44 
THREE MONTHS IN PAHANG 
in the jungle, Althon*(h it is so small that it is difficult 
to see with the naked eye, and can only be picked out 
from the skin with tlie help of a Hne needle, it can raise 
a lump about the size of a five cent piece in a very' short time, 
this lump entirely surrounding and cuverinf^ it? diminutive 
body. On the sand spit that we unft>rtunately selected 
for our camping place we encountered thousands of these 
insects, and all night they caused us the greatest annoyance. 
About midniglit Ah Tong got up, accompanied by strange 
Chinese oaths, and had a kerosine oil bath, my kerosine 
oil, hut as he was a Hylam that is easily understood ! His 
back was a sight for days afterwards, and the scratchings that 
our party indul<^'ed in for the next week would Iravc put 
^ny respectable farmyard to shame. Where we made the 
mistake was in thinking that the spit we camped on was 
generally covered bv water and would be free of " tungau," 
bnt on subsef]uent inqniry I was informed that in the 
Tembeling the " tun^au " were so numerous that a sand 
spit left uncovered by the river for two nights would be 
infested by them. However one lives and learns, and I 
shall not be caught a second time. We arrived at Pdlau 
Besar about g o'clock next morning and I at once sought 
out Che Wan Brahim. Pnlau Besar might be called Pulau 
Rajah, because practically every Malay there, althou<^di 
he may not have a shirt to his back, and not the most 
elementary idea of " meum et tuum/' claims royal blood. 
It was Unkti this and Unkn that to the most disreputable- 
looking of kampnng Malays. I had a long talk with Che 
Wan Brahim who inft>rmed me that he did not know the 
jungle very well about Pulau Besar but that his abang," Che 
Wan Hadji, was a great jungle man and he would try and see 
if he could get him to come with me. Unfortunately 
Wan Hadji was snfferin? from sakit muta and could not 
even leave his house. Thinji^s began to look very black 
as we seemed to be unable to get any reliable guide to 
take us round the country and 1 began to regret that I 
had ever come up the Tembeling at all. I asked Wan 
Brahim if he could not take us somewhere or other for 
a day or two anyway, up some river or to some Sakai 
clearing where one might come across some tracks of 
big game, and he sugj;ested a place close to, where he 
said he had heard only the day before that there was a 
big solitary seladaiig. This sounded better, so we decided to 
go at once, or rather as soon as we could get our bundles 
together and Che Wan Brahim could prepare his requirements. 
About noon we started, but first of all I went to the house of 
