A
STAR BOOK

TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS
IN MALAY JUNGLES

BY

CHARLES MAYER

GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1920, by
ASIA PUBLISHING COMPANY

Copyright, 1921, by
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY

Printed in U. S. A.

To
MY SISTER DORA

CONTENTS

Trapping Wild Animals in Malay Jungles

I

CIRCUS DAYS

It as the lure of the circus—the tug that every boy feels when a show comes to town—that started me on my career as a collector of wild animals. I use the word collector rather than hunter, because hunting gives the idea of killing and, in my business, a dead animal is no animal at all. In fact, the mere hunting of the animals was simply the beginning of my work, and the task of capturing them uninjured was far more thrilling than standing at a distance and pulling a trigger. And then, when animals were safely in the net or stockade, came the job of taking them back through the jungle to the port where they could be sold. It was often a case of continuous performance until I stood on the dock and saw the boats steam away with the cages aboard. And I wasn't too sure of the success of my expedition even then, because the animals I had yanked from the jungle might die before they reached their destination.

I was nearly seventeen when Sells Brothers' Circus came to Binghamton, New York, where I was living with my parents. That day I joined some other boys in playing hookey from school, and we earned our passes by carrying water for the animals. It wasn't my first circus, but it was the first time that I had ever worked around the animals and I was fascinated. I didn't miss the big show, but all the rest of the day I was in the menagerie, listening to the yarns of the keepers and doing as much of their work as they would allow. That night, when the circus left town, I stowed away in a wagon.

The next morning, in Elmira, I showed up at the menagerie bright and early. The men laughed when they saw me. I had expected them to be surprised and I was afraid that they might send me away, but I found out later that it was quite an ordinary thing for boys to run away from home and join the circus. And the men didn't mind because the boys were always glad to do their work for them. I worked hard and, in return, the men saw that I had something to eat. That night I stowed away again in the wagon.

In Buffalo I was told to see the boss—the head property-man—and I went, trembling for fear he was going to send me back home. Instead, he told me that I might have the job of property-boy, which would give me $25 a month, my meals and a place to sleep—if I could find one. There were no sleeping accommodations for the canvas and property crews; we rolled up in the most comfortable places we could find, and we were always so dead tired that we didn't care much where we slept.

Since those early days in the circus, I've been around the world many times, and I've seen all sorts of men, living and working in all sorts of conditions, but I've never found a harder life than that of property-boy, unless, perhaps, it's that of a Malay prisoner. Sometimes I wonder how I stood it and why I liked it. But I did stand it and, what is more, I loved it so much that I persuaded the boss to keep me on when we went into winter quarters.

The moment we arrived at a town, the head canvas-man rode to the lot on which we were to show and laid it out; that is, he measured it and decided on the location of the tents. The men with him drove small stakes to indicate where the tent-pegs were to be placed. In the meantime, the property gang unloaded the show. Then we drove the four-foot stakes for the dressing-tent into whatever kind of ground the lot happened to have. A man can work up a good appetite by swinging a fourteen-pound hammer for an hour or so before breakfast, but before we started we had also many other things to do. The dressing-tent had to be spread and hoisted; then the properties were sorted and placed in their position for the performers to get ready for the parade. Meanwhile the canvas-gang was getting the "big-top" up. Then, when the parade started, we went to the "big-top" and arranged the properties there, made the rings, adjusted the guys, ropes and wires for the aerial acts and laid out all the paraphernalia for the ground acts. While we were doing these things, the canvas-men were stringing the seats. Then we had breakfast.

When the parade returned, there were cages to be placed in the menagerie tent and the parade properties to be prepared for shipping. By the time that work was finished, the crowds had arrived for the show and we stood by to handle the tackle of the various acts. At night, after the show had started, we began taking down the smaller, tents and stowing the properties just as fast as they came from the "big top." Then, when the show was loaded, we took one last look over the lot to be sure that nothing had been left behind.

No, we didn't care much where we slept—just any spot where we dropped was good enough.

My greatest interest was in the animals, especially the elephants. In my spare minutes—they were mighty few and far between—I talked with the keepers and learned from them many things about the care of animals. When we went into winter quarters at Columbus, Ohio, the head animal-man agreed to let me stay as a keeper.

The next season I went with the Adam Forepaugh show; then with the Frank Robbins show. I learned the circus business from the ground up and I was rapidly promoted. In 1883, I joined R. W. Fryer's show as head property-man and transportation master. It was a responsible position, which required every bit of the knowledge I had gained in the few preceding years. I had charge of all the circus property and I was boss of a large crew of men. The job kept me on the jump day and night. The canvas and property crews were made up of the toughest characters I have ever struck in my life—a man had to be tough in those days. They were hard to handle, but they were good workers and I got along all right with them.

They were always just a little bit tougher than any local talent we came up against on the tour, even though a circus used to attract the worst men for miles around. At Albuquerque one night, four "bad men" came to see the show. When they came up, Fitzgerald, who was one of the partners, was taking tickets at the entrance. He tried to get tickets from them, but they pulled out guns. One of them said: "These are our tickets." Fitzgerald let them in and passed the word along to the crew. The men took seats and, when the show started, they let loose with their guns, shooting through the tents and letting a few bullets fly into the ring. Sometimes a bullet would strike near a performer, raising a puff of dust and scaring him half to death. The "bad men" were sitting with their legs dangling down between the seats. Some of the crew took seats near them, just as if they were part of the audience, and a dozen property-men sneaked under the tent. When the signal was given, they grabbed the dangling legs and pulled. Then the circus-men in the seats jumped up and, without letting the audience know what was happening, they snatched the guns. Down went the "bad men" between the seats. It all happened so quickly and so quietly that the audience didn't realize what had become of them. The canvas-men "toe-staked" them; that is, they hit them over the heads with the toe-stakes that are driven into the ground to keep the seat-stringers from sliding. A toe-stake is of just the proper size and weight to use in a fight, and it is the circus-man's idea of a good weapon. The crew buried the four men while the show was on. I thought there would be trouble before we could get out of town, but the men weren't even missed.

The Fryer outfit had a Pennsylvania Dutchman called Charley. He was one of the strongest men I have ever seen. One night, when the stake-wagon, drawn by eight horses, was stuck in the mire, he lifted the rear end of the wagon on his back while the horses pulled it out. I think that if Charley had got a good swing at a man and used his full strength, he could have killed him with one blow. One day, in Christchurch, New Zealand, while Fitzgerald was taking tickets, a larrikin—a tough—came along and said: "Ticket?—I'll spit in your eye." Fitzgerald knocked him down and called for Charley, who was working at the ticket-wagon. Charley took the larrikin in his arms just as easily as if he had been a baby, and carried him out into the street. There he dropped him and said: "If I have to do this again, I'll hit you." The larrikin didn't come back.

Charley's work at the ticket-wagon was to keep the crowd moving. In front of the ticket-window there was always stretched down a big sheet of canvas covered with sawdust. When a man put down his money for a ticket, the fellow in the wagon passed him out a ticket for the cheapest seat and charged him the highest price—unless the man showed that he knew exactly what seat he wanted; in that case, the ticket-seller shoved his change out so that one or two coins slid off the counter into the sawdust. If the man tried to stop and hunt in the sawdust for his money, Charley pushed him along to make room for the others who wanted to buy tickets. After the crowd had passed into the teat, Charley and his pal would take tap the canvas and sort out the money from the sawdust.

I wasn't in on that "flam" system, but I had another way of making money. As head property-man, I stood near the entrance to the "big-top" and, when people weren't satisfied with their seats, they came to me. I sold them the privilege of taking better seats. The sum acquired in this way was known as "cross-over money" and it was supposed to be turned over to the company. One day one of the partners objected to this arrangement. He decided that he would take the "cross-over money" himself and have me collect tickets at the main entrance. The other partner in the show would not agree to this scheme. "If Mayer takes the 'cross-over money'," he said, "we get half of it, at least; but, if you take it, we don't get any."

That settled the matter, and, considering times and ways, I've always thought that it was a good tribute to my honesty. It was a crude business and every man was out for himself. To break even, a man had to be just as hard as the next one, and to come out ahead, he had to be a bit harder. I liked the game, but I always had the feeling that it wasn't the thing I wanted most. I was interested chiefly in the animals, but, as head property-man, I had little time to be near them.

My desire to learn all there was to know about animals was the main reason why I cultivated the acquaintance and friendship of Gaylord. He was an expert animal-man—probably the best informed in the business—and had been P. T. Barnum's confidential agent for years. He had traveled the world over, time and again.

It was Gaylord who negotiated with the Siamese officials for one of the famous white elephants of Siam. Barnum had his heart set on having one of them for his show and he sent Gaylord out with instructions to go the limit. The stumbling-block in the transaction was that the Siamese believe the spirits of the ancestors of the royal family are transferred to the white elephants. The animals live in the royal palace and are cared for with all the ceremony given to any members of the reigning family. Of course, Barnum's plan was just as unthinkable to them as if he had offered to exhibit the king in his side-show. There was a hot exchange of cablegrams between Barnum in New York and Gaylord in Siam. Finally Barnum offered the government $250,000 for the privilege of borrowing one of the elephants for just one year. He agreed to support a retinue of priests and attendants and to pay all transportation charges. The government would not even consider the proposition so Gaylord gave up in disgust and cabled that the deal was off. But Barnum was not discouraged. When Gaylord returned to this country, he found that the old man was advertising a white elephant from the royal palace of Siam. Barnum had simply used a whitewash brush on an ordinary elephant, with the result that he had a whiter elephant than the Siamese ever dreamed of seeing. The animal was so covered with velvet robes and surrounded by attendants that the audience could not detect the fraud; the general effect was good and the trick brought in a lot of money.

Gaylord was quite deaf when I knew him, and so was Fryer. Sometimes at rehearsal in the morning Fryer would come along and say to Gaylord: "Let's go up on the top seat—I want to tell you something privately." Then they would climb up to the top seats and exchange confidences—shouting at each other so loud that you could hear them all over the lot.

The Fryer show opened in Kansas City and then worked right out to the coast. After a month in San Francisco, we jumped to Hawaii. We showed a month at Honolulu and the King rarely missed a performance. We had a royal box fitted up for him, and he had as good a time as any of the youngsters. From Honolulu we went to Auckland, New Zealand, where we found a twenty-day quarantine on all animals. We managed to get along by giving performances in the Theatre Royal—just the acts that required no animals. After that we went to Australia and showed at all the large towns; then we shipped to Java. Next we visited the Malay Peninsula, where later I was to spend many years in collecting animals.

During these long voyages, I spent much of the time with Gaylord, listening to his stories of experiences with animals. I had many questions to ask and Gaylord, whose fund of information was inexhaustible, always answered them and told me more besides.

A few days after we arrived at Singapore, he said: "Do you want to come with me while I buy some animals?" Naturally, I jumped at the chance. We went to the house of Mahommed Ariff, the Malay dealer who held a monopoly on the animal trade. He was squatted in the center of his courtyard, surrounded by cages containing the animals brought in from the jungle by his native agents. He was a wicked old devil and a man had only to glance at him to be convinced of the fact. His forebears, Gaylord told me as we were going to his house, were pirates, and he was the chief of a clique of Samgings (the native gangsters), composed of natives who would commit any crime he ordered. It was by using such methods that he held his monopoly of the animal business; the natives were afraid of him, and no European or native had dared to interfere with his trade. His head was shaven and his lips and chin were stained crimson from chewing betel-nut. He had little bullet eyes, set in a fat face. My impression of Mahommed Ariff was that he would be a bad man to have as an enemy, but it naturally didn't enter my head that he was to become a sworn enemy of mine a few years later. He greeted us cordially, for he had done business many times with Gaylord, and we sat down with him to talk animals. His religion was "to do all Europeans," but he could not help being honest with us. If any man knew the value of animals, it was Gaylord, and old Mahommed Ariff was well aware of the fact. That day we bought a tiger, several monkeys and a pair of leopards.

Several times during our stay in Singapore, I went to see Mahommed Ariff. He spoke a little English and he was usually willing to talk with me, hoping, perhaps, that we would buy more animals. From him I learned something of the work of collecting as it was done on the Malay Archipelago, but I had no idea, at that time, of entering the business.

The show moved to Penang; thence to Bangkok, Hongkong and Shanghai; then to Japan. It was in Tokyo that Gaylord had one of his bright ideas. He organized, in conjunction with the circus, a Japanese village, and, when we worked back over our route, via Singapore and Australia, we carried forty Japanese with us. Twelve of them were performers and the remainder were artisans. We had miniature Japanese houses, in which the artisans worked at their trades, such as fan-making, wood-carving and embroidering. Also we carried a big stock of cheap Japanese goods, which were sold as the products of our traveling factory. The Japanese village was a great success and brought a lot of money into the show.

In September, 1886, we struck Buenos Aires, where the show had to buck the Carlos Brothers—the big South American outfit—and bad weather. During the long tour we had overcome many obstacles, but that combination was too much. Fryer, Gaylord and Fitzgerald decided to disband, and most of the properties and animals were sold to the Carlos Brothers.

By hard work and careful saving, I had managed to accumulate over $8,000; so I was happy to head northward. I returned to New York by way of London and in December I met Fitzgerald. A short time afterward we were in St. Louis, where we bought the Walter L. Main show, which consisted of nothing more than a tent and some seats. We had no animals but we hired performers and started out on the road.

For one week we had luck and took in money; then came nine days of rain. The tent absorbed tons of water, and we had no way of drying it and preventing mildew. It was so heavy that the canvas-man could scarcely handle it.

At Springfield I went out to the lot and found Fitzgerald there; he just stood there, looking at the wet canvas spread out on the ground with the rain beating down on it. The canvas-men had given up—the tent was too heavy to hoist. That was the end of my only adventure as a circus-owner.

The big shows carried an extra tent to meet emergencies, but we couldn't have one, of course. The rain had beaten us to a finish. Even if we could have raised our tent, we should have had no audience, and we weren't well enough supplied with money to follow Bailey's idea of giving a performance if there were only two persons there to see it. Our "Greatest Show in the World" was sunk in an Illinois mud-puddle.

In later years I have stood sponsor for many of the shows and small circuses that visited Singapore. One I well remember belonged to an old friend, A. Bert Wilison of Sydney, Australia, who had been with the advance at the time I was with R. W. Fryer's Circus. He came with his show from Calcutta in pawn, that is to say, he paid as much as he had and the steamship company took a lien on his show or chattels, and if the agent at the port of disembarkment was satisfied, he could put up his tent and show, the steamship agent taking the receipts with interest until the freight and passage money was collected. I happened to be in Singapore at the time and was told a circus had just arrived from Calcutta—"Bert Wilison's African Circus and Equine Paradox." I was wondering who's it could be, as I had never heard of my old friend's rise to proprietor of a show.

I made up my mind to see him, if not for business then as an old showman, never dreaming I was to meet an old friend. The surprise and pleasure was mutual at our meeting, after an absence of nearly fourteen years. The last time we were together was in Buenos Ayres. As I was dressed in an old suit of khaki, I looked to him as if I were stranded. "Well, Charley," he said, "I'm broke, too, but I'll manage to fix you somehow and get you out of here. You come with me, old boy, we'll share what's left of the old show."

I thanked him and said that I was not as badly off as I appeared, but had been in the animal business for a number of years, was settled and pretty well known in Singapore, and if I could be of assistance to him, it was his for the asking.

"Well, Mayer, to tell the truth, I'm in hock with the steamship people. I have not enough to pay for the hauling of my stuff or feed for the horses, let alone to put my wife and child at a decent hotel."

I assured him I would see him through. There were tears in his eyes as he grasped my hand. I went with him to the agent of the British India Company and arranged for the payment of his passage and freight, in fact took care of everything for him. It made me feel good to be again in touch with the old show business; once in it, one never forgets its glamor. I arranged for the lot and feed for the horses, but the performers paid their own hotel expenses. We had still to look for the labor, so I hired coolies, and by night had the top up. At the same time there was a stranded balloonist whom I was befriending, an American named Price, who went broke in India. He had his balloon, which wanted but a little repairing, so I made arrangements with Wilison for Price to join the show and give ascensions and parachute jumps for an attraction.

Well, the show opened and made good. The balloon ascension was something new and it went big, especially when the balloon was anchored and would take people up. Wilison played Singapore two weeks, paid all his debts and was on his feet. I advised him to play Bangkok, and, if possible, get a guarantee from Prince Damvony to show inside the palace, which he did with success. The only thing that marred the career of the show was when Price went up in the balloon and took a parachute jump, he drifted down into the King's household, that is, the women's pavilion, and caused an awful uproar among the inmates. He had to do a lot of explaining to convince the officials that it was no fault of his, that it was unavoidable, as the wind carried him there. I leave my readers to imagine, if they can, the fright and feeling of the women on seeing a man, a European, dressed in tights, dropping amongst them from the skies. It was weeks before the scare wore off, and it was spoken of for years after. The last I heard of Wilison was in Japan, when he intended to go from there to Hawaii and then to Australia.

As the steamer having the Wilison show aboard left the docks, the old fascination of show life seemed to grip me. It brought back wonderful memories of the good old days when one-ring circuses were the real thing. I look back on those days with regret, days when I was the head or Boss Property Man, for next to the Proprietor the Boss Property Man was king of the dressing-tents, and woe to the performer who slighted him. When the Show would make its first start on the road, the Boss Property Man would place the performers' trunks in position. Pay day, the performer who neglected to give his fifty cents or dollar to the Boss Property Man, would find his trunk badly damaged, broken open or no trunk at all on arrival at the next town. It was a custom that few ventured to neglect, for otherwise they might suffer the loss of their wardrobe or part of it, and probably their trunk, and ran the risk of being fired by the management for failure to be ready for their act.

One case in particular I remember when I was with the R. W. Fryer's Shows as Boss Property Man and transportation master. While the Show was still in Sydney, N.S.W., and a week before ending our eight weeks' stay, I told one of the performers, the bearer of a brother act, that is the man that holds the other man on his shoulders and catches him as he jumps or turns somersaults, to get a new trunk as he had an old tin-covered one that had the edges all worn and broken, and every time any of my men handled it they were sure to have their hands or clothes cut and torn. He promised to get one in Melbourne. We played Melbourne eight weeks and went from there to Ballarat, Victoria. He still failed to get a new trunk, and when the Show appeared in Ballarat, his trunk was amongst the missing, dropped or fallen off the train en route during the night. He was fired, and a day or so after got notice from the Government Railroad to come and get some of his belongings that had been picked up along the line. He got a new trunk.

Another character with the same Show was the Musical Clown, named Shilleto, a really good fellow, but seldom sober. I honestly believe that if he were sober he could not do his act. He was a natural born musician. He could play any instrument and play it well.

On arriving at any town, as a joke we would pick some one who had a local reputation as a ne'er-do-well and explain to him Shilleto's weakness, flattery and whiskey, telling him to go up to Shilleto and say, "I beg your pardon, but are you not Shilleto, the great Musical Clown, now with Fryer's American Show. I have seen you a number of times in different parts of Europe but never expected to have the pleasure of seeing you in Australia. You are the greatest I ever saw. Will you allow me to shake hands with you." Shilleto never had been in Europe, although it was his boast that he had traveled all over that continent with shows.

That would settle it. Shilleto's chest would swell up and that person was his guest for days, introduced as his friend, from Europe, often giving him a title. Shilleto never seemed to get wise to the fact that in every town he would meet with some one who had seen him in Europe and with the same story.

It was on one of the visits to New York that the late J. A. Bailey of Barnum and Bailey, sent me a telegram from Chicago to meet him two days later in New York, and, after mutual greetings, asked me how long it would take me to get to India. I told him I intended to stop two weeks in New York and probably three or four weeks in London. "Now, Mayer," he said, "I want you to get to India as soon as possible. Can you start tomorrow?" Tomorrow being a Saturday, I told him no, and then asked why the hurry. What was there in India that was wanted. He then told me that he had reliable information of a huge elephant, one standing fourteen to fourteen and a half feet high, in Bombay. I laughed, saying, "Mr. Bailey, your informant must be mistaken, there are no elephants in Bombay outside of government elephants, and I am sure none of them equal or come near that size." I assured him that I was fairly posted on the size of elephants in captivity throughout India, and reminded him of my standing order from him to secure if possible any elephant of twelve feet or over.

Now the elephant Jumbo was an African elephant and stood eleven feet two inches, and he was thought to be the tallest elephant in captivity, and when Mr. Bailey told me of an Asiatic elephant fourteen to fourteen and a half feet in height, I could not help smiling. "Mr. Bailey," I said, "why not cable to the American Consul at Bombay and have him secure it for you while your representative is on his way." No, he wanted me to start at once, as he said the Ringling Brothers and several others had heard of it and were sending men out, so he wanted me to beat them to it if possible. Money was no object as long as I was able to secure it, and as he was absolutely in earnest, I told him I could start the following Wednesday, July third. He asked me to see what connections I could make, to secure my passage for the following Wednesday and find out the shortest possible time I could make Bombay.

Can my readers form an idea what an Asiatic elephant fourteen to fourteen and a half feet high, and probably weighing from seven to eight tons, would mean to a circus like the Barnum and Bailey Show? What a drawing power it would be! It would mean a million or more. No keener or more wonderful manager than Mr. Bailey lived, but, like many others, was often misled by wonderful tales of strange things. Immense amounts of money were spent in searching for and trying to secure freaks and abnormal animals that never existed outside the minds of the showmen's informants.

As I said, money was no object. Get it! That was all there was to it. "Go get it!" sounds easy, eh?

After looking up the sailings from London to Bombay, I saw that one of the P. & O. steamers leaving London on the fourth day of July was due in Bombay on the twenty-eighth day of that month, and told Mr. Bailey that if I left New York on the third of July, with luck, I would be in Bombay on the twenty-eighth.

"Can you make it, Mayer? By gosh, that's good time, but how are you going to do it? You have got to go to London first."

I said that was true. I would leave New York on the third and catch the steamer leaving London on the fourth of July at Brindisi, at the tail end of Italy, as it was due there on the fourteenth.

I left New York on the steamer New York on the third, arrived in London on the tenth, stayed two days in London, traveled overland through France, Switzerland and Italy, and on the evening of the fourteenth walked up the gangplank of the P. & O. boat and the twenty-eighth day of July, after transhipping at Aden, stepped ashore in Bombay.

Well, there was no such elephant; nobody had ever heard of any that size, let alone seen one near it, either in Bombay or throughout India, and I went through India looking for it. The largest I ever saw belonged to the Maharajah of Mysore. He was, as nearly as I could judge, about twelve feet, but a bad one and old, always heavily chained, and out of the question for show purposes.

After I left Singapore, I had been thinking constantly of becoming a dealer in animals. The more I considered the idea, the more it appealed to me. I was becoming tired of circus life, especially since my work did not bring me into contact with the animals. On my return to New York I found Gaylord and told him about my plans. He encouraged me and introduced me to many men I was glad to know, such as Donald Burns, who was a dealer and had a store in Roosevelt Street.

At Donald Burns's place I talked my venture over with many showmen. They were all interested and wished to encourage me, but they were frankly doubtful of my success because they knew of old Mahommed Ariff's monopoly. Burns offered to help me dispose of the animals, but I was not elated at that prospect, for Burns did not attend very strictly to business. It was a well-known story in the circus world that he had neglected the opportunity of handling the first hippopotamus brought to this country. A sea captain had offered to sell it to him for $3,000, but Burns refused to take it—he simply wasn't interested. A few days later it was sold to Barnum for $10,000.

Strangely enough, it was Burns's easygoing way of managing his affairs that gave me my opportunity of going to Singapore. I had been in New York, making my plans and saving my money, but I didn't feel that I had enough to start out on the venture. One day I was in Burns's store when he was away, and a sailor came in, hiding two monkeys under his coat. He had smuggled them into the country and wanted to sell them. The monkeys were black with coal-dust, but one of them, I noticed, had pink eyes. That fact interested me and I bargained for them, buying the pair for fifteen dollars. When the sailor left, I found a cake of soap and gave them a bath. The monkey with the pink eyes turned out to be pure white. Those were the days when Jim Corbett was a great favorite, and he had recently become known as "Pompadour Jim." My white monkey had a perfect pompadour on his head. Soon one of the newspapers printed a story connecting Corbett and the monkey. A few days later I sold the monkey for $1,500, and I then had enough money to start for Singapore.

It was in April, 1887, that I left New York on the steamer Glenderrie. I outfitted in London while we lay over there, taking cargo aboard, and, because I was none too sure what material I should need, I confined my outfit to clothes and guns. On the advice of several animal-men, I bought a Winchester 50-110 express rifle that fired explosive ballets. The bullets contained a detonator and enough dynamite to stop any animal in his tracks. My revolvers were a Colt .45 and a Smith and Wesson .38. The passage took seven weeks and during that time I became well acquainted with Captain Angus, who commanded the boat.

When I reached Singapore, I began at once to learn the Malay language, which is spoken with some variations of dialect throughout the Archipelago.

I called on Mahommed Ariff every day and learned as much as possible about the ways and means by which he carried on his business. Eventually I proposed to him that he let me act as his agent in interviewing the captains of some of the boats that called at the port. He agreed to my plan because there were many captains who would no longer do business with him—he had cheated them once too often—and he saw in me a means of resuming trade. We had no written agreement and no understanding as to my commission, but I was content to start work on that basis because it meant experience.

It was customary for the members of the crew of a boat to buy animals, splitting the risk between them, and sell them when they reached European or American ports. Soon after I had reached the agreement with Mahommed Ariff, a German boat came into port and I went out to interview the captain. I found that he had had previous dealings with the Malay and that he had sworn never to buy another animal from him. Finally, he agreed to make some purchases, but he took care to draw up a paper in which he said that he was buying on my representation.

I reported the deal to Mahommed Ariff, but when I went the next morning to deliver the animals, I found that he had sent them to the boat during the night and had collected the money for them. He refused to give me my commission because, he said, the captain was an old customer of his. The boat was about to sail and there was no time to get the captain ashore and settle the dispute. However, I had the written statement signed by him, that the animals had been bought from me, and I surprised Mahommed Ariff by suing him. He was a surprised Malay when I produced the paper in court, and he paid the commission and costs. The result of the suit was that I gained a number of friends and established a reputation.

For the time being, all deals with Mahommed Ariff were off, of course, and so I had to look elsewhere for business. I induced a Malay hadji, who had made a pilgrimage to Mecca, to take me to his home at Palembang, in the island of Sumatra. He was a buyer of animals from the people of his district and, as he did much of his selling through Mahommed Ariff, he hesitated at taking me with him. But I pointed out the advisability of having a European agent—all white men were considered Europeans. The vision of securing more business, without being robbed constantly by Mahommed Ariff, brought him around to my proposition, and we went together to the Dutch General in Singapore. I told the Consul General my plans, and, after I had presented references from the bank, he gave me a passport and a personal letter to the Dutch Resident at Palembang. Then the old hadji and I started off for Sumatra.

This was really my start in the business of animal collecting. At Singapore I had seen enough to know that the work I wanted to do was not simply to sell the animals at a port, but to capture them in the jungle. My main object in going to Sumatra was to live with the natives and learn their methods and language, so that, being at the source of the supply of animals, I could capture and sell with practically no interference from Mahommed Ariff. I was in constant communication with Gaylord, who encouraged me in my idea of becoming a collector; also I put myself in touch with the Australian Zoölogical Society.

The district in which the hadji lived had a population of about 100,000, made up of Dutch, Malays and Chinese. Back of the settlement lay the jungle; a dense virgin forest of trees that were bound together by a woven mass of creepers and vines. The trunks, rising straight and smooth for fifty or sixty feet, burst into foliage that formed a thick, green canopy, through which the sun rarely filtered. On the ground, the vines, palm ferns, tall grasses and rattan made a wall that only parangs, the native knives, cutting foot by foot, could penetrate. The heat of the open spaces in the tropics is blistering, but that of the jungle is damp and stifling; moisture accumulates, and the light breezes that blow overhead have no chance of moving the air below, which is filled with the smell of rotting vegetation. Especially in the morning, before the sun has a chance to bake the water out, it is a drenching business to go into the jungle.

Notwithstanding the climate, the sight of such country made me anxious to begin work, and I lost no time in reporting to the Dutch Resident. The Dutch are strict in their colonial government, and, for the most part, they have good reason to be strict. One white man who does not understand the natives and who has no consideration for them may start trouble that will end in an uprising. The trouble generally comes from a lack of regard for the native's feeling for his women. Though the Malays live a fairly loose life, they resent having a white man take their women and they generally vent their displeasure in murder. That, of course, means a government investigation, with ill-feeling rising on both sides. To the Dutch Resident I explained my purpose in wishing to live in the Malay quarter with the hadji, and he gave me permission, warning me that it would be revoked at the least sign of trouble.

Thereupon, with the hadji leading, I took my belongings to his house and settled down to become acquainted with the people. They regarded me curiously, but when the hadji introduced me by saying "E-tu-twan banyar bye. Dare be-tolé (This man is very good. He is true)," they accepted me without question. The word of a man who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is not to be doubted and my dispute with Mahommed Ariff was told and retold until it became a wonderfully exaggerated legend with me as the hero. They disliked Ariff because he was forever swindling them when they captured animals.

It is not difficult to win the friendship of the natives, if you know how to treat them. If they like you, they become doglike in their devotion; they will do anything you tell them to do and believe whatever you say as though it were gospel. I studied them closely, learning their language and customs and carefully avoiding anything that might bring me into disfavor. Day after day, I went with them into the jungle, picking up bits of jungle-craft. Gradually I learned to see the things that they saw in the walls of green about us, and to interpret the sounds—the hum of insects, the call of birds, the chattering of monkeys and the cries of other animals—and I spent hours with them, squatting in their houses, busy with the rudiments of the Malay language.

Once during the eighteen months I spent with the hadji, I was haled before the Resident for an investigation, but the natives stuck by me valiantly and I was exonerated. The trouble started one evening when I was sitting on the hadji's veranda. There came a scream from one of the houses, and a native emerged, howling and swinging a knife, slashing at every one within reach—men, women and children. He was running amok, a victim of the strange homicidal mania fairly common among the Malays. When a man runs amok, he suddenly begins to kill and he does not care whom—his own family or people he has never seen before. The hadji yelled to me to shoot. I pulled out my revolver and fired, hitting the man in the left arm. He stopped for a moment; the other natives seized him and stabbed him to death. At the investigation, the hadji explained to the Resident that I was not responsible for the man's death and that I had acted on his suggestion, to save the lives of the natives. As the man had slashed about eight people before I shot, the Resident ended his investigation by thanking me and renewing my permission to live in the Malay quarter. I returned to the hadji's house more popular with the natives than ever before.

A native came running to the hadji's house one day with the news that he had seen a big snake. He said that it was at least fifty feet long and as big as a tree. Knowing the Malay habit of exaggerating, I put it down as about twenty feet long; but I gathered a crew of natives and we built a crate from the limbs of trees and bamboo, binding it together with green rattan. According to the native's tale, the snake had just swallowed a pig, and so, knowing that where he had first been seen, he would remain, sleeping and digesting his meal, we postponed the capture until the next morning.

A python always kills his food by coiling around it and crushing it to death; then he swallows it whole, slobbering so that it will pass his throat. During the digestive process, he generally becomes torpid and, without putting up much fight, submits to capture.

Before we went out for the snake, I told each man what he was to do, explaining carefully how I intended to get the snake into the crate. When I was sure that they understood, we started into the jungle, led by the native who made the discovery. I was surprised to find the largest snake I had ever seen. It looked at least thirty feet long and about eighteen inches in diameter. For a moment we stood there gasping.

The python was sleeping peacefully, digesting the pig. I called to the men and put them to work at staking the crate to the ground and securing it so that the snake could not lash it around. The crate was about eight feet long, six feet wide and two and one-half feet deep; just large enough to hold him and just small enough so that, once inside, he would not be able to get leverage and break it. Again I explained what each man was to do. Then I passed a rope through the crate, tying one end to a tree and preparing a running noose to be slipped around the snake's head when we were ready to draw him forward. Two more ropes were laid out, running from his tail. These we wrapped around trees on each side of the tail, and I stationed men at the ends, showing them how they were to pay out the rope as the snake was drawn toward the crate, keeping it taut enough to prevent him from lashing.

The python slept soundly through all these preparations. When we were ready, I gathered the men about me and cautioned them against becoming excited. I warned all those who had not been given work to do to stand back out of the way and not to approach unless we needed them.

With bamboo poles we prodded the snake at the head and tail, standing by with the nooses, ready to slip them on when he stirred sufficiently. Before he realized what was happening, we had the head-noose over him. The instant he felt the rope tighten he was awake!

The natives holding the tail-ropes became excited and succeeded in getting only one of them in place. The python suddenly leaped forward, and, though he did not loosen the rope, whipped it out of the hands of the men and knocked several of them flat; then he caught one man, who had not been able to get out of the way, and wrapped the lower part of his body around him while five or six feet of his tail still lashed about with the rope. I yelled to the others to pull on the tail-rope, but the confusion was so great that they did not hear me. I went for the snake's neck, which is the most tender part of him, hoping to sink my fingers in on the nerve center and disable him for a moment until the men collected their senses and pulled the rope. By jumping forward, the snake had loosened the head-rope sufficiently to turn on me and sink his fangs into my forearm. I sprang back.

The man who was caught in the snake's coils screamed, and tried to beat off the tail as it was drawing in about him. Then the snake constricted suddenly, breaking nearly every bone in the man's body and crushing the life out of him instantly. Blood spouted from his mouth and ears, and he was thrown limply about as the snake lashed the air.

I yelled to the men to pull the head-rope taut. Fortunately, the tail-rope had not become loose, and we caught it just as the snake tried to lurch forward again. We allowed him to move forward slowly, drawing his head toward the crate and, at the same time, holding his tail until we had him stretched out. By prodding his tail with sticks, we forced him to uncoil and to release the body of the native.

The head-noose had been slipped farther down than I wanted, and was giving his head too much play. Assuring the men that he could do no more harm, I took three of them with me and we grabbed the snake's neck. He tossed us about, and we had several minutes of exciting work before we got the head into the open end of the crate. When the rope was secured, we fastened another rope about the middle of him.

The snake lashed furiously, knocking several of the natives down. Stationing a crew of men at the tail-rope to slacken it as we moved forward, I took the others to the crate and set them at pulling on the middle rope. As we dragged the python forward, he coiled in the crate; then, when he was half in, we secured the middle rope and head-rope to trees, passed the tail-rope through the crate and dragged the tail in. There was great rejoicing when we closed the end of the crate and prepared to haul it back to Palembang. We had captured a prize specimen. Cross of Liverpool, to whom I sold him, told me that he measured thirty-two feet. I have never seen his equal in length and girth. But, huge as he was, he coiled up comfortably in his small quarters, promptly fell asleep and went on digesting his pig.

II

JUNGLE STRATAGEMS

The entire population of Palembang came to marvel at the size of the python, and, before I realized it, I had acquired a wonderful and wide-spread reputation as a collector. I was soon besieged by requests to go out and capture all kinds of enormous animals—most of them imaginary, of course, for a Malay can imagine anything. Once he starts with "Sahya fîkir (I think)," you may expect to hear many wonderful tales if you have time to stop and listen to him.

To Malays nothing seems impossible, and it is difficult to hold them down to actual facts. They will hedge about with "I think" and "bârang-kâli (perhaps)" until you give up in disgust; and then they will offer to bring their brothers or other relatives, who will repeat the performance. Sometimes I used to spend hours in wondering how their minds worked, and I came to the conclusion that they talk merely with a desire to please. They want to tell anything you want to hear, regardless of whether it is true or not. It is exasperating and occasionally funny. For instance, several years after I left Sumatra, I was traveling through the jungle, looking for elephants. At one village I talked with the Malay headman, who represented the government in that locality, and the conversation turned to large elephants. Jumbo, who was eleven feet two inches, had died, and I had it in my mind that I should like to find an animal big enough to take his place. "Have you ever seen a twelve-foot elephant?" I asked the headman. And as quick as a flash, he answered, "How many do you want?" He could not understand why I rolled back on the floor and laughed until my jaws ached. The headman was a true Malay.

I found it best, in trying to get information from a Malay, to ask my question and then, before he had a chance to speak, say: "Jângan fîkir—jawâb ya tîdak. Sahya bûlih fîkir. (Don't think—answer yes or no. I'll do the thinking)." Then he would generally admit immediately that he didn't know, but he would always offer to bring his brother or some other person that he thought might know. It is a trait that makes business relations between the whites and the natives difficult, and is to a large degree responsible for the fact that much of the business in the Archipelago is done through the Chinese. The Chinese have sufficient patience and understanding to deal with the Malays, and they know how to make them work.

There are two distinct classes of Malay: the Orang Ulu, living in the jungle, and the Orang Laut, living on the coast. Through their association with the Chinese merchants, some of the latter develop into clever dealers, but for the most part they are content to spend their lives in loafing. They work when they need money, but they need so little of it that they can afford to idle along through life. When the supply of food runs low, they put out in their boats at daybreak and return at sundown with fish. These are sorted and left to dry, afterward sorted again, according to their market value, and sold to the Chinese, who ship them in palm-leaf baskets to Singapore. Then the Malays have finished their work for another month or so. Often the merchant advances money for future delivery, and the Malays find themselves obliged to work for long periods to keep from being punished for debt. That is a favorite method of making them work. They consider themselves gentlemen and despise the Chinese as pig-eating heathens. If they must submit to working for the Chinese merchants, they have the satisfaction of watching the coolies do most of the hard labor while they spend their days at games.

The day's routine while I stayed in Palembang with the old hadji was simple and pleasant. I lived with him and his first wife—he had three others. We rose early and went for a swim in the river, and then, squatting on the floor and eating with our fingers, we breakfasted on fish and rice. After breakfast, the hadji and I would stretch out on our mats and smoke and talk until my servant came to prepare my lunch. A Malay eats but two meals a day—always rice and fish—but I found that two weren't enough for me. After lunch I slept through the heat of the day, with the thermometer climbing up to about 125°. Then, when evening came, Palembang stirred into life.

The Malays liked games and they were continually after me to show them some new kind of kindergarten pastime. It made no difference whether it was tag or diving into buckets of treacle after money; if it was a game, they liked it. Some of them knew how to play chess and they gave whole days and nights to it. They are especially fond of gambling, and they repeatedly lose all their money and borrow from the kind merchant, with the result that, to make good their debts, they spend weeks in fishing.

Occasionally I went to the Dutch quarter to seek a few hours of companionship with white people, but I got little satisfaction out of these visits because I could speak better Malay than Dutch, and at Palambang there were few people who knew English. The white people could not understand why I preferred living with the natives, and some of them looked down on me for it. However, that fact did not trouble me, because I knew what I wanted and I was on the way to getting it. With the hadji I learned the Malay language rapidly, and before long I knew the natives far better than the average white man who goes to work in the Archipelago. For the most part, the whites make no effort to understand them and are thus largely responsible for the troubles that arise. In recent years, the attitude of the colonial governments has changed for the better and there have been fewer disturbances.

The natives came to have confidence in me, especially after the capture of the python, and accepted me as a friend. Often during the evening, when the hadji and I sat talking on the veranda, thirty or forty natives would squat near us, listening to the conversation. If the hadji or I cracked a joke, they would laugh uproariously—not that they understood what had been said, but simply because they wanted to do the proper thing.

The hadji's nephew, Ali, became my devoted servant. He was about twenty years old and far more intelligent than the average; also he was brave and resourceful—qualities that made him my most valuable aid until he was killed during one of our expeditions several years later.

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.

We snared and trapped many small animals and occasionally built pit-traps for tapirs. The natives sometimes used pits for marsh elephants, but I have never seen elephants captured in them without being injured. They are so heavy that they hurt themselves in falling.

The marsh elephants in Sumatra are not worth the trouble of capturing, since they are weaker, shorter lived and less intelligent than the other breeds. They bring a low price, and consequently only the babies, which can be handled and transported easily, ever reach the market. The usual procedure among the natives is to shoot the mother and take the baby. It is little like the real game of elephant hunting as I found it later in Trengganu and Siam.

Dynamiting for fish is a great sport among the Malays. It is done, of course, with the maximum chatter and excitement. The natives line the banks of the stream while the dynamite is dropped; then they rush off, some in boats and some of them swimming, to collect the fish that come to the surface.

Drugging fish is another method of capturing them wholesale without much trouble or work. For this purpose the natives use a mixture of lime and the sap from the roots of a tuba tree. They first warn the villages down-stream so that the people will not drink any of the water; then they pour out the white liquid. It spreads over the stream, making the fish mâbok (drunk), as the Malays say. They rise to the surface and are gathered into boats.

Except for such annoyances as insects and leeches, which fastened on my skin as I walked through the jungle, those days in Sumatra were delightful. We hunted, fished and played games; there was nothing to worry about and little work to do. I was accepted by the natives as one of them. I wore a sârong over my trousers, and I shouldn't have worn the trousers if my skin had not been so sensitive to the insects. And, of course, I had shoes—the great barrier between castes. The Malays of the coast towns sometimes, but not often, wear shoes, and even then it is more a matter of showing-off than of being comfortable. I did everything possible to minimize the differences between us because I wanted to know them as they were, not as they thought I wanted them to be. They rapidly lost their self-consciousness and treated me simply as a companion who knew more than they knew—and who had a wonderful gun and a kit of medicine.

In jungle countries white men are always supposed to possess great knowledge of medicines and curing, and I was often called upon to act as doctor. At first the Malays showed some hesitancy at accepting the ôrang pûteh ûbat (the white man's medicine), but gradually they became less shy. During my circus days I had acquired a knowledge of first-aid work, and in the jungle I became quite proficient in patching people up. They believed that most ailments could be cured by their own doctors, who heal by magic, but they were glad to have me prescribe for them when magic failed to work.

The Malay doctor is supposed to be favored by a spirit, and a bâtu bintang (star stone) is given to him while he sleeps. In other words, he is made and not born a doctor. His bâtu bintang is just one of the charms with which he effects cures. He has a bâtu that is a petrified part of a Sembilan fish. Water in which this has been soaked is given to the patient to drink or is rubbed on the part affected. Other charms are the bâtu lintar (thunderbolt), which is rubbed wherever pain is felt; another bâtu, also a thunderbolt, which is a piece of crystal; a bâtu that is part of the backbone of some animal; one that is another piece of crystal; and, finally, the pelican stone. This last is the most highly prized of all. It secures the magic presence and coöperation of a spirit that dwells in the pelican. When the doctor is seeking to enter the spirit world in search of the soul of the sick person, this spirit ensures to him a swift passage there and back. The crystal stone is indispensable in discovering where the wandering soul of the sick person is in hiding and for detecting the spirit who is causing the sickness. And the backbone bâtu cures dysentery, indigestion and consumption.

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.