Page 32 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES
a young Malay has been keeping guard over a

jungle track. Instantly the nearest rush to the
spot only to find the boy badly wounded, after
a shot that struck the
firing tiger but did not pre-
vent him and
reaching pulling down the youth who
fired it.
Hardly has a party carried the wounded man to
shelter, than news arrives that, in trying to break
the ring at another point, the tiger has sprung upon
the point of a spear held in rest by a kneeling Malay,
and, the spear, passing completely through the beast's
body, the tiger has come down on the man's back
and killed him. The old men
say it is because,
regardless of the wisdom of their ancestors, fools
now face a tiger with spears unguarded, whereas in
the olden time it was always the custom to tie a
crosspiece of wood where blade joins shaft to pre-
"
vent the tiger running up the spear" and killing
his opponent.
The game is getting serious now and the tiger
has retired to growl and roar in a thick isolated
of bushes and
copse tangled undergrowth from
which it seems impossible to draw him, and where
it would be madness to seek him.
By this time, all the principal people in the neigh-
bourhood have been collected. The copse is sur-
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