SEA TRAGEDY OF THE JUNGLE FOLK 149 
ness and the excitement of traveling will kill them. 
I had been lucky enough to find my captives eating 
quietly and taking life calmly. 
The celebration lasted until dawn, but I excused 
myself early and went to bed. Omar explained 
to his people that I would become ill again unless 
I rested, and they escorted me to the house with 
all the ceremonious attention that they would have 
shown to royalty. I did not appreciate at the time 
quite how near I was to being a royal person in 
their eyes; but I found out later that Ali, during my 
absence, had been absolutely shameless in the tales 
he told about me. I habitually dined with sultans 
and rajas; I was an exorcist, renowned the world 
over; I feared no hantu (ghost) and, in addition, 
to all that, I was a master of hobatan (magic), who, 
by using his powers, could capture elephants as if 
they were monkeys. But, apart from Ali’s stories, 
the people liked me because I had engineered the 
capture of the beasts that had been terrorizing them. 
And I liked them better than any other people I 
had met in all my travels. 
Before beginning the work of capturing other 
animals, I turned my attention to preparing the 
transportation cages. These were three feet wide, 
three feet high and five and a half feet long—just 
large enough to hold the orangs, without giving 
them any chance to wrench at the bars. They sat 
clutching each other while we placed the transporta- 
tion cages at each end of the big cage. Occasionally 
