HUNTING IN THE INTERIOR OF SELANGORE. 325 



pulled his throttle wide open, and rushed off through the jungle 

 like a runaway locomotive. 



I turned to Syers in astonishment. 



" What on earth did you shoot for, and where did you hit him ? " 



" Why, confound it, I thought he was going to run over us, and 

 he scared me so I put a ball through the butt of his ear to pay 

 him off." 



I enjoyed a good laugh at my vindictive fi'iend's expense, in 

 which he joined very heartily, for I certainly never saw a more ab- 

 sui-d performance in the hunting field. The idea of his firing a 

 baU at that little elephant, who was akeady doing his best to get 

 away from us, was comical, to say the least, and the joke lasted 

 many a day. 



On the way home we made a very interesting discovery, quite 

 by accident. We fell in with an old Malay and some Jacoons, 

 who walked along with us for some distance. As we were going 

 through the forest, a short distance from the foot of a gray lime- 

 stone cliff about two hundred feet high, covered on the top with 

 forest, we noticed in the air a very cuiious, pungent odor, like 

 guano, the cause of which we could not divine. IVIr. Syers turned 

 to the old Malay, who was familiar with the neighborhood, and in- 

 quired : 



" What is it that stinks so ? " 



" Bats' dung, sir." 



" Bats' dung ! Where is it ? " 



" In the cave yonder in the rocks, sir." 



" Why did you not tell us of it the other time we were here, old 

 simpleton ? " 



"I didn't know you wanted to know about it, sir," said the old 

 fellow, innocently. 



We turned about directly and made for the cliff, under the old 

 man's guidance. The cave was soon reached. We cHmbed up 

 forty feet or so over a huge pile of angular rocks that had fallen 

 from the face of the cHff, and on going down a sharp incline found 

 ourselves underneath a huge mass of bare limestone rock, leaning 

 at an angle of forty-five degrees against the side of the cHff, form- 

 ing a cavernous arch, open at both ends and a hundred feet high. 

 It was hung with smooth, dull-gray stalactites, which, when broken 

 oS, showed such a clean white limestone formation that it might 

 almost be called marble. 



From near the bottom of this curiously formed arch a wide 



