90 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



of the horns that the great beauty of the sladang 

 lies. At their base, the base of an old bull's horns 

 are deeply annulated and indentated, and covered 

 with many scars and rugged pits that would seem 

 to tell of much battering. The horns sweep out 

 boldly from the brow, curving in again at their 

 extremities ; and in a most beautiful head, belong- 

 ing to the first sladang that I shot, the distance 

 between the points is exactly the same as the dis- 

 tance between the eyes thirteen inches. These 

 horns measure six feet and a few inches from tip 

 to tip along the outer curve and across the fore- 

 head, and their circumference at the base is nine- 

 teen inches. But on the living animal the head 

 looks small in proportion to the gigantic bulk of 

 the body. It is the relatively small head and ex- 

 traordinarily small hooves that give the sladang an 

 appearance of high breeding, which goes far to make 

 it so noble -looking a creature. The disproportion 

 between the size of the head and the bulk of the 

 body is so marked, that my disappointment at the 

 head of the first sladang that I shot is still fresh 

 in my memory. It was a splendid animal, exactly 

 eighteen hands at the shoulder, and of enormous 

 girth ; but I had not seen a sladang before, and the 

 head looked very small. T. and I were in the wilds 

 of the forest of the Semantan district, and when we 

 returned to the boat we sent his five boatmen to get 

 the head and as much of the meat as they required. 

 I was surprised to find on their return that it was as 

 much as they could do to carry the head alone, 

 and still more astonished to discover later that, 



