138 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



On the following Sunday we returned to the 

 sulphur spring of Jenali, and again found fresh 

 tracks ; but again only succeeded in disturbing the 

 tapir's slumber, and in driving it in headlong flight 

 through the forest. And after that, two or three 

 times a-month, whenever, in fact, there was no 

 news of bigger game elsewhere, Malias and I went 

 to the sulphur spring. We seldom failed to find 

 fresh tracks, but for some months did not catch 

 sight of the tapir itself. Between the two of us, 

 though we were somewhat apprehensive of being 

 laughed at by others, our lack of success became 

 rather a joke, and we always talked of the animal 

 in a friendly spirit of possession as " our tapir. 3 ' 



After a week's work in court, hearing interminable 

 cases from Monday to Saturday, endless civil suits 

 except during my criminal assizes, long lists of 

 criminal cases except in my civil sessions, it was 

 good to get away, even for one day, into the vast 

 forest, which, although traversed by wood-cutters 

 and charcoal-burners, retained much of its pristine 

 mystery and wonder. And in the pursuit of the 

 tapir there was added to the charm of the forest 

 the fascination of following the tracks of an animal 

 of the Miocene period, a contemporary of such fear- 

 some creatures as the titanotheria an animal, in 

 fact, that might well have become extinct ages before 

 ever the first semi-human man was born. 



Almost every Sunday that we went after the tapir 

 the same thing happened. Leaving my house at 

 daybreak, we arrived at the little roadside shop at 

 half -past six; by half -past seven we were at the 



