28 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS ; : 
with practically no interference from Mahommed 
Ariff. I was in constant communication with Gay- 
lord, who encouraged me in my idea of becoming 
a collector; also I put myself in touch with the 
Australian Zoological Society. | 
The district in which the hadji lived had a popu- 
lation of about 100,000, made up of Dutch, Malays 
and Chinese. Back of the settlement lay the jun- 
gle; a dense virgin forest of trees that were bound 
together by a woven mass of creepers and vines. 
The trunks, rising straight and smooth for fifty or 
sixty feet, burst into foliage that formed a thick, 
green canopy, through which the sun rarely filtered. 
On the ground, the vines, palm ferns, tall grasses 
and rattan made a wall that only parangs, the native 
knives, cutting foot by foot, could penetrate. The 
heat of the open spaces in the tropics is blistering, 
but that of the jungle is damp and stifling; moisture 
accumulates, and the light breezes that blow over- 
head have no chance of moving the air below, which 
is filled with the smell of rotting vegetation. Espe- 
cially in the morning, before the sun has a chance 
to bake the water out, it is a drenching business to 
go into the jungle. 
otwithstanding the climate, the sight of such 
country made me anxious to begin work, and I lost 
no time in reporting to the Dutch Resident. The 
Dutch are strict in their colonial government, and, 
for the most part, they have good reason to be strict. 
One white man who does not understand the natives 
