At their departure my Sam-Sam who had become in the meantime a robust young man, begged me to let him return to his own part, saying that there was a young Sakai willing to take his place in my service. Although very sorry to lose the faithful companion of that never to be forgotten journey through the forest, I could not refuse his request and let him do as he wished.
It was with real pleasure that I fell in with him again some years after when I was travelling through the interior of Kedah and he too evinced great joy at the meeting.
He told me that what he had earned from me had been the means of making his fortune, for with it he had bought a piece of ground and some oxen, and now kept himself, his wife and two children, by agricultural work.
As I have said, the gold was very scarce. After the coolies had left I tried to persuade the Sakais to take their post, which would have saved expense in gathering it, but every effort was useless for these people do not and will not understand what works means, or the pleasure it gives, beyond that of preparing poisons.
Poison is the principal topic of conversation with them and their only boast is the discovery of new or more deadly mixtures. The children listen to these discourses with lively interest and pay anxious attention to the experiments made by their elders in this primitive kind of chemistry, and in this way the passion is propagated from father to son and so it will continue until the breath of civilization reaches that far-off spot and those good, simple men learn that, in the struggle for life, civilized persons no longer use poisons that kill the body, but those which are much more terrible and without an antidote, such as envy, calumny, hatred and luxury, which destroy the mind and soul.
These are the venemous elements that my forest friends do not yet know, those poor savages who extract their poisons from the ipok[3] and other, trees to defend themselves against wild beasts and to procure them food in their wild abode.
Footnotes:
[3] The ipok, known in science by the Javenese name of upas, is a tree that affords a very baneful poison as explained in the chapter upon poisons.