Telegoe, the Stinkbadger

People who seriously think they know what stench is, without the Knowing the Indian stink badger in his best moments, he suffers from self-overestimation.

Stench is a horrible word, but really, this must be clear Dutch is spoken; any softening expression is a coward avoiding the truth, let us for once be precise to be able to say what really matters.

The air produced by the telegoe is the true stench; not dead and dirty, but stench, that lives; stench, that is not just passively stinks, but is aggressive and grabs you by the throat; stench, with which one can turn proud armies into miserable, fleeing hordes convert.

As it turns out, I speak with some authority, based on knowledge; and that knowledge forced itself upon me violently.

“You are going to rent a bungalow at the foot of the Barisan Mountains “build?” said a friend who was a naturalist, “as long as you don't use much if you suffer from Mydaus meliceps, they call it telegoe here, in Java sigoeng. These animals have a few bags in their rectum, in which glands secrete an oily substance; it is called the telegoe irritated or chased, he then sprays the stinking substance out a thin jet, which immediately divides into a fine spray; and since that stinking substance dissipates quickly in the air, it is as if the whole environment is suddenly all stink, garlic and sulfur and I know not at all.”

“Well,” I said, laughing, “we do get that smell here and there.” smelled, but it's not that bad!”

"No?! We will speak to each other further; what you know is the air of an animal that might pass by a mile away. But you have never before lived so wild on the edge of the woods; especially in South Sumatra they are very common there; and if you like get to know them closely, well, then you can tell stories about them tell. Just watch when they walk under your house and they get angry for some reason, then everyone wakes up the air, and all your silver turns black...”

We laughed again. Is it stupidity or habit? But in such people laugh when they fall. I had laughed before, when the crown prince Van Asahan told me at Fort de Kock that in his country fishing is possible the bank bushes climb; and again I had laughed when I was told that sea turtles lay eggs on the beach by impatient egg hunters are helped to dig the hole. Since then I had seen climbing fish in action myself, and I had in midnight hour, quietly ridden on the back of a gigantic turtle, before she dove back into the sea. Yet I laughed again... those reports from people are often so exaggerated, I would myself to sometimes soberly assess whether there was any truth in those beautiful stories.

And if I were given the chance, I would!

The bungalow was ready and we moved into it; the grounds there and in the The area had been farmland for several decades, yet some heavy trees from the original rainforest remained stand; later young forests sprang up, except on those parts where it cattle were allowed and where the alang-alang ruler was, that man-high wild grass with broad blades, which is almost impossible to grow rowing. So there were several gigantic rimba trees, younger forest and scrub, and there were fields alang-alang, where the sun blazed. Food and shelter for all kinds of game; there were then also pigs, and the Striped One would come and hunt them sometimes; in the bushes rustled trembling dwarf deer, the bear barked in the trees the water's edge, and the martens frolicked in the sun and coolness. Not much game was there, but a bit of everything. Monkeys, however, in great quantities, which from there they made their raids on the fields of men, and... there were stink badgers!

And now we soon learned what “stench” is.

We woke up one night coughing, a malaria patient who was with us stayed, the first to raise the alarm.

Whether this telegoe passed under the house on stilts or above I don't know how the wind passed the bungalow. Nor do I know whether he was angry made for the novelty, for the house that wasn't there before. But the there was a manifestation of irritability!

The next morning we held a competition in full family council treated: describe that air! Everyone tried to say what souvenir the air had been raised, and everyone thought of difficult moments at sea.

Imagine lying seasick in a hut on an old freighter, which is permeated with the greasy, rancid air of copra, while in that hut there is also a group of civet cats housed. The ship has a light installation made of carbide; somewhere There is a leak at the hut and the smell of garlic is dripping profusely from the management, yet someone in that area makes ship's coffee, and the the most vulgar chicory smell creeps into the hut too, and she takes it even further a sharp sulphur fume from somewhere... and this whole thing sticks to the seasick person, suddenly, tremendously, everywhere at once, and it goes not over, it remains, it sticks to everything.

Towards noon our patient smelled the foul odor again in a strong way and she cried out in terror: “There comes another one!”

False alarm. She had put on the thermometer, which hands had touched the nickel head of the little instrument. And then we also came to smell the thermometer and other metal, then everything turned out to be on fire, and quickly the silver was polished to black can be prevented.

Now the area around the house was cleared of low shrubs as quickly as possible. and tall grass cleared, and we had at our usual short staying in the bungalow in the mountains rarely suffer from such nighttime visits. A factor not to be underestimated among them were our dogs, city animals, who were incomprehensibly continued to get acquainted. After each meeting they became deeply unhappy at home, wallowing everywhere, rubbing against everything and spread around the disgusting air; for days on end they had to are recorded and bathed; only later did it become clear how those encounters must have happened years later; and only then did I know that I indulge my curiosity to see the source of all evil, could have met earlier; namely that the telegoe is a sluggish animal, that one should proceed with some patience, but also with great caution, can follow easily; slow, not out of meekness, but because he has no one fears.

We were once again "upstairs", in our bungalow. In the early morning aroused us a great commotion among the servants in the outbuildings, shouts of horror and the cheering sound of someone in discord with his stomach. The whole thing conjured up the sea before our eyes, a railing over which bent the forms of beings that were formerly human. Thus there was a stink badger in the game again!

We flew outside; a heavy, sticky telego smell grabbed us the throat.

Djamak, one of our servants, had a small incident very early in the morning saw an animal crawling in the grass. Jamak was a good Muslim, but this pig boy, who had apparently lost his mother, he dared still worth tackling; it would be such a nice toy for "Nonnie", our youngest daughter. He would only dare; besides, if he just caught it in his jacket, he didn't have to put his hands in it to come into contact with the “haram” animal.

Djamak, the good guy, went on the warpath. How happy he would be! who loved animals so much, and Djamak had often noticed that it was his the boss was annoyed that he knew nothing about animals; the gentleman found him definitely dull. But now! he would surprise everyone with a captured animal; he wouldn't tell that he was the poor guy actually just had it for the taking, the animal swayed so slowly through the grass.

Watch out, now it was crumbling to a hollow in the grass field, there he would throw the coat over the animal, his new white coat, that Mrs. gave him had given. He crept after the animal; was it really a wild pig? He knew nothing about animals, but that little face was still a pig's snout, and what else would it be? But why was that animal not scared at all? Wait a minute, it apparently had the pursuer noticed. Djamak stood stock still.

The telegraph watched him intently. What did that long, creeping animal? It was definitely boring him. He had his nighttime journey a bit too far-fetched; he had delicious larvae and earthworms found; and when the stomach was filled, he had made a proper toilet, because the telegoe is very coquettish. But now he wanted to go unhindered home, to his spacious boiler room, which he had built under strong tree roots dug. Why was that crazy animal sneaking up behind him?

He set up his battery and waited quietly, perhaps a devilish smile on his bald face.

Now!... thought Djamak, and with that he threw his jacket over his prey... but at the same time he fell backward with a horrible scream. Something fat and sticky strangled him and placed his stomach on top of his head; and under the telegoe walked through the bath, stench on its legs, swaying away; he could be satisfied, the shot was there. Poor Djamak, in an indivisible moment of hunter turned victim, now the lively interest of everyone; exactly what he had wished for, but in a another way. And his beautiful coat was dewy with fine droplets oil, which turned into yellow spots, forever.

But where was the animal? Now I wanted to see it and have it. Someone had it see crawling to a pile of firewood, and there, huddled in a corner, It was there; the event had really thrown him off balance brought. I approached him, a handkerchief, folded in half, stiff pressed against the nose. But the atmosphere was so permeated with the disgusting smell, that I recoiled and covered my nostrils with cotton wool had to close before I shot the animal in the brain with a buckshot killed. I carefully brought the muzzle of the gun right up to his brought to a head to prevent a second oil explosion. Whether this succeeded, I don't know. Well, we had to dig both stench centers deeply, that the battlefield was disinfected and watered, and that on the third day then had to decide to leave because life was impossible But during the night a heavy rain fell and the next morning the stink substance appeared to have been almost washed off from all solids, to which she had stuck.

That evening we spoke to the local governing official and told him everything in colors and "smells". He and his wife were very surprised, because they also had that same smell that same morning smelled in the house, a new sensation for them, and the servants had They called it the word telegoe. And when they investigated what the source of that air had been, it turned out that my caretaker, just after the shot, with a portfolio of documents had gone to the inspector's house and thus spoiling the whole atmosphere there as well.

There are some strange things in the Indies when it comes to “odors.”

The durian, the well-known fruit with its huge thorns, which also has many Europeans regard it as a great delicacy, is sometimes said.... called "gas factory" and our ancestors from the end of the 16th century already wrote about her: ... "that does not compare with no fruits of the world: for in taste and goodness affirm that it surpasses all fruits: but first as a human being does, smells like it were rotten: but in the taste hebbenmen die leckerheyt.”

The beautiful Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world, and the beautiful Amorphophallus spread in the wild after full flowering season a vehement air, which has earned her all sorts of ugly nicknames; and There are mosses and ferns that fill the entire atmosphere around iodoform appears to convert.

But none of these plant sources of bad odors can measure in the furthest distance with the telegoe. From the human point of view Considering this, one wonders how the stink badger can be content to live in an atmosphere such as he creates for himself. My daughter pressed it will be in her own words tomorrow: “How do the young telegoetjes het bij zoóa stinkadoris van 'n moeder uit!”