IN SEARCH OF BIG GAME. 
9 
During the night we were disturbed by the moaninf^ 
cry of a tiger quite close to our camp. He hung about for 
some time and caused some anxiety amongst my Mahiys, 
I was sleeping high up in the Malay hut some fifteen feet 
from the ground so could afford to treat the matter with levity 
and be very brave. The Malays were on thv ground. 
I decided to ha\'e a look round for the big bull which 
I felt certain would be somewhere in the vicinity of the herd 
which we knew was close to us, so soon after dayliglit the 
following morning three of us went out and folloM'ing up 
the bttlc streiim which passed below our hut, and which 
higher up would take us through several more padangs and 
bluker. We had been going aliout an hour when we entered 
a small clearing on a steep hill side. Here we found the 
tracks of the previous evening of a sohtary seladang. He 
had a large track and we decided to follow him. Tracking 
was slow on the high ground owing to the extreme dryness 
■of the weather. In half an hour we knew that we were fol- 
lowing an old and cunning beast; his methods ot feeding 
shewed him to be cunning, and a seladang does not get really 
*'slini" until he gets on in life. Nowhere had he eaten 
anything but a passing mouthful in or near the centres of 
the clearings through which his tracks took us, but round 
the edges and just inside the jungle where the rank grass 
had forced itself into the thick undergrowth, he had been 
feeding for many hours. He had Iain down twice during 
the night, each time selecting <t spot entirely shut in by 
undergrowth on all sides but that on which he entered and 
left by. When a seladang does these things you can be 
certain that yon are following an old beast, and it will well 
repay you any trouble that you may be put to should you 
be lucky enough to obtain his head. 
Soon we came to the head of the valle)- that the seladang 
had followed, and were presently creeping through the most 
heart-breaking country to track through, swampy underfoot, 
long elephant grass above one's head interspersed with thick 
clumps of undergrowth which might have been specially 
planted there to hide the sehidang. We felt that we should 
find him in this stuff, his track was wet and glistening, but 
to move noiselessly in a swamp is a tough problem. 
We actually got to within a dozen yards of him w^hen 
suddenly I saw a movement a little way to my right, and 
surmised, iucorrectly as it turned out, that the best was there. 
My attention and that of Yasin's being rivetted on the 
waving about of some of the elephant grass, we failed to 
notice what I think we must have seen had we looked right 
