The Pawang Rimba and his Protector

The officer, commander of our small patrol, had already told me some asked several times if I trusted our guides. It seemed to him, that we descended the mountain so slowly and it took a very long time, before we got a view of the plain, our goal. Somewhere there was a bivouac, where the main troop awaited us and where they were certainly already worried; pursuing a gang of evildoers who were had been ambushed, it would have taken us longer than initially expected. We wanted to do everything we could to be there before the to be with our comrades again at night. I couldn't do anything for the lieutenant say other than what I had noticed, that the guides were completely at home were in these immense jungles and knew every game trail, but also, that we had to be very much on our guard.

But this was truly no wonder. When we were hopelessly lost got caught in a labyrinth of enticing, wide elephant paths, in a forest without any noticeable identifying marks and dark under a sunless sky, we were lucky enough to suddenly find ourselves on a few to push young Acehnese who were on their way back home, carrying the forest products they collected. After much effort and under With tempting promises, we had persuaded them to deliver their loads leave it there and take us out of the forest to the plain. They didn't know where we came from and what happened to us the day before was, but they had to understand that things had happened that affected them couldn't have been pleasant; it was a turbulent time there in the wild upper basin of the Roode Rivier. In addition, they would have two days to lose.

During the first hours of our rapid march they had not spoken a word, They could not help but think of ways to get away from us. To avoid any misfortune, we had given them the razor-sharp weapons to deliver, and they were placed under special supervision of two of our best military policemen; they had the temperament and fanaticism of the Acehnese have already experienced this several times, and they were somewhat grim because of the things that had happened to us the day before happen to.

But during a short rest I had a little chat with the guides, and they knew now that I was a government official and not a soldier; and my knowledge of their language was just enough to put them at ease and convince them that we, on our side, will meant them no harm. And as we continued along the barely visible forest path, all in a row and I between the two of them, they gradually let themselves go a little more, and I learned from them a lot about all kinds of big game, which they were used to to hunt, in their own way. So they showed me how they hunt in different ways rhinoceros trails had set deadly traps, places, where they had been successful, and they told what good prices they had received made for the horn, which is still of great value to the Chinese has the effect of a medicine against various ailments.

“Look,” they said, “here we spent the last few weeks last month, We had set several traps in the area.”

We stopped for a moment. On four cut posts and some crosses there was a floor of branches, a scaffolding of a meter above the ground, with a roof of pocar, that ginger-like plant, whose long, wide leaves lend themselves so well to this.

“Didn't you have walls around this hut?”

“No, it's not so high here that we were cold; you see by the way here are still the ashes of the fire that we lit, but that We did this mainly to smoke out the mosquitoes.”

In the ashes was the stamp of the Sumatran forest, a tremendous tiger track.

“But... look at this! Was this one around here too?” I asked. surprised.

They looked indifferently at the trail of him, which they saw in the wilderness never calls by name. Finally the youngest said:

“Oh, they were always around us, and we know this one very well.”

"And you slept here? Without a wall and by such a small fire?!"

The eldest smiled, both were silent.

“But tell me now, weren't you really afraid?”

The youngest one now smiled broadly and looked at me.

“Toean, we weren't afraid, because they protect us!”

“What do you mean?”

"Well, you don't know this, but my friend is pawang rimba, Boss in the jungle, do you understand now? What should we fear? to have!"...

“What are they saying about that tiger trail?” asked the lieutenant, who had looked worriedly at the sun that had now emerged, glided towards the horizon at a tropical speed. He had not yet been in Aceh and didn't understand a word.

“Oh,” I said absent-mindedly, “they were just talking nonsense; I tell you that "more time later."

I looked again closely at the faces of our comrades against their will; I saw that they had listened intently to try to grasp the meaning of what the Dutch had to say to each other there said; I also saw that they were relieved, the look of the The administrative official remained seriously surprised, but the officer did not laugh.

When they had us at the edge of the forest at nightfall, brought, they were visibly happy that the day was over and that the the promise made was fulfilled.

I was sorry to see the lithe, strong bodies in the forest disappear, where they immediately dissolved into the rapidly falling dark; for us a black mystery with wonderful sounds, for them a safe home.