My Friends the Savages Part 6

In the year 1898 the ever increasing solicitude of the Sakays had enabled me to acc.u.mulate a considerable quant.i.ty of Malacca cane, rattan, resin and orchids which I had made up my mind to take to Penang for sale.

But I wanted to indulge myself in the pleasure of conducting with me some of my friends, the savages, that they might for the first time see a modern town.

It was no easy matter to prevail upon them to follow up my desire but finally I persuaded five of them to come with me as carriers.

Keeping always along the banks of the Bidor we descended as far as the Perak which we crossed in order to do a part of the journey in train and then board one of the steamers that ply between Telok Ansom and the island of Penang.

During the voyage I noticed nothing particular in my companions beyond a great wonder, not unmixed with fear, when they felt themselves travelling upon water.

They observed everything with grand curiosity, and were immensely interested in the noisy movement of the ship's engines and its steam sirens.

Arrived at Penang, where I met with numerous friends, they soon became the centre of attraction.

Dainties of every kind were pressed upon them, and they were offered loads of the finest sweetmeats and white sugar. They accepted it all without enthusiasm but threw away the sweetmeats as soon as they had tasted them. When I asked them why they did so they replied that there was something not perfectly sweet in their flavour and they feared that whatever it was would do them harm.

The gifts which they seemed to appreciate the most were cigars, tobacco and white sugar.

My five Sakais divided their presents with each other, putting away some for the dear ones at home, and I often noticed that in the midst of the bewilderment which those simple souls must have experienced at being surrounded by people and things so totally new to them, they never seemed to forget for a moment the beloved persons they had left behind in the jungle.

The Town-Band gave a concert and I accompanied my proteges to hear it.

The ba.s.s instruments with their deep notes jarred upon the acoustic sense of the poor fellows and visibly inspired them with terror. They stopped their ears with their fingers and gave clear signs of the unpleasant feelings they were suffering from. But it was quite different when they heard the higher-toned instruments, especially those of wood, as the flute, the clarionet and the oboe. The pure, vibrating notes gave them intense enjoyment judging from the pleased expression of their countenances and their singularly brilliant eyes.

I also took them to a Chinese theatre, but the skill of the yellow artistes did not find its way to the Sakai heart and after having witnessed the spectacle for a few minutes they frankly declared that they were not at all amused.

Their artless natures and simple affections remained unpolluted by the seductions of civilization. Nothing was wanting to content them: they were caressed by the English, received heaps of gifts and lived without the slightest fatigue, yet they were not happy. I saw them change humour and become more melancholy hour by hour. The distractions with which I tried to cure their home-sickness tended only to increase it.

The third day of our sojourn at Penang they implored me so earnestly to let them return to their families that, impressed by their sickly looks and disconsolate air, I promised at once to grant their desire.

This promise put them into better spirits and their good humour was quite restored when the steamer left the harbour at Penang and bore us towards the river Perak. No one would imagine the transformation that had taken place in my five fellow-travellers.

Four days of town-life had told upon them physically and morally. They were tired and disgusted with everything. Accustomed, on an average, to walk twenty miles a day, at Penang, after strolling through a few streets, they had been weary. Exposed to privations and hardships in the Jungle (often owing to their own improvidence) they were soon nauseated with the ease and abundance offered them in the city.

Where the climate, the charms of the place and the security from wild beasts were all calculated to captivate their fancy and render them contented, the poor Sakais drooped and pined for the vicissitudes of their wild life in the woods where comfort was unknown and food was sometimes scarce. Their thoughts, their very souls were always back in the remote forest, in that enchanting wilderness whose magic spell blinded them to its mortal perils and inconveniences. Up yonder there was perfect liberty of action; up yonder there were their families!

That sudden transition from a primitive existence to the progress of many centuries had been a severe shock to them. In the same way that an abrupt change from profound darkness to the most dazzling light, or from the temperature of the pole to that of the equator, inevitably produces grave disorders in the organism if it does not actually prove fatal, so the turning of a savage into a citizen at a day's notice incurs a dangerous risk.

The popular idea amongst us that anyone can quickly habituate himself to the luxuries and commodities of modern life finds a check when applied to primeval people like the Sakais. They may observe, enquire, and seek to understand--as far as their intelligence permits--everything they see around them; they remember well all they have heard and seen, and will mimic and describe it in their poor, strange language to their relations and friends; they carry with them presents which are a tangible record of their travels; they explain to the others how the houses were protected from wind, sun and rain; they will teach how to imitate the engine whistles, the roar of the steam flowing out of the open valves, and the hollow sound of that mysterious monster, the motor-car, but their enthusiasm and affections are firmly fixed upon their native forest, wondrous in its riches and allurements.

Though it may bring to its lovers death and suffering it is always the best beloved of the savage and only a very slow, patient and--to them--imperceptible introduction of civilizing elements in their midst will be able to weaken this attachment for savage surroundings and turn those treasures of affection and fidelity to a more useful and logical end.

CHAPTER VI.

The great Sorceress--The forest seen from above--A struggle for life--The crimes of plants--Everlasting twilight--Births and deaths--Concerts by forest vocalists--The "durian"--The "ple-lok"--Vastnesses unexplored by science--Treasures intact--Para Rubber--The Samaritans of the jungle--The forest and its history.

To speak of the forest without having seen it, and after having seen it, to describe its marvellous beauties, are equally impossible tasks.

When Art shall have re-produced faithfully the magnificent harmonies of colour, voice and outline peculiar to the jungle, it may be said that there are no more secrets of beauty for it to penetrate, because nowhere else has Nature been so profuse in bestowing her multifarious tints or has manifested Life with such triumphal glory of fecundity; nowhere else can be found such a prodigious variety of forms and att.i.tudes or such ineffable multiplicity of sounds.

Like a paean of love the forest breaks forth from the bosom of its great Mother and rises eagerly, pa.s.sionately towards the sun, its Benefactor.

Were it possible to soar on high and look down upon that wide verdant sea, its infinite gradations of green, enlivened here and there by the audacious brightness of a thousand wondrous flowers, we should have under our eyes the most complete, artistic and suggestive representation of life and its struggles.

The gigantic trees shoot up straight towards the sun, each one seeming to strive to outstrip the other; but a thick and even more ambitious undergrowth of plants twine round their trunks and enclose them in a tenacious embrace, then twisting, and creeping, amongst the spreading boughs, reach and cover the highest tops where they at last unfold their several leaves and flowers under the sun's most ardent gaze.

The tree, thus encircled and suffocated by the baneful hold of the climbers, lacks light and breath; the sap flows in scarce quant.i.ties throughout its organism and it languishes under the shade of the close tendrils; swarms of insects increase its agony by making their food and their nests of its bark; reptiles make love within the hollows of its trunk and at last the day comes when the lifeless giant falls with a frightful crash bearing with it the murderous parasite that is the victim of its own tenacity, which first raised it to bask in the sunshine and then caused it to be crushed under the rotten weight of its former supporter.

These are furious embraces of envy and jealousy; phrenzies of egotism in the vegetable kingdom: strange expressions of formidable hate and love, of oppression and vengeance.

All these myriads of plants are invaded by the irrepressible mania to ascend as high as possible and to receive the first, the most burning, perhaps the most pernicious, but the most liberal kiss of the sun. And they all hasten to arrive as though fearing to be superseded in the ascent as much by the colossal tree destined to brave centuries--if its ma.s.sive roots are not ruined by its minute foes--as by those slender growths of a month or a day.

"Higher still! Always higher!" the green-leafed mult.i.tude seem to cry, "Excelsior!"

The sun never penetrates under this tangled ma.s.s of vegetation except where an opening has been made by the hands of the savages or by the work of lightning and hurricane.

In the dim light of its damp atmosphere the interminable rows of tall straight trunks, some stout and some slight, a.s.sume the oddest shapes which can appeal to the observer's phantasy. Now they are colonnades, adorned with pendant festoons stretching away into the distance; now they are mysterious aisles of monster temples; now they are the unfinished design of some giant architect whose undertaking was arrested by a sudden, mystic command. However fruitful may be the imagination of the artist he would here always find fresh and superb inspiration from the enthralling sight of Nature's virginal beauties.

The stagnant waters of the ponds, round which the frogs croak and the leeches crawl, are plentifully strewn with water-lilies, reeds and other aquatic plants.

On the h.o.a.ry trunks of ancient trees whole families of orchids have insinuated themselves into little clefts in the bark, and flower there in the brightest of colours: red, purple, blue and also white.

Everywhere there is a joyous exuberance of life and vigour. Each day begins or ends the cycle of time destined to the vegetable inhabitants of the jungle, because as there is no regular round of seasons the plants and flowers finish their course according to the short or long existence prescribed them by natural laws, and one continually sees dried and withered leaves and flowers falling to the ground whilst others open and blossom in their stead. Those that die to-day afford nourishment to the new-born generation and in this manner there is a ceaseless renovation of the various species without any need of a gardener to prepare the soil.

The exuberance of animal life is in equal proportion, as there is abundance of food for all.

A deep and uninterrupted buzz fills the air; it comes from the cicadas whose monotonous note wearies the ear, and from hornets and bees of every description that keep up an incessant hum as they suck Juices from the plants or dive their antennae into the ripe fruit or perhaps into some carrion lying near. The ba.s.soon-like sound never ceases a single instant and tells the listener how innumerable are the populations of insects which live and generate their sort under the shade of their jungle retreat. Other inexplicable noises--far off crashes, mysterious sounds that chill one's veins, howls that make one shiver--for a sole moment break the noon-day silence. What is their origin? n.o.body can say.

The different animal sounds to be heard in the forest follow a rule which knows no exception.

The day is hailed by a full concert warbled from the throats of feathered songsters. This morning hymn rises in all its innocent purity to the skies whilst the fierce protaganists of the past night's b.l.o.o.d.y tragedies slink off to their dens and leave the field free to the more gentle herbivorous animals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The durian tree.

_p._ 64.]

But at noon, when the sun is casting down its hottest rays upon that vast emerald palace of life, gay voices are hushed and the forest echoes only with the drowsy buzzing of insects.

As evening draws near the birds once more begin to chirp and trill, they salute the setting sun and fly away to rest. Then the monkeys commence their screeching and chattering and soon after the owls and other night birds take their turn, making the now dense darkness more terrible with their harsh, sinister cries. Little by little as the night deepens, bellows, roars and howls resound upon every part in a slow crescendo until they are fused into a general and appalling uproar which could not be more awful if the gates of h.e.l.l were to be opened on Earth.