Tide Marks by H.M. Tomlinson — Read

Alongside Ryan's hut the stream spread out into a pool with a floor of white sand. It had a canopy of leaves. A few rods of sunlight, almost solid in their bright distinction in that shade, rested obliquely on the bottom, firm in the smooth current. And the interior of the hut, that outpost of man, with its heartening reminders of the cunning and knowledge which maintained Ryan so far from his fellows, interested me more, I fear, than could any library. I liked to read the labels on his gallipots, and the names of his books. There were a jar of Epsom salts, and another of carbolic lotion; a bottle of iodine; tins of cabin biscuits; a few photos; surveying instruments; a cheap alarm clock; books on mining and geology; and some whisky bottles, empty. Big black carpenter bees had burrowed in the rafters, and their bolting holes could have been made by mice. Companies of wasps, of a size to fear nothing, gathered round the edges of these holes, gathering sawdust; but I noticed the wasps showed the bee great respect when his ugly head appeared from within. They went, and did not stay to say farewell.

"If you meet a rhinoceros," said Ryan as we started out one morning, "don't take any notice of him. Walk by him. He's a nervous old gentleman and doesn't like to be looked at. " My friend's rifle was of the modern kind which will tumble an elephant, but he never used it except for pigs and deer. We waded up the stream for a time, and then entered the woods, the dog buoyantly scouting ahead. Once, when he came back to us, he was a different sort of dog. It was the habit of that white man's mongrel to murder any too inquisitive native dog. That, no doubt, was merely his snobbery. He would attack an elephant, so Ryan said, and had killed a hamadryad, the most deadly snake in Asia, evidence which may show that there is no natural association between intelligence and courage. But by the look of him at that moment he would have fled from a rabbit, for his tail was clamped underneath, he was trembling, and he looked abject enough as he slunk against Ryan's feet. Ryan posed his rifle and went ahead warily. Presently he stopped, and stood looking at a hollow where the dry rushes were flattened. That was where a tiger had slept. To the dog the smell of the place was so distressing that he whimpered. In daylight, to me, it was of little more interest than the couch of a deer, for although I would not at night have wandered beyond the range of the firelight, after sunrise one usually has the feeling-usually, but not always-that the time and the place are man's. The Malays, I noticed, never went alone into the woods, so my feeling of security may have been only the presumption of ignorance.