HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 93 



joy to come upon their tracks, for they make a 

 path easily traversed through jungle of clinging 

 vine and thorn bushes, through which ordinarily 

 you could make way laboriously only by constant 

 use of the knife. Though I was not hunting 

 elephant, the ready-made pathway was quite as 

 acceptable. 



After a while we came upon buffalo and red 

 cattle tracks in a thickly wooded country of small 

 trees, where the coarse grass grew higher than 

 one's head. Between these stretches were occa- 

 sional swamps without timber, covered with the 

 lalang common to all Malaya— and as wet. Not 

 a stitch remained dry after going through one of 

 these places. Picking up the buffalo tracks, for 

 they alone interested me, we followed them unin- 

 terruptedly all that first day, coming again to mud- 

 holes in which the roiled water showed plainly 

 their recent passing. Later we got into denser 

 jungle and found fresher tracks. It seemed as 

 though we must at least get sight of the game; 

 but after eight hours' steady going Thee decided 

 we could not reach it that day. As I have said, 

 Thee was the ladies' man, yet Phra Ram had made 

 him leader of the hunters. I understood later that 

 his people had certain agricultural interests near 

 Ratburi which gave him importance in the eyes 

 of a chief interested in the local rivel toll. 



