The Sakais thought directly that her sudden decease must be owing to an evil spell of the Bretaks who wished for a revenge for the reluctance shown in giving them the salt. They quickly decided that the crime should be punished by death and started off in pursuit of the supposed culprits. As soon as they were within reach they attacked them with a volley of poisoned darts. The others naturally defended themselves and the conflict ended with three dead.
In the course of time the Government came to hear of the question and bade the pengulu (Malay chief) to make enquiries in order to establish the responsibility. But he refused to interfere.
No sooner was I appointed Superintendent than I received orders to interest myself in the matter, and an escort of armed soldiers was put at my disposition for the arrest of those found guilty. But this way of proceeding was not to my opinion, as I explained in my report. The fact was quite an exceptional one and was the consequence of a deplorable superstition. By imprisoning someone we should not have cured the great evil of ignorance, but only have sown the seed of hatred against the White Man, for the men who were taken prisoners could not live long in seclusion and their untimely death would never be pardoned.
The British Authority being favourable to this my way of thinking I was able to go alone and find out the rights of the case after which I managed to obtain a complete pacification of all concerned.
I had been but a short time in my new office when I decided to make a tour of inspection through the territory entrusted to my care and I really do not remember any other of my travels so full of incidents and emotional adventures. Two, in particular, will never be erased from my memory.
I was journeying quite by myself, confiding perhaps too much in the knowledge I had gained of the jungle, and the possibility of being lost in the forest never entered my head.
And yet this is one of the greatest perils that can befall anybody, for it may be a compendium of all the others.
He who is born and who grows up in the forest does not run this risk for certain, because from a slight cut in a tree, a broken reed, a pendant bough, the smallest sign that would escape the keenest of European eyes, the native knows how to draw precise indications of the direction to be followed. Wherever he goes, he never forgets to leave some trace of his passage in order to find his way back without uncertainty and loss of time. In this way the Sakais wander about the jungle with astounding security just as if they were walking along a well-traced out path.
The same prodigious variety of woodland scenery that the forest offers to the gaze gives it a certain uniformity in the mind of a white man. The colossal trees that stretch away one after the other as far as can be seen; the twining vines and creepers which cluster everywhere; the huge bushes and flowering thickets; the dips and hollows in the ground, and the little ponds over which the green of reed and rush triumphs equally with bright floral colours. The European embraces all this in a sole glance, in its entirety, but cannot discern, like the Sakai, the difference that exists between this tree and that, this glen and the other. And if the poor man be alone he will surely be lost; and if he is lost there is very little chance of his ever getting out again.