34 A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 
through the jungle and the Semang tribes and wild animals, the 
rightful owners of the forest, seemed to be little disturbed by 
travellers. Frequently during the day, my attention was called to 
traces of the Semangs; now it was a path or a small clearing, now 
it was a hole dug at the foot of a tree from which an esculent root 
had been taken, and so on. 
Shortly after starting, we passed Ayer Bah, the scene of the tiger 
story which had been related the night before, and later in the day 
we made a short halt at Sungei Kenering. For the rest of the day, we 
followed this river upstream, crossing it and recrossing it repeatedly, 
when a short cut could be made and a long detour avoided. The 
Kenering is the first considerable tributary of the Perak river (on 
its right bank) North of the Dedap. It rises in the mountains on 
the Kedah frontier and runs into the Perak several hours’ journey 
below the place where I first crossed it. 
At Padang Puroh, a clearing on the left bank of the Kenering, 
which seems to be a usual camping ground, we fell in with the 
tracks of Ismail’s elephants (which we had last seen at Jambai) 
and followed all day the route which had been taken by the 
ex-Sultan. From Padang Puroh, J could see to the eastward 
the top of Gunong Lunei, which is on the other side of the 
Perak river. Sungei Pari, a little stream which runs into the Ke- 
nering, is said to be a great place for wild elephants, as it possesses 
2, siro, where they and other wild animals, so the Malays rightly 
or wrongly declare, find some earth which they like to “eat”. 
(lick?). We passed a deserted settlement at Sungei Pari. The 
houses were falling to ruin and the patch once cultivated was 
being invaded by jungle. Some of the men discovered some 
bushes of the bird pepper and helped themselves liberally. 
Sungei Leweng was the name of the next stream crossed, and 
from an open field of Jalang here there is a good view of Gunong 
_Inas, looking West. This same range is one of the principal 
features of the landscape at Salama looking East. 
These open patches were a welcome relief to the monotony of 
the forest, enabling me, as they did, to guess our position and 
direction of march from occasional glimpsés of well-known peake 
or ranges. Further on, at Padang Pulo Sari, Bukit Naksa, the 
