Most Of The River Was As Black As Night With The Heavy
Shadows Of The Forest, But Along The Middle
There was a lane of
lemon-colored water, the exquisite reflection of a lemon-colored sky.
The Resident and Mr.
Daly went down to the coast in the yacht to avoid
the mosquitoes of the interior, but I with Omar, one of the "body
guard," half Malay half Kling, as my attendant, and Mr. Syers, landed,
to remain at the magistrate's bungalow. It was a lovely walk up the
hill through the palms and bananas, and the bayonets of our escort
gleamed in the intense moonlight, not with anything alarming about them
either, for an escort is only necessary because the place is so
infested by tigers. The bungalow is large but rambling, and my room was
one built out at the end, with six windows with solid shutters, of
which Mr. Ferney closed all but two, and half closed those, because of
a tiger which is infesting the immediate neighborhood of the house, and
whose growling, they say, is most annoying. He killed a heifer
belonging to the Sultan two nights ago, and last night the sentry got a
shot at him from the veranda outside my room as he was engaged in most
undignified depredations upon the hen house.
There was a grand excitement yesterday morning. A tigress was snared in
a pitfall and was shot. Her corpse was brought to the bungalow warm and
limp. She measured eight feet two inches from her nose to her tail, and
her tail was two feet six inches long. She had whelps, and they must be
starving in the jungle tonight. Her beautiful skin is hanging up. All
the neighborhood, Chinese and Malay, turned out. Some danced; and the
Sultan beat gongs. Everybody seized upon a bit of the beast. The Sultan
claimed the liver, which, when dried and powdered, is worth twice its
weight in gold, as a medicine. The blood was taken, and I saw the
Chinamen drying it in the sun on small slabs; it is an invaluable
tonic! The eyes, which were of immense size, were eagerly scrambled
for, that the hard parts in the centre, which are valuable charms,
might be set in gold as rings. It was sad to see the terrible "glaring
eyeballs" of the jungle so dim and stiff. The bones were taken to be
boiled down to a jelly, which, when some mysterious drug has been
added, is a grand tonic. The gall is most precious, and the flesh was
all taken, but for what purpose I don't know. A steak of it was stewed,
and I tasted it, and found it in flavor much like the meat of an
ancient and overworked draught ox, but Mr. Ferney thought it like good
veal. At dinner the whole talk was of the wild beasts of the jungle;
and, as we were all but among them, it was very fascinating. I wanted
to go out by moonlight, but Mr. Ferney said that it was not safe,
because of tigers, and even the Malays there don't go out after
nightfall.
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