are armed with spikes of various length, but all of about equal sharpness. Some are so formidable that the thickest skinned beasts avoid contact with them, and no human apparel has been devised, short of armour, that will resist their powers of penetration and destruction. Under the creepers lie fallen trees, and the ground is covered with ferns, rank grasses, and what is generally termed undergrowth, so thick that the soil is often entirely hidden. It may be added as a minor but unpleasant detail that this tangle of vegetation harbours every species of crawling ing, jumping, and flying unpleasantness ; myriads of leeches that work their way through stockings and garments of any but the closest texture ; centipedes, scorpions, wasps, and stinging flies, caterpillars that thrust their hairs into the skin and leave them there to cause intolerable irritation, snakes poisonous and otherwise, ants with the most murderous proclivities,
and last, but not least, mosquitoes that, when they find a human being, make the most of their opportunity. I have not exhausted the catalogue of pests,but only given a sample of what any traveller will meet in a day’s journey through a Malay jungle. There is a wasp called “the reminder,” a thorn called “ Kite’s talons,” and an ant known as the “ fire ant.” The names are as apt as they are suggestive.
