SEA TRAGEDY OF THE JUNGLE FOLK 125 
population was on the banks to welcome us. Omar 
came forward and announced that he had recruited 
seventy men—Malays and Dyaks—for the hunt 
and that he would vouch for all of them. That 
made a crew of a hundred, counting the thirty who 
came with me, and we examined one another curi- 
ously. I was the first white man that most of them 
had seen. 
Leaving instructions that the council was to be 
called for the next morning, I went to the house 
that Omar had prepared for me. AKi and the 
Chinese boy accompanied me with my personal 
equipment, and I sat talking with Omar while I 
waited for my bed to be prepared, so that I could 
get my afternoon nap. The men loitered outside 
the house apparently waiting for something. I 
knew what they wanted—more magic. At last a 
deputation came with the request. Would the 
white man perform magic such as he had per- 
formed at the village of Mahommed Munshee? 
Crocodiles were less plentiful so far up the river, 
and I was rather afraid that they might be dis- 
appointed if I did not at least equal the former 
exhibition. The story, as I have remarked before, 
had grown wonderfully in traveling up-country. 
But they were determined to see the “drunken 
fish,” and I decided that, before beginning work, 
I should do well to give them some sort of 
amusement. 
With the two headmen—they were delighted to 
