128 TRAPPING WILD ‘ANIMALS 
proficiency, because there were numerous chances 
of failure through little miscalculations. Elephant 
driving is, after all, largely a matter of simple 
strategy combined with endurance; and capturing 
leopards is about on a par with setting mouse-traps 
when compared with getting full-grown orang- 
outangs into cages. 
I squatted before the council and talked long and 
earnestly about the work that lay before us. I told 
the villagers that I had left important business in 
Singapore at the request of their headmen, to come 
and help them; that I had hesitated about making 
the trip and had been persuaded only by the prom- 
ises of Omar and Mahommed Munshee that every 
assistance would be given me. I explained that I 
had the permission of the Resident-General and that 
he had offered me men, but that I had refused, be- 
cause I knew I could depend on the men of this 
kampong—they knew everything that was to be 
known about the jungle, and the whole world knew 
that they were brave and cool-headed. I impressed 
- upon them that such work was not to be taken as 
play, and that it was a dangerous enterprise. The 
natives nodded sagely. “You must be guided by 
what I say and do,” I told them, “for I have made 
plans. If you do as I tell you to do, we shall be 
successful.” 
Then I called upon the men who had been sent 
out to locate the orang-outangs. They had found 
them about two hours’ distance from the village; 
