. Obituary .- — David Thomas Gwynne- Vaughan. yii 
stick (very ordinary stick) that I have had given me, and which is uni- 
versally known to be peculiarly efficacious for almost all kinds of Hantus. 
This reads funny, but the old boy genuinely believes it, or fancies he does. 
We said charms before we entered, both of us. Mine (the genders of Latin 
nouns ending in -is) pleased him vastly, and he would very much like to 
learn it, especially when I told him that it could be used in other cases too, 
as well as cave Hantus, especially when prefaced with 
“ Feminine -do -io -go -is, -as -ans and -x, will show 
-Es, if no increase be needed, -s by consonant preceded 
‘ The cave turned out to be really fine, with magnificent Cathedral-like 
domes, far into the mountain. Since then I have found a simply majestic 
Cathedral cave, with a small opening at the top and others imitating clerestory 
windows, the floor strewn with huge stalagmites imitating white marble 
tombs. I have never seen anything like it. I also found a deep pot-hole, 
which I descended by a rope. I got about 150 ft. down, when it stopped 
slanting and dropped sheer. I laid myself out on a tooth of rock over- 
hanging the black mouth of the pit and dropped [a stone?]. I counted 
ten before it struck bottom, and simultaneously became nervous about the 
stability of the jutting rock, thought of Rider Haggard, and precipitately 
retired. I was very, very careful in climbing back up, and I told the 
brigand that the Hantu at the bottom of this cave was a very big and 
dangerous one indeed. He instantly agreed and said that he had seen him 
once, something like a goat and something like a man, and very big. 
I said he was quite right, and that we’d better leave him alone till I’d 
worked up a suitable charm to floor him with. Apart from this personal 
interest, the caves have a scientific one, for we have discovered a “ cave 
fauna” in them, about twenty species, including a snake which we caught 
in a butterfly net, yet he was 6 good feet long, and probably very poisonous. 
All these never saw the light, being sightless. They feel their way in con- 
tinual darkness, existing in a strange little world of their own. Highly 
interesting, isn’t it ? 
‘ I have been deer-hunting, pigeon-decoying, bull and cock fighting, 
and all sorts of weird things here. I hope, when Skeat arrives, to get 
a wizard I am acquainted with, to give an exhibition of devil-raising. I do 
not say these things flippantly. There are some very strange things out 
here among the jungles, cliffs, and caves.’ 
Kota Bharu , in Rahman , c. June 15 , 1899.. 
‘ I like the Malays very much indeed ; we have long talks at night, and 
they tell me all the ghost stories, and about “ Hantus”, Spirits, and Jinns, 
and all sorts of Devils. They have an enormous mythology which they 
really believe, with the weirdest and most incongruous conceptions 
imaginable. 
