204, TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 
the poles. As was usual in the Archipelago, espe- 
cially in the inland districts, the spears and krises 
were poisoned, and our only hope of victory lay 
in that fact. I knew that the poison would kill a 
man in a few minutes and I had seen smaller ani- 
mals die of it, but I did not know what effect it 
would have on so large and powerful a brute as a 
seladang. 
Next we gathered leaves and stuffed a sack, made 
from a sarong, full of them, and tied it with a string, 
so that we could dangle it in front of the beast. 
Then three of us armed with the krises took posi- 
tions so that we should be above the seladang when 
he charged, and we lowered the sack. He snorted 
and drew back; then he put his strength into his’ 
legs and lunged forward. I drove downward with 
my kris, tearing a wound in his back near the hump; 
he whirled and charged again, and this time one 
of the natives blinded him in one eye. 
He withdrew a few yards, snorting, bellowing 
and pawing. He turned again on the body of poor 
Ali, as if to vent his anger on it. Presently we 
lured him back with the bundle of leaves, and he 
charged again. I scored another cut near his hump. 
This charging and jabbing went on for fully an 
hour, and we seemed no nearer success than when 
we started. It was impossible to get in a death- 
stroke, and the poison apparently was having no 
effect upon him. In any event, I thought, we were 
winding him, and, if we could last out another 
