it, never probably occurred to Chêp, and all she waited for was a fitting time at
which to elope with her Malay lover.
Their chance came on the night of the Harvest Home. In the darkness Kria crept
close to Chêp, and, when the chant was at its loudest, he whispered in her ear
that his dug-out lay ready by the river bank, and that he loved her. Together they
stole out of the hut, unobserved by the Sâkai folk, who sang and grovelled in the
darkness. The boat was found, and the lovers, stepping into it, pushed noiselessly
out into the stream. The river at this point runs furiously over a sloping bed of
shingle, and the roar of its waters soon drowned the splashing of the paddles.
Chêp held the steering oar, and Kria, squatting in the bows, propelled the boat
with quick strong strokes. Thus they journeyed on in silence, save for an
occasional word of endearment from one to the other, until the dawn had broken,
and a few hours later they found themselves at the Malay village at which Kria
lived. They had come down on a half freshet, and that, in the far upper country,
where the streams tear over their pebbly or rocky beds through the gorges
formed by the high banks, means travelling at a rushing headlong pace. When
the fugitives finally halted at Kria's home, fifty miles separated them from the
Sâkai camp, and they felt themselves safe from pursuit.
To understand this, you must realise what the Sâkai of the interior is. Men of his
race who have lived for years surrounded by Malay villages are as different from
him, as the fallow-deer in an English park from the Sambhur of the jungles.
Sâkai who have spent all their lives among Malays, who have learned to wear
clothes, and to count up to ten, or may be twenty, are hardly to be distinguished
from their neighbours, the other ignorant up country natives. They are not afraid
to wander through the villages, they do not rush into the jungle or hide behind
trees at the approach of strangers, a water-buffalo does not inspire them with as
much terror as a tiger, and they do not hesitate to make, comparatively speaking,
long journeys from their homes if occasion requires. In all this they differ widely
from the semi-wild Sâkai of the centre of the Peninsula. These men trade with
the Malays, it is true, but the trade has to be carried on by visitors who penetrate
into the Sâkai country for the purpose. Most of them have learned to speak
Malay, though many know only their own primitive language, and when their
three numerals, na-nu, nar, and nê—one, two, and three—have been used, fall
back for further expression of arithmetical ideas on the word Kĕrpn, which
means 'many.' For clothes they wear, the narrow loin cloth, fashioned from the
bark of certain trees, which only partially covers their nakedness; they are as shy
as the beasts of the forest, and never willingly do they quit that portion of the