SLADANG. 91 



with the luck of a beginner, I had obtained one of 

 the finest heads ever seen in Pahang. 



T.'s head boatman, whose visions of preparing a 

 vast supply of sun-dried meat were dispelled, was 

 seriously annoyed. "The meat is left in the forest 

 while the bones are preserved in the house," was 

 his scathing comment. 



The Malays have, I think, an exaggerated opinion 

 of the savage disposition of the sladang. They be- 

 lieve that it will often charge unprovoked, and they 

 always take great care to avoid any place where 

 fresh tracks are to be seen. But I have not heard 

 of an authenticated case of an unprovoked attack, 

 and in the instances where men have been charged 

 unawares, the cause may perhaps be reasonably 

 ascribed either to their stumbling upon an animal 

 that was nursing a wound inflicted by some one else, 

 or to their meeting the mother of a newly - born 

 calf. 



A wounded sladang is probably the most danger- 

 ous of all big game. Not only will it charge, but 

 it will hunt down a man with the utmost vindic- 

 tiveness and tenacity of purpose. Of this, a striking 

 instance came under my notice in an inquiry re- 

 garding the death of a Malay in the Tembeling dis- 

 trict. Two men had gone out to shoot sladang, 

 and the survivor, who told the story, had wounded 

 a bull. It charged him, and he tried to seek refuge 

 behind a gigantic merbau tree, that, luckily for him, 

 stood in a little open spot, unencumbered by under- 

 growth or creepers. But the sladang saw him, and 

 came round the tree after him, like a terrier after 



