Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/105

 much trodden by the passage of game. The underwood, usually as dense as a thick-set hedge, is here so worn down that it is thin and sparse. The trees are smooth in places, and the lower branches have been trimmed evenly, just as those of the chestnuts in Bushy Park are trimmed by the fallow-deer; and here and there the trunks are marked by great belts of mnd, eight feet from the ground, showing where wild elephants have stood, rocking to and fro, gently rubbing their backs against the rough bark. Great clefts are worn in the river bank on both sides of the stream, such as the kine make near Malayan villages at the points where they are accustomed daily to go down to water; but on the Mîsong these have been trodden down by the passage of wild animals.

A bold sweep of the stream forms at this point a rounded headland, flat and level, and covering, it may be, some two acres of ground. Here and there patches of short, closely cropped grass colour the ground a brilliant green, but, for the most part, the earth underfoot has the appearance of a deeply ploughed field. This is the salt lick of Mîsong. The soil is here impregnated with saline deposits. and the beasts of the forest come hither in their multitudes to lick the salt, which to them—as to the aboriginal tribes of the Peninsula also—is "sweeter" than anything in the world. Sâkai or Sĕmang will squat around a wild-banana leaf, on to which a bag of rock salt has been emptied, and devour it gluttonously, sucking their fingers, like a pack of greedy