he tree-tops? No, the matter was easy.
Where there is room to set a foot, why need a man fear to fall? And thus
we baffled the Malays, and won our freedom. But when the Sakai dogs
aided the Malays, matters were changed indeed. They would sit in the
tree-tops, the whole night through, calling one to another when we tried
to break away; and, by day, they would track our foot-prints through
places where no Malay might follow; and no trail was so blind but that
the Sakai could see the way it tended. Men said that they served the
Malays in this manner that thereby they might preserve their own
women-folk from captivity. But I know not. The Sakai live in houses, and
plant growing things--like the Malays. They know much of the lore of the
forest, but many secrets of the jungle which are well known to us are
hidden from their eyes. Yea, even though the fair valley of the Plus is
now possessed by them, and the mountain of Korbu is now _their_ home as
it was once our own, the spirits of the hills and streams are still our
friends, and they teach not their secrets to the strangers. How should
it not be so? Our tribe springs from the mountain of Korbu, and the
hills of Legap; theirs from the broad forests towards the rising sun,
beyond the Kinta valley. No tribe but ours knows of the forests at the
back of Gunong Korbu, nor of the doom, which, in the fulness of time,
will fall upon the Sakai. Beyond that great peak, in the depths of the
silent forest places, there lives a tribe of women, fair of face and
form, taller than men, paler in colour, stronger, bolder. This is the
tribe that is to avenge us upon those who have won our hunting grounds.
These women know not men; but when the moon is at the full they dance
naked, in the grassy places near the salt-licks, where the passing
to-and-fro of much game has thinned the forest. The Evening Wind is
their only spouse, and through Him they conceive and bear children.
Yearly are born to them offspring, mostly women-folk whom they cherish
even as we do our young; but if, perchance, they bear a manchild, the
mother slays it ere it is well-nigh born. Thus live they, and thrive
they, ever increasing and multiplying, and their bows and blow-pipes are
sometimes found by us in the deep hollows of the woods. Larger are they
than those we use, more beautifully carved, and, moreover, they are of a
truer aim. But woe to the man who meets these women, or who dares to
penetrate into the woods in which t