6 A TRIP TO GUNONG BENOM. 
on the foot by a snake on the hill-top. This poor fellow’s leg 
swelled up badly and as he was an oldish man and got high 
fever I began to be nervous about him. However either the 
charms or my remedies brought him round and in a few days 
he could walkagain. Occasionally the ‘pawang’ thought fit to 
give us a taste of his quality and usually at inconvenient times. 
At the camp at the foot of the Gunong we heard every night 
a continuous shrill yelping as of baskets of puppies deserted by 
their mothers. It was, I think, made by birds though the Ma- 
lays could give me no name for them. When I asked the ‘pa- 
wang’ he looked mysterious and suggested that the subject 
should be changed. One night this yelping was very persistent _ 
several ‘ riang-riang’ were screeching in the trees, a wind hav- 
ing sprung up the jungle seemed full of noises. I fell asleep 
but was awakened near midnight by a loud harangue from the 
‘pawang’ to the “hantu” of the Gunong. He began mildly by 
asking why they made such a disturbance; had they forgotten 
the propitiatory service he had paid before the first tree was 
felled? Was it fair to go back on him like this? For a while 
the noise died down and I heard the men expressing their sense 
of the ‘pawang’s’ power over the spirits. Soon after however it 
began again and the pawang after more unavailing discourse 
lost his temper and scolded the hantu in very unmeasured 
language indeed. ‘This frightened the men and they kept up a 
chorus of “ Biar-lah,” ‘Jangan-lah,” ‘“ Nanti dia marah” until 
finally the pawang was reluctantly pacified and left the hantu 
alone. 
Then they all began to tell ghost stories. One I remember 
about Bukit Hitam which is full of getah-taban but on which no 
getah hantu dare collect owing to the tigers which guard the 
mountain. One man said that his uncle (a particularly brave 
man) started once with a large party and as a protection kept 
a ring of fire round the camp at night. Before morning how- 
ever a tiger sprang through the flames and carried off the leader. 
This superstition about Bukit Hitam seems only general. I[ 
have heard it both sides of the main ridge. The commonest 
story about high mountains seems to be that they are inhabited 
by ‘ beroh’ (macacus nemestrinus) who increase in size and fero- 
city the higher the adventurous traveller mounts until at last 
Jour. Straits Branch 
