i8 
THREE MONTHS IN PAHANG 
Persagi, a kamp.'n» on the left bank, where we decided to camp 
as we could not possibly get lo Kiuila Bern in a da}-. Here we 
got news of a solitary elephant wliich had been into some 
padi nurseries about three days before, but which the headman 
assured us was always hanging about and would certainly be 
d'jing damage af^ain very soon. He begged that I would stay 
there a da\' or two and go after it. We examined the tracks 
which were those of quite a small elephant, and the enormous 
damage that it had done consisted in walking through the edge 
of a young nursery, and knocking down a portion of a fence 
\^^hich a man could easih- have repaired in an hour. Kampong 
Malays are very fond of greatly exaj^gerating the damage that 
elephants do to their crops; a Malay finds it so difficult to 
persuade himself to work at all that when he has done 
something it is a dreadful calamity to find that some of 
his labour has been wasted, and he is liable to multiply the 
trouble in his imagination. Of course I do not mean to 
say that' elephants do not at times do damage which is a 
serious matter to the owner of the property, but they do it 
much less often than the Malays would have you believe. 
Much to the disappointment of the Persagi Malays I would not 
go after their elephant. 
The next day we continued our journey to Kuala Bera, 
and, as I found it very uncomfortable in the boat, Yasin 
and I went overland. I again had a severe dose of fever, which 
made the journey a long aiid tiring one, and I was very glad to 
get to Kuala Hera. But despite the fever we beat the boat 
easily which did not get in until seven o'clock, I had to wait 
At Kuala Bera two nights because the old wretch who had 
undertaken to do the sli^,dit alterations that were necessary 
to my boat had only just started on it, a job that would 
only take a couple of men two days to complete. He had 
had the boat for twenty days. He had been doing nothing 
else, but was just too lazy to make his mind up to tackle 
the work and get it finished. When he did finish it, he 
tried to swindle me by putting on the awning some old 
kadjangs wh\ch he strove unsuccessfully to palm off on me 
as new ones. 
On the 3rd of July we poled up the river to Gnai, where we 
camped at Imam Prang's kampong. Mat, one of the Malays 
whom I had engaged there, was suffering from a bad foot 
which was much inflamed and obviously w*anted a rest ; he had 
also a touch of fever so I decided to pay him off. The other 
Malay who had been most anxious to go the round trip with 
me now cried off, the reason given being that he thought that 
he was to have received 50 cents a day, instead of which he 
