ABORIGINAL TRIBES: rNTRQDUCTORY. 
5 
tliat the Sakai were too litiman to be iBteresting and 
that the wild tribes differed Terj little from the tame. 
The close connection between the human Semang and 
the simian siamang^ — regarding which one French 
anthropologist wrote for information to Sir Hugh 
Low — proved to have no existence except in sound. 
Disappointed, impoverished, aged, ill and discredited, 
Vaughan-Stevens drifted to Borneo, where he died 
miserably from an OTerdose of morphia, self-adminis- 
tered. Surely, his story is a sad one; and the 
futility of his life-work is not its least tragic feature. 
Vaiighan- Stevens' best work lies in his collections. 
His records of customs and beliefs may be regarded as 
valueless, though they were based on first-hand in- 
formation and tliough there is no evidence of imposture 
or even of extreme carelessness. Tirst-hand informa- 
tion is of very little use without a satisfactory medium 
of interpretation; that, at leastj might be learnt 
from tlie failure of Vaughan- Stevens. ^^*ot that the 
lesson will ever be learat. The policy of studying the 
aborigines by means of flying visits and antlrropological 
picnics will always be more attractive than the dreary 
labour of mastering their language before attempting to 
understand their thoughts. An excursion of a few days 
to "unexplored Malaya" turns a traveller into an 
" authority '* — in the absence of anyone to say him nay — 
and entitles him to add his quotum to the mis- 
interpretations and misunderstandings that obscure all 
Sakai research. 
Of far higher value to these studies is the work that 
has been done by students who were resident in the 
Peninsula itself — notably, Sir Hugh Clifford in Pahang, 
Mr. Bkeat on the Selangor coast and Mr. Gerruti iu 
