14 
THREE MONTHS IN PAHANG 
si;:e of the dead beast, I would not, however let them cut it 
up until I had done what was necessary with my camera. 
A pLCuHar incident occurred which was quite unique in 
my experience. With the Malays from Ulu Mengkuang was 
an old man, tall and spare, who obviousl}' had no interest in 
the meat side of tlie question because he was entirely devoid 
of teeth. This old man was much interested in the place 
where the suladang's throat had been cut. He carefully 
examined it and then remarked that it was customary to cut 
the throat of a bufialo much higher up. I explained that I 
wanted to save the scalp with a good portion of the neck 
for setting-up purposes^ but this did not convey very much to 
him. Before the arrival of the camera I left the carcase for 
S(mie time to examine the tracks of the other seladang, and 
while 1 was away the old man evidently had a good deal to 
say about this, to him, extraordinary way of killing a beast 
which was supposed to be hnlai. On the arrival o( the men 
from myrnmp I took several photos of the bull, and then gave 
orders to start and cut the beast up, commeJicing myself to 
work on his head. 
I presently noticed that most of the men from Mengkuang 
were doing nothing, and very shortly they began to move off in 
twos and threes without taking any meat at all. I called to 
some of them and asked them where they were going to, and 
was told that as the bull wus an old one the eating of the meat 
would bring out sores on their legs ! ! ! 
Of course I was not deceived by this explanation, but did 
not press the point and the Ulu Mengkuang contingent depar- 
ted. Afterwards I asked the other Malays the reason of this 
sudden change, and they said that Orrt/i.i; Tua, I forget his 
name, had told them that as the throat of the beast had not 
been cut directly beneath the ears, they should not eat any of 
the meat because it was haranu Where he got this idea from 
I do not know, perhaps some of my more enlightened readers 
can tell me. The remaining natives did not consider it harant 
and so got all the more meat. 
Unfortunately the photographs that I took of this 
seladang, together with a good many others, were ruined by 
the damp before 1 had an opportunity of developinsr them; I 
thus lost many pleasant reminiscences of this expedition. 
(The acccompanyin^; photograph of a seladang is not of 
this beast but of a very old bull that 1 got on another occasion 
in the Krau Valley), 
We got back to camp about four o*clock and I spenf^e 
evening cleaning up the scalp and skull. I also had some 
work to do on it the following day, so remained in camp. 
