IN SEARCH OF BIG GAME. 
39 
old seladang tracks; but what we did nnt lind ua? any 
spot where we could pitch our camp. We had to return to the 
boat and camp on the island. This island was all stones, 
and to fill our cup to the brim it commenced to rain in 
torrents. Awang Ali said that the padang must have grown 
up since he had visited it and I suggested that he had not 
visited it since his balnhood. i was very "cross" with 
Awan;^ Ali. We wonld have had a decent jdace to camp and 
might have seen something of the seladang had Awang Ali 
held his tongue. After a most uncomfortable night— bow 
my men manajL^ed to sleep at ali on the stones is beyond 
my comprehension — \\g proceeded np the ri^ er. I have never 
seen so many fish in any river as I saw in the Sat. Despite 
the heavy rain the water was fairly clear in the morning. 
And as we poled up stream we saw large shoals of fish 
scurrying in front of the boat only to turn back on arrival 
at one of the many small rujiids that we had to negotiate. 
We saw the three day's old tracks of a fair-sized elephant 
wliich had crossed the river, and as its tracks were heading up 
stream we hoped to find fresh traces at Awang Ali's salt 
lick. I began to wonder if the salt lick had been metamor- 
phosed hke the padang! That evening we arrived at the 
jimction of the Sat and the Pertant;, at a kampong called 
Changkut where there was a fair collection of Mahiys ; at least 
thev called them«^elvcs Malays; they talk like Sakais, Here I 
saw for the first time crops protected from the depredations 
of seladang and deer by strong stake fences. It is seldom 
that seladang are so numerous or po daring that they will 
enter native cultivated patches, although up the Kani the 
Sakias complained to me that the\' had to guard their Indian 
corn from the seladang who frecjuently visited their clearings. 
Awang Ali, who now admitted that he had never been to 
the salt lick which he was ostensibl\* guiding ns to, sent 
for one of the kamponf^ people whom he knew to press 
him into our service. The newcomer also said that he 
had never been to the lick, but suggested that there was 
a man in the kampong who knew the way there quite 
well and that he thought that he had better go and fetch him. 
He also remarked that he was an old man and did not 
go into the jungle much now. So the old man was sent for. 
He arrived. I had been told that he was old, but not 
that he was probably about 150 years old. I had never 
seen such an old man ; his eyes, nose, and mooth had all 
nm together with age. He could just hobble with a thick 
stick. He told me in a thin piping voice that years and years 
ago he had shot a seladang in this mysterious lick, and 
