CHAPTER IV 

 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS. 



WHEN we left the Karen village, we left 

 behind also the assortment of Siamese 

 whom we had been collecting all along the route 

 of Phra Ram's pilgrimage, though it required 

 some strategy to get clear of them, for they were 

 unwilling to allow so well-provisioned an outfit to 

 escape. But the Karens we gathered were little 

 better than the Siamese we abandoned; it came 

 near to being' a case of jumping out of the frying- 

 pan into the fire. I had no difficulty whatever in 

 securing Karens to join our expedition; but alas, 

 the hope, which had buoyed me during the pil- 

 grimage, of getting efficient men among these peo- 

 ple, was rudely shattered. Real hunters, men who 

 knew the jungle and the wilderness folk— were 

 few and far between. In fact there was not a man 

 of my party, nor could I find one, who had ever 

 seen a buffalo, the game I particularly sought. 

 One chap was presented with much flourish as 

 being the son of a man who at one time had made 

 his way into the interior of Burma and killed 

 buffalo and other game ; but the son, though he had 

 hunted the wild red cattle a great deal, had never 



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