JUNGLE TRAILS AND 

 JUNGLE PEOPLE 



CHAPTER I 

 THE KING'S MAHOUT 



HE was not impressive as to face or figure, 

 yet Choo Poh Lek was a notable character. 

 Of his class he was one of the few energetic, 

 and the only ambitious native little man with 

 whom I became acquainted in the Far East. And, 

 quite as wonderful, he did not gamble. Unques- 

 tionably he came honestly by his active qualities, 

 for Choo was a Simo-Chinese ; his father, Lee 

 Boon Jew, being one of the many thrifty Chinese 

 that, thirty-five years before, had found their way, 

 from the crowded Canton district of China, with 

 its desperate daily struggle for mere existence, to 

 Bangkok, whose half million people prefer mostly 

 to leave the business of life to Chinamen. Lee 

 began his commercial career humbly as a peddler 

 of fruit and vegetables ; and he prospered. In the 

 very beginning he had carried his daily stock in two 



