RAVEN — ^JACKING IN EAST INDIAN JUNGLES 
25 
bordering a banana patch. We kept very quiet, for the ^^musang” 
was coming slowly in our direction. 
It stopped every few steps, and stared at the light, its eyes glowing 
like bright patches of yellow flame. Sometimes we lost sight of the 
chicken thief, but as we shifted the lamp from side to side the gleam 
of its eyes reappeared whenever it emerged from between the bananas 
or from behind the fence. Apparently undisturbed by our presence 
it came closer and closer and, at thirty feet, received the full charge 
of shot. I was greatly delighted to add to my collections such a fine 
specimen of Paguma. 
Next morning, at the Chinese shops, I bought my own equipment for 
jacking; an imported Belgian wall lamp with a six-inch reflector, a 
round wick, and a cylindrical glass chimney eight inches long with the 
lower two inches slightly larger. The base in form of a truncate cone 
held oil for eight or nine hours’ use. The only drawbacks to it as a 
hunting lamp were that the glass chimney would easily crack when 
drops of moisture fell upon it and that any strong wind would extin- 
guish the flame. In spite of these deficiencies, my six and a half years’ 
subsequent experiences in Borneo and Celebes, and one year in Africa, 
taught me that in open fields such a simple oil lamp is recommendable. 
But in the forests or in caves an acetylene lamp which can be tilted up 
or down is preferable, as is also the case on rivers where frequent splashes 
due to encounters with crocodiles may crack the chimney. In out of 
the way places, however, carbide is not so easily procured as is oil. 
Having procured the above mentioned lamp for use in the jungle 
I sailed out of the Mahakkam River, and northward along the Bor- 
nean coast for about three hundred miles, in a small prahu with some 
Moros who, originally from the Philippines, were at that time living on 
a little island near the mouth of the Berau River. I intended buying 
a boat and hiring a crew of my own, when I reached the island for 
which we were bound, and had with me a Chinese boy whom I had 
brought as my cook. The trip to the island, the buying of the boat, 
and the gathering together of the men who were to accompany me 
were all very interesting, and I was soon ready to set out. Our first 
camp on the mainland of Borneo was at a place called Tandjong Batoe, 
a long, low point that is just north of the mouth of the Berau River. 
There the forest has to some extent been driven back from the shore 
for the natives have, for years past, been in the habit of making plant- 
ings of rice and cassava at the edge of the jungle. They burn the grass 
during the latter part of the south-east monsoon in August or September, 
