46 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 
Malays. It is done, of course, with the maximum 
chatter and excitement. The natives line the banks 
of the stream while the dynamite is dropped; then 
they rush off, some in boats and some of them swim- 
ming, to collect the fish that come to the surface. 
Drugging fish is another method of capturing 
them wholesale without much trouble or work. For 
this purpose the natives use a mixture of lime and 
the sap from the roots of a tuba tree. They first 
warn the villages down-stream so that the people 
will not drink any of the water; then they pour out 
the white liquid. It spreads over the stream, mak- 
ing the fish mabok (drunk), as the Malays say. 
They rise to the surface and are gathered into boats. 
Except for such annoyances as insects and 
leeches, which fastened on my skin as I walked 
through the jungle, those days in Sumatra were 
delightful. We hunted, fished and played games; 
there was nothing to worry about and little work 
to do. I was accepted by the natives as one of 
them. I wore a sarong over my trousers, and I 
shouldn’t have worn the trousers if my skin had not 
been so sensitive to the insects. And, of course, I 
had shoes—the great barrier between castes. The 
Malays of the coast towns sometimes, but not often, 
wear shoes, and even then it is more a matter of 
showing-off than of being comfortable. I did every- 
thing possible to minimize the differences between 
us because I wanted to know them as they were, 
not as they thought I wanted them to be. They 
