hazy about how I managed to get to the place. I'd had nothing to eat the whole time except some sugar-cane and a few bananas, and I think towards the end I must have gone slightly off my nut. The Chinhwan who'd stayed behind stuck to me like a brother; but when I gave out altogether he cleared off, and I thought he'd deserted me. It turned out, though, the faithful creature had only gone off to get help, and when he showed up again he'd got about a dozen of his friends with him. Also some grub. I was glad to see him. Those chaps must have carried me most of the way after that; but I was down and out and completely done for by then, so I'm not quite sure what happened. I chucked my hand in before feet up at that. I'm rather I'd done a quarter of a mile. My clothes were pretty well torn off me by then, and what with the thorns and the leeches, I was leaking blood all over, and I couldn't find a square inch of sound skin on myself anywhere. What made it more annoying was to see those two savages slipping through that horrible tangle like a couple of greased snakes. It was really beautiful to watch them at it. I'd been told that a Chinhwan youth was not supposed to have arrived at the state of manhood until he'd proved it by traversing eighty miles of that forest between dawn and dusk. I hadn't believed that yarn, but after seeing my two friends perform, I became convinced that eighty miles a day was a mere nothing to them. However, as eighty yards a day seemed to be about my limit, and we had fifty or sixty miles more to do, I decided to send on one of my Chinhwan to prepare his chief for the arrival of a visitor, while I got myself out of that forest before it killed me. "After that we travelled by night along the fringe of the plain until we got abreast of the bit of country my particular Chinhwan came from. The going was easy outside the trees, and we kept at it all night, hiding in the forest during the day-time. Even so it took me three days to reach the Chinhwan village, which was right in the middle of the mountains, and about 6000 "However, it doesn't matter much how I eventually got to the village. I did get there in the end, and that's the main thing. I found it a mighty interesting place. It was built in a narrow valley, or rather a sort of deep crack in the side of a mountain that stood up straight on end; and the crack was so full of solid forest that it didn't look as if there was room in there for anything else. But hidden away under the trees were about thirty huts, stone huts; remarkably well built, too, of flat rock slabs. Which, let me tell you, is a very extraordinary thing, because, apart from traces of very ancient stone edifices in Java and some of the Western I I astonishment as you would show yourself if you suddenly came upon, say, a pale green cow. However, that feeling soon wore off with use, and it wasn't long before old TamilPak and I were the closest kind of friends. of friends. I have to thank my eye-glasses for forging the first bonds of our friendship, because the chief, besides being afflicted with a large sore on his ham, suffered from weak eyesight due to age. As luck would have it, when the old boy fitted my glasses on his nose, he discovered to his joy and amazement that his sight had been miraculously restored. So, of course, I made him a present of the glasses, and established myself as first favourite at court. From that time on nothing was too good for me. Everything I did was all right, and anything I wanted I only had to ask for. Anything, that is, in reason. And reason as seen from TamilPak's point of view. For instance, when I told the chief what I'd really come up to see him about, and said I'd like to send some Chinamen into his forest to cut down camphor-trees, he seemed to Carolines, the use of stone as a building material by the people in that part of the world is absolutely unknown. I got 80 excited over finding those huts that, for a day or two, I quite forgot my real reason for coming to the place. took measurements of the buildings, and I made a number of drawings, which I'd show you if you took an atom of interest in the subject. But you don't, so I'll only say that those huts were ideal for the climate, and the Chinhwans lived a mighty comfortable sort of life. Their clothes were made of fine split grasses, beautifully woven and dyed, and they cultivated millet and maize in tiny clearings, and in that hot-house climate the stuff grew inches every night. Then the forest was full of bananas and paupau, game birds, wild pig, and buck. Not to mention monkeys, which, let me tell you, make a remarkably fine stew when properly seasoned with wild ginger and bamboo shoots. So you see the grub supply was no problem to the Chinhwan, and, in fact, during the time I lived in that village, I put on about two stone. "The chief was an old boy think it was one of the most named Tamil-Pak. He was one of the most astute old gentlemen I've met for a long time a natural born statesman of the very first water, and a decent old chap at that. I was the first white man he'd ever seen in his life, and he naturally regarded me at first with as much distaste and unreasonable things he'd ever growing out He told me how he used to watch those leg-wobblings do little to disyellow creatures crawling all over the face of the land, sucking life out of its fatness like a lot of maggots creeping over a dead pig. He said the thought of those maggots coming crawling over his mountains and through his forests made him feel sick. He went on like that for a long time until he made it seem as natural for a Chinhwan to kill a Chinaman in the forest as for you to squash a slug in your lettuce patch. It "I was properly stumped, and for a long time I didn't see what I was going to do about it; but I decided to stick to it, and try to make myself as useful to the old sinner as I knew how in the hope that he might eventually do what I wanted out of sheer friendship and goodwill. was all I could do, anyhow. So I put my back into the job, and I managed to impress Tamil-Pak mightily with my powers. Amongst other things I showed him how to draw down fire from the sun by using the famous pince-nez as a burning-glass. This he regarded as a special and direct gift from the gods. He was frightfully bucked. The thing which really endeared me to him, though, was my demonstration of the fact that, if the juice expressed from ripe paupaus be kept in a gourd until it bubbles, it may be relied upon to produce a state of extreme and ecstatic bliss which subsequent head-swimmings and count. This revelation of the charms contained in fermented liquor so affected Tamil-Pak that he said he loved me as a son, and it would certainly break his heart if I ever thought of going away and leaving him. He then went on to say that the manifestations of my magic powers had so far been exceedingly gratifying and satisfactory to all concerned. However, what he would really like to see me do more than anything else was to cure the sore on his thigh, which, he said, had been eating the strength out of him for years. In fact, he wanted me to begin that particular piece of magic then and there, because, he said, if he wasn't cured soon, that sore would eat right into him and kill him. "Now this was a bit of a facer. What the old boy was suffering from was a bad case of the yaws-a kind of large external ulcer common enough all through Melanesia. They are horrible things to look at, but not very difficult to cure provided one has the requisite dope handy. And I had nothing, of course; but I tried to look wise while I examined the old boy's leg, which had a hole in it big enough to put your fist into. I won't describe it; but you can take my word for it it looked horrid. Yet, in spite of its looks, I knew very well that, if only I had a little corrosive sublimate or some sulphur ointment, I could probably fix the thing in a few weeks. I was wondering what on earth I could do about it when I suddenly got a brain wave. I thought of a place higher up our mountain where there were some hot springs and a lot of holes with steam blowing out of them. It was a spot, according to the Chinhwan, much infested by devils, and they never went near it; but I'd been up there, and I remembered that the mouths of the blow-holes were encrusted with sulphur. And as soon as I thought of that sulphur I knew, with luck, I ought to be able to fix old Tamil-Pak's yaws for him in no time. By then, though, I was getting artful. I kept my thoughts to myself, for I saw now was my time to get what I wanted out of the old boy if only I played my cards right. I'd realised by that time that, if I wasn't careful, the more I did for the chief the more reluctant he would be to let me go. So I told him he was perfectly correct in believing his yaws would be the death of him if they weren't soon cured. Then I intimated that, although I could guarantee to cure him, yet I wasn't prepared to do it unless he agreed to my conditions first. My conditions were that Tamil-Pak must allow me to go away when I wanted to, and that he must let me send my men into his country to fell camphor-trees. "The old chap didn't like this at all. He was dead keen to get his leg put right; but he didn't want to lose his medicine - man ; and as for letting any Chinese into his forest, he said he'd rather die first. And he wouldn't make any promises either, which was a very good sign, because it would have been easy for him to agree to all I asked and then to go back on his word when I'd cured him. This encouraged me to carry on, so I stuck to my guns and Tamil-Pak stuck to his, and we argued and bargained about the business for a full week. In the end, of course, he had to give in, for I'd put the fear of a fast approaching death into him, and that was a trump card. I had to modify my terms pretty considerably, though. We agreed, finally, that I was to cure him, first of all, and when I'd done that I could go if I insisted on it. He, on his part, would let me fell camphor-trees; but my operations were to be confined strictly to one outlying valley which he would show me. When I had a look at the place, I found it was a big valley running up into the hills from the edge of the plain, with enough camphor-trees in it to last for years as far as I could judge. So I closed with the offer. For good measure I had to promise to pay the old boy a visit at least twice year, provided his people behaved themselves and left my wood-cutters alone. "I felt mighty pleased with myself when all these diplomatic negotiations were successfully completed. I'd got what I came for, and I knew "I was really proud of that leg. I am still. It looked so beautiful and healthy by the time I'd done with it that I hated to leave it. But it was high time for me to go. For one thing, my conscience was pricking that valley full of camphor- more. However, it didn't mattrees was worth a fortune to ter much, because by then I me. Before I could go ahead was beginning to think myself collecting that fortune, though, that perhaps the hot pot-hole I'd got to cure Tamil-Pak's treatment was a bit drastic. yaws, and you can believe me From then on I contented I set about that business in as myself with anointing the old thorough a manner as I knew boy's leg with my brand of how. It wasn't an easy job. sulphur ointment twice a day. One of the hardest things I And I think I'll have to patent had to do was to induce the the stuff. It certainly does the old boy to go up with me to trick. It cured Tamil-Pak in those hot springs. He objected just under a month, and if strongly to associating with the you'd seen his leg before I devils which were well known tackled it you certainly would to inhabit the place, and before have said it was a surgeon's he would move I had to con- job, not a quack's. vince him I was relying on those devils to help me with his cure. I had to spend a whole night by myself among those confounded blow-holes, though, before Tamil-Pak was satisfied the devils really were pals of mine. After that he seemed a little reassured. At any rate, he climbed up there with me the next day, and I made him sit with his leg in a steaming pot-hole that bubbled obscenely and stank horribly of boiled cabbage, sulphur, and rotten eggs. After six hours of that treatment I thought the leg ought to be fairly adequately cleaned, sterilised, and disinfected, so I plastered it with a mixture of melted fat and powdered sulphur, and we went home. We performed these rites and purifications for five days in all, and then Tamil-Pak struck. He said he preferred his yaws to the ministrations of my smelly devils, and he refused to go near those hot springs any me. I'd been neglecting my museum people's interests shamefully. Also, I hadn't smelt real tobacco for ages, and I was positively yearning for a smoke. I judged it might be wise, too, to clear out while Tamil-Pak's gratitude was still warm. Tamil-Pak was most upset when it actually came to parting. He really was. He's a good old soul, and he wept. And I felt I wanted to, too, because he'd treated me like a friend and a brother, and you don't often meet such a thorough old brick. However, we comforted ourselves with the thought that I'd be coming back to see him before very long, and I said good-bye and departed with the old man's blessing, one dozen assorted |