text: [Themes: family friendly]
  
  You are now working to a deadline, and although heading straight to the jungle may seem like the more efficient option, you determine that the locals' knowledge could prove invaluable.
  
  "Thank you very much for that advice, Uncle Robert, I think visiting this town, and immersing myself in local culture, sounds like an excellent idea!" Your uncle looks a little deflated that you didn't choose to listen to his presentation, but nonetheless cheered that his suggestions were useful.
  
  "Wonderful, I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself at Kartara- that's the name of the town. Right, how to get there? Well, let's see, you'll need to go along the river for twenty minutes, turn left onto the track, and..."
  
  One hour later, you find yourself at the entrance to a small town bordered by the jungle, weighed down by several sandwiches prepared by the servant (who returned your thanks with a small grin this time).
  
  You walk through, gazing around in wonder. In England, the rectangle and the square are favoured- rectangular houses, rectangular, regimented streets, and market squares. However, in this town, everything derives from the circle. The circular-walled clay houses circle around a large circular meeting place, where you imagine children might play, and elderly ladies might group together and gossip. Currently, there are lots of stalls filled with all sorts of colourful produce: fruit and veg, fish, sweetmeats, crockery and rugs. However apart from a few wary stall-owners, it's deserted, and yet it's the middle of the morning- where can everyone be?
  
  Then you become aware of the bungalows, the preferred home of the British Empire, in the background; these dark shapes seem completely out of place, almost like intruders. And in front of them, a large crowd has gathered. They are completely silent. Hurrying through the houses, you reach the crowd and settle back in the shadows of a house. A few white soldiers, carrying slim, deadly guns, stand in the centre of the group, everybody keeping a respectful –or fearful- distance from them. Beside him an Indian hangs from his hands on a wooden frame, wearing nothing but a red loincloth, and defiantly trying to hide his fear. Then, you realise one of the soldiers is casually holding something in his hand: a cat' o nine tails, a whip which owes its name to its nine viciously barbed "tails". A numbing horror spreads across your mind, and you listen helplessly to the white man's speech.
  
  "Residents of Kartara, today a great injustice has occurred. I visited the supposedly great jungle tribe of Jaroha, asking politely for the tenth of all they harvest that belongs, quite rightly, to the British Empire." At this, the Indian snarls, and the speaker's face distorts into a sneer. "Then can you guess what this piece of filth did? Can you?" The crowd remains fearfully silent. "This scumbag tried to attack me! Of course, he was no match for us (or rather, you suspect, no match for their guns), and in five minutes or so, I reckon he'll very much regret his actions." He laughs loudly, and the crowd begins to become agitated, murmuring in their distress.
  
  You are desperate to intervene, and it's clear everybody else is too afraid to do anything. But can you? Can you face down four men, all at once? Maybe there is some other solution, or maybe the crowd will join you. Your mind races. You have to decide quickly.
  
  > do nothing
  However much you might sympathise with this Indian, and rage against those repugnant torturers, it's simply not your problem. So you do nothing when the first cry rings out, nor the second nor the third. They weaken gradually, until the Indian merely convulses each time the whip tears into his fragile flesh; the show now over, the spectators drift back to the market place. You follow them.
  
  Kartara serves as a trading town for nine or ten other villages, and today it's market day. Buyers chat amicably with the stall owners, browsing leisurely for high-quality items, but when it comes to agreeing on a price, they are ruthless; often there are four or five haggling matches going on at any one time. Once, you chuckle at the sight of a small boy distracting the owner of the sweetmeats stall with some ferocious haggling, whilst three other boys help themselves.
  
  Wandering around, you quickly realise that almost nobody understands English. In fact, the speech the white man gave earlier must have been wasted on them. You spend the whole morning approaching people, who shake their heads when you ask them if they speak English, and then give you directions to a different stall that you can make no sense of. Eventually, an elderly couple, the wife remembering a little English from school, greet you and invite you to share lunch with them.
  
  Soon the three of you are sitting in the cool interior of their house, chatting and cradling bowls of chicken makhani: grilled chicken in a spicy tomato sauce. In an attempt to take your mind off the heat, you inquire about the giant ape skeleton. However, they don't seem to understand you, so, feeling a little foolish, you try to impersonate one. This has an immediate effect, and the elderly couple start talking furiously to you in their native tongue. Then, realising that of course you don't understand a word they are saying, the woman says,
  
  "Big monkey. Bad. Very bad. We don't talk on it. Maybe better if you go now." And, hoping you haven't offended them, you thank your two wrinkled hosts, and are ushered out of the door.
  
  You have no more luck for the rest of the afternoon, and are forced to leave the lively marketplace before the sun sets. It looks like you aren't going to advance any further here, so maybe tomorrow you'll try exploring the jungle. However it turns out you never get the chance to, because the next morning, a letter with familiar handwriting arrives in the post.
  
  You start packing before it's even been opened. When your aunt and uncle find out, they give you a lecture, which is painfully long, and punctuated with "Really!" and "Absolutely disgraceful!", and then you're back where you started on the little red boat, chugging along the river, except this time you're going downstream.
  
  Leafing through your sketchbook, you stop at the page you'd reserved for the glorious discovery of the Gigantopithecus. The blank page glares up at you, mocking your failure.
  
  Where did you go wrong?