When I went to Singapore with the python, I took Ali with me, and for weeks after, he entertained the natives of Palembang—and me—with his stories of what he had seen and done. It was an excellent example of the feats that Malay imagination can perform.
In Singapore I found an agent of Cross, of Liverpool, of whom I have spoken, and sold the snake to him for $300 (Mexican), which was considered a banner price. I was glad to have the opportunity of making myself known to the agent, because I foresaw future commissions. He, like many others, was tired of doing business with Mahommed Ariff, who took every possible advantage of his customers, and he was pleased to find a white man in the field of collecting.
We re-crated the python and shipped him off to Liverpool, after feeding him twelve ducks each day for five days. With that stomachful, he could last out the entire voyage and arrive in England with a good appetite.
It was difficult to get the Malays from the coast to go up into the jungle. They fear it and have superstitions about the hantu that live there. Most of the men refused point-blank when I asked them to accompany me, and others thought of various things they had to do at Palembang. Ali was willing, however, and he developed into an expert jungle-man. Boatmen from the coast poled us up the rivers, but they returned to the coast immediately because they were unwilling to remain away from their families.
It was after my return to Palembang that I became acquainted with the inland of Sumatra and with the Orang Ulu, who are quite different from their brothers on the coast. They are more industrious and have not lost their simplicity and honesty by coming into contact with Chinese business methods. They received us kindly and I had no difficulty in making friends with them. During the next year I spent much of my time inland, in hunting and fishing, and I discovered that Sumatra was not the field for collecting that I had expected it to be. But it served my purposes of learning the language and becoming acquainted with the people quite as well as any other part of the Archipelago would have done; and I was too busy studying jungle-craft from the Orang Ulu to think of leaving. Ali, who was always with me, was an invaluable aid. He was a first-rate spear-thrower, but he wanted to be a good shot. He took great pride in my 50-110 express gun, which he carried behind me. He had a trait peculiar in Malays—he was always busy. And he spent a great deal of his energy in cleaning and polishing the gun, hoping for the great reward of being allowed to shoot it. Eventually he became a good marksman. The other servant who accompanied me on my trips into the jungle was a Chinese coolie. He had been my rickshaw boy and I promoted him to the position of cook and store-keeper. Ali was intensely jealous of him but they worked well together.
Though the natives made a sport of spear-throwing, they had given over that method of hunting. They were armed with guns that I honestly believe dated back to Revolutionary times—old, muzzle-loading flintlocks. Where they got them I have never been able to discover. They were fascinated by my 50-110, of course, and, when Ali cleaned it, they squatted about him, wide-eyed. Whenever I saw a native about to shoot his old muzzle-loader, I yelled to him to wait until I got well behind, because the thing sometimes exploded. It was a wonder to me that it didn't always explode. Except when he was after small game, a native loaded his gun nearly to the end of the muzzle with powder before putting in the wads and a huge slug of metal. When he pulled the trigger, he closed his eyes and flinched because the recoil always knocked him flat. But he expected that and cheerfully picked himself up from the ground with the question, "Did I hit it?" And often he did hit it—if the barrel did not explode. I have seen some of the natives with ordinary iron pipe fitted on their guns to replace the barrels that had not been able to stand the strain.
I learned in the jungle that the hunter must always be on the lookout for the unexpected. At first it was difficult for me to distinguish between all the sights and sounds and to interpret each of them, but I soon learned under the tuition of the natives. One great danger came from the leopards, both spotted and black, who lie along the limbs of trees and spring without warning. A tiger slinks away when disturbed in the daytime, but a leopard almost always stands his ground and springs as one passes beneath him. And he can do more biting and scratching in one minute than a tiger can in three or four minutes.
Ali's alertness saved me one day from a terrible mauling, if not from death. We were breaking through the jungle on our way to some traps; Ali shouted and pushed me to one side, shoving my gun into my hands. I looked up, setting my gun, just as a black leopard sprang. Ali's spear whizzed by my head, I fired, catching the animal in mid-air squarely in the chest with an explosive bullet. Ali's spear hit him in the side. I took it as a good lesson in carefulness. It was well enough to be on the alert for the animal I was trailing, but it was also important to be on the alert for the animal that might be trailing me.
A favorite native method of hunting is with birdlime, which is a mucilage made from the gum of a tree. In catching tigers or leopards, the hunter spreads out the birdlime where they will pass and carefully covers it with leaves. Immediately after a cat animal has put his foot in the stuff, he becomes so enraged and helpless that he is easily captured. It is very much like putting butter on a house cat's paws to keep him busy until he becomes accustomed to a new home. The tiger or leopard that steps in birdlime doesn't step gracefully out of it and run away; he tries to bite the stuff from his feet and then he gets it on his face. When he tries to rub it off, he plasters it over his eyes. Finally, when he is thoroughly covered with it, he is so helpless that without much danger he can be put into a cage; and there he spends weeks in working patiently to remove the gum from his fur. Birds and monkeys are captured in birdlime smeared on the limbs of trees; they stay in it until some one goes up and pulls them out.
Another way of capturing small monkeys is by means of a sweetened rag in a bottle. The bottle is covered with green rattan and tied to a tree. The monkey puts his hand through the neck and grabs the rag. He cannot pull his hand out while it is doubled up with the rag in it, and he hasn't sense enough to let go. There he sticks, fighting with the bottle, until the hunter comes along and, by pressing the nerves in his elbow, forces him to open his hand and leave the rag for the next monkey.