IN A CAMP OF THE SĔMANGS
The paths are rough, the trails are blind
The Jungle People tread;
The yams are scarce and hard to find
With which our folk are fed.
We suffer yet a little space
Until we pass away,
The relics of an ancient race
That ne'er has had its day.The Song of the Last Sĕmangs.The night was closing in apace as I and my three Malay companions pushed our
way through the underwood which overgrew the narrow wood path. We were
marching through the wide jungles of the Upper Pêrak valley, which are nearer
to the centre of the Malay Peninsula than any point to which most men are likely
to penetrate. Already the noisy crickets and tree beetles were humming in the
boughs above our heads, and the voices of the bird folk had died down one by
one until now the monotonous note of the night-jar alone smote upon our ears.
The colour was dying out of the leaves and grasses of the jungle, and all things
were assuming a single sombre shade of black, the trees and underwood
becoming merged into one monstrous shapeless mass, bulking big in the
gathering darkness.
We had been delayed all day, by constantly going astray on the innumerable
faint tracks, which, in this part of the country, begin nowhere in particular, and
end nowhere at all. The jungle-dwelling tribes of Sĕmang, who alone inhabit
these woods, guard their camps jealously, for, until lately, they were often raided
by slave-hunting bands of Malays and Sâkai. To this end they do all that
woodcraft can suggest to confuse the trails which lead to their camps, making a
very maze of footpaths, which serve but as a faint guide to strangers in these
forests.