In practicing medicine for the benefit of the natives, I worked out one theory in regard to leprosy, which is a fairly common ailment in the Archipelago. I asked myself why, since a snake sheds its skin, a man who is afflicted with disease should not be able to do the same thing.
In Singapore there was a rich Chinese leper, known as Ong Si Chou, who asked me repeatedly why I did not bring him some new remedy for his disease. Since he had a large household of servants who took care of him, and his own carriages and rickshaws when he traveled, he was allowed to live untroubled by the authorities; but he was very unhappy, because he had tried all the remedies of the native doctors and was steadily growing worse. At last I told him that I had something that might help. He asked me what it was but I would not tell him. When he insisted, I answered, "Snakes."
"Uh-la!" he exclaimed, waving his arms in the air. Then I explained my theory. The ability of a snake to shed his skin might be transferred to a human being if he ate snakes; and if so, the person would be able to shed his leprosy. Ong Si Chou did not care for the idea at all, but I told him it was worth trying and I argued that a snake is much cleaner than an eel. At last he consented, and I furnished him with a number of small pythons, with the instructions that they were to be killed and cleaned immediately before they were eaten. He was to eat them raw with his rice.
I left Singapore soon after that, and, when I returned, I found that Ong Si Chou had died. People thought it was a great joke on me because my patient had not survived the treatment, but I am far from being convinced that the cure will not work—or, at least, help to throw off leprosy. Ong Si Chou was in the last stages of the disease, and his case was not a fair test.
After living eighteen months with the Malays in Sumatra, I decided that I was well enough equipped to leave and begin the work of collecting wherever I could find the animals I wanted, I went to Singapore and found that Ariff had been maligning me to his heart's content I called upon him to see what he had to say for himself and he prophesied dismal failure for all my plans. However, I engaged passage on a coast steamer going northward, and stopped off at Kelantan, Patani and Singgora, in Lower Siam. At those places I gathered all the information I could about animals and made myself known to dealers. I wanted to make trips to the interior, but to do so I needed a special permit from Bangkok. Instead, I made agreements with all the dealers that they were to send their animals to me, and arranged with the captains and chinchus of the coast-boats for the transportation of the crates. By offering to pay the freight and give them a fair share of the profit, I cut off a large part of Ariff's business.
On my return to Singapore, I found a letter from the director of the Melbourne Zoölogical Society, suggesting that I come to Australia with a consignment of animals. A few weeks later I arrived at Melbourne with a black leopard, twenty-five small monkeys, two small orang-outangs, a pair of civet cats and numerous other animals. Mr. La Souef, the director, and his son, who had just been appointed director of the zoölogical gardens at Perth, met me at the dock. His son bought the entire consignment. The result of this visit was my appointment as agent of the Australian zoölogical gardens. In return for giving them first call on any animals that came into my hands, I was given a retaining fee. The most important part of the agreement was that the animals were to be shipped f.o.b. Singapore and that I was thus released from all the risks of transportation.
It happened too often that animals died aboard ship, after weeks had been spent in capturing them and bringing them to port, and this loss was invariably borne by the dealer. Since the agreement with the Australian zoölogical gardens was exactly what I wanted, I returned to Singapore elated. Ariff was crestfallen when he heard the news, and he became more crestfallen when I called on him and told him about the commission I had received from various societies in Australia. I did not want to have him as an enemy, and I foresaw that there would be war between us unless we came to some sort of terms. Consequently, I told him that I wanted to work with him, and that we could do a great deal of business together if he would treat me fairly. He considered the matter for a time, and then, when he saw that I was getting much higher prices for animals than he, he decided that I was right.
One of my Australian commissions was to secure for the New Gardens, at Perth, a pair of tigers—male and female and unrelated. I sent the word out among animal dealers, and, shortly after, I received a cable from a Calcutta dealer named Rutledge, asking me to come at once. I took the next boat to Calcutta and found that there were two tigers up-country near Hazaribagh, a mica mining district about three hundred miles northwest of Calcutta, off the line of the railroad.
I was warned that it was a dangerous country to go through and that the people were thieves. It was suggested to me that I hire a native of the locality to protect me. He would do all the stealing; he could, they told me, but he would prevent the others from stealing.
The trip was made with a retinue of servants, cooks, bearers and runners, each with his own little task. It was my first experience with the caste system, and I was amazed at the number of people I had to take with me. We traveled by the main road for two hundred miles; then by a branch road to a place called Pachamba. The remainder of the trip was made by ox-teams and bearers, along the line of the government rest-houses erected for the use of officials visiting the country.