ut
it was evident that I must turn in another direction if I wished for
fortune, so I settled my account with the workmen and dismissed them.

At their departure my Sam-Sam who had become in the meantime a robust
young man, begged me to let him return to his own part, saying that
there was a young Sakai willing to take his place in my service.
Although very sorry to lose the faithful companion of that never to be
forgotten journey through the forest, I could not refuse his request and
let him do as he wished.

It was with real pleasure that I fell in with him again some years after
when I was travelling through the interior of Kedah and he too evinced
great joy at the meeting.

He told me that what he had earned from me had been the means of making
his fortune, for with it he had bought a piece of ground and some oxen,
and now kept himself, his wife and two children, by agricultural work.

* * * * *

As I have said, the gold was very scarce. After the coolies had left I
tried to persuade the Sakais to take their post, which would have saved
expense in gathering it, but every effort was useless for these people
do not and will not understand what works means, or the pleasure it
gives, beyond that of preparing poisons.

Poison is the principal topic of conversation with them and their only
boast is the discovery of new or more deadly mixtures. The children
listen to these discourses with lively interest and pay anxious
attention to the experiments made by their elders in this primitive kind
of chemistry, and in this way the passion is propagated from father to
son and so it will continue until the breath of civilization reaches
that far-off spot and those good, simple men learn that, in the struggle
for life, civilized persons no longer use poisons that kill the body,
but those which are much more terrible and without an antidote, such as
envy, calumny, hatred and luxury, which destroy the mind and soul.

These are the venemous elements that my forest friends do not yet know,
those poor savages who extract their poisons from the _ipok_[3] and
other, trees to defend themselves against wild beasts and to procure
them food in their wild abode.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: The _ipok_, known in science by the Javenese name of
_upas_, is a tree that affords a very baneful poison as explained in the
chapter upon poisons.]

CHAPTER V.

Great Mother Earth--A dangerous meeting--A