For three solid hours under a killing tropical sun, without the proper cork helmet and protection, a pile driver kept hammering down on my head. I felt it at every step I took. Finally I dropped unconscious on the trail. After several hours I was able to proceed to the top of the mountain, where the Negritos were camped.
We got there about two o'clock and had lunch. As we ate about fifty Negritos swarmed about us.
They were a horrible looking crowd; stark naked, filthy with dirt; starved to skin and bones; and animal-like in every look and move.
I was so sick that I was not able to eat the lunch which had been provided in baskets. I lay on my back trying to get back my strength.
As the rest of the expedition ate, the Negritos with hungry eyes, crowded closer.
One hideous old man was in the forefront of the natives. He was so hideous looking that he was sickeningly repulsive to me as I looked at him crouched as he was like an animal with a streak of sunlight playing on his face.
This streak of sunlight, with ruthless severity, made the ugly scabs of dirt stand out on his old wrinkled face. That face had not felt the touch of water in years. His whole body was covered with dirt and sores. Wherever the sunlight struck on that black body it revealed scales like those on a mangy dog. His body was also covered with gray hairs matted into the dirt.
"That old codger represents the nearest thing to an animal that the human being can reach," said McLaughlin, one of the oldest missionaries on the island.
"You're right!" I said. "He looks as much like a Borneo Orangutan as any human being I ever saw."
"And he lives like one, too; up in a tree in a nest of matted limbs and grass," said another.