In the Malayan Jungle
The thermometer stood at 155 degrees in the sun. The dry lallang grass crackled
and glowed and returned long irregular waves of heat to the quivering metallic
dome above.
The sensitive mimosa, at our feet, had long since surrendered to the fierce
wooing of the sun-god, submissively folding its leaves and then its branches and
putting aside its morning dress of green for one more in keeping with the color
of the earth and sky. Even the clamorous cicada had hushed its insistent whir.
We were dressed in brown kaki suits. Wide-spreading cork helmets were filled
with the stiff varnished leaves of the mango, and wet handkerchiefs were draped
from underneath their rims; yet, after an hour of exposure, our flesh ached—it
was tender to the touch. The barrel of my Express scorched my hand, and I
wrapped my camerabuna about it. But then it was no hotter than any other day.
In fact, we never gave a thought to the weather.
We were formed in a line, perhaps two miles in length, in a deserted pepper
plantation, fronting a jungle of timboso trees and rubber-vines. I squatted
patiently under the checkered shade of a neglected coffee tree and kept my eyes
fixed on the seemingly impenetrable walls of the jungle. A hundred feet to the
right and the left, under like protection, were two of my companions, determined
like myself to be successful in three points,—to have the first shot at the pigs, to
avoid getting shot, or shooting a neighbor. But our minds rose above mental
cautions with the first faint halloos of the Hindu shikaris on the opposite side of
the jungle. In another moment the babel gave place to a confusion of shrieks,
howls, yells, laughs, barking of dogs, beating of tins, blowing of horns,
explosions of crackers, and a din that represents all that is wild and untamable in
three nations. It is a weird, almost appalling prologue. Those laughs!—they are a
study—they fairly chill the blood—they would make the fortune of a comic