HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 97 



you may be travelling down wind or up wind. If 

 when you come within striking distance you are 

 going up wind, a lucky star indeed shines over you. 

 If down wind— disappointment, as you hear but 

 never catch sight of the fleeing game. Nowhere in 

 the world I have hunted is successful stalking 

 more difficult than in this piece of Siam-Burma. 

 A tangle of hanging things overhead, of creeping 

 things underfoot, and of thorn bushes on every 

 side; all ready to hold or to prick or to sound 

 instant alarm to the wild folk. Stalking through 

 such going means travelling as a cat approach- 

 ing a mouse— picking up one's feet with utmost 

 care and placing them with equal caution, the while 

 using your long knife industriously, silently, to 

 ease your passage. 



For a few days after leaving the village, Ram's 

 habit was to send forth every morning as prelimi- 

 nary to the day's hunting, twenty or twenty-five 

 Karens to scour the country for tracks; but they 

 made so much noise I insisted that the practice be 

 abandoned and that the Karens remain in camp 

 well away from the region I intended hunting. The 

 only real use I got out of these men was in crossing 

 streams, as we did with more or less frequency. 

 Because of our weakling bullocks, we almost never 

 crossed a stream without getting stuck; and on 

 such occasions the " hunters " came in handy to 



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