50 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



much better than they look, and the most insignificant 

 in appearance has perhaps a reputation that extends 

 throughout the district. While some men are over- 

 hauling the sidins for flaws, a small circle surrounds 

 a man who is loading his muzzle-loader. The powder 

 is the vilest German rubbish, or, failing that, stuff that 

 he has collected out of Chinese bombs, and what is 

 lacking in quality is made up in quantity. His 

 wadding is a piece of cocoanut husk, and the missiles 

 are a lump of hammered tin and a piece of iron of the 

 length and thickness of a little finger that he has 

 hacked off some worn-out agricultural instrument. 

 The only other men with guns are an old haji, 1 who 

 has a snider, and the headman's son, who carries a 

 double-barrelled shot-gun. 



The old man squatting at the foot of a cocoanut- 

 tree and tracing figures in the sand with his finger is 

 the pawang, on whose skill the success of the drive 

 will depend. In addition to a belief that certain 

 animals are protected by attendant spirits, the Malays 

 believe that the death of any animal is avenged by 

 influences known as bahdi, jinggi, and genaling. The 

 bahdi have, they believe, the power of bringing sick- 

 ness, blindness, or madness upon the hunter, and an 

 attack of fever after unwonted exertion in a malarial 

 forest is always ascribed to them. The jinggi can 

 let the deer pass by the unwitting hunter in the form 

 of a mouse or attack him in the form of a tiger. 

 They can also give the hunter the appearance of the 

 hunted, and thus expose him to the fire of his friends. 

 The genaling can kill the hunter outright ; but being 



1 One who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. 



