THE MALAY STATES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3146, 4 December 1922, Page 8

THE MALAY STATES.

TIG ms AND OTHER DOMESTIC PETS. * (By Frederick Stubbs, 'F.B.G.S.) 1 “Tiger, Tiger, burning bright In the forests, of the night, What immortal hand and eye Wrought thv fearful symmetry.” —Blake. Malaya abounds in animal life. It is not quite such a good hunting ground as East Africa, but should satisfy the blood-lust of any ordinary sportsman. Here in the jungle he may find tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinocerous, hisuns, wild pigs, mousedeer, monkeys, crocodiles, honey-bears, the haniadriyad or king,-cobra, some fifty thousand other snakes, porcupines, scorpions, centipedes, and if these do not satisfy him, millions of mosquitoes who, if be does not thirst for their blood will certainly thirst lor his. There is also a species of cat not wild, but quite domesticated, and almost entirely tailless. The only danger to be apprehended from this animal is at night when one is trying to get to sleep. There are also many species of birds, swallows, peacocks, quail, various kinds of jungle pheasants, pigeons, snipe, duck, jungle fowl. Speaking of swallows, I saw a sight at I poll 'such as L have never seen elsewhere. Every night hundreds ol thousands of swallows (ly into the city at sundown and perch on the telegraph wires, side by side, thickly, their numbers making' them so bold that they cannot he frightened away. And there they sit huddled together on the wires till sunrise bids them scatter and seek their breakfast. Rut though then' is such an abundance of wild creatures, it is remarkable how seldom one sees them. f have gone into the jungle again and again hoping to see (at a respectable, distance) a tiger or a. leopard, or at least a wild boar, but nothing has happened—a lew birds (lying round, a score or so ol monkeys chattering in the trees, an occasional subdued noise in the undergrowth, caused by some larger animal stealthily passing through—and that is all. I am aware that when a writer travels through tropical forest he is expected—and rarely tails- to tell of some striking adventure or hair-breadth escape, and I would gladly do so, too. were T not possessed ol such' an inconveniently inelastic conscience. Rut to be quite truthful, though I sought them (iu a, moderate degree) no such adventures or narrow escapes occurred to me, or. if they did, 1 was blissfully unconscious o) them. I lie truth is (I hope I shan't spoil the next traveller's story), the wild creatures ol the jungle seldom attack man: or even willingly cross his path unless molested in some way. Thcv will usually hear or smell the advance of man. especially if he is walking with the wind, and will lie as quietly as possible, or softly slip through the brushwood until he has passed. I am told that some animals will thus scent a man more than a milt* away. Thus it may happen that the traveller in the jungle, may pass quite does to a wild annual, or even heast ol prey, and he quite unconscious of the I act. Of course a man wall ting against the wind may fail to he scented and so come across a beast, or he may have dogs or beaters from whom the animals cannot escape without detection, hut from information gathered in many lands. I believe the above to be the common l experience. Even the most savage beasts such as tigers and lions will seldom attack a man if unmolested. My son. Dr Erie Stubbs, when the troops in East Africa, once eame unexpectedly upon a lion, hut alter a few moments of surprised contemplation it quietly turned away. A hostess of mine at Kuala Lumpur, m the -Malay States, told me of a similar i xperience. She and another lady were walking in the outskirts ol the town when they were suddenly confronted by an immense tiger, instead of running away. the. ladies bad the presence of mind to stand quite still, and in a few moments bad the satisfaction of seeing the tiger disappear in the jungle. Quite a number ol Irieuds of mine have bad similar experiences. At Taiping. on the bills near the city, a missionary resthouse was pointed out to me. Mere only a few months before five lady missionaries were sitting in the large liv-ing-room, one writing, at a desk. . another reading, and so on. Suddenly they became conscious that some living • thing had entered the room, and looking up saw a huge tiger in their midst. Immediately all screamed at the top of their voices, and this so alarmed the intruder that he incontinently turned tail and lied. 1 don’t wonder. I rather sympathise with that tiger. I sh«iild have ll<(i myself il upon entering the room live ladies had begun to scream. This seemingly rude behaviour on their part, however, probably saved ihcir Jives, for this was no gentle purring creature hemt only on satisfying iis curiosity, but a man-eating tiger that bad already killed several natives, and no doubt- had intended to vary ils diet a little by dining off white meat. Rui these man-eating tigers form the exception to the rule mentioned above. They will attack anyone at any lime 1 hey think t hex'’ can- do hi safely. ! am informed that they arc generally old. no longer strong enough or swift enough to attack other quadrupeds. No longer able to join in the hunt, they are driven away liy their lellows (as human tribes once drove away i he old and therefore useless) live a solitary existence, and prowl about in the neighborhood of human dwellings until at. last they aro trapped by natives or some British hunter comes along and shoots them. When 1 was at Taiping.* I saw in the capital little museum there the head ol an elephant that charged and wrecked a train a few years ago, paying thu penalty with its life. Strange to say. before I left the Malay States a somewhat similar incident occurred at Ayer Hitman, in I’emuig. On a certain Thursday morning, the stationmaster heard a noise in the rear of his quarters as though someone was pulling down the walls. Looking out ol the window he saw some elephant's demolishing the rear portion oi the house, comprising the kitchen and bathroom. Without waiting to remonstrate with his unmannerly visitors, the thoroughly ( frightened stationmaster ran taster than he had ever done in his life- to the coolie lines 2(10 yards away. On:' , elephant, however, proceeded to leisurely amble alter him. Rut though the latter showed no disposition to hurry, he began, as .vomi as lie reached the coolies’ lint'-, to use his trunk to some purpose- -a sportive labor in which a ( number of his mates joined hi Ml. 11l * the meantime those elephants that had remained busy with.the stationmaster s kitchen were joined by a large nmn- j her of others from the forest, and their trumpeting, stamping and other queer j noises combined to create a perleet pan- ;| lenioniniii. Having laid the kitelieii ( and bathroom Hat on the ground and ~ wrenched off a portion ol the hack wall. the elephants in order to avoid tiny mis- ( . pieion of partiality next paid a visit p to the clerk’s quarters and treated it „ n the same way. The clerk himsell had . not waited to open the front door to iis visitors, but incontinently made lor be forest where, unless lie lias descend- p :d. he still remains up a tree. Then ( ionic of the elephants crossed Uio railvav line' (mi doubt having first looked I ■areJ'nll.v to see that no train was ap- u iroaching); jumped on to the platform, „

and walked straight through the railing as though it had been made ol matchsticke. One went into the wait-ing-room and l tried to carry off the weighing machine (I presume because there was not room enough to weigh himself in that apartment), but finding it rather heavy, and no doubt suffering from his previous exertions, changed his mind and left it standing. Another elephant fell inte a well and had to stay there two whole days until the side of the well was cut away sufficiently to allow him to escape. On the following Wednesday the same herd returned. probably to find out what had become of their brother, but on tins occasion, fortunately, did no damage. Alter perusing the above narrative the reader will hardly be surprised to learn that the- coolies asked to be transferred elsewhere. Such, are some of the incidents that tend to relieve the monotony of life in the jungle. There are. erf course, thousands of wild elephants in the great forests of Malaya and Burma. but it i s not often that they go on the rampage like this. One would like to lie able to excuse them (as we excuse ourselves) by saying that thefy had been drinking, hut unfortunately elephants are' strict teetotallers. One may way at all events that they were out on the spree and seem to have been pretty successful, i hope that poor railway clerk has got down again !