A DEER-DRIVE. 49 



suggestion decides to have a deer-drive on the follow- 

 ing day. Messages are sent from mouth to mouth on 

 all sides, and before many hours elapse every one 

 knows that he is expected to be at the headman's 

 house the next morning at daybreak, and to bring 

 his sidin, if he chances to have one, with him. 



While still a star or two shines whitely through the 

 grey morning light, and while the night-jars are still 

 wheeling and calling te-te-goh, te-te-goh, the Malays 

 leave their homes and begin to gather round the 

 headman's house. 



Those that own sidins bring them slung on their 

 shoulders, and every man is armed. The majority 

 have spears, others carry a dagger or kris in their belt, 

 and the remainder have the long-bladed knife called a 

 parang. This last is the everyday companion of the 

 Malay, and he carries one from the day that he can 

 toddle, gradually emerging from the state of cutting 

 himself with it to that of cutting everything else. With 

 a sharpened edge nearly two feet long, it is equally use- 

 ful for cutting down a small tree or for putting an edge 

 to a copper fish-hook or extracting a thorn. It will 

 slice a man nearly in two, and more than one tiger has 

 been brought in for the Government reward by a Malay 

 who had nothing else with which to defend himself. 



The gathering increases momentarily, and there is 

 a violent barking and yapping of the headman's house- 

 dogs as some strange dogs are brought forward and 

 tied up to separate trees. Unhappy -looking brutes 

 are these last small yellow animals, with sharp 

 noses and prick ears : they are, I believe, direct 

 descendants of the wild dog. They are generally 



D 



