IN SEARCH OF BIG GAME. 
47 
The seladang never moved a muscle, until he suddenly swung 
round and was gone. While I was congratulating myself 
on having held my fire during a very trying minute or so, 
Che Wan Brahim came up to me and asked what had 
happened. I explained that the seladang had gone. He then 
asked me why 1 had not fired at it, and asked me if 1 had 
been friglitenud I I wonder if I looked frightened? I did not 
feel a bit frightened, I could not help thinkin^r afterwards 
how often in one's ordinary daily life are one's actions 
similarly misconstrued. 
The next day we saw the ten days' old tracks of a 
fair-sized rhinoceros, but returned to Pulau Besar with no 
trophies on the morning of the ninth. Che W'an Brahim 
hopelessly lost his way until we suddenly found that we were 
within an hour's s\alk of our camp. He did not, however, 
profess to know anything about the jungle paths and tracks, 
and was a great improvement on Awang AH. I saw^ Che 
W^an Hadji as soon as I could fmd him on my return and 
was del indited to see that his eyes were quite well. We 
arranged to start next day on a Utn days' trip up to the Keman 
border and W^an Hadji assured me that we would find game 
there. I sincerely hoped that he would prove a good prophet. 
CHAPTER V. 
The Luck of the Slh^hhatk of Zinc. 
Al)ove Pulau Besar there are now no Malay settlements 
OH the Tembeling ; we had got to the end of " civilisation " 
until one crossed the borders into Treng^^^anu. It was 
impossible Wan Hadji told me for my boat to get past the 
rapids below Kuala Neria, the tributary of the Tembeling 
up which we proposed to go, so I had to try and obtain 
a smaller bnat. At first this seemed to be as great a difficulty 
as it had been at Kuala Sat, but at last I persuaded Wan 
Mahmud, a relation of Wan Hadji's, to let me have his 
boat for this trip. He seemed dreadfully afraid that it might 
get damaged negotiating the rapids. I could not however 
put all my stores and my men in this boat so we had to 
split tip the partyt as there did not appear to be another boat 
that was ser\'iceable in the district. The programme we 
arranged was as follows: most of the rice and stores with 
three men and Ah Tong to go by boat to Kuala Mahang, 
a tributary of the Neria. the rest of us to go overland and 
meet the boat in the evening. W^e left Pulau Besar early 
