 The Malays whose houses were near at hand col- 

 lected in small groups upon the bank, and round 

 the landing-place prahus and dug-outs clustered 

 thick. Some held only a poler and a steersman, 

 while others were laden to the water's -edge with 

 a crowd of Malays perched in ungainly bird - like 

 attitudes, but in apparent comfort, upon the bare 

 inch or two of the free - board. By the time that 

 the party, of whom the writer was one, was ready 

 to step on shore, some two hundred Malays had 

 mustered on the bank. In this throng of men 

 there was not one who was not armed. Nearly 

 every man held a spear, many carried a dagger, 

 or Jcris, as well, and not a few showed a waist- 

 belt loaded with an assortment of weapons that 

 would not have disgraced the most piratical of 



o 



