JUNGLE HUKTBE 253 



and many literally sell themselves into bondage, 

 willing to spend remaining years of their lives pay- 

 ing back the cost, that they may get the money to 

 make this pilgrimage. Should the pilgrim die en 

 route, he is saved, according to the belief ; for the 

 faithful one who loaned the money— I find no pro- 

 vision, material or spiritual. 



The little white cap always comes high. 



All the natives with whom I came in contact, I 

 found most earnest in their devotions and punctil- 

 ious in living up to the demands of their religion. 

 They drink no liquor, eat no meat of which they 

 have not cut the throat, and abhor bacon and dogs. 

 They will not carry a basket in which there is 

 bacon, nor permit a dog to touch them. This rids 

 the country of the mongrel curs, the pariahs, with 

 which Siam is overrun, because Buddha forbids 

 the killing of any animal. I f ound it a distinctly 

 pleasant change. 



When they live on the river banks, in their 

 houses built on stilts, the natives are clean; the 

 houses are all of the same pattern, as are the pots 

 for boiling rice, and the bamboo baskets, but here 

 and there a crude earthenware bowl shows lines 

 that suggest India. In the settlements practically 

 all Malays carry the kris; in town it becomes a 

 timbuk lada, and in the jungle they add the parang, 

 which is a knife with a short handle and an eight- 



