Goh's Digital Library: MALAY SKETCHES by Sir Frank Swettenham

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U.B.C. LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

MALAY SKETCHES

"Deep gratitude is due to Sir Frank for giving these letters to the world . . . the lazy descriptions of Eastern life, the musings on great scenes, the stories, and the utterances of social wisdom are all delightful, and add body to a book remarkable for a rare delicacy and charm." — The Athenaeum.

"His narrative style is admirable, and his episodes are always interesting. One could read for many hours of the clever mongoose and tigers and crocodiles. . . . Sir Frank Swettenham has a pretty humour. . . . The style in which these 'Unaddressed Letters' is written is excellent." — The Pall Mall Gazette.

THE REAL MALAY

PEN PICTURES
Crown 8vo, 6s.

"No pen except that of Mr. Conrad has drawn the Malay character so faithfully or so graphically. . . . It is a combination that is very alluring, and we confess to finding Sir Frank Swettenham's book of Malay sketches most fascinating reading. " — The Pall Mall Gazette.

"Sir Frank Swettenham understands perhaps better than any other roving Englishman ' The Real
Malay.' " — The Morning Post.

FRANK ATHELSTANE SWETTENHAM

JOHN LANE : THE BODLEY HEAD

LONDON AND NEW YORK MDCCCCIII

THIRD EDITION

Printed by Ballantynk Hanson & Co.
London & Edinburgh

content:

INTRODUCTION .

I. THE REAL MALAY

II. THE TIGER

III. A FISHING PICNIC

IV. THE MURDER OF THE HAWKER
V. MENG-GULUNCHOR

VI, AMOK

VII. THE JOGET

VIII. THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

IX. LATAH

X. THE ETERNAL FEMININE

XL IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

XII. VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

XIII. THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

XIV. BER-HANTU

XV. THE king's way .....

XVI. A MALAY ROMANCE ...

XVII. MALAY SUPERSTITIONS ....

XVIII. WITH A CASTING-NET

XIX. JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH .

XX. A PERSONAL INCIDENT ....

XXI. NAKODAH ORLONG

XXII. EVENING

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PREFACE

THIS is not a book of travels, nor is it, in even the smallest sense, the record of a traveller's experiences in a foreign land. It is a series of sketches of Malay scenery and Malay character drawn by one who has spent the best part of his life in the scenes and amongst the people described.

These pages contain no statistics, no history, no geography, no science, real or spurious, no politics, no moralising, no prophecy, — only an attempt to awaken an interest in an almost undescribed but deeply interesting people, the dwellers in one of the most beautiful and least known countries in the East.

The traveller will come in time, and he will publish his experiences of Malaya and the Malays ; but while he may look upon the country with a higher appreciation and paint its features with a more artistic touch, he will see few of those characteristics of the people, none of that inner life which, I make bold to say, is here faithfully portrayed.

FRANK SWETTENHAM.

The Residency,

Perak, 28 March 1895,

" Quel est done ce pays, disaient-
iU I'un a I'autre, inconnu a tout le
reste de la terre, et ou toute la na-
ture est d'une espece si dIfFerente
de la notre?"

Voltaire

IMAGINE yourself transported to a land of eternal summer, to that Golden Peninsula, 'twixt Hindustan and Far Cathay, from whence the early navigators brought back such wondrous stories of adventure. A land where Nature is at her best and richest : where plants and animals, beasts of the forest, birds of the air, and every living thing seem yet inspired with a feverish desire for growth and reproduction, as though they were still in the dawn of Creation.

And Man?

Yes, he is here. Forgotten by the world, passed by in the race for civilisation, here he has remained.

INTRODUCTION

amongst his own forests, by the banks of his well-loved streams, unseeking and unsought. Whence he came none know and few care, but this is the land that has given to, or taken from, him the name of a Race that has spread over a wider area than any other Eastern people.

Malaya, land of the pirate and the amok, your secrets have been well guarded, but the enemy has at last passed your gate, and soon the irresistible Juggernaut of Progress will have penetrated to your remotest fastness, slain your beasts, cut down your forests, "civilised" your people, clothed them in strange garments, and stamped them with the seal of a higher morality.

That time of regeneration will come rapidly, but for the moment the Malay of the Peninsula is as he has been these hundreds of years. Education and contact with Western people must produce the inevitable result. Isolated native races whose numbers are few must disappear or conform to the views of a stronger will and a higher intelligence.

The Malays of the Peninsula will not disappear,

INTRODUCTION

but they will change, and the process of " awakening " has in places already begun.

It might be rash to speculate on the gain which the future has in store for this people, but it is hardly likely to make them more personally interesting to the observer. This is the moment of transition, and these are sketches of the Malay as he is.

Jetons-nous dans cette petite barque, laissons-nous
aller au courant : une riviere mene toujours a quelque
endroit habite ; si nous ne trouvons pas des choscs
agreables, nous trouverons du moins des choses
nouvelles

" ' Allone,' dit Candida, ' recommandons-nous a la
Providence ' "

VOLTAIRK

NOTE ON THE COVER DESIGN

THE colours used on the cover of this hook are those recognised as " Royal" colours in one or other of the Malay States. Throughout the Peninsula, yellow is the special colour worn or used by those of Raja birth, By the ancient Malay sumptuary laws the lower classes were not allowed to wear yellow garments, nor to use this colour in the decoration or furniture of their houses. These laws are no longer rigidly observed, but in most Malay States the use of yellow fabrics is confined to the Raja class.

It is a universal practice to put letters addressed to Malay rulers (when they are of Raja birth) into covers of yellow cotton cloth or yellow satin, while those addressed to Rajas
who have no official position, or to chiefs of importance but not of Raja birth, are stitched into covers of white cotton.

In some of the States the royal flag is yellow, in others, it is white or black, while in several of the more important States of Sumatra (as for instance in Acheeh), black garments are the special privilege of the Raja class.

In Perak, the three highest native authorities in the State,the Sultan, his heir {styled Raja Muda), and his Wazir (the Raja Bendahara) fly flags of white, yellow, and black respectively, and these three colours united have, for the last twenty years, been adopted as the Perak State flag.

The three daggers on the cover are good types of the Malay "kris", the favourite national weapon. The originals of these particular specimens are in the Perak museum and were
photographed for this design.

F. J. S.

Xmai day, l896.

MALAY SKETCHES

THE REAL MALAY

He was the mildest mannered man. That ever scuttled ship or cut a
throat

Byron, Don yuan

TO begin to understand the Malay you must live in his country, speak his language, respect
his faith, be interested in his interests, humour his prejudices, sympathise with and help him in trouble, and share his pleasures and possibly his risks. Only
thus can you hope to win his confidence. Only
through that confidence can you hope to under-
stand the inner man, and this knowledge can there-
fore only come to those who have the opportunity
and use it.

So far the means of studying Malays in their own
country (where alone they are seen in their true

MALAY SKETCHES

character) have fallen to few Europeans, and a very
small proportion of them have shown an inclination
to get to the hearts of the people. There are a
hundred thousand Malays in Perak and some more
in other parts of the Peninsula ; and the white man,
whose interest in the race is strong enough, may not
only win confidence but the devotion that is ready
to give life itself in the cause of friendship. The
Scripture says : "There is no greater thing than this,"
and in the end of the nineteenth century that is a
form of friendship all too rare. Fortunately this is
a thing you cannot buy, but to gain it is worth some
effort.

The real Malay is a short, thick-set, well-built
man, with straight black hair, a dark brown com-
plexion, thick nose and lips, and bright intelligent
eyes. His disposition is generally kindly, his
manners are polite and easy. Never cringing, he
is reserved with strangers and suspicious, though he
does not show it. He is courageous and trust-
worthy in the discharge of an undertaking ; but he
is extravagant, fond of borrowing money, and very
slow in repaying it. He is a good talker, speaks in
parables, quotes proverbs and wise saws, has a strong
sense of humour, and is very fond of a good joke.
He takes an interest in the affairs of his neighbours

THE REAL MALAY

and is consequently a gossip. He is a Muhammadan
and a fatalist; but he is also very superstitious. He
never drinks intoxicants, he is rarely an opium-
smoker. But he is fond of gambling, cock-fighting,
and kindred sports. He is by nature a sportsman,
catches and tames elephants, is a skilful fisherman,
and thoroughly at home in a boat. Above all
things, he is conservative to a degree, is proud and
fond of his country and his people, venerates his
ancient customs and traditions, fears his Rajas, and
has a proper respect for constituted authority —
while he looks askance on all innovations, and will
resist their sudden introduction. But if he has time
to examine them carefully, and they are not thrust
upon him, he is willing to be convinced of their
advantage. At the same time he is a good imitative
learner, and, when he has energy and ambition
enough for the task, makes a good mechanic. He
is, however, lazy to a degree, is without method or
order of any kind, knows no regularity even in the
hours of his meals, and considers time as of no im-
portance. His house is untidy, even dirty, but he
bathes twice a day, and is very fond of personal
adornment in the shape of smart clothes.

A Malay is intolerant of insult or slight ; it is
something that to him should be wiped out in

MALAY SKETCHES

blood. He will brood over a real or fancied stain
on his honour until he is possessed by the desire
for revenge. If he cannot wreak it on the offender,
he w-ill strike out at the first human being that
comes in his way, male or female, old or young.
It is this state of blind fury, this vision of blood,
that produces the amok. The Malay has often been
called treacherous. I question whether he deserves
the reproach more than other men. He is courteous
and expects courtesy in return, and he understands
only one method of avenging personal insults.

The spirit of the clan is also strong in him. He
acknowledges the necessity of carrying out, even
blindly, the orders of his hereditary chief, while he
will protect his own relatives at all costs and make
their quarrel his own.

The giving of gifts by Raja to subject, or subject
to ruler, is a custom now falling into desuetude,
but it still prevails on the occasion of the accession
of a Raja, the appointment of high officers, a
marriage, a circumcision, ear-piercing, or similar
ceremony. As with other Eastern people, hospitality
is to the Malay a sacred duty fulfilled by high and
low, rich and poor alike.

Though the Malay is an Islam by profession, and
would suffer crucifixion sooner than deny his faith,

THE REAL MALAY

he is not a bigot ; indeed, his tolerance compares
favourably with that of the professing Christian,
and, when he thinks of these matters at all, he
believes that the absence of hypocrisy is the begin-
ning of religion. He has a sublime faith in God,
the immortality of the soul, a heaven of ecstatic
earthly delights, and a hell of punishments, which
every individual is so confident will not be his own
portion that the idea of its existence presents no
terrors.

Christian missionaries of all denominations have
apparently abandoned the hope of his conversion.

In his youth, the Malay boy is often beautiful, a
thing of wonderful eyes, eyelashes, and eyebrows,
with a far-away expression of sadness and solemnity,
as though he had left some better place for a com-
pulsory exile on earth.

Those eyes, which are extraordinarily large and
clear, seem filled with a pained wonder at all they
see here, and they give the impression of a constant
effort to open ever wider and wider in search of
something they never find. Unlike the child of
Japan, this cherub never looks as if his nurse had
forgotten to wipe his nose. He is treated with
elaborate respect, sleeps when he wishes, and sits
up till any hour of the night if he so desires, eats

MALAY SKETCHES

when he is hungry, has no toys, is never whipped,
and hardly ever cries.

Until he is fifteen or sixteen, this atmosphere of
a better world remains about him. He is often
studious even, and duly learns to read the Koran
in a language he does not understand.

Then, well then, from sixteen to twenty-five or
later he is to be avoided. He takes his pleasure,
sows his wild oats like youths of a higher civilisa-
tion, is extravagant, open-handed, gambles, gets
into debt, runs away with his neighbour's wife, and
generally asserts himself. Then follows a period
when he either adopts this path and pursues it, or,
more commonly, he weans himself gradually from
an indulgence that has not altogether realized his
expectation, and if, under the advice of older men,
he seeks and obtains a position of credit and use-
fulness in society from which he begins at last to
earn some profit, he will, from the age of forty,
probably develop into an intelligent man of miserly
and rather grasping habits with some one little pet
indulgence of no very expensive kind.

The Malay girl-child is not usually so attractive
in appearance as the boy, and less consideration is
shown to her. She runs wild till the time comes
for investing her in a garment, that is to say when

THE REAL MALAY

she is about five years old. From then, she is
taught to help in the house and kitchen, to sew, to
read and write, perhaps to work in the padi field,
but she is kept out of the way of all strange men-
kind. When fifteen or sixteen, she is often almost
interesting ; very shy, very fond of pretty clothes
and ornaments, not uncommonly much fairer in
complexion than the Malay man, witli small hands
and feet, a happy smiling face, good teeth, and
wonderful eyes and eyebrows — the eyes of the little
Malay boy. The Malay girl is proud of a wealth
of straight, black hair, of a spotless olive com-
plexion, of the arch of her brow — " like a one-day-
old moon " — of the curl of her eyelashes, and of the
dimples in cheek or chin.

Unmarried girls are taught to avoid all men
except those nearly related to them. Until mar-
riage, it is considered unmaidenly for them to raise
their eyes or take any part or interest in their
surroundings when men are present. This leads to
an affectation of modesty which, however over-
strained, deceives nobody.

After marriage, a woman gets a considerable
apiount of freedom which she naturally values. In
Perak a man, who tries to shut his womenkind up
and prevent their intercourse with others and a

MALAY SKETCHES

participation in the fetes and pleasures of Malay
society, is looked upon as a jealous, ill-conditioned
person.

Malays are extremaly particular about questions
of rank and birth, especially when it comes to
marriage, and mesalliances, as understood in the
West, are with them very rare.

The general characteristics of Malay women,
especially those of gentle birth, are powers of
intelligent conversation, quickness in repartee, a
strong sense of humour and an instant appreciation
of the real meaning of those hidden sayings which
are hardly ever absent from their conversation.
They are fond of reading such literature as their
language offers, and they use uncommon words and
expressions, the meanings of which are hardly
known to men. For the telling of secrets, they
have several modes of speech not understanded of
the people.

They are generally amiable in disposition, mildly
— sometimes fiercely — jealous, often extravagant
and, up to about the age of forty, evince an
increasing fondness for jewellery and smart clothes.
In these latter days they are developing a pretty
taste for horses, carriages, and whatever conduces
to luxury and display, though, in their houses, there

THE REAL MALAY

are still a rugged simplicity and untidiness, absolutely
devoid of all sense of order.

A Malay is allowed by law to have as many as
four wives, to divorce them, and replace them. If
he is well off and can afford so much luxury, he
usually takes advantage of the power to marry
more than one wife, to divorce and secure successors;
but he seldom undertakes the responsibility of four
wives at one time. The woman on her part can,
and often does, obtain a divorce from her husband.
Written conditions of marriage, " settlements " of
a kind, are common with people in the upper
classes, and the law provides for the custody of
children, division of property, and so on. The
ancient maiden lady is an unknown quantity, so is
the Malay public woman ; and, as there is no society
bugbear, the people lead lives that are almost
natural. There are no drunken husbands, no hob-
nail boots, and no screaming viragoes — because a
word would get rid of them. All forms of mad-
ness, mania, and brain-softening are extremely rare.

The Malay has ideas on the subject of marriage,
ideas born of his infinite experience. He has even
soared into regions of matrimonial philosophy, and
returned with such crumbs of lore as never fall to
the poor monogamist.

MALAY SKETCHES

I am not going to give away the secrets of the
Ufe behind the curtain ; if I wished to do so I
might trip over difficulties of expression ; but in
spite of Lhe Malay's reputation for bloodthirstiness,
in spite of (or because of, whichever you please) the
fact that he is impregnated with the doctrines of
Islam, in spite of his sensitive honour and his
proneness to revenge, and in spite of his desire to
keep his own women (when young and attractive)
away from the prying eyes of other men, he yet
holds this uncommon faith, that if he has set his
affections on a woman, and for any reason he is
unable at once to make her his own, he cares not
to how many others she allies herself provided she
becomes his before time has robbed her of her
physical attractions.

His reason is this. He says (certainly not to a
stranger, rarely even to his Malay friends, but to
himself) " if, after all this experience, she likes me
best, I have no fear that she will wish to go further
afield. All Malay girls marry before they are
twenty, and the woman who has only known one
husband, however attractive he may be, will come
sooner or later to the conviction that life with
another promises new and delightful experiences
not found in the society of the first man to whom

THE REAL MALAY

destiny and her relatives have chosen to unite her.
Thus some fool persuades her that in his worship
and passion she will find the World's Desire, and
it is only after perhaps a long and varied experience
that she realizes that, having started for a voyage
on the ocean, she finds herself seated at the bottom
of a dry well."

It is possible that thus she becomes acquainted
with truth.

THE TIGER

Yon golden terror, barred with ebon

stripes
Low-crouching horror, with the cruel

fangs
Waiting in deathly stillness for thy

spring

Anon.

SOME idea of what Malays are in their own
country may best be conveyed by taking the
reader in imagination through some scenes of their
daily life. The tiger, for instance, is seldom delibe-
rately sought ; if he kills a buffalo a spring gun is
set to shoot him when he returns for his afternoon
meal, but sometimes the tiger comes about a village,
and it is necessary to get rid of so dangerous a
visitor. Let me try and put the scene before you.
But how describe an Eastern dawn ? Sight
alone will give a true impression of its strange
beauty. Out of darkness and stillness, the transi-

THE TIGER

tion to light — intense brilliant light — and the sounds
of awakened life, is rapid and complete, a short half
hour or less turning night into tropical day. The
first indication of dawn is a grey haze, then the
clouds clothing the Western hills are shot with pale
yellow and in a few minutes turn to gold, while
Eastern ranges are still in darkness. The light
spreads to the Western slopes, moves rapidly across
the valleys, and suddenly the sun, a great ball of
fire, appears above the Eastern hills. The fogs,
which have risen from the rivers and marshes and
covered the land, as with a pall, rise like smoke and
disappear, and the whole face of nature is flooded
with light, the valleys and slopes of the Eastern
ranges being the last to feel the influence of the
risen sun.

That grey half-light which precedes dawn is the
signal for Malays to be stirring. The doors are
opened, and, only half awake and shivering in the
slight breeze made by the rising fog, they leave
their houses and make for the nearest stream, there
to bathe and fetch fresh water for the day's use.

A woman dressed in the sarong, a plaid skirt
of silk or cotton, and a jacket, walks rapidly to the
river, carrying a long bamboo and some gourds,
which, after her bath, she fills, and begins to walk

MALAY SKETCHES

home through the wealth of vegetation that clothes
the whole face of the country. She follows a narrow
path up from the bed of the clear stream, the jungle
trees and orchards, the long rank grasses and tangled
creepers almost hiding the path. Suddenly she
stops spellbound, her knees give way under her, the
vessels drop from her nerveless hands, and a speech-
less fear turns her blood to water ; for there, in front
of her, is a great black and yellow head with cruel
yellow eyes, and a half-open mouth showing a red
tongue and long white teeth. The shoulders and
fore feet of the tiger stand clear of the thick foliage,
and a hoarse low roar of surprise and anger comes
from the open mouth. An exceeding great fear
chains the terrified woman to the spot, and the
tiger, thus faced, sulkily and with more hoarse
grumbling, slowly draws back into the jungle and
disappears. Then the instinct of self-preservation
returns to the woman, and, with knees still weak
and a cold hand on her heart, she stumbles, with
what speed she may, back to the river, down the
bank, and to the friendly shelter of the nearest
dwelling.

It takes little time to tell the story, and the men
of the house, armed with spears and krises and an
old rusty gun, quickly spread the news throughout

THE TIGER

the kampong, as each cluster of huts and orchards
is called. Every one arms himself with such
weapons as he possesses, the boys of sixteen or
seventeen chmb into trees, from which they hope
to see and be able to report the movements of
the beast. The men, marshalled by the ka-tua
kampong, the village chief, make their plans for
surrounding the spot where the tiger was seen, and
word is sent by messenger to the nearest police-
station and European officer.

Whilst all this is taking place, the tiger, probably
conscious that too many people are about, leaves
his lair and stealthily creeps along a path which will
lead him far from habitations. But, as he does so,
he passes under a tree where sits one of the young
watchmen, and the boy, seizing his opportunity,
drops a heavy spear on the tiger as he passes, and
gives him a serious wound. The beast, with a roar
of pain, leaps into the jungle, carrying the spear
with him ; and, after what he considers a safe
interval, the boy climbs down, gets back to the
circle of watchers, and reports what has occurred.

For a long time, there is silence, no one caring to
go in and seek a wounded tiger — but this monotony
is broken rudely and suddenly by a shot on the out-
skirts of the wide surrounding ring of beaters where

MALAY SKETCHES

a young Malay has been keeping guard over a
jungle track. Instantly the nearest rush to the
spot only to find the boy badly wounded, after
firing a shot that struck the tiger but did not pre-
vent him reaching and pulling down the youth who
fired it.

Hardly has a party carried the wounded man to
shelter, than news arrives that, in trying to break
the ring at another point, the tiger has sprung upon
the point of a spear held in rest by a kneeling Malay,
and, the spear, passing completely through the beast's
body, the tiger has come down on the man's back
and killed him. The old men say it is because,
regardless of the wisdom of their ancestors, fools
now face a tiger with spears unguarded, whereas in
the olden time it was always the custom to tie a
crosspiece of wood where blade joins shaft to pre-
vent the tiger "running up the spear" and killing
his opponent.

The game is getting serious now and the tiger
has retired to growl and roar in a thick isolated
copse of bushes and tangled undergrowth from
which it seems impossible to draw him, and where
it would be madness to seek him.

By this time, all the principal people in the neigh-
bourhood have been collected. The copse is sur-

THE TIGER

rounded and two elephants are ridden at the cover,
in the hope of driving the wounded tiger from his
shelter. A vain hope, for, when the huge beasts
get inconveniently near to him, the tiger, with a
great roar, springs on to the shoulder of the nearest
elephant and brings him to his knees. The terrified
occupants of the howdah are thus deposited on the
ground, but lose no time in picking themselves up
and getting away. The elephant with a scream of
terror whirls round, throwing off the tiger with a
broken tooth, and, accompanied by his fellow,
rushes from the place and will not be stopped till
several miles have been covered and the river is
between them and their enemy.

Severe maladies want desperate and heroic
remedies. After a short consultation, a young
Malay chief and several of his friends, armed only
with spears, express their determination to seek the
tiger where he lies. They immediately put the plan
into execution. Shoulder to shoulder and with
spears in rest, they advance to the copse. They
have not long to wait in doubt for the wounded and
enraged beast, with open mouth and eyes blazing
fell purpose, charges straight at them. There is the
shock of flesh against steel, an awful snarling and
straining of muscles and the already badly wounded

T7 B

MALAY SKETCHES

tiger is pinned to the ground and dies under the
thrusts of many spears.

The general result of a tiger hunt, under such
circumstances, is the death or serious injury of one
or two of the pursuers.

Ill

A FISHING PICNIC

I have given you lands to hunt in,
I have given you streams to fish in,
Filled the river full of fishes

LoNGfKLLOW

NOW come to a Malay picnic.
Again, it is early morning, the guests have
been invited overnight and warned to come on their
elephants and bring " rice and salt." By the time
the sun is well up there are fifty or sixty people (of
whom about half are women), mounted on twelve or
fifteen elephants, and some boys and followers are
prepared to walk.

The word is given to make for a great limestone
hill rising abruptly out of the plain, for, close
round the foot of this rock, eating its way into the
unexplored depths of subaqueous caves, flows a
clear mountain-bred stream, and, in the silent pools
which lie under the shadow of the cliff, are the fish

MALAY SKETCHES

which with the rice and salt, will make the coming
feast.

The road lies through six or seven miles of
open country and virgin forest, and it is 9 or
10 A.M. before the river is reached, the elephants
hobbled, and the men of the party ready for
business.

In days gone by, the method would have been to
tuba the stream above a pool, but this poisoning of
the water affects the river for miles, and dynamite
which is not nearly so destructive is preferred. The
plan is to select a large and deep pool round which
the men stand ready to spring in, while the women
make a cordon across the shallow at its lower end,
ready to catch the fish that escape the hands of the
swimmers. Two cartridges of dynamite with a de-
tonator and a piece of slow match are tied to a stone
and thrown into the deepest part of the pool, there is
an explosion sending up a great column of water,
and immediately the dead fish come to the surface
and begin to float down stream. Twenty men
spring into the pool, and with shouts and laughter
struggle for the slippery fish ; those which elude the
grasp of the swimmers are caught by the women.
It will then be probably discovered that no very big
fish have been taken ; and, as it is certain that some

A FISHING PICNIC

at least should be there, the boldest and best divers
will search the bottom of the pool and even look into
the water-filled caves of the rock that there rises
sheer out of the stream. Success rewards this
ejBTort, and, from the bed of the pool, some sixteen
or eighteen feet deep, the divers bring up two at a
time, great silvery fish weighing ten to fifteen pounds
each. There is much joy over the capture of these
klah and tengas, the best kinds of fresh water fish
known here, and, if the total take is not a large
one, the operation will be repeated in another and
yet another pool, until a sufticient quantity of fish
has been secured and every one is tired of the
water.

There is a general change of wet garments for
dry ones, no difficult matter, while long before this
fires have been made on the bank, rice is boiling,
fish are roasting in split sticks, grilling, frying, and
the hungry company is settling itself in groups
ready for the meal. It is a matter of honour that
no plates should be used, so every one has a piece of
fresh green plantain leaf to hold his rice and salt and
fish, while nature supphes the forks and spoons.
Whether it is the exercise, the excitement, or the
coldness of the two hours' bath, that is most re-
sponsible for the keen appetites is not worth

MALAY SKETCHES

inqiiirins:, but thorough justice is done to the food ;
and if you, reader, should ever be fortunate enough
to take part in one of these picnics, you will declare
that you never before realised how delicious a meal
can be made of such simple ingredients. Some one
has smuggled in a few condiments and they add
largely to the success of the Malay bouille-abaisse,
but pepple affect not to know they are there, and
you go away assured that rice and salt did it all.
That is part of the game.

And now it is time to return, the sun has long
passed the meridian, and there is a mile or two of
forest before getting into the open country. The
timid amongst the ladies feign alarm (Malays are
sensible people who take only the young to picnics,
and leave the old to mind the houses), and a desire
to get away at once, bur there are others who know
what is in store for them.

The elephants are brought up and each pannier
is found to be loaded with jungle fruit, large and
small, ripe and unripe, hard and soft, but generally
hard as stones. Every one knows the meaning of
this and, as the elephants kneel down to take their
riders, you may observe that usually two men sit in
front, two women behind, and the latter are anxious
about their umbrellas and show a tendency to open

A FISHING PICNIC

them here where, in the gloom of the forest, they
are not needed. The first two or three elephants
move off quickly, and, having turned a corner in the
path, disappear. It is necessary to proceed in Indian
file, and as the next elephant comes to this corner
he and his company are assailed by a perfect shower
of missiles (the jungle fruit) from the riders of the
first section of elephants who are slily waiting here
to surprise those behind. The attack is returned
with interest and the battle wages hot and furious.
The leaders of the rear column try to force their
way past those who dispute the path with them, and
either succeed or put the enemy to flight only to find
a succession of ambuscades laid for them, each
resulting in a deadly struggle, and so, throughout
the length of the forest, the more venturesome
pushing their way to the front or taking up an
independent line and making enemies of all comers,
until, at last, the whole party clears the jungle and,
taking open order, a succession of wild charges soon
gets every one into the fray and, the supply of am-
munition having run out, there is nothing left but to
count the damage done.

It is principally in broken umbrellas which have
been used as shields, but some garments are stained,
and there may be a few bruises treated with much

MALAY SKETCHES

good humour, and, by the time the party has
straightened its dishevelledness, it is found that
miles of otherwise tedious journey have been
passed and every one is home ere the lengthening
shadows suddenly contract and tell the sun has
set.

THE MURDER OF THE HAWKER

It is a damned and bloody work,
The graceless action of a heavy hand
King John

ONE afternoon, in 1892, a foreign Malay named
Lenggang, who made a living by hawking
in a boat on the Perak River, left Bota with his
usual cargo and a hundred dollars which his cousin,
the son of the Penghulu, had been keeping for him.
He was alone in the boat and dropped down stream,
saying he would call at some of the villages that
line at intervals the banks of the river.

The next day this man's dead body, lying partly
under a mosquito curtain, was discovered in the
boat as it drifted past the village of Pulau Tiga.
The local headman viewed it, but saw nothing to
arouse his suspicions, for the boat was full of
valuables and a certain amount of money, while
nothing in it seemed to have been disturbed, and

MALAY SKETCHES

there were no marks of violence on the corpse, which
was duly buried.

When the matter was reported, inquiries were
made but they elicited nothing. Some months after
the relatives of the dead man appeared at Teluk
Anson, and said they had good reason to believe that
he had met with foul play, indeed that he had been
murdered at a place called Lambor — a few miles
below Bota and above Pulau Tiga. An intelligent
Malay sergeant of police proceeded to the spot,
arrested a number of people, who denied all know-
ledge of the affair, and took them to Teluk Anson.
Arrived there, these people said they were able to
give all the necessary information if that would
procure their release, as they had only promised to
keep their mouths shut so long as they themselves
did not suffer for it.

The details of the story as told in evidence are as
follows, and they are very characteristic of the
Malay :

It appears that the hawker duly arrived in his

boat at Lambor, and there tied up for the night to

a stake, about twenty feet from the bank of the

river. Shortly afterwards a Malay named Ngah

Prang, stopped three of his acquaintances walking

on the bank, asked them if they had seen the

THE MURDER OF THE HAWKER

hawker's boat, and suggested that it would be a good
thing to rob him. They said they were afraid, and
some other men coming up asked one of those to
whom the proposal had been made what they were
talking about, and, being told, advised him to have
nothing to do with the business and the party
dispersed.

That evening, at 8 p.m., several people heard
cries of " help, help, I am being killed," from the
river, and five or six men ran out of their houses
down to the bank, a distance of only fifty yards,
whence they saw, in the brilliant moonlight, Ngah
Prang and two other men in the hawker's boat, the
hawker lying flat on his back while one man had
both hands at his throat, another held his wrists,
and the third his feet ; but it is said that those on
the bank heard a noise of rapping as though feet
were kicking or hands beating quickly the deck of
the boat. It only lasted for a moment and then
there was silence.

As those who had been roused by the cries came
down the bank they called to the men in the boat,
barely twenty feet away, and lighted at their work
by the brilliancy of an Eastern moon, to know what
they were doing ; they even addressed them by
their names, but these gave no answer, and, getting

MALAY SKETCHES

up from off the hawker, untied the boat, one taking
a pole and another the rudder and disappeared down
the river. The hawker did not move. He was
dead.

The witnesses of this tragedy appear then to have
returned to their homes and slept peacefully.
Several of them naively remarked that they heard
the next day that the hawker had been found dead
in his boat, and it appears that when one of these
witnesses, on the following day, met one of the
murderers, he asked him what he was doing in
Lenggang's boat, and the man replied that they
were robbing him, that he held the hawker by the
throat, the others by the hands and feet, but that
really they had got very little for their trouble.

Meanwhile the three murderers told several of
the eye-witnesses of the affair that, if they said
anything, it would be the worse for them, and
nothing particular occurred till a notice was posted
in the Mosque calling upon any one who knew
anything about Lenggang's death to report it to the
village Headman. Then Ngah Prang, who appa-
rently was the original instigator of the job, as so
often happens, thought he would save himself at the
expense of his friends, and actually went himself to
make a report, and, meeting on the way one of the

THE MURDER OF TfiE HAWKER

eye-witnesses going on a similar errand, he per-
suaded him to give a qualified promise to help in
denying Ngah Prang's complicity while convicting
the others.

Needless to say that, from the moment the first
disclosure was made and communicated to the
police, resulting in the arrest of a number of those
who had actually witnessed the crime, every smallest
detail was gradually brought to light, the hawker's
property, even his own clothes, gradually recovered,
the money stolen from him traced, and no single
link left wanting in the chain of evidence strong
enough to convict and hang the guilty men. That
indeed was the result.

I have told the story of this crime, which is
devoid of sensational incident, because it will give
some idea of the state of feeling in a real Malay
kampong of poor labouring people far from any
outside influence. The man murdered was a Malay ;
the idea that he was worth something which could
be obtained by the insignificant sacrifice of his life
seems to have at once suggested that Providence
was putting a good thing in the way of poor people,
and those who were not afraid determined that the
opportunity was not to be lost. The murder is
discussed practically in public ; it is executed also

MALAY SKETCHES

in public, in the presence of a feebly expostulating
opposition, and then every one goes to bed. The
only further concern of the community in the matter
is as to how much the murderers got. For them
the incident ends there, and, if any one has any
qualms of conscience, they are silenced by the
threats of the men who so easily throttled the
hawker.

It is only when inquiries are pushed, and things
are made generally unpleasant for every one, that
the truth is unwillingly disclosed, and the penalty
paid.

MENG-GELUNCHOR

And falling and crawling and sprawl-
ing)

And driving and riving and striving,

And sprinkling and twinkling and
winkling,

And sounding and bounding and
rounding,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,

And trumping and plumping and
bumping and jumping,

And dashing and flashing and splash-
ing and clashing

SOUTHEY

THE Malays of Perak occasionally indulge them-
selves in a form of amusement which, I believe,
is peculiar to them. Though of ancient origin, it is
not well known even here, and, as new sensations
are the desire oi our time, I offer it to the iaded
pleasure-seekers of the West.

Given a fine sunny morning (and that is what
most mornings are in Perak) you will drive four or

MALAY SKETCHES

five miles to the appointed place of meeting, and
there find a crowd of one or two hundred Malay
men, women, and children, who have been duly
bidden to m^ng-gHunchor and to take part in the
picnic which forms a recognised accompaniment to
the proceedings.

A walk of a couple of miles along a shady jungle
path brings the party to the foot of a spur of hills,
whence, a clear mountain stream leaps down a suc-
cession of cascades to fertilise the plain. There is
a stiff climb for several hundred feet until the party
gains a great granite rock in the bed of the stream,
large enough to accommodate a much more numerous
gathering. In a " spate " this rock might be
covered, but now the water flows round it and
dashes itself wildly over the falls below. Up-
stream, however, there is a sheer smooth face of
granite, about sixty feet long, inclined at an angle
of say 45 °, and, while the main body of water finds
its way down one side of this rock and then across
its foot, a certain quantity, only an inch or two deep,
flows steadily down the face. The depth of water
here can be increased at will by bamboo troughs,
leading out of the great pool which lies at the head
of the waterfall. At the base of the rock is an in-
viting lynn not more than four feet deep. On either

MENG-GELUNCHOR

side, the river is shut in by a wealth of jungle
foliage through which the sun strikes at rare
intervals, just sufficiently to give the sense of
warmth and colour.

It is delightfully picturesque with all these people
in their many-coloured garments, grouped in artistic
confusion, on bank and rock. They only sit for a
brief rest after the climb, to collect wood, make fires
and get the work of cooking started, and you will
not be left long in doubt as to the meaning of
meng-gelunchor. It is to slide, and the game is to
"toboggan" down this waterfall into the lynn at its
base.

A crowd of little boys is already walking up the
steep, slippery rock. They go to the very top, sit
down in the shallow water with feet straight out in
front of them and a hand on either side for guidance,
and immediately begin to slide down the sixty feet
of height, gaining, before they have gone half way,
so great a speed that the final descent into the pool

like the fall of a stone. They succeed each other
in a constant stream, those behind coming on the
top of those who have already reached the lynn.

But now the men, and lastly the women, are drawn
to join the sliders and the fun becomes indeed both
fast and furious. The women begin timidly, only

33 C

MALAY SKETCHES

half way up the slide, but soon grow bolder, and
mixed parties of four, six, and eight in rows of two,
three, or four each, start together and, with a good
deal of laughter and ill-directed attempts at mutual
assistance, dash wildly into the pool which is almost
constantly full of a struggling, screaming crowd of
young people of both sexes.

If you understand the game, the slide is a graceful
progress, but, if you don't, if you fail to sit erect, if
you do not keep your feet together, above all, if you
lose your balance and do not remain absolutely
straight on the slide, then your descent will be far
from graceful, it may even be shghtly painful, and
the final plunge into the lynn will be distinctly
undignified. It is well to leave your dignity at
home, if you go to meng-gelunchor with a Malay
party, for those who do not weary themselves with
tobogganing become absolutely exhausted with
laughing at the sliders. The fascination of the
thing is extraordinary, and, to read this poor de-
scription, you would think it impossible that any
sane person would spend hours in struggling up a
steep and slippery rock to slide down it on two
inches of water, and, having gained a startling
velocity, leap into a shallov/ pool where half a dozen
people will be on you before you can get out of the

MENG-GELUNCHOR

way. And yet I am persuaded that, if your joints
are not stiff with age and you are not afraid of
cold water, or ridicule, or personal damage (and you
will admit none of those things) you would meng-
gelunchor with the best of them, nor be the first to
cry " hold, enough."

It is usual for the men, when sliding down the
rock, to sit upon a piece of the thick fibre of the
plantain called upih. It is perhaps advisable, but
the women do not seem to want it. It is surprising
that there are so few casualties and of such small
importance — some slight abrasions, a little bumping
of heads, at most the loss of a tooth, will be the
extent of the total damage, and with a little care
there need be none at all.

By I P.M. every one will probably be tired, dry
garments are donned, and a very hungry company
does ample justice to the meal. An hour will be
spent in smoking and gossip, and, as the shadows
begin to lengthen, a long procession slowly wends
its way back, down the slippery descent, across the
sunny fields, and through the forest, to the trysting-
place where all met in the morning and whence they
now return to their own homes.

The intelligent reader will realise that this is a
game abounding in possibilities, but the players

MALAY SKETCHES

should be chosen with discrimination and with due
regard to individual affinities.

A sunny climate and surroundings of natural
beauty are necessary ; but a wooded ravine on the
Riviera or by the shore of an Italian lake, a clear
stream leaping down a steep rocky bed, and the
rest can be easily arranged by a little cutting and
polishing of stone.

Besides the novelty and charm of the exercise,
the exhilarating motion, the semblance of danger,
the clutchings at the nearest straws for help — there
are infinite opportunities for designing and donning
attractive garments wherein the graceful lines of
the human form would be less jealously hidden than
in the trappings of stern convention.

Puffed sleeves and a bell skirt, Louis XIV.
heels and an eighteen inch waist, would be incon-
venient and out of place when sliding down a
waterfall in the hope of a safe and graceful plunge
into a shallow lynn.

But if the company be well chosen, the venue
and the climate such as can be found at a hundred
places between St. Tropez and Salerno, if there is
in the costumes and the luncheon only a fair appli-
cation of Art to Nature, the Eastern pastime is
capable of easy and successful acclimatisation in

5«

MENG-GELUNCHOR

the West. And as the knights and dames stroll
slowly down the wooded glen, and the sinking sun
strikes long shafts of hght across their path,
glorifying all colours, not least the tint of hair and
eyes, the pleasure-seekers, if they have not by then
found some more mutually interesting topic, will be
very unanimous in their praise of M^ng-gdunchor.

AMOK

There comes a time
When the insatiate brute within the

man,
Weary with wallowing in the mire,

leaps forth
Devouring .... and the soul sinks
And leaves the man a devil

Lewis Morris

MENTION has been made of the Malay amok,
and, as what, with our haopy faculty for
mispronunciation and misspelling of the words of
other languages, is called " running amuck," is with
many English people their only idea of the Malay,
and that a very vague one, it may be of interest to
briefly describe this form of homicidal mania.

Meng-dmok is to make a sudden, murderous
attack, and though it is applied to the onslaught of
a body of men in war time, or where plunder is the
object and murder the means to arrive at it, the
term is more commonly used to describe the action
of an individual who, suddenly and without apparent
cause, seizes a weapon and strikes out blindly, kill-

AMOK

ing and wounding all who come in his way, regard-
less of age or sex, whether they be friends, strangers,
or his own nearest relatives.

Just before sunset on the evening of the 1 1 th
February, 1891, a Malay named Imam Mamat (that
is Mamat the priest) came quietly into the house
of his brother-in-law at Pasir Garam on the Perak
River, carrying a spear and a golok, i.e. a sharp,
pointed cutting knife.

The Imam went up to his brother-in-law, took
his hand and asked his pardon. He then approached
his own wife and similarly asked her pardon, imme-
diately stabbing her fatally in the abdomen with the
golok. She fell, and her brother, rushing to assist
her, received a mortal wound in the heart. The
brother-in-law's wife was in the house with four
children, and they managed to get out before the
Imam had time to do more than stab the last of
them, a boy, in the back as he left the door. At
this moment, a man, who had heard the screams ot
the women, attempted to enter the house, when the
Imam rushed at him and inflicted a slight wound,
the man falling to the ground and getting away.

Having secured two more spears which he found
in the house, the murderer now gave chase to the
woman and her three little children and made short

MALAY SKETCHES

work of them. A tiny girl of four years old and
a boy of seven were killed, while the third child
received two wounds in the back ; a spear thrust
disposed of the mother — all this within one hundred
yards of the house.

The Imam now walked down the river bank,
where he was met by a friend named Uda Majid,
rash enough to think his unarmed influence would
prevail over the other's madness.

He greeted the Imam respectfully, and said, "You
recognise me, don't let there be any trouble."

The Imam replied, " Yes, I know you, but my
spear does not," and immediately stabbed him twice.

Though terribly injured, Uda Majid wrested the
spear from the Imam, who again stabbed him twice,
this time in lung and windpipe, and he fell. Another
man coming up ran unarmed to the assistance of
Uda Majid, when the murderer turned on the new-
comer and pursued him ; but, seeing Uda Majid get
up and attempt to stagger away, the Imam went
back to him and, with two more stabs in the back,
killed him. Out of the six wounds inflicted on this
man three would have proved fatal.

The murderer now rushed along the river bank,
and was twice seen to wade far out into the water
and return. Then he was lost sight of.

AMOK

By this time the news had spread up stream and
down, and every one was aware that there was
abroad an armed man who would neither give nor
receive quarter.

For two days, a body of not less than two hundred
armed men under the village chiefs made ceaseless
but unavailing search for the murderer. At 6 p.m.
on the second day, Imam Mamat suddenly appeared
in front of the house of a man called Lasam, who
had barely time to slam the door in his face and
fasten it. The house at that moment contained four
men, five women, and seven children, and the only
weapon they possessed was one spear.

Lasam asked the Imam what he wanted, and he
said he wished to be allowed to sleep in the house.
He was told he could do so if he would throw away
his arms, and to this the Imam replied by an attempt
to spear Lasam through the window. The latter,
however, seized the weapon, and with the help of
his son, wrested it out of the Imam's hands, Lasam
receiving a stab in the face from the golok. During
this struggle, the Imam had forced himself halfway
through the window, and Lasam seizing his own
spear, thrust it into the thigh of the murderer, who
fell to the ground. In the fall, the shaft of the
spear broke off, leaving the blade in the wound.

MALAY SKETCHES

It was now pitch dark, and, as the people of the
house did not know the extent of the Imam's injury
or what he was doing, a man went out by the back
to spread the news and call the village headman.
On his arrival the light of a torch showed the Imam
lying on the ground with his weapons out of reach,
and the headman promptly pounced upon him and
secured him.

The Imam was duly handed over to the police and
conveyed to Teluk Anson, but he died from loss of
blood within twenty-four hours of receiving his wound.

Here is the official list of killed and wounded —

Killed.

Alang Rasak, wife of Imam Mamat
Bilal Abu, brother-in-law of Mamat
Ngah Intan, wife of Bilal Abu
Puteh, daughter of Bilal Abu .
Mumin, son of Bilal Abu
Uda Majid .

Wounded.

Kasim, son of Bilal Abu
Teh, daughter of Bilal Abu .
Mat Sah .....
Lasam • • . •

aged

AMOK

It is terrible to have to add that both the women
were far advanced in pregnancy.

Imam Mamat was a man of over forty years of
age, of good repute with liis neighbours, and I never
heard any cause suggested why this quiet, elderly
man of devotional habits should suddenly, without
apparent reason, develop the most inhuman instincts
and brutally murder a number of men, women, and
children, his nearest relatives and friends. It is,
however, quite possible that the man was suffer-
ing under the burden of some real or fancied
wrong which, after long brooding, darkened his
eyes and possessed him with this insane desire
to kill.

An autopsy was performed on the murderer's
body, and the published report of the surgeon says :
" I hereby certify that I this day made a post-mortem
examination of the body of Imam Mahomed, and
find him to have died from haemorrhage from a
wound on the outer side of right thigh ; the internal
organs were healthy except that the membranes of
the right side of brain were more adherent than
usual."

VII

THE JOGET

Every footstep fell as lightly
As a sunbeam on the river

Longfellow's Spanish Student

MALAYS are not dancers, but they pay profes-
sional performers to dance for their amuse-
ment, and consider that " the better part " is with
those who watch, at their ease, the exertions of a
small class whose members are not held in the
highest respect. The spectacle usually provided is
strangely wanting in attraction ; a couple of women
shufQing their feet, and swaying their hands in
gestures that are practically devoid of grace or even
variety — that is the Malay dance — and it is accom-
panied by the beating of native drums, the striking
together of two short sticks held in either hand, and
the occasional boom of a metal gong. The enter-
tainment has an undoubted fascination for Malays
but it generally forms part of a theatrical perform-

THE JOGET

11 ance, and for Western spectators it is immeasur-

' ably dull.

In one of the Malay States, however, Pahang, it
has for years been the custom for the ruler and one
or two of his near relatives to keep trained dancing
girls, who perform what is called the " Joget " — a
real dance with an accompaniment of something hke
real music, though the orchestral instruments are
very rude indeed.

The dancers, budak jogety belong to the Raja's
household, they may even be attached to him by a
closer tie ; they perform seldom, only for the amuse-
ment of their lord and his friends, and the public
are not admitted. Years ago I saw such a dance,
and though peculiar to Pahang as far as the Malay
States are concerned, it is probable that it came
originally from Java ; the instruments used by the
orchestra and the airs played are certainly far more
common in Java and Sumatra than in the Peninsula.
I had gone to Pahang on a political mission
acompanied by a friend, and we were vainly
courting sleep in a miserable lodging, when at
I A.M. a message came from the Sultan inviting us
to witness a joget. We accepted with alacrity,
and at once made our way to the astdna, a
picturesque, well-built and commodious house on

MALAY SKETCHES

the right bank of the Pahang river. A palisade
enclosed the courtyard, and the front of the house
was a very large hall, open on three sides, but
covered by a lofty roof of fantastic design supported
on pillars. The floor of this hall was approached
by three wide steps continued round the three open
sides, the fourth being closed by a wooden wall
which entirely shut off the private apartments save
for one central door over which hung a heavy cur-
tain. The three steps were to provide sitting
accommodation according to their rank for those
admitted to the astdna. The middle of the floor,
on the night in question, was covered by a large
carpet, chairs were placed for us, and the rest of
the guests sat on the steps of the dais.

When we entered, we saw, seated on the carpet,
four girls, two of them about eighteen and two
about eleven years old, all attractive according to
Malay ideas of beauty, and all gorgeously and
picturesquely clothed.

On their heads they each wore a large and
curious but very pretty ornament of delicate work-
manship — a sort of square flower garden where all
the flowers were gold, trembling and glittering with
every movement of the wearer. These ornaments
were secured to the head by twisted cords of silver

THE JOGET

and gold. The girls' hair, combed down in a fringe,
was cut in a perfect oval round their foreheads and
very becomingly dressed behind.

The bodices of their dresses were made of tight-
fitting silk, leaving the neck and arms bare, whilst
a white band of fine cambric (about ij inches wide),
passing round the neck, came down on the front of
the bodice in the form of a V, and was there
fastened by a golden flower.

Round their waists were belts fastened with large
and curiously worked ptnding or buckles of gold,
so large that they reached quite across the waist.
The rest of the costume consisted of a skirt of cloth
of gold (not at all like the sarong) ^ reaching to the
ankles, while a scarf of the same material, fastened
in its centre to the waist-buckle, hung down to the
hem of the skirt.

All four dancers were dressed alike, except that
the elder girls wore white silk bodices with a red
and gold handkerchief, folded cornerwise, tied under
the arms and knotted in front. The points of the
handkerchief hung to the middle of the back. In
the case of the two younger girls the entire dress
was of one material.

On their arms the dancers wore numbers of gold
bangles, and their fingers were covered with diamond

MALAY SKETCHES

rings. In their ears were fastened the diamond
buttons so much affected by Malays, and indeed
now by Western ladies. Their feet, of course,
were bare.

We had ample time to minutely observe these
details before the dance commenced, for when we
came into the hall the four girls were sitting down
in the usual* Eastern fashion, on the carpet, bending
forward, their elbows resting on their thighs, and
hiding the sides of their faces, which were towards
the audience, with fans made of crimson and gilt
paper which sparkled in the light.

On our entrance the band struck up, and our
special attention was called to the orchestra, as the
instruments are seldom seen in the Malay Peninsula.

There were two chief performers, one playing on
a sort of harmonicon, the notes of which he struck
with pieces of stick held in each hand. The other,
with similar pieces of wood, played on inverted
metal bowls. Both these performers seemed to
have sufficiently hard work, but they played with
the greatest spirit from lo p.m. till 5 a.m.

The harmonicon is called by Malays chelempong,
and the inverted bowls, which give a pleasant and

* The attitude is that obtained by transferring the body
directly from a kneeling to a sitting position.

THE JOGET

musical sound like the noise of rippling water, a
gambang. The other members of the orchestra
consisted of a very small boy who played, with a
very large and thick stick, on a gigantic gong — an
old woman who beat a drum with two sticks, and
several other boys who played on instruments like
triangles called chdnang.

All these performers, we were told with much
solemnity, were artists of the first order, masters
and a mistress in their craft, and if vigour of execu-
tion counts for excellence they proved the justice of
the praise.

The Hall, of considerable size, capable of accom-
modating several hundreds of people, was only
dimly lighted, but the fact that, while the audience
was in semi-darkness, the light was concentrated on
the performers added to the effect. Besides our-
selves I question whether there were more than
twenty spectators, but sitting on the top of the dais
near to the dancers it was hard to pierce the sur-
rounding gloom.

The orchestra was placed on the left of the
entrance to the Hall, that is rather to the side and
rather in the background, a position evidently chosen
with due regard to the feelings of the audience.

From the elaborate and vehement execution of
49 »

MALAY SKETCHES

the players, and the want of regular time in the
music, I judged, and rightly, that we had entered as
the overture began. During its performance, the
dancers sat leaning forward, hiding their faces as I
have described ; but when it concluded and, without
any break, the music changed into the regular
rhythm for dancing, the four girls dropped their
fans, raised their hands in the act of Sembah or
homage, and then began the dance by swaying their
bodies and slowly waving their arms and hands in
the most graceful movements, making much and
effective use all the while of the scarf hanging from
their belts.

Gradually raising themselves from a sitting to a
kneeling posture, acting in perfect accord in every
motion, then rising to their feet, they floated through
a series of figures hardly to be exceeded in grace
and difficulty, considering that the movements are
essentially slow, the arms, hands and body being
the real performers whilst the feet are scarcely
noticed and for half the time not visible.

They danced five or six dances, each lasting
quite half an hour, with materially different figures
and time in the music. All these dances I was told
were symbolical ; one, of agriculture, with the till-
ing of the soil, the sowing of the seed, the reaping

THE JOGET

and winnowing of the grain, might easily have been
guessed from the dancer's movements. But those
of the audience whom I was near enough to question
were, Malay-like, unable to give me much informa-
tion. Attendants stood or sat near the dancers and
from time to time, as the girls tossed one thing on
the floor, handed them another. Sometimes it was
a fan or a mirror they held, sometimes a flower or
small vessel, but oftener their hands were empty, as
it is in the management of the fingers that the chief
art of Malay dancers consists.

The last dance, symbolical of war, was perhaps '
the best, the music being much faster, almost
inspiriting, and the movements of the dancers more
free and even abandoned. For the latter half of
the dance they each held a wand, to represent a
sword, bound with three rings of burnished gold
which glittered in the light like precious stones.

This nautch, which began soberly, like the others,
grew to a wild revel until the dancers were, or
pretended to be, possessed by the Spirit of Dancing,
hantu mendri as they called it, and leaving the
Hall for a moment to smear their fingers and faces
with a fragrant oil, they returned, and the two
eldest, striking at each other with their wands
seemed inclined to turn the symbolical into a real

MALAY SKETCHES

battle. They were, however, after some trouble,
caught by four or five women and carried forcibly
out of the Hall, but not until their captors had been
made to feel the weight of the magic wands. The
two younger girls, who looked as if they too would
like to be "possessed," but did not know how to
accomplish it, were easily caught and removed.

The band, whose strains had been increasing in
wildness and in time^ ceased playing on the removal
of the dancers, and the nautch, which had begun at
10 P.M., was over.

The Raja, who had only appeared at 4 a.m., told
me that one of the elder girls, when she became
" properly possessed," lived for months on nothing
but flowers, a pretty and poetic conceit.

As we left the Astana, and taking boat rowed
slowly to the vessel waiting for us off the river's
mouth, the rising sun was driving the fog from the
numbers of lovely green islets, that seemed to float
like dew-drenched lotus leaves on the surface of the
shallow stream.

VIII
THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

I smote him as I would a worm,
With heart as steeled, with nerve as

firm;
He never woke again

Whittiir

IT was in the year 1876 that a man named Mat
Aris, of no occupation and less repute, per-
suaded one Sahit to take his wife Salamah and
start on a journey through the jungle to a distant
country. The interest of Mat Aris in this couple
was a desire to get rid of Sahit and possess himself
of the woman Salamah, for whom he had conceived
an overmastering passion.

The travellers began their journey at a spot many
miles up the Perak River ; their road lay along a
jungle track, and so sparsely inhabited was the
country they were to pass through, that they could
not even find a habitation in which to pass the
night. They had to look forward to many days*

MALAY SKETCHES

journey through the primaeval forest, the home of
wild beasts and Sakai people, aboriginal tribes
almost as shy and untamed as the elephant, the
bison and the rhinoceros, with which they share the
forests of the interior,

Sahit and his wife started on their journey in the
company of two brothers of Mat Aris, but meeting
him the brothers returned. Mat Aris undertaking the
part of escort. In the afternoon of the first day's
march a Sakai named Pah Patin met the three, and,
being known to Mat Aris, that worthy ordered him
to accompany them. Pah Patin did as he was told,
and when evening came on, as there was no dwelling
within miles, a shelter was built in the jungle
wherein the night was to be passed.

It is as well to understand what a Malay jungle
is like, for a good soil, well watered, in one of the
hottest and dampest climates in the world, produces
a forest that is not altogether the counterpart of all
other forests.

The reading public, no doubt, believes that the
jungle of Darkest Africa is a place of gloom, terror
and difficulty without parallel. It may be so, but
few of those who know it have visited Malaya,
and one is apt to exaggerate one's own troubles.
Whatever gruesome peculiarities there are about

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

the African jungle, it seems possible for large bodies
of men and women to make their way through it at
a fair pace without great difficulty. In that respect
at least it has the advantage of the Malay forest.

To begin with there are the trees of all sizes,
from the smallest shoot to the giants of the jungle,
towering to a height of 150 feet. I know that is
not excessive, but in this forcing climate there are
an enormous number of such trees, treading on each
others roots and crowding the older and feebler out
of existence. These are nothing, they afford a
pleasant shade from the pitiless rays of the sun, and
though this mitigated light cannot by any stretch of
imagination be called darkness, it is possible to take
off your hat without fear of sunstroke. If it were
only for the trees jungle walking would be pleasant
enough.

Under them, however, there is an undergrowth
so thick as to beggar description. Every conceiv-
able kind of palm, of bush, of creeper, flourishes
there with a luxuriance, with a prodigality of vege-
table life, that shows how richly Nature deserves
her title of Mother. It is a curious fact, remarked
by every one who has been brought in contact with
the Malay forest, that a very large number of its
shrubs, many of its palms, and most of its creepers

MALAY SKETCHES

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 crawl-
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 oppor-
tunity. 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.

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

To force a way through such a place is an im-
possibility, even on all fours it could not be crawled
through, the only means of progress is by cutting a
path.

No one attempts to walk through virgin forest
unless he be in pursuit of game, or has some special
object and the means to clear his way. All Malay
jungle is not as thick as that I have described, and
as the beasts sought by the sportsman naturally
frequent the more open places, tracking is possible,
though severe enough work even at the slow rate
of progress necessary to enable the pursuers to
approach the quarry without being seen or heard.

The lower and more swampy the country the
thicker the undergrowth, and I have often noticed
that, where a river flows between low banks clothed
with virgin forest, it would be almost impossible for
even a strong swimmer to force his way out of the
water on to the land through the thickly interlaced
tangle of branches, rattans, and other thorny creepers
that stretch their uninviting arms from the bank far
over the water of the stream.

It will naturally be asked how travellers make
their way through jungle such as I have described.
The reply is that there are existing tracks (not
worthy of the name of footpaths) which have been

MALAY SKETCHES

used for ages, originally no doubt formed by the
passing and repassing of wild beasts, then adopted
by the Sakais, and lastly by Malays. In other
cases similar means of passage have been formed by
driving tame elephants through the forest from place
to place. For the pedestrian, especially if he be
clad in the garments and boots of western civilisa-
tion, progress through the succession of holes filled
with water and mud which marks the track of
elephants is neither rapid nor pleasant.

That is the jungle of daylight.

When once the sun has set darkness falls upon
everything within the forest, and it is a darkness so
absolute as to give to wide-open eyes the impression
of blindness. Those who have been so unfortunate
as to be benighted in a Malay jungle without torches
or lanterns know that there is nothing to be done
but to sit down and wait for day.

Such were the surroundings in which Sahit and
his wife found themselves compelled to spend a
night in the company of Mat Aris and his Sakai
acquaintance.

Mat Aris had a house in this neighbourhood,
and on the day following the events already narrated
a Malay went to the Headman of his village and said
there was a woman in the house of Mat Aris sobbing

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

and saying her husband had been murdered. The
Headman went to the place and saw Mat Aris was
there and a woman with him. Mat Aris had a
reputation which probably induced this Headman
not to attempt to interfere with him further than to
keep a watch on his proceedings.

In places where there are no roads, and often
when they do exist, Malays live on or close by the
bank of a river, and, on the following day, the Head-
man observed Mat Aris and the woman in a boat
going down the stream, here a succession of rapids
and very difficult to navigate. The Headman
followed by a jungle track, and getting near to a
place called Kota Tampan, the first police station,
he hurried on and gave the information he pos-
sessed.

When Mat Aris arrived at Kota Tampan he
landed, and was at once arrested by the native
sergeant in charge of the station, who accused him
of murdering Sahit. Mat Aris denied the charge,
but the woman said her name was Salamah, and the
sergeant said he must take them both to his Divi-
sional Headquarters at Kuala Kangsar, distant thirty
miles or more by river. Accordingly the sergeant
and some police entered the boat and a start was
made for Kuala Kangsar. It shortly appeared that

MALAY SKETCHES

the police, who were natives of India, were not very
skilful in the management of the boat, and, as Mat
Aris offered his services to steer and there was no
doubt of his ability, this important post was given
to him. Choosing a convenient place where the
stream was both deep and rapid. Mat Aris upset
the boat and threw every one into the water. Then
seizing the woman, he swam with her to the oppo-
site bank and they both disappeared. The police
had enough to do, hampered by their uniforms, to
get out of the river with their lives.

For the next eight years Mat Aris eluded all
attempts at capture. He lived in the jungle beyond
the jurisdiction of the Perak Government, and, with
his brothers, became the terror of the neighbour-
hood, levying black mail on all who passed his way.
Mat Aris was the ringleader, and even more serious
crimes were laid at his door.

The woman Salamah was known to be living with
Mat Aris as his wife, and it was also known that
she had a child by him. Of Sahit nothing more was
seen or heard.

Meanwhile the Government of Perak had estab-
lished a station in the neighbourhood of the spot
where Sahit had disappeared, and complaints of the

lawless proceedings of Mat Aris were constantly

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

made to the officer in charge of it, but he was help-
less, for the outlaw was beyond his reach.

Eight years is, however, a long time, especially
to an Eastern, and travellers worth robbing having
grown scarce, Mat Aris, in the consciousness of his
own rectitude, went to the Perak officer and asked
for work. That mistaken step resulted in his arrest
on the strength of the warrant issued eight years
before.

This time the prisoner was conveyed in safety
to Kuala Kangsar, where he was duly tried.

It is one thing to give information against a man
who is free, willing, and able to resent it, and quite
a different thing to say what you know when that
man is in the toils. There was a witness who was
likely to know what had happened to Sahit, and that
was Pah Patin the Sakai, but Pah Patin did not
speak, and Mat Aris and Salamah were the only
other people who knew what he could say. At
least that appeared to be so, for who else would be
likely to know what happened at night in the depths
of the jungle miles from the nearest habitation?

As for Salamah, like the Sabine women, she
seemed to have reconciled herself to her captor.

But the strange part of this story is that, impos-
sible as it may seem, there was a witness who

MALAY SKETCHES

saw what took place in that hut in the forest,
whither the unsuspecting Sahit had been lured
with his wife under the escort of Mat Aris.

That witness was a Sakai man who had been
collecting getah (gutta-percha), and, attracted by
the firelight, noiselessly approached the hut and,
whilst wondering at the unusual sight of these
strangers sleeping in his wild and lonely jungle, he
saw Mat Aris get up and stab to death the man,
who stood between him and the woman he had
determined to possess.

The Sakai saw more than that, but when once
he had disclosed what he knew, Pah Patin was
found and induced to tell his tale, and other Sakais
completed the narrative.

It will be remembered that Sahit and his wife.
Mat Aris and the Sakai Pah Patin had built a
shelter where they proposed to spend the night. A
fire was lighted, food was cooked and eaten, and
the four lay down to sleep. On one side of the
fire Mat Aris, next him Salamah, and then Sahit;
on the other was the Sakai.

The man and his wife slept, the other Malay
pretended to sleep, and the Sakai fell into that
state which passes for sleep with creatures that are
always on the alert for possible danger.

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

Half an hour later Mat Aris rose up softly and
with a kris stabbed Sahit in the throat. The
wretched man staggered to his feet, fell and tried to
struggle up again when Mat Aris shouted to the
Sakai to strike him or he would kill him also.
Pah Patin obeyed, and hit the wounded man on the
head with a stick. " Then," said Pah Patin when
at last he told the story, " there was a little life in
him, but he never moved after I struck him."

The woman rushed out of the hut, but Mat Aris
followed her and brought her back to the mat by
the body of the murdered man, and there they
slept together, the Sakai returning to his place on the
other side of the fire. The night was young then.

Before daylight Pah Patin left Mat Aris and
Salamah still sleeping by the corpse, and by order
of Mat Aris fetched two more Sakais, and these
three buried Sahit by the bank of the river in the
presence of Mat Aris and the woman.

Years afterwards, when the details were known,
an attempt was made to find the body, but it failed ;
decomposition in this climate is rapid, even bones
disappear, and the river had many times flooded its
banks, trees had gone and others grown, the land-
marks were no longer the same, and possibly the
exact site of the grave was missed.

LATAH

Ofttimes he falleth into the fire and
oft into the water

Matthew xvii. 14

IN the spring of 1892 I was privileged, by the
kindness of a friend and the courtesy of Dr.
Luys, to visit the Hospital de la Charite in Paris,
where I witnessed some very remarkable and in-
teresting experiments in suggestion. There were
patients undergoing successful treatment for nervous
disorders where the disease was in process of gradual
relief by passing from the afflicted person to a
medium without injury to the latter ; there was
the strange power of hypnotising, influencing and
awakening certain sujets whose nervous organisations
seem to be specially susceptible, and there was the
astonishing influence of the magnet over these same
sujets when already hypnotised. There is some-
thing more than usually uncanny in the sight of a

LATAH

person filled with an inexplicable and unnatural
delight in the contemplation of the positive end
of a magnet, and when the negative end is sud-
denly turned towards him, to see him instantly
fall down unconscious as though struck by light-
ning.

The sujets (there were two of them, a man and a
woman) described the appearance of the positive end
of the magnet as producing a beautiful blue flame
about a foot high, so exquisite in colour and beauty
that it transported them with delight. As to the
negative end, they reluctantly explained, in hesi-
tating words and with every appearance of dread,
that there also was a flame, but a red one of fearful
and sinister import.

I was deeply interested in these " manifestations,"
both for their own strangeness and because I had
in the Malay Peninsula seen equally extraordinary
proceedings of a somewhat similar kind.

Amongst Malays there is a well-known disease
(I use the word for want of a better) called Idtah ;
it is far more common at certain places than at others,
and amongst certain divisions of the great Malay
family. Thus while there is generally one or more
drang Idtah to be found in every kampong in Krian,

where the Malays are mostly from Kedah, in other

65 B

MALAY SKETCHES

parts of Perak it is rare to ever meet a Idtah person.
Again, speaking generally, the disease seems to be
more common amongst the people of Amboina, in
Netherlands India, than those of Java, Sumatra or
the Malay Peninsula. In both cases heredity is pro-
bably accountable for the result, whatever may have
been the original cause to produce the affliction in
certain places more than in others. I can only
speak of my own experience and what I have
personally seen, for no English authority appears
to have studied the matter or attempted to either
observe Idtah people, diagnose the disease (if it is
one), search for its cause or attempt to cure it. I
can vouch for facts but nothing more.

In 1874 I was sent in H.M.S. Hart to reside
with the Sultan of Selangor. Though His High-
ness's personal record was one of which he might
be proud, for he was said to have killed ninety-nine
men (sa^ rdtus kurang sdtu) with his own hand, his
State was not altogether a happy one, for it had
been the fighting-ground of several ambitious young
Rajas for some years. An unusually hideous piracy,
personally conducted by one of the Sultan's own
sons, and committed on a Malacca trading vessel,
had necessitated a visit from the China fleet, and

when the perpetrators, or those who after due

LATAH

inquiry appeared to be the perpetrators, had been
executed (the Sultan lending his own kris for the
ceremony), I was sent to see that these " boyish
amusements," as His Highness called them, were
not repeated. The place where the Sultan then
lived was hardly a desirable residence, even from
a Malay point of view, and it has for years now
been almost deserted. Bandar Th'mdsa, as it was
grandiloquently styled, was a collection of huts on a
mud flat enclosed between the Langat and Jugra
rivers. It was only seven miles from the sea, and
at high tide most of the place was under water.

With me there went twenty-five Malay police
from Malacca, and we lived all together in an old
stockade on the bank of the Langat river. Whether
it was the mosquitoes, which for numbers and
venom could not be matched, or whether it was the
evil reputation of the place for deeds of violence is
needless to inquire, but the police were seized with
panic and had to be replaced by another batch from
Singapore, selected not so much on account of their
virtues as their so-called vices. The exchange was
satisfactory, for whatever sins they committed they
showed no signs of panic.

Later on I was encouraged by the statement that
Bandar TermSsa, for all its unpromising appearance,

MALAY SKETCHES

was a place for men, where those who had a differ-
ence settled it promptly with the kn's, and cowards
, who came there either found their courage or
/ departed. A story that amused the gossips was
that, as a badly wounded man was carried from the
duelling field past the palisade which enclosed the
Sultan's house, His Highness had asked, through
the bars, what was the matter, and, being told, had
laconically remarked, " If he is wounded, doctor
him ; if he is dead, bury him."

During my residence in the place a lady, for
jealousy, stabbed a man of considerable note thirteen
times with his own dagger, and sent the next
morning to know whether I would like to purchase
it, as she did not much fancy the weapon. The
man was not killed, and made no complaint.
Another lady, for a similar reason, visited our
stockade one night, pushed the sentry on one
side, and, finding the man she wanted, attempted
to stab him with a long kn's she had brought for
that purpose.

That was then the state of society in Bandar
Termasa.

I have said we lived all together in a stockade.
It was a very rude structure with log walls about
six feet thick and eight feet high, a mud floor, a

LATAH

thatch roof, and no doors. Outside it was a high
watch-tower of the same materials, but the ladder
to it had fallen down. Of roads there were none,
but a mud path ran through the stockade from
river bank to village, distant some 300 yards. My
own accommodation was a cot borrowed from the
Hart and slung between two posts, while the men
slept on the walls of the stockade.

The place had drawbacks other than mosquitoes,
for the public path ran through it, the tide at high
water completely covered the floor, and the log
walls were full of snakes. The state of the sur-
roundings will best be understood when I say that
during the many months I lived there I did not
wear boots outside the stockade, because there was
nothing to walk upon but deep mud, and that the
only water fit to use was contained in a well or
pond a quarter of a mile off, to which I walked
every day to bathe.

With the second batch of police had come an
European inspector, and he and I were the only I
white men in the country. '^

Amongst the twenty-five police were two men of
the name of Kasim ; they were both natives of
Amboina, but very different in disposition, and they
were known among their comrades as Kasim Bhar

MALAY SKETCHES

and Kasim Kkhil — that is Kasim Major and Kasim
Minor.

Kasim Major was a quiet, reserved, silent man of
about twenty-five, and I afterwards realised that
he had a somewhat violent temper when roused.
Kasim Minor, on the contrary, was a smiling,
talkative, happy, and pleasant-looking young fellow
of about twenty. They were not related to each
other in any way.

I used often to be away on the coast and up
river, and on my return from one of these expedi-
tions I noticed the men teasing Kasim Minor, and
saw at once that he was Idtah. I questioned the
inspector, and he told me that during my absence
he had one day been away on duty for some hours,
and when he returned, about 4 p.m., he saw Kasim
Minor up a coco-nut tree just outside the stockade.
On asking him what he was doing there, he replied
he could not come down because there was a snake
at the bottom of the tree. In reality there was a
bit of rattan tied round the tree, and, this being
removed, Kasim came down.

Now, it is no easy matter to climb a coco-nut
tree ; it requires a special training to do it at all,
and Kasim did not possess it. But the inspector
ascertained that the other police had found out by

LATAH

accident that their comrade was Idtah, that they had
ordered him to climb the tree, which he had at
once done, and that then, out of sheer devilry,
some one had taken a bit of rattan, said, '' Do you
see this snake ? I will tie it round the tree, and
then you can't come down," and so left him from
10 A.M. till the afternoon, when the inspector
returned and released him.

The time of Kasim's penance was probably
greatly exaggerated, but that is how the story was
told to me, and of all that follows I was an eye-
witness.

I made Kasim Minor my orderly, and as he was
constantly with me I had better opportunities of
studying his peculiarities. About this time also I
learnt that Kasim Major was also Idtah.

Speaking generally, it was only necessary for any
one to attract the attention of either of these men
by the simplest means, holding up a finger, calling
them by name in a rather pointed way, touching
them or even, when close by, to look them hard in
the face, and instantly they appeared to lose all
control of themselves and would do, not only what-
ever they were told to do, but whatever was sug-
gested by a sign.

I have seen many Idtah people, male and female,
71

MALAY SKETCHES

but never any quite like these two, none so sus-
ceptible to outside influence, so ready to blindly obey
a word or a sign.

The kindly disposition of Kasim Minor made him
quite harmless, but the other Kasim was rather a
dangerous subject to play tricks with, as I will pre-
sently explain.

The Idtah man or woman usually met with, if
suddenly startled, by a touch, a noise, or the sight
of something unexpected, will not only show all the
signs of a very nervous person but almost invariably
will fire off a volley of expressions more or less
obscene, having no reference at all to the circum-
stance which has suddenly aroused attention. As
a rule it is necessary to startle these people before
they will say or do an} thing to show that they are
differently constituted to their neighbours, and when
they have betrayed themselves either by word or
deed their instinct is to get away as quickly as
possible. Children and even grown-up people
cannot always resist the pleasure of " bating " a
Idtah person ; for one reason because it is so exceed-
ingly easy, for another because they are inclined on
the spur of the moment to do ludicrous things or
say something they would under ordinary circum-
stances be ashamed of. Almost invariably Idtah

LATAH

people of this class (and it is by far the most common
one) are very good humoured and never seem to
think of resenting the liberty taken with their
infirmity. If by word or deed they commit them-
selves (and that is not uncommon) they either run
away, or appear to be unconscious of having said
or done anything unusual (this however is rare), or
they simply say, " I am Idtah" as a full explanation
and excuse.

If any one present accidentally drops something on
the floor, if a lizard falls from the roof on to or near
a Idtah person, if the wind blows the shutter of a
window to with a bang, a Idtah person of the class
I speak of will probably find it necessary to at least
say something not usually heard in polite society.
Of this class by far the majority are women.

I have never seen a Idtah boy or girl, but I know
they are to be found, though the disease certainly
becomes more evident as the subject grows older.

It must be understood that except when under
influence, when actually showing the evidences of
this strange peculiarity, Idtah people are undis-
tinguishable from others. It is sufficient proof of
this that amongst my twenty-five police there
should have been two men more completely Idtah
than any I have seen before or since.

MALAY SKETCHES

I took occasion to carefully observe the two
Kasims. It was impossible to always prevent their
companions teasing them, especially in a place
where there was absolutely no form of amusement
and all the conditions of life were as unpleasant as
they well could be, but no harm was ever done, and
I am satisfied that while influence was in any way
exercised over the Idtah man he was not conscious
of his own actions, and directly it was removed he
became his reasoning other self, and the utmost
that remained on his mind, or came to him with the
recovery of his own will, was that he might have
done something foolish.

If the attention of either of these men was
arrested, as I have said by word, sign, or a mean-
ing glance, from that moment until the influence
was removed, the Idtah man would do whatever he
was told or signed to do without hesitation, whether
the act signified were difficult, dangerous, or painful.
When once under this influence any one present
could give the order and the Idtah man would
immediately obey it ; not only that, but even at
some distance (as in the coco-nut tree incident), he
appeared to be equally subject to the will imposed
on his actions.

A curious thing about both these men was that,

LATAH

having attracted the attention of either, if you said,
" Kasim, go and hit that man," he would invariably
repeat what was said, word for word, including his
own name, while he carried out the order. When
the person hit turned on him, Kasim would say,
"It was not I who hit you, but that man who
ordered me."

I have seen Kasim the younger, when the man
influencing him put his own finger in his mouth and
pretended to bite it, imitate the action but really
bite his finger and bite it hard. Similarly I have
seen him, in imitation and without a word being
said, take a lighted brand from the fire, and he would
have put it in his mouth if the experiment had been
carried so far. Some one told him one day to
jump into the river, and he did not get out again
till he had swum nearly two hundred yards, for the
stream was both broad and deep, with a terrible
current, and infested by crocodiles. If at any
moment you called out " 7o/o«^ Kasim " ("help!
Kasim "), the instant he heard it he would jump up
and crying " Tolong Kasim," dash straight to you
over all obstacles. If then you had put a weapon
in his hand and told him to slay any one within
reach I have not the slightest doubt he would have
done it without hesitation.

MALAY SKETCHES

I have said there was a ladderless watch-tower
outside the stockade. The pohce wanted firewood,
they were not allowed to burn the logs forming our
walls, but at the top of the watch-tower there were
also log walls that they were told they could burn.
They were lazy, however, and did not see how they
were going to get up, so they ordered Kasim the
younger to climb up, which he did as he had
climbed the coco-nut tree, and, when once there,
they told him to throw down logs until they thought
they had enough. I watched that operation, and
the feverish haste with which the man swarmed up
one of the supports, gained the platform of the
tower, and threw down huge logs as though his
life depended on it, was rather remarkable. I gave
orders that the man's infirmity was not to be used
for this purpose again, but in my absence I know
that when more firewood was wanted Kasim went
up to the watch-tower for it until that supply was
exhausted.

The path from the stockade to the village was in

sight of the stockade throughout its length, and one

day I noticed Kasim Minor, as he walked leisurely

down this mud embankment, stop every now and

then and behave in a peculiar fashion as though he

were having conversation with the frogs, snakes and
76

LATAH

other denizens of the ditches that bordered the path.
When he had gone half way he stopped and peeped
up into the branches of a small tree on the road
side, then he seemed to be striking blows at an
invisible enemy, ran to the ditch and began throw-
ing lump after lump of hard mud into the tree, I
had not seen this phase of his peculiarities before
and could not make it out, but suddenly his arms
went about his head like the sails of a windmill,
and I realised that his enemies were bees or hornets,
and that he was getting a good deal the worst of
an unequal fight. I sent some of the men to fetch
him back and found he had been rather badly stung,
and when I asked him why he attacked the nest he
said his attention was caught by things flying out
of the tree and he was impelled to throw at them.

I understood that the hornets flying out of the
nest appeared to be thrown at him, and he could
not help imitating what he saw in the best way he
could, and so he took what was nearest his hand
and sent it flying back.

Kasim the elder was quite as susceptible as his
namesake, but his comrades were a little shy of
provoking him as they soon realised that his temper
made the amusement dangerous. One day they
must have been teasing him, and, when he was

MALAY SKETCHES

allowed to recover his own will, I suppose their
laughter made it evident to him that he had made
himself ridiculous, for he suddenly ran to the arm-
rack, and seizing a sword bayonet made for his
tormentors with such evident intention to use it that
they precipitately fled, and in a few seconds were
making very good time across the swamp with
Kasim and the drawn sword far too close to be
pleasant. I had some dif^culty in persuading him
to abandon his purpose, but after that and a lecture
his comrades did not greatly bother him.

I remember, however, that on another occasion
we had secured and erected a long thin spar to
serve as a flagstaff, but the halyard jammed and it
seemed necessary to lower the spar when some one
called out to Kasim the elder to climb up it. Before
I could interfere, he had gone up two-thirds of the
height, and he only came down reluctantly. Had
he gone a few feet higher the pole would inevitably
have snapped and he would have had a severe
fall.

About this time a friend came and shared my
loneliness for a fortnight. He had had experience
of Idtah people before, but the two Kasims were
rather a revelation, and he was perhaps inclined to
doubt what I told him they could be made to do.

LATAH

One morning we were bathing as usual at the pond,
and Kasim the younger was in attendance carrying
the towels, &c.

The bath was over, and we were all three stand-
ing on the bank, when my friend said to Kasim :

"Mart, kita terjun" (come, let us jump in), at
the same time feigning to jump. Kasim instantly
jumped into the pond, disappeared, came up splut-
tering, and having scrambled out, said : " Itu tidak
baikf Tuan " (that is not good of you, sir).

My friend said, " Why, I did nothing, I only said
let us jump in and went like this," repeating his
previous action, when Kasim immediately repeated
his plunge, and we dragged him from the water
looking like a retriever.

When I was first ordered to Selangor, I thought
it possible that some sort of furniture might be
useful, and I took up a few chairs and other things,
including a large roll of what is known as Calcutta
matting. The things were useless in a place where
the mud floor was often under water twice during
twenty-four hours, and they lay piled in a corner of
the stockade, and whenever a Malay of distinction
came to see me for whom it was necessary to find a
chair, it was advisable to see that the seat was not
already occupied by a snake. The roll of matting,

MALAY SKETCHES

about four feet high and two-and-a-half feet in
diameter naturall}^ remained unopened.

Every night, owing to the myriads of mosquitoes,
a large bonfire was lit in the middle of the stockade,
for only in the smoke of that fire was it possible to
eat one's dinner. One night some Malays from the
village had come in, and the police were trying to
amuse them and forget their own miseries by danc-
ing and singing round the fire. Under such circum-
stances Malays have a happy knack of making the
best of things, they laugh easily and often, and as I
have said elsewhere, they have a strong sense of
humour if not always of a very refined description.
Some one had introduced one of the Kasims, in his
character of an orang Idtah, for the benefit of the
strangers, and one of the men was inspired to fetch
the roll of matting, and solemnly presenting it to
Kasim the younger, said, "Kasim, here is your
wife."

Even now I do not forget the smile of beatitude

and satisfaction with which Kasim Minor regarded

that undesirable and figureless bundle. Breathing the

words in a low voice, almost sighing to himself,

" Kasim, here is your wife," he embraced the

matting with great fervour, constantly repeating

" My wife ! my wife ! " Some one said, " Kiss

LATAH

her!" and he kissed her — repeatedly kissed her.
Then by another inspiration (I do not say from
whence), some one brought up the other Kasim,
and introducing him to the other side of the roll
of matting, said, also very quietly, "Kasim, this
is your wife ! " and Kasim the elder accepted
the providential appearance of his greatly-desired
spouse, and embraced her with not less fervour
than his namesake and rival.

It was evident that neither intended to give up
the lady to the other, and as each tried to monopolise
her charms a struggle began between them to obtain
complete possession, during which the audience,
almost frantic with delight, urged the actors in this
drama to manifest their affection to the lady of their
choice. In the midst of this clamour the Kasims
and their joint spouse fell down, and as they nearly
rolled into the fire and seemed disinclined even
then to abandon the lady, she was taken away
and put back in her corner with the chairs and
snakes.

It is a detail, which I only add because some
readers hunger for detail, that neither of the Kasims
possessed a wife.

I do not pretend to offer any explanation of the
cause of this state of mind which Malays call Idiah.

8i w

MALAY SKETCHES

I imagine it is a nervous disease affecting the brain
but not the body.

I have never met a medical man who has in-
terested himself in the matter, and I cannot say
whether the disease, if it be one, is curable or not— •
I should doubt it.

I have somewhere read that individuals similarly
affected are found amongst the Canadian lumber-
men.

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

Le bonheur de saigner sur le ceeur
d'un ami

Paul Vzrlaike

THERE was a woman of Kelantan named Siti
Maamih ; she was born of the people, neither
good nor beautiful, nor attractive, nor even young,
as youth goes in the East, but she had chosen to
ally herself to a white man whom I will call Grant.
I know nothing of these two, but that he had
work far away in a Malay jungle and she shared
his loneliness, herself a stranger in that country.
It was apparently an arrangement formed for mutual
advantage, like many others of a more permanent
character. If the connection began without any
semblance of romance, it more than satisfied the
expectations of the contracting parties, and when
the moment of trial came the highest affection and
the most sacred bond could hardly have suggested
a greater sacrifice than this woman offered.

MALAY SKETCHES

Whilst these two were hving their unattractive
lives there came difficulties between white man and
brown — not specially between this white man and
any with a darker skin : the quarrel was between
white authority and Malay resentment of inter-
ference. Grant was not even remotely connected
with the matter, but he was white, and under such
circumstances a want of discrimination is not un-
common. There followed what is known as " a
state of reprisals." Uncivilised people, who do not
understand fine distinctions in such matters, called it
war. The disturbance was, however, comparatively
local, Grant's immediate neighbourhood did not seem
affected, and he was probably unconcerned. There-
fore he went about his work and took no special
precaution, fearing no attack.

But his hut was isolated, there was only one
other white man anywhere near him, no police
within miles, and Maamih, who understood Malays
better than her protector, was on the watch for
trouble.

To expect is, sometimes, to go half way to meet,
and the trouble came quickly.

One morning two Malays appeared at Grant's

house, and, having given some trivial excuse for

their presence and looked about the premises, took

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

their departure. There was nothing unusual in
that, and only a very nervous person would have
seen in so simple an event any cause for alarm.
But even ere this, prudence would have told most
white men under similar circumstances that it would
be well to see to their arms and keep them handy.
Grant, however, took no precautions, as he had pro-
bably convinced himself that none were necessary ;
as for arms, he does not appear to have had any.

That morning, or it may have been the evening
before, three large boats and two small ones arrived
in the river close by, but kept out of sight of Grant's
hut, and he probably did not know they were there.
They belonged to a minor chief who had no con-
nection with the Malays then in arms.

The day wore on, Grant had been out all morn-
ing looking after his work, he had returned to
breakfast, been out again, and now he was back and
had thrown himself down to rest, glad to get under
shelter from the oppressive heat. He was a busy
man and his work took him out of doors, but though
he had been about all day he had seen and heard
nothing to arouse his suspicions.

Seen nothing, certainly. That was not strange,
it was a jungly place, and to be ten yards off in the
jungle is as good, for those who seek concealment

MALAY SKETCHES

and know the jungle, as to be in another district.
As for hearing anything, that too was most unHicely :
the only people he could hear from were Malays, the
only means of communication the Malay language, of
which Grant knew very little, and the only condition
on which information is to be obtained from Malays
about Malays would be an intimacy with and respect
for the threatened man to which Grant could hardly
aspire. There must be some very powerful influence
at work to induce a Muhammadan, who is not per-
sonally in danger, to tell a Christian that there is
a Muhammadan plot against his life. Grant, at any
rate, if he thought about it at all, could hardly
expect that he, a new-comer, possessed friends who
would do so much for him.

He was still resting when, about 4 p.m., a party
of nearly twenty armed men suddenly appeared in
front of the house and stood some fifty yards away,
while two of them, carr3dng only the ordinary jungle
knives, came up to the house and asked Grant if he
wanted to buy fowls. He told the inquirers to take
them to his servant, and got up as the Malays left him.

The men had no fowls, and instead of going to

the servant's quarters they rejoined their companions,

and the whole body advanced towards the house.

At this moment Maamih appeared, and instantly
86

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

divining that the strangers meant no good, she
screamed out, "They are going to murder us."
But Grant said that he and she had done no harm
and the Malays could mean none, and, taking the
woman with him, he went out of the house and a
few steps forward to meet his assailants.

These last stopped some twenty yards from Grant
and the woman, and she said, "What harm have
we done ? " The answer was " Titah " — it is by
order of the Raja — and they told the woman to
leave the infidel and go away. But she replied,
" I shall stay with him."

Then several men said, " If you do not go, we
will kill you as well as the white man."

Grant may not have understood this sentence of
death on himself, he may not have realised how
strangely the times were out of joint, that he who
was the enemy of no man, who had done no wrong,
who represented no cause, should suddenly, in the
broad light of day, hear his own death sentence, and
in the same breath learn that he was facing his
executioners and his account with the world was
closed. There was no time to think : instinct said,
" There is Death," and doubtless instinct also said,
*' Death is disagreeable : shun it."

It is commonly reputed that there are people who
87

MALAY SKETO''.ES

do not know what fear is ; to them in such a situa-
tion instinct no doubt suggests that death is a new
and pleasant experience. With this man it was
different ; as he saw here and there a gun raised
and pointed at him from a distance of a few paces,
he probably felt the fear of sudden and violent
death, and if he was in any way responsible for
what he did in that supreme moment his thought
must have suggested that these men would not
harm a woman of their own nationality and religion,
for he took her in his arms.

A shot was fired, and the bullet shattered Maamih's
left arm. Then, seeing what had happened. Grant
put her behind him and two more shots were fired,
one of which struck Grant in the breast, and saying,
"They have killed me," he fell on his face to the
ground.

A Malay rushed up with a heavy chopping knife,
but the woman threw herself on the body and put
her unwounded arm over Grant's neck to save him.
The Malay's first blow inflicted a deep wound on
Maamih's arm and made her loose her hold ; the
man then struck Grant a heavy blow on the back of
the neck, but he was already dead.

The murderers took no further notice of the

woman, except to try and rob her of the jewellery

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

she wore, but they plundered the house, and having
decapitated the dead man and otherwise mutilated
his body, they threw the remains into the river and
departed.

The woman was cared for by a countryman of
her own until she could be removed to a hospital,
where, after weeks of suffering, she recovered from
her injuries.

The motive of this outrage was simply the desire
of an individual and his small following to wipe out
the white man, and as Grant's isolated position made
him a specially easy prey, he fell a victim. His
only European neighbour was also murdered by the
same band. I know of no similar attack being made
by Malays on a white man within modern times,
and I question whether there is such another instance
of a Malay woman's devotion — not that they are
not capable of such self-sacrifice, I think they are,
but the circumstances necessary to call it forth very
seldom arise.

This woman realised what was going to happen
before she left the shelter of the house, she had
time after that to think, her life was not sought, she
was told to go away and warned that if she did not
separate herself from the white man she would share
his fate. Moreover, she knew that no sacrifice of

MALAY SKETCHES

hers could save him, and more than all, as affecting
her woman's nerves, she saw face to face the men
with murder in their faces and the means to accom-
plish it in their hands.

The motive which kept Maamih by Grant's side
and which led her, after receiving the first shot, to
interpose herself between his body and the weapons
of his foes, must have been as high as it was
powerful. Just as there was nothing to fear by
standing aside (for none would have blamed her), so
there was nothing to hope from the forbearance of
Grant's murderers, and that she did not also lose
her life by her devotion to him was the accident of
an ill- directed shot and a well-aimed blow which
sought to sever the woman's arm and reach the neck
it protected — the neck of a dead man.

United to the devotion which deemed no sacrifice
too great for one she loved, was that other sort of
courage which comes of knowledge and deliberate
intention. No one can fail to admire the pluck
which takes no thought of danger, the instinct which
impels a wild beast to charge an enemy and pro-
bably achieve thereby its own destruction. Even
then it can hardly be said that the sensation of fear
has never been and cannot be experienced by the
most formidable and gallant denizens of the forest

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

and the desert. All sportsmen know the contrary,
and a child has put a tiger to flight by suddenly
throwing a basket in the face of the beast. Had the
child run away, its death was probable, whereas it
saved the life of an old man already in the tiger's
clutches, and yet the child's action was not the
result of courage but of fear.

This Malay woman, in whom the love of life was
strong, and on whose nerves the horror and certainty
of what awaited her must have had a terrifying effect,
deliberately renounced safety, with that higher re-
solve which, vanquishing fear, faces the unknown in
the spirit described by the Persian who, writing
eight centuries ago, has found so worthy an inter-
preter in the author of the lines —

•• So when the Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river brink
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul,
Forth to your Lips to quaff —
~--^ You shall not shrink,"

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

Her soul upheld
By some deep-working charm

KiRKI Whitk

ON the western coast of the Peninsula, more
especially that part of it which forms one side
of the Straits of Malacca, the shore-line is generally
one long stretch of mud, covered with mangrove
trees to the verge of high-water mark and rather
further, for when the tide is up there are thousands
of acres of mangrove whose roots and several inches
of the stems are submerged. Beyond this forest the
receding tide leaves great wastes of evil-smelling
mire, soft and clinging, in which the searcher for
shell-fish sinks almost to his waist.

Many rivers, small and great, find their way to
the sea through this wide flat. At high water they
look imposing enough, but when the tide is out a
narrow and shallow channel is left winding about

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

between low slimy banks, and right and left the eye
wanders over a desolation of glistening mud with an
almost imperceptible slope to the edge of the distant
sea.

Pools of shallow water and tiny channels, through
which the receding tide finds easier road to river
or sea, alone break the monotony of the unsightly
waste.

That is as far as physical features go. The
mud-flats have their denizens, but they are not over-
attractive.

First, there is the Malay fisherman, hunting for
mussels and other shell-fish. If he is there at all
he will be hard to see, for he pushes his little dug-
out fifty or a hundred yards up a mud creek, leaves
it and fossicks about, sunk above his knees in the
mire.

Then there are myriads of birds, attracted by the
great possibilities of gain to the industrious searcher
after garbage, stranded fish, and all sorts of particu-
larly loathsome-looking and foul-smelling dead things
to be found in such a place. These birds are often
strange-looking creatures, vast of size, long and lank
of leg, snaky of neck and spiky of bill. But they
are wary to a degree, they always seems to be stand-
ing just in the tiny ripple of the smallest wavelets

MALAY SKETCHES

where you instinctively know the mud and sea meet,
and there they watch the gradually receding tide
with melancholy abstraction, as though they took no
real interest in the daily toil of sustaining life.

Last, there is something else here, and, if you are
not quite a stranger, you will look first, look longest,
and look always for this other thing. Perhaps it is
the extraordinary fitness of her surroundings (I say
her advisedly), perhaps the art with which nature
has designed the body of the saurian to make you
think her a log, or a stranded palm-branch, a half-
buried spar of a wrecked boat, or even a lighter or
darker ridge of the surrounding mud — certain it is
that as the crocodile lies there, basking in the sun
which makes air and water and blistering slime
shimmer and dance before your eyes, you will not
notice the creature, nay, even when pointed out to
you, it is ten to one that you will not even then
realise that she is there.

But get nearer, speak no word and let your rowers
pull a long and noiseless stroke till some one with a
quick eye and a steady hand can put a bullet in the
reptile's neck. As that great mouth suddenly opens,
disclosing the rows of shining teeth, as it shuts
again with the noise of a steel trap, as the horrible
scaly claws dig deep into the mud in their agony and

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

the great spiked tail lashes round in fury, as the
loathsome yellow belly slides over the ooze and you
catch sight of the stony cruelty of the crocodile's
eye, then you will realise what manner of thing she
is, and you will probably conceive for her and all
her kind a deadly horror and loathing, and a con-
suming desire to slay the whole brood will seize you
then and remain with you for all time.

If it should happen to you to have to fight a
wounded crocodile at close quarters, if accident
brings you in contact with a man who has just lost
arm or leg, or with a corpse out of which a crocodile
has torn the life, your feelings towards these river-
murderers will not be softened.

There are Malay rivers so infested by these
reptiles that at low water for a mile or two from the
river's mouth they will be seen, in twos and threes
or larger groups, lying on either bank basking or
sleeping in the sun. It repeatedly happens that
they knock people out of their boats and then kill
and devour them, and in places where the creatures
are specially numerous, if a crocodile is shot dead on
the bank, in less than half an hour the carcase will
be dragged into the river and a crowd of the reptiles
will be tearing it in pieces and fighting for the
remains.

MALAY SKETCHES

Villages on the Malay coast are nearly always
situated on the bank of a river ; the sea is full
of fish and the men of a coast village are mostly
fishermen. If the village is of any size and the
industry of any importance, the catching of fish is
supplemented by curing — that is, salting and drying
them.

The whereabouts of a village of this kind may be
recognised by the traveller on sea or land when he
is yet a great way off. Probably for that reason,
and because the cleaning of thousands of fish loads
the water with food of a kind that is specially
attractive to the saurian, the immediate neighbour-
hood of a fishing village is the favourite resort of
the crocodile.

At the mouth of a wide river on the Perak coast
there is just such a village. It is thriving, and as
there are a number of Chinese as well as Malay
fishermen, it boasts a police-station. The houses
are built for the most part on piles ; at high water
the sea washes under them, and the means of inter-
communication are wooden stagings from house to
house. At low water there is mud, great stretches
of mud, running from the edge of the mangrove
swamp which backs the village far out to the west
and the waters of the Straits of Malacca.

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

It was in the month of Ramthan, when begin
those forty days of fast observed by all good
Muhammadans — though so few of them know why
they fast, or the details of the touching story which
tells the sufferings of the Martyrs of Kerbela — that
one night, past the middle of the month, but when
the moon still lit up the water and made things plain
as day, a strange thing happened at this small coast
village.

In it there lived a Malay revenue officer with his
wife and child, and on the night in question these
three, being at home, went to sleep about lo p.m.
as was their wont.

A slight breeze was blowing off the sea, blowing
against the falling tide, and the moonlight glorified
the hideous expanse of slime till it looked like a
limitless mirror, blending far away with the haze-
enshrouded waters of the sea, but bordered land-
wards by that dark fringe of mangroves, the thick
forest forming a striking contrast to the moonlit
beauty of the glistening shore.

The wind sighed up the river, played through the
great brown nets hanging up to dry, and, scarcely
stirring the tops of the mangroves, swept gently
towards the distant hills.

All the village slept, except the one Guardian of
97 G

MALAY SKETCHES

the Peace, who showed his devotion to duty by
punctually striking the hours on a huge metal gong.

The night was far advanced, when suddenly he
heard a child crying in the house of the Malay
revenue clerk. Then there was the noise of foot-
steps and the voice of the man calling to his wife,
but no answer. After a few minutes there was the
sound of approaching feet, a shout from the Malay,
followed by the man himself.

The constable called out, " What is the matter,
Che Mat ? "

Che Mat replied, " I was asleep, but awoke hear-
ing the child crying for its mother. I could not see
her anywhere, and she did not answer when I spoke.
Then 1 got up and saw at once the door of the
house was open, but she is nowhere to be seen.
Have you heard anything of her ? "

The constable had heard nothing, but there was
evidently something uncanny about this disappear-
ance, for, in a village such as this, where the houses
are more in the water than on land, where the path-
less mangrove is the background, and the waters of
the river the foreground, there are few places left in
which to look for any one or anything with any
chance of finding them.

The man on guard roused his comrades, and, as
98

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

Malays do not sit down and discuss plans of action,
some one at once made a move ; the others followed,
and they all walked out to the last house on the
platform, and then listened.

" Hark ! did you not hear something ? " Yes,
through the silence of the night, wafted on the
incoming breeze, there was a distinct but faint cry
from the direction of the sea.

It did not take the men long to get down to the
ground, and first hurrying along the edge of the
trees, they went some distance, hearing the cries at
intervals and ever more plainly, till it became
necessary to strike right out across the mud. By
this time there was no doubt about the source of
the cries, for the voice of the object of their search
was recognised, and that the woman was in sore
distress did not admit of doubt. Making all the
speed they could, sinking above their knees at every
step, stumbling, falling, but ever pressing on, they
saw at last to their horror, in the brilliant moon-
light, the woman on the ground being literally
worried by three crocodiles, each six or eight feet
in length.

As crocodiles go, six or eight feet is no great
length, but to go to sleep in your own house and
wake up at midnight within a hundred feet of the

MALAY SKETCHES

sea, but with half a mile of mud between you
and anything like dry land, and at the same time
assailed by three crocodiles quite big enough to kill
you, is calculated to shock the strongest nerves.

After a short but exciting fight, the police beat
off the scaly beasts with difficulty, and found the
woman had been badly torn in legs, and arms, and
neck.

Whilst the men were arranging to carry her back,
no easy matter over half a mile of soft but sticky
wet mud and ooze, she told her tale :

" I was sleeping," she said, " and had a vision.
Two radiant Beings appeared to me and bid me
rise and follow them, and they would show me a
sight more glorious than is vouchsafed to mortals.
Transported with joy, I rose and followed them, and
whilst filled with ecstatic rapture by the companion-
ship of these Celestial Beings, I seemed to be borne
along without effort of my own through enchanted
fields of more than earthly beauty. Suddenly I was
awakened by feeling the teeth of a crocodile in my
leg, and, to my horror, I found I was out here on
this mud-flat half a mile from home, but close to the
sea, with three crocodiles attacking me, no means of
defending myself, and little hope of help. I fell, and
the beasts tore and worried me, biting my arms, and

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

legs, and neck, while I screamed for help until you
came and rescued me."

Well, after all, there is nothing very strange in
that. A woman of peculiar nervous organisation, a
somnambulist, dreams a dream and walks out into
the balmy atmosphere of a moonlit Eastern night.
She walks rather far, and has a rude awakening.
That is nothing ; other sleepers have walked further,
and their awakening has been to the life beyond the
grave.

Only this was curious : that while the men sank
deep into the mud at every step, the woman had
never sunk in at all. When found, there was only
mud on the soles of her feet, and, though she had
walked half a mile across the flat, and her tracks
were plainly visible in the moonlight, they were all
on the surface, and she had crossed the soft, unstable
mire as easily as though it had been a metalled road.

So the men bore her home, not wondering over-
much, for in this thing they saw the hand of the
Celestial Beings who guided her feet with such
consideration, to abandon her to the ferocious
attentions of the crocodiles.

The woman herself, her husband, and the police
were satisfied as to the means, but found the end
too hard for their understanding.

lOI

MALAY SKETCHES

The ideal woman, the product of higher educa-
tion and deep research in divers subjects, supphes
the real clue to the phenomenon, for, when asked
" where the true Spirit of God is," she modestly
replies, " I can tell you : it is in us women. We
have preserved it and handed it down from one
generation to another of our own sex unsullied."*

Doubtless — from the time when the Spirit moved
upon the face of the waters, and, later, on the Sea
of Galilee; but it is more difficult to understand how
woman, unaided, has handed anything down from
one generation to another.

The same idea is, however, more happily con-
veyed in the injunction of the President of the
Scraggsville Woman's Suffrage League to her
husband, when ordering him to go and purchase a
divided skirt. " If you are afraid, pray to God for
courage ; She will help you."

The mere male has his uses, one of which is to
assist the unsullied sex to perpetuate the Spirit of
God, and another to be within hail when there are
crocodiles about.

* "The Heavenly Twins," book iii., chap. iiL

lOS

XII

VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

How loved, how honoured once, avails

thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot,
A heap of dust alone remains of thee
Pope

NOT many months after my first arrival in the
East I met, in a club in Singapore, an
Italian called Cavaliero. He was quite young, tall,
dark, and good-looking, of a pronounced Italian
type. What his occupation was I have no idea ; I
suppose he had some sort of business, but it could
not have been very attractive or profitable, for one
day I was told that he and a Hollander named
Van Hagen had collected about a hundred natives
of all sorts and conditions and had accepted service
with the Viceroy of the Sultan of Selangor.

Selangor was then an absolutely independent
Malay State, so independent in fact that the principal
and almost only employment of its inhabitants was
fighting.

103

MALAY SKETCHES

The Sultan was and is an old gentleman for
whom I have the highest regard, and I desire to
speak of him with the greatest respect. He had
had his own fighting day and was tired of it, he
wished to be left alone, that was all ; but he recog-
nised that boys will be boys, and if the young
Selangor Rajas took their pleasure in this way, he
was inclined to regard their escapades with an in-
dulgent eye, provided they did not interfere with
his opium cum dignitate and his immediate sur-
roundings.

The Sultan's own sons were very much interested
in the guerilla warfare that was then being carried
on throughout Selangor, and the feature of the dis-
turbances was that every chief said he had the
Sultan's approval of his proceedings. Some time
later I was myself in Selangor, and, as this state-
ment was constantly being dinned into my ears, I
took the liberty of asking his Highness what it meant.

He promptly pointed out that each of these Rajas
in turn came to him, stated his case, and asked the
Sultan if that was not correct. His Highness
always repHed, "Quite correct," but, as he explained
to me, " benar ka-pdda dia, bukan benar ka-pdda
kami" which being interpreted means, " correct in
their view, not in mine." He was evidently tickled

104

VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

by this happy inspiration and laughed heartily at
his own ingenuity.

The gossips declared that his Highness was
always requested to give a tangible proof of his
approval in the shape of gunpowder and lead, and
that he gave them to ever}?- applicant with strict
impartiality. On this point the Sultan told me
nothing, and I was not indiscreet enough to inquire,
but as Selangor is no more free from gossip than its
neighbours, I put the statement down to irrespon-
sible chatter.

All this is, however, by the way. Certain Rajas
held certain important strategical points from which
other Rajas kept trying to oust them, and the fight
waxed hottest about Klang, the principal port of
the State, and Kuala Lumpor, the principal mining
centre.

As to Klang, it had just been captured by a
notable warrior named Raja Mahdi, and its whilom
defenders driven out when the Sultan gave his only
daughter in marriage to Tunku dia Udin, brother of
the Sultan of Kedah. The Sultan's son-in-law
espoused the cause of those who had been driven
from Klang, and, as he was created Viceroy and
had powerful support in Singapore, matters were
further complicated.

105

MALAY SKETCHES

The Viceroy and his friends recovered possession
of Klang and secured the friendship and assistance
of the Chinese miners at Kuala Lurapor.

These Chinese were led by one Ah Loi, a re-
markable man, styled the " Capitan China," whose
instincts were distinctly warlike and his authority
with his countrymen supreme.

Raja Mahdi also had friends who were acting
against the Chinese in the interior, and supporters
outside the State who helped him with money,
stores, and arms, and thus the ball rolled merrily
along.

Dame Fortune was, as usual, fickle, and success
was now with the Viceroy and now with Mahdi and
his friends. The Capitan China did his share in
his own way. He offered fifty silver dollars for
every enemy's head delivered in the market-place in
front of his house at Kuala Lumpor, and he told me
himself that his man who stood there ready to
receive the hideous trophies and pay the money did
quite a brisk business.

As with all Malay war, the operations languished
and revived by fits and starts. Plenty of money
meant plenty of men, arms, and ammunition, and
with them a spasmodic effort would be made and
probably a success gained. Then would follow dire

io6

VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

scarcity, and the other side, having raised some
money, would in their turn gain an advantage.

Thus the tide of battle ebbed and flowed for
months and years, and the only plain and evident
result was that the population of Selangor was
rapidly diminishing, the ground in the immediate
neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpor town being thickly
planted with corpses, for there the battle was always
the hottest, both because of the Capitan China's
special method and because of the value of the
mines. The survivors on both sides were not only
being reduced to penury, but their leaders were
becoming involved in debts which only the com-
plete success of one side followed by lasting
peace and order could enable the victors to pay
from the revenues derived from the tin-mines. The
debts of the defeated would naturally be irrecover-
able.

While the State was distracted by all this trouble
the Sultan still secured a comparative tranquillity by
his diplomatic sympathy with the combatants, and
whichever side held the Klang custom-house sup-
plied him with funds. That was the price of his
qualified approval.

It was at this time that the Viceroy's party, being
in fundS; conceived the plan of raising a force in

107

MALAY SKETCHES

Singapore with which they hoped to deal an effective
blow to their enemies.

I have said I knew little of Cavaliero, but of Van
Hagen, who took command of the recruits, I know
less. I was told that he had been an officer in the
Netherlands army, and that he lost his commission
owing to some breach of discipline, but that he was
a man of birth, character, and courage.

His heterogeneous force, composed of natives of
half-a-dozen nationalities, went by sea to Klang,
disembarked and made its way with guides through
the jungle to Kuala Lumpor. There they stockaded
themselves on a hill above the town and did valiantly
in its defence. But the place was invested by the
enemy, suppHes were cut off, and while the force
was daily harassed by the fire from the enemy's
works, provisions ran short and the men were
threatened at once with starvation and the probability
of being surrounded and entirely cut off from their
base at Klang, twenty-five miles distant by a jungle
track.

Under these circumstances, and probably moved

by the growing discontent of their men, Van Hagen

and CavaHero determined, ere it should be too late,

to endeavour to make their way back to the port.

They were all strangers in the country, and they
leS

VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

could find no one to guide them through the jungle,
but their difficulties became so great that they
decided to risk the journey as a choice of evils, and
early one morning they set out.

I have elsewhere tried to describe a Malay jungle,
and the path which these men had to traverse was,
as I know from my own experience, beset with
peculiar difficulty, and led for a great deal of the
way through swamp and water, where, of course,
there was no track visible. It is not surprising that
the party lost its way. Not only that, but weak
from want of food, wanting in cohesion and discip-
line, and with the knowledge that they were seeking
blindly for a road unknown to all, a feeling of
despair overcame many of them, and they wandered
off in different directions never to be seen or heard
of again.

The main body, with Van Hagen and Cavaliero,
after a weary day's march and no food, arrived in
the evening, utterly exhausted, at a place called
Patahng, only four miles from Kuala Lumpor !
They had been walking in a circle, and had got
back to a point not far from that of their original
departure.

Pataling was held by a considerable body of the

enemy under two Malay Rajas, and the weary

109

MALAY SKETCHES

wanderers walked straight into their arms and gave
themselves up without a struggle.

Another story says that, at the last moment
before leaving Kuala Lumpor, a guide presented
himself and offered his services, which were
accepted ; that he led the party hither and thither
through the jungle, and in the evening, when
thoroughly exhausted, took them into Pataling.

I never heard rightly what became of the rank
and file ; they may have been given their liberty
and told to find their own way out of the State.
For the officers was reserved another fate.

Finding the principal defenders of Kuala Lumpor
had withdrawn, the place was occupied without
difficulty by those who had for so long invested it.
The leading Chinese were made very uncomfort-
able, but on them depended the working of the
mines, and they were allowed to purchase their
lives.

I do not think this alternative was offered to
Van Hagen and Cavaliero. They were escorted
from Pataling to Kuala Lumpor, and, arrived there,
they were taken out and shot.

In excavating for the foundations of the houses
which now form the town of Kuala Lumpor, it was
usual to dig up a large number of skeletons, the

VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO

bones of those who had fallen during the years of
Selangor's internecine strife. As many as sixteen
skeletons have been discovered in digging out the
foundations for one house.

One day, not many years ago, two skeletons
were thus discovered. The bones were larger, the
figures taller, than those usually' met with. They
were the skeletons of two men face to face, and
locked in each other's arms.

XIII

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG

SEMAUN

Oh vengeance ! thou art sweet

Lewis Morris

ON the Perak River, about fifty miles from its
mouth, and just above the tidal influence,
where the water is clear and shallow and the banks
are lined with palm groves and orchards, there is a
large Malay village called Bandar.

More than twenty years ago there dwelt in this
village a man named Megat Raja, married to a par-
ticularly well-favoured girl named Meriam. The
fact of her marriage drew her into some sort of
notoriety, and her attractions were soon the
gossip of the place. The gilded youths of Ban-
dar were fired by the description of Meriam's
charms, and one of them, a boy of good family,
position, and means, got sight of and fell in love
with her.

IIS

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

The husband, Megat Raja, was conveniently
called away to accompany the Sultan on a journey
to Penang and Che Nuh, the youth aforesaid, pro-
fiting by that opportunity, pushed his addresses
with such fervour and success that he became the
lady's lover.

Late one night when Che Nuh was in the house
of his mistress, Megat Raja unexpectedly returned
and the first the lovers knew of their danger was
the demand of the husband to be admitted. The
house was a large one enclosed by a palisade, and
Meriam thus suddenly surprised, and fearing instant
death if her husband should discover Che Nuh,
implored her lover to escape by the door at the
back of the house while that at the front was being
opened.

Che Nuh complied, but the husband had evidently
heard something of what had been going on in his
absence, and, as the lover was about to descend the
steps, he drew back seeing Megat Raja waiting on
the ground beneath them.

He drew back, but not before his presence had
been perceived.

Megat Raja called out " Who is that ? "

Che Nuh replied " It is I, Che Nuh."

The husband, drawing his krts, said " What are

113 H

MALAY SKETCHES

you doing in my house at this time? Come down on
to the ground."

Mat Nuh was alone and Megat Raja was accom-
panied by two other men, but the youth unsheathed
his kris and went down ready to accept the chances
of a hand-to-hand struggle.

Seeing that Mat Nuh would defend himself, and
knowing that he was no contemptible adversary, the
three men hesitated. What was of more account in
their minds was that Che Nuh belonged to a
powerful family, and his father was one of the
principal chiefs in the country. There was, there-
fore, the certainty of retaliation should they kill him,
and the uncertainty of his guilt, for Meriam was not
the only woman in the house. As the men stood
mutually on the defensive, Megat Raja asked him
whom he had come to see, and Che Nuh replied that
it was a girl in the house. Thinking to assure him-
self on this point, the husband entered the house
and questioned one of the servant-women, but dis-
satisfied with what he heard he dashed out again
determined to attack Che Nuh.

The latter had, however, taken advantage of
Megat Raja's momentary absence to get outside the
gate of the paHsade, and once there he shouted for
help and was soon surrounded by his friends.

114

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

In reply to a call, Che Nuh bid his adversary
come outside the gate and he would give him any
satisfaction he pleased.

That of course meant an internecine struggle
between the two parties, and Megat Raja declined
it, for the odds were now against him, and he was
still uncertain whether his wife were unfaithful or
not.

On the strong suspicion that he held, his inclina-
tion was to at least make short work of the woman,
but here again he was deterred by the knowledge
that her relations would certainly be revenge i on
him. He, therefore, decided on another course of
action. On the assumption that his wife was guilty
(and of this he became tolerably well assured), he
treated her as though he held the proofs, divorced
her, turned her out of his house, and declined to let
her have any of her own possessions or to remove
any of his.

This action was considered a very serious indig-
nity by Meriam's friends, and it so happened that
she possessed a relative named Penglima Prang
Semaun, an adherent of the Sultan's Wazir, the
Raja Bendahara, and he was reputed one of the
principal warriors in the country.

Penglima Prang Semaun called upon the Chief of
"5

MALAY SKETCHES

Bandar and laid a formal complaint against Megat
Raja, demanding to know why he had taken the law
into his own hands and treated Meriam in a manner
to put all her relatives to shame.

The Chief of the village of Bandar was also one
of the great officers of State named the Orang Kaya
Shabandar. He was a man renowned for his
courage, was wealthy, a trusted officer of the Sultan,
the receiver of customs, and lived at the upper end
of the village.

He listened politely to Penglima Prang Semaun,
and when the latter wound up his complaint by
saying he would certainly attack Megat Raja if he
obtained no redress, the Shabandar put his advice
in the form of this ancient saw :

"If you have no gold, it is well to sing small ;
if you have no pivot-guns (jingals), it is well to put
a pleasant face on the matter ; and if you have no
cannon, it is better to be quiet."

The advice was meant in good part and not as a
taunt, but Penglima Prang Semaun took it as the
latter and retired with rage in his heart, saying
" It is well for you who have gold and jingals and
cannon to tell me I have none of these things,
but I will have my revenge of you with only a
krisr

zz6

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

Then he returned to his own home to think how
this was to be worked out.

The Penglima Prang Semaun's house was between
those of the Shabandar, up stream, and Megat Raja,
down stream, and he knew that he was not strong
enough to resist a combined attack from both of
them. Therefore he determined that force must be
backed by cunning if he was to achieve his end.
He concluded that his only plan was to attack the
Shabandar, dispose of him first as the most im-
portant, and then deal with Megat Raja at his
leisure.

Meanwhile, Che Nuh had expressed his desire to
marry Meriam, but as his relatives recognised that
such an open avowal of his liaison must lead to
trouble with Megat Raja and his folk, they dechned
to allow him to do this, and Che Nuh's negative
attitude towards the lady only increased the wrath
of her kinsman, Penglima Prang Semaun.

I have said that this bravo, for that was his
metier, was the henchman of the RSja Bendahara,
the highest authority in the State after the Sultan.
PengUma Prang Semaun, having determined to kill
the Shabandar, felt it necessary to report the inten-
tion to his master and, mindful of possible wrath to
come, to ask his sanction.

117

MALAY SKETCHES

Accordingly the Penglima went up river to Blanja
where the BSndahara lived, told his tale and asked
for leave to kill the Shabandar.

The reply of the Bendahara was, " If you think
you are able to do it, go on."

That was enough. Penglima Prang Semaun
returned to Bandar with a kindred spirit named Haji
Ali, another bravo of reputation as evil as his own,
and these two worthies soon settled their plan of
operations.

The Sultan was at Pasir Panjang (only a few
miles above Bandar), with a large following and a
crowd of boats, and the Penglima and his friend
determined to wreak their vengeance on the Sha-
bandar on the Rdya Hdji, the day to which the
most religious Muhammadans prolong the fast of
Ramthan.

The day did not, however, suit, there were too
many people constantly about the Shabandar's
house, and the conspirators had to return home
without effecting their purpose.

On the following day, however, in the afternoon,
Penglima Prang Semaun, Haji Ali, and three others,
made a formal visit to the Shabandar, obtained ad-
mission to his house, and found in it no one besides
himself and a Sumatran Raja, a visitor from down

zi8

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

river. I say no one else but, as Penglima Prang
well knew, there were in the Shabandar's house two
aged ladies, the mother of the Sultan's children and
her sister.

The five men waited until they saw the Sumatran
Raja take his departure, and in order to do this
visitor honour, the Shabandar unarmed and un-
attended, accompanied him to the river-bank and
there bid him farewell.

This was the moment for the development of the
plot.

Penglima Prang Semaun took leave of the Sha-
bandar and shook hands with him. Haji Ali, a very
big powerful man, then also took leave and grasped
the Shabandar's hand, but instead of letting it go he
drew the Datoh towards him, and the reply to his
question of what this meant was a stab in the back
from Penglima Prang Semaun's kris.

The blade did not pierce the skin, it bent, and the
thrust was repeated with the same result, Haji Ali
all the while holding the unarmed man by the hand.

Then the Penglima threw away the useless
weapon, and, seizing another kris, plunged it time
after time into the helpless body of the Shabandar,
who fell to the ground, while Haji Ali and each of
the others stabbed him in turn.

iig

MALAY SKETCHES

Leaving the body lying on the bank, the men
rushed straight back into the house, shut the gates
of the enclosure and immediately prepared to defend
themselves, taking particular care that the two ladies
already mentioned should not get away.

The news of a murder perpetrated like this is
carried on the breeze, and for a few minutes the
Shabandar's adherents rushed up one after the other
to be slaughtered as they arrived by the Penglima
and his party reinforced by their own men who had
been awaiting the denouement.

Then gates and doors were closed, windows
barred, cannon, pivot-guns, and muskets loaded, and
Penglima Prang Semaun having rifled the house
(which contained the customs collections as well as
the Shabandar's private property), and thus possessed
himself of all those things which he previously
lacked, sat down to calmly await the development
of events.

The plot had been cunningly conceived. The
brutal murder of the unarmed chief was certain to be
instantly avenged, and that would have been done
by an attack on the house had it not been that it
contained, besides the murderers, the Sultan's late
wife and her sister, who were wellnigh sure to
come to harm in the assault.

Z20

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

The risk of that possibiHty deterred the Sultan's
people, who had surrounded the house with
stockades, and all that could be done was to prevent
the Penglima, Haji AH, and their men, from escaping.
The process of starving out the besieged could not
be resorted to, for here also the ladies would have
suffered.

The moment the deed was done, Penglima Prang
Semaun proclaimed that he was merely the instru-
ment of the Sultan's Wazir, and that he had acted
on the authority of the Raja Bendahara. That, if
true, complicated the case considerably, and as
matters had arrived at an impasse, a parley was
called, and it was arranged that the Penglima and
his people should be given a safe-conduct to the
Sultan at Pasir Panjang.

Accordingly, the Penglima Prang, Haji Ali, and
the others left their shelter and embarked in boats
provided for them, but they took good care not to
let the ladies, who were their prisoners, get out of
reach.

Arrived at Pasir Panjang, Penglima Prang at
once sent a messenger to the Raja Bendahara to
inform him of the state of affairs and ask his aid.
The Bendahara responded to this appeal by taking
boat, and, with a great following, descended the

121

MALAY SKETCHES

river to Pasir Panjang. Once there, he availed
himself of an ancient custom called ikat-diri — that
is, to " bind yourself " — and, accompanied by all his
people, he went and stood in front of the Sultan's
house with his hands loosely tied behind his back
with his own head-kerchief, and, thus uncovered in
the sun, he and all his following shouted dmpun
Tuan-kn, be-ribu-ribu dmpun — " Pardon, my lord, a
thousand-thousand pardons."

After a quarter of an hour's waiting, while the
air was filled with this plea for mercy, and the
Bendahara and his company stood like prisoners in
front of the closed house, a door opened, a herald
bearing the Sultan's insignia appeared and cried
out: "Our lord pardons you, and permits you to
enter into his presence."

That settled the affair. The Sultan's minister
had accepted the responsibility for what had been
done; he was far too great a man to be treated as
a criminal, and, taking advantage of an old custom,
he confessed his fault, offered himself a prisoner,
sought and obtained the Sultan's pardon.

Amongst those who had received the message of
peace, and who entered into the presence, were the
Penglima Prang Semaun, Haji Ali, and the three
other murderers of the Shabandar.

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

Now, the Shabandar had a brother, and he was
a man of war, and the Sultan well knew that this
method of dealing with the murderers would not
satisfy him, so he at once created him Datoh
Shabandar in succession to the dead man, in the
hope that the gift of this dignity might make for
the general peace.

The Raja Bendahara, accompanied by Penglima
Prang and his friends, then returned to Blanja.

The new Shabandar had no intention of leaving
his brother's murderers to boast of their exploit,
and, in a very short time, he asked for the Sultan's
permission to attack them and wipe out the disgrace
of his relative's unavenged death.

The Sultan said the request must be preferred to

the Raja Bendahara, for so long as the Penglima

Prang was in his village he could not be attacked

without the Wazir's sanction. Application was duly

made to the Bendahara, who replied that it would

be contrary to custom to attack the Penglima

Prang while living at his door, but that if they

could get him away they might do what they

pleased.

The Penglima Prang was, however, far too wary

to be lured away from safety, and matters were in

this state when there returned from a pilgrimage to

123

MALAY SKETCHES

Mecca a man called Haji Musah, nearly related to
the late Shabandar.

Haji Musah was at this time a rather small, spare
man of middle age, but his heart was out of propor-
tion to the size of his body, and when he heard
what had recently taken place in Bandar, and how
Penglima Prang Semaun and Haji Ali had got away
unpunished, his anger knew no bounds.

He promptly waited upon the Sultan and begged
for permission to attack the Penglima, and, if
necessary, to include in the operations his protector,
the Raja Bendahara.

The Sultan hesitated to give the desired permis-
sion, but the fact that the proposal had been made
very soon reached Blanja and the ears of both the
Wazir and Penglima Prang. Whatever the latter
was he could not be accused of cowardice, and he
at once offered to anticipate an attack by making
an expedition against Haji Musah to silence so
arrogant a foe.

The Raja Bendahara enraged at the idea that

his name should have been mentioned with so little

respect, and apprehensive that Haji Musah might

find the means (as he knew he had the will) to

carry out his suggestion, cordially approved the

Penglima's proposal.

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THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

It did not take long to collect from the neigh-
bouring village of Lambor enough men to fill two
boats, and, as that was all the Penglima wanted for
his purpose, the party had started for Batak Rabit
(Haji Musah's village) before the down-stream
people had the smallest inkling of their intention.
The time was specially well chosen from the fact
that the Shabandar was absent in a remote district.

In Japan they say, " If you have not seen Nikko
you cannot say gekko^^ and if there is anyone who
knows the Malay Peninsula and yet has never
watched the sun set across the rice-fields, when
the ripe grain hangs heavily in the ear, his know-
ledge of the beauties of Malay scenery is very in-
complete.

A wide, flat plain covered by the golden harvest,
the rice-stalks standing five or six feet above the
ground from which they have sucked all the water
which nourished them in the earlier stages of
growth. One yellow sea of yellow ears, the green
stalks only discernible in the near foreground.

This sea is broken by islands of palms and fruit-
trees in which nestle the picturesque brown huts of
cottagers, houses of wood, built on wooden piles
with palm-thatched roofs and mat walls.

The setting sun strikes in great beams of saffron
125

MALAY SKETCHES

light across this wide expanse of grain bounded by
distant ranges of soft blue hills. How greedily one
drinks it all in ! and, as the Eye of Day droops
lower, there shoot from between its closing lids
rays of fire which tinge the glistening palms with a
rosy effulgence, followed all too soon by the pale
opalescent shades which proclaim the approach of
the fast-driving chariot of night.

A grey haze rises from the damp earth, spreads
in thin wreaths across the darkening plain, thickens
to a heavy dead-white vapour, and as the silver
sickle rises over the distant hills it shines upon
clustered plumes of dark fronds mysteriously poised
above a motionless drift of snow-like cloud.

On the edge of such a field was the home ot
Haji Musah. Behind stretched the rich plain, in
front a great river, both wide and deep, its banks
lined by groves of coco-nuts in the neighbourhood
of villages, but elsewhere covered by forest and the
nipah palm.

The dwelling stood a few feet back from the

river, and, as its owner was a man of means, the

structure was of some size, the floor and walls of

stout planks and a strong palisade enclosed the

surrounding yard. The house was, as usual, on

wooden piles, and the kitchen, also on piles but

126

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

separated from the main building, was connected
with it by a platform.

It was here that PengHma Prang Semaun, Haji
Ali, and the rest of their crew arrived one morning
before daylight and quickly landed under the cover
of darkness.

The enterprise they had undertaken was a
perilous one. Their force numbered about thirty
men all told, they had come about ninety miles
right into the heart of the enemy's country, and, if
there were any failure, retreat was a choice between
a return against the current with a hostile people
on either bank, or a long pull to the river's mouth
under the same conditions and then the sea.

Penglima Prang Semaun had, however, cal-
culated the chances, and he counted on a suc-
cessful surprise and, if need be, the pursuit of
those tactics which he had already, at Bandar,
found so useful. '

Once on shore the palisade of Haji Musah's house
was cautiously approached, and, the gate being
locked, it was scaled, and the whole party noise-
lessly established themselves beneath the house and
waited for daylight.

It so happened that the house contained only two
men and two women — Haji Musah and his wife,

127

MALAY SKETCHES

Haji Hawah, and their daughter and son-in-law, the
latter named Haji Sahil.

At daybreak the back door of the house was
opened and the two women came out and went into
the kitchen. In a moment Haji Hawah discovered
that the space beneath the house was full of armed
men, and with a scream she rushed back towards
the door. Ere she could gain it, Haji Ali sprang
upon the platform and seized one of her hands,
while her husband, unpleasantly alive to the situa-
tion, caught hold of the other and tried to pull her
within the door, an effort which she seconded with
all her might.

A real tug-of-war was carried on for a few
moments, and Haji Ali was joined by another man.

Local tradition says that Haji Ali experienced
suddenly a feeling that something dire was going to
happen, and he asked his companion to relieve him
of his hold of the woman's hand. The man took
it, and Haji Musah from the inside making a great
effort drew his wife towards him, and at the same
time, with a spear, thrust out beyond her with so
true an aim that he transfixed her would-be captor.
The man released his hold, fell with a groan into
Haji All's arms, and Haji Musah, drawing his wife
into the house and believing he had wounded Peng-

12S

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

lima Prang Semaun, shouted as he closed the door,
" That has wetted you, PengHma ! "

Wetted him with blood.

Haji Ali called to the Penglima, " Help me, a
* watering ' has befallen our friend " ; a polite way
of expressing a disaster. By the time they got the
man to the ground he was dead, for the spear had
struck home.

The Penglima, furious at this sight, leapt on the
platform, and, finding the door immovable, dashed
open a small side-window with the butt end of a
musket and fired into the house, but hurt no one.

In the scuffle before the door was closed Haji
Musah had accidentally given his son-in-law a flesh
wound on the shoulder, and that had disabled him,
so the defence of the position rested on one man
alone.

Penglima Prang Semaun now summoned Haji
Musah to surrender, but the reply was, " I will not
surrender."

"Then," said the Penglima, "I will riddle the
house with bullets."

" Shoot away," was the reply.

" I will burn the house down."

" Burn it," said Haji Musah, " and do whatever
else you like, but I will not give in."

129 I

MALAY SKETCHES

"Let us burn it," said the Penglima. But Haji
Ali protested. "Are you mad," he urged, ''already
our enemies are collecting outside, you would burn
the house down and these people in it, and then
what should we do ? Caught like fish in a basket,
without walls or roof to shelter us, what will
become of us ?"

The wisdom of this advice was apparent, and as
it was necessary to deal with those in the house
quickly the leader set to work to devise another
plan.

An evil inspiration came to the Penglima, and he
told Haji Ali to get Haji Musah into conversation
again while he, having loaded with all manner of
missiles a pivot-gun which he found under the
house, listened attentively to the sound of Haji
Musah's voice, and tying the gun to a post just
beneath the spot where he thought the Haji must be
standing, fired it.

A large hole was rent in the floor, and, the
various missiles scattering in all directions, one of
them struck Haji Musah in the thigh, seriously
wounding him and placing him hors de combat.
His wife was also hit, but only slightly injured.

The assailants realised the effects of the shot
Irom what they lieard said within and again called

130

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

upon Haji Musah to yield, but he declined utterly
to do so.

His wife said, " What is the use, you are wounded
and cannot fight, so am I and so is Haji Sahil, what
can we do, better make terms with them ? " Haji
Musah stubbornly declined to listen to this persua-
sion and only said, "Let them do their worst, I
will not yield."

Strange to say it was only then that Haji Hawah
realised that her daughter was missing. She
remembered that the girl had left the house with her
and gone into the kitchen, but until that moment,
what with the discovery that the enemy was within
their gates, the struggle at the door and subsequent
events, she had not thought of the girl further than
to suppose she was sitting terrified in some corner
of the never brilliantly lighted house.

Now, however, it was certain that she had failed
to get back before the door was closed and must .
have fallen into the hands of the enemy.

As a matter of fact nothing of the kind had
happened. On the first alarm, seeing the crowd of
strange men and her mother's struggles to gain the
house, the girl was too terrified to leave her shelter
and had hidden herself in the kitchen. The enemy
being all under the house when the women first

131

MALAY SKETCHES

came out, no one had particularly noticed the girl
or ever thought of entering her hiding-place.

The moment Haji Hawah was convinced her
daughter was not in the house, she became equally
certain she was in the hands of the enemy, and that
was an intolerable idea. She, therefore, besought
her husband to offer to yield provided the girl were
restored. This new factor in the case persuaded
him, and Haji Musah called out that he would yield
if his daughter were given back to them.

At first the besiegers could not understand the
meaning of this proposal, but light very soon came
to them and they argued that if the girl was not
inside the house or in their hands, she must be in
the kitchen, and a search of that place very soon
discovered her.

The Penglima accordingly replied that he accepted
the proposal and would restore the girl on condition
her father yielded. The door was then opened and
the girl admitted, but no sooner was she in the
house than it was closed again and Haji Musah
declined to give himself up.

Shortly after, however, the loss of blood and
pain of his stiffening limb made movement impos-
sible and compelled Haji Mflsah to abandon all idea

of further resistance.

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THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

The Penglima and his friends having gained the
house proceeded to make themselves comfortable
and did not attempt to disturb or annoy Haji Musah
and his family. These latter occupied a curtained
portion of the principal room, and underneath their
only window a sentry was placed night and day.

Meanwhile the Shabandar, informed by messenger
of what had taken place, hurried back to the neigh-
bourhood and reinforced the adherents of Haji Musah,
who so far had contented themselves with building
and occupying stockades to command Haji MQsah's
house.

The Penglima's tactics were again completely
successful, and as it was impossible to fire on the
captors without danger to their imprisoned friends
the Shabandar, who now commanded the investing
force, set himself to devise a plan whereby he might
gain his end by craft.

The Penglima's men occupied the house and one
or two small stockades close by it. The Shabandar's
party had built a series of enclosing works which
practically cut off escape to landward. In front
was the river and here again, both up stream and
down, there lay a small fleet of guard-boats.

The Penglima's own two boats were chained to
the landing-stage where they were safe, for it would

133

MALAY SKETCHES

have been impossible to seize them without being
exposed to fire from the house, to which no reply
could be made.

A month went by, and in that time Haji MQsah,
his wife, and son-in-law had fairly recovered from
their injuries. Meanwhile the Shabandar, by means
of spies, learned that the prisoners occupied a side
of the house where there was but one window, and
that always guarded at night by the same man.
Through this man there was the best chance of
escape for the prisoners, if only he could be bought
over.

This sentry, who had some authority over part of
the band, was a foreigner, he was getting tired of
the game and probably did not altogether like the
outlook or see how his party was to turn the
situation to their own advantage. At any rate
communications were opened between the Shabandar
and him, and for a sum of two thousand dollars he
promised to get the prisoners out of the window
and through the lines to their friends.

In the dead of a dark night (and moonless Eastern
nights can be black as a sepulchre) he assisted the
four prisoners to make their escape through the
window, while the Penglima, Haji Ali, and a number
of their men slept peacefully on the other side of

134

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

the sheltering curtain that gave privacy to the
women.

Guided by the traitor, their movements hidden in
Cimmerian darkness, the httle party made its way
in safety to the friendly shelter of the Shabandar's
stockade. He was expecting them, and he had also
prepared an unpleasant surprise for the cuckoos in
temporary occupation of their stolen nest.

Penglima Prang Semaun and his friends were
awakened from sleep by the banging of jingals and
muskets and a hail of various missiles.

A moment's search showed that the prisoners had
escaped, and the Penglima instantly realised that he
was in the toils.

He had already shown that he was a man of
resource, and his presence of mind did not desert
him in this dangerous crisis. The darkness alone
protected them, and that would not last ; moreover,
he could not tell at what moment his position might
not be rushed. It was clear that for them was
reserved the fate of those who when they got up in
the morning were all dead men.

The Penglima called his followers together,
explained the situation and its urgency, pointed out
the choice that lay before them — an attempt to pass
the enemy's stockades under cover of the night or to

135

MALAY SKETCHES

run the gauntlet of the guard-boats, where capture
was, as he said, certain.

The men of the band, the wretched Lambor con-
tingent, elected, as the Penglima had meant they
should do, to try and force their way through the
enemy's lines, never thinking that if they succeeded
they would only reach a pathless jungle swamp,
where they, strangers in that part of the country,
must either perish miserably or return to the tender
mercies of the investing foe.

Of these deplorable eventualities they took no
thought ; there was little time for hesitation ; tight-
ening the grasp upon their weapons they went out
into the night, and in a few moments the shouts
from the surrounding stockades showed that their
intention had been discovered.

This was exactly what Penglima Prang Semaun
had expected ; he had created a diversion, and
seizing his opportunity, accompanied by Haji All
and a few of his particular associates, he made for
the river and got into one of his boats, cast ofif and
pulled out into the stream.

A very wily man was the Penglima. Every one
in the guard-boats was on the alert, the firing and
shouts from the shore had warned them that the fox
was being hunted in the covert, and the pack were

136

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

after him in full cry. Still there was just a trifle of
uncertainty about it, and that was the Penglima's
one chance of salvation.

The slightest hesitation now, the smallest of false
steps, and neither the Penglima nor any of those with
him would ever see the dawn. He knew it well
enough, and as he ordered those who had taken the
oars to pull out boldly into the stream, he grasped
the helm and steering straight up the middle of the
river, against the tide, he gave orders that no man
should speak, undertaking the whole responsibility
himself.

It was still so dark that no one could see quite
whence this boat came, or distinguish who was in it,
but as it moved with plenty of noise and no attempt
at concealment right towards the line of guard-boats,
some one called out, "Who goes there?"

"It is I," replied the Penglima, "I bring the
Shabandar's orders to you to keep a good look-out,
they are attacking the Penglima Prang, and as he
can't hold out he will probably try to escape by the
river. Be ready for him, I am going to warn the
boats down stream," and turning round the craft
disappeared towards the other line of river-
sentinels.

No one of course suspected a ruse under such a
137

MALAY SKETCHES

bold disguise as that, and, pulling straight for the
down-stream boats, steering right on and through
them, the Penglima called out, *' Jdga-jdgay * be on
your guard,' the Shabandar sends orders to watch
for the Penglima Prang Semaun, he is trying to
escape, I am warning all the boats."

No one could distinctly see who this messenger
was, or even catch more than a shadowy glimpse of
a spectral craft as she glided through the line, and
in the excitement of expectation, the noise of firing
and rival battle-shouts on shore, no one took special
heed as to which way the messengers went, or
whether that was the sound of their oars echoing
faintly in the distance.

The Shabandar on his part made no long tarry-
ing, but eager to revenge the murder of his brother,
and feeling that at last the Penglima and Haji Ali
were in his power, he determined to meng-dmok, to
rush the house at once without waiting for day-
light.

"Whilst summoning his men for the assault, he
heard the cries that told him the besieged were
making an attempt to break through his stockades,
and without further delay he dashed into Haji
Musah's house, only to find it empty, the renowned
Penglima and his amiable friend gone, and with

138

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

them a considerable quantity of dollars and every-
thing that was both valuable and easily portable.

Torches and an examination of the muddy ground
soon established the direction taken, and the missing
boat, coupled with the missing property, convinced
the least astute that by this way went the Penglima
Prang Semaun.

Many shouted questions from the bank drew forth
many assurances from those on the water that no
enemy had passed that way. The evidence to the
contrary was, however, all too plain, and as the
boats one by one came up to the landing-place, and
the watchers told their tale, it became evident that
once again the Penglima Prang Semaun had justified
his reputation for both daring and resource.

He had made for the sea, his party did not
number ten, and they were in one boat. There
was still time to overtake or intercept them at the
river's mouth, and, as the grey light of dawn began
to lift the veil of mist and the freshening breeze
swept in chilly gusts over the water, a fleet of boats
set off to search the creeks and backwaters, while
others had orders to pull straight to the river's
mouth, and there take line and see that none passed
out to sea.

The Penglima meanwhile had wasted no time.
139

MALAY SKETCHES

'Twixt the devil behind and the deep sea in front,
he had no difficulty in determining which way lay
safety ; but he also realised that it could not be an
hour, it might be only a few minutes before his ruse
would be discovered, and with his crew he could
not hope to reach the sea without being overtaken.
The rowers needed little exhortation to strain every
nerve, and after a few miles had been travelled, the
boat was forced through heavy overhanging branches
into an all but imperceptible creek, so narrow the
entrance and so thoroughly concealed that no one
would dream of its existence. The boat could only
be got a few yards up this ditch, and the party,
leaving it entirely hidden, ensconced themselves in
a tangled mass of jungle foliage from which they
commanded a view of the river.

Here the fugitives lay all day, and watched the
boats of their enemies pass by intent on the fruitless
search.

It was not a pleasant place nor did they spend an

altogether happy day, for they were not yet out of

the wood, indeed the chances of escape were still

decidedly against them, but for the moment they

were safe, and whatever was to come could not be

worse than the situation from which their leader

had already extricated them.

Z40

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

Whilst the Penglima was running the gauntlet
of the guard-boats his late companions, the men of
Lambor, some twenty or thirty in number, were
having a worse experience on shore.

Being a large party and in their haste not over-
cautious, they were, of course, discovered as they
tried to break through the line of stockades. Some
were shot, others were speared and krised in hand-
to-hand encounters, while a few got away to the
forest under cover of the darkness. But when
these stragglers fully realised that it was a choice
between the enemy and painful wandering in a
swampy and well-nigh impenetrable jungle, with
the prospect of starvation and a lingering death, they
chose rather to return to the light and a speedier
reckoning.

None of this band returned to Lambor, and if
they sought their fate and made an unprovoked
attack upon Haji MQsah it is not altogether sur-
prising that to this day there is no wasted affection
between the people of Lambor and the Lower Perak
Chiefs.

All through that sultry day, as one by one these
doomed men appeared from the jungle fastness and
went down before the weapons of their adversaries,
waiting tirelessly expectant in the certainty that no

141

MALAY SKETCHES

refuge would be found in those inhospitable depths,
the Penglima and his Httle band lay close in their
concealment and longed for sheltering night.

All day long the Shabandar's boats passed hither
and thither, and with the nightfall many appeared to
abandon the search and returned on the rising tide.

Then an hour or two of the new-born moon, and
after that thick darkness.

The Penglima and his friends had regained their
boat, and as, about midnight, the tide began to ebb,
the vessel was pushed noiselessly out into the river
and bracing themselves for a final effort the rowers
gripped their oars, stiffened their backs and put
their whole strength into the work before them.

The river as it approaches the sea grows wider
at every bend, the searchers were exhausted and
asleep, or had already returned up-stream, the
night was dark and the fugitives were unmolested
until, between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., in the last reach,
they saw a line of boats guarding the river's mouth.

There were wide intervals between each vessel,
but even in that uncertain light it was impossible
for a boat to run this blockade without being seen.

At this final juncture the Penglima's Familiar did
not desert him.

Of course the earth ought to have opened and
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THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

swallowed up this hardened criminal as it did Korah,
Dathan, Abiram, and all their company ; he ought
to have been shot or drowned or speared if he were
not being reserved for hanging. At any rate this
was an excellent opportunity for getting rid of two
hardened villains, and a few other passably wicked
men. The Lambor people, whose crimes were as
snow compared to those of these two arch-criminals,
had all met with violent deaths and no miracle, not
even so much as a small streak of luck, like falling
into a well and being tended by a beautiful maiden,
had saved the life of one of them.

Why was it then that, as these cold-blooded
assassins cowered together and wondered how they
were going to elude the vigilance of their enemies,
a palpable miracle was wrought to save their miser-
able skins ?

It cannot be said that anything very unusual hap-
pened, because the thing is of common occurrence,
but it was certainly thoughtfully arranged that at
that moment there should sail round the bend of the
river, in the strongest flow of the ebb-tide (now of
course slackening), an enormous mass of floating
palms, a very island of foliage broken away from
some undermined bank and drifting majestically to
the wider waters of the sea.

143

MALAY SKETCHES

If these great clumps of root and branch and
foliage may be seen sailing every day down a
Malay river into the Straits of Malacca, this parti-
cular island was so gigantic, that in size at least it
was miraculous. It is possible that to another man
the passing drift would have suggested nothing, but
the Penglima Prang Semaun was on such terms
with Fortune that he knew exactly the psycholo-
gical moment at which to take her. Here he
remembered that the Malays call these floating
islands dpong, and that boats know very much better
than to get in their way. His craft then he
promptly steered right into the back of this Satan-
sent refuge, and, forcing it in amongst the palms and
covering it as well as was possible, he calmly sat
down and awaited the issue.

The island sailed slowly along, and when the huge
mass got near enough to the guard-boats for them
to realise their danger, there was a deal of shouting
and pulling of anchors, kicking up sleepy boatmen
and frantic struggles to avoid this river Juggernaut.

So passed the Penglima Prang Semaun ; not to
the vales and Queens of Avilion, but to the open
sea, from sore stress to safety, from an earthly
death to an earthly life.

One can almost hear him chuckle as he sails
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THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAU

through that last danger and watches his enemies'
efforts to get back into their places.

Malays do not pine for manual labour, they had
already had more than enough of it, and as they
were now being towed idly along, they lay down to
sleep, vaguely wondering, in that moment of tired
but delicious drowsiness, what occult powers this
leader possessed to secure at such a moment the
powerful help of this great leviathan, under whose
green and shady sails they were being wafted to
safety and " the haven where they would be."

A day or two of pleasant coasting, a walk across
country, and Penglima Prang Semaun, with Haji
Ali and a considerable booty, arrived safely at Blanja
and received the congratulations of his master, the
Raja Bendahara.

We read that when it was the fashion for knights
to devote themselves to the service of distressed
damsels, they wrought many startling deeds, which
cannot always be satisfactorily explained without
recognising that devotion in so good a cause was
sometimes supernaturally aided.

Unfortunately, the practice has fallen into desue-
tude ; let us hope it is because the damsels of the
nineteenth century are never in distress, want no
assistance, or despise that of the mere man.

145 K

MALAY SKETCHES

Malays are perhaps, in some respects, a few
hundred years behind the age, and I like to think
that in this veracious story the Penglima Prang
Semaun made his first appearance as the champion
of a lady in distress.

X46

XIV
BER-HANTU

Striving to reach the mystic source
of things, the secrets of the earth
and sea and air

L. Morris

WE could all see the tunggul merah, the crimson
streak which boded the death of the King,
Looking from the top of our green-terraced hill
across the clear wide river late one afternoon, this
curious phenomenon appeared in the sky, above the
last spur of a picturesque range of mountains which
separates the valleys of two considerable streams
whose united waters flow into the Straits of
Malacca.

Standing on the right bank of the river, a stretch
of level land lies between the opposite bank and the
foot of this range, and the wealth of foliage hides
from view the houses, orchards, and ricefields which
cover that fertile plain. But the Sultan's house, a
palm-thatched wooden structure, three houses on

147

MALAY SKETCHES

piles joined together by short platforms after the
accepted Malay pattern, stands out clearly enough,
rather down-stream than opposite the point of
view.

The crimson portent is not visible for long, and
we realise that, whatever it means, it is accounted
for by the segment of a rainbow shining through a
bank of low clouds which obscure the rest of the
" arch of heaven," and so blur the prismatic colours
that nothing is clearly discernible but a short column
of flame, all the more striking for its dull grey back-
ground. The tradition of ill-omen is of ancient
origin, but the fact that the Sultan now lies griev-
ously ill gives an air of probability to the gossip of
the prophets.

That evening, as we sat at dinner, we were
suddenly startled by the cry of the banshee. Up
till that moment we had none of us had any personal
acquaintance with the banshee, but this was it sure
enough. A long-drawn-out distressing wail, as of
a lost child, repeated at uncertain intervals, now
here now there, first on one side of the house and
then on the other, at one moment unpleasantly close,
and the next a piteous little half-choked sob in the
distance. Without any doubt this was the banshee,
and as the moonlight was now streaming fitfully

148

BER-HANTU

through the clouds across the white pillars of the
verandah, we thought we might have the good
fortune to see this harbinger of doom.

We walked out on to the moonlit terrace, and the
beauty of the night was so intense that one felt it as
through a new sense.

The hill on which the house stood was cut into
a series of terraces, and the highest of these, a wide
lawn of velvety grass, was surrounded by tall graceful
coco-nut trees, not close together but each standing
alone with its spiky leaves clearly delineated against
the sky.

Overhead a moon shedding that wonderful soft
light only seen in the East, where atmosphere,
foliage, and all the surroundings seem specially
designed to make the ascendancy of the Queen of
Night superbly beautiful.

The exquisite feathery fronds of the bamboo,

bending in graceful curves, with each leaf clearly

defined against a background of grey-blue sky ; a

dozen varieties of palms, from the lofty coco-nut

and the stately jagary to the thick clumps of betiam,

hke gigantic ferns ; picturesque groups of flowering

trees and shrubs on terrace after terrace, carry the

eye down to the shimmering gleam of the wide

river, on which the moonlight falls lovingly, throwing
149

MALAY SKETCHES

into greater contrast the deep shadows that lie under
the overhanging foliage of the banks. Four miles
of glistening water, then the river narrows and fades
into the mist-enshrouded forest.

Close beneath us twinkle the lights of the village,
the houses spreading from river-brink to the high
ground which rises abruptly on our left. In front
and on either side, range after range of jungle-
covered hills, from fifteen hundred to several thou-
sands of feet in height. There is a luminous haze
over all distant objects, giving the idea of indefinite
height and distance, making all things vague and
unsubstantial, yet infinitely satisfying that other
sense which only awakes under the influence of
perfect beauty.

The extraordinary charm of this scene intoxicated
us as with draughts of nectar, and in that enravish-
ment, kings, omens, and ghostly warnings were
forgotten.

But hark ! Yes, there is the cry, wailing in the
distance — now much nearer, and now — before our
very eyes the banshee itself!

Sailing slowly through the air between the
feathery leaves of the palms, like a lost soul wend-
ing its uncertain, purposeless way through the
balmy Eastern night, was a creature with heavy
ISO

BER-HANTU

dark wings, a head disproportionately large, and
horns, veritable horns ! As it slowly passed and
moaned its childlike plaint, no reasonable being
could doubt that he had heard and seen the mes-
senger of death.

That weird apparition, sobbing its fateful cry,
broke the spell under which we had stood enthralled,
and though we felt that the King's fate was sealed,
that did not prevent us from returning to dinner.

Just after midnight a scared Malay came to say
that it was feared the Sultan was dying. I hurried
down the hill, took boat across the river, and,
stumbling along the bank, reached the house where
the sick man lay.

I entered upon a peculiar scene. I said the
building was in three parts, the first a sort of ante-
room, beyond which strangers of inferior rank did
not in ordinary circumstances pass ; then came the
principal structure, which consisted of one large
room, wooden pillars dividing off verandahs on
either side, while the third house was exclusively
devoted to women, and attached to it was an ex-
crescence forming the kitchen.

The unsteady light of several lamps and many
candles showed that both the centre and ante-rooms
were full of people sitting on the mats which covered

151

MALAY SKETCHES

the floor. There must have been between one and
two hundred present, and I noticed that there were
about equal numbers of men and women, and all the
principal Malays of the neighbourhood were there.
The curtains which usually divided the centre room
were up, but on one side there was evidently a bed,
screened by patchwork hangings, and there I con-
cluded His Highness lay.

It was plain from the preparations that, despairing
of effecting a cure by native medicines administered
by native doctors, it was intended to try a little
witchcraft and have a performance of what is called
Ber-hantu. That seemed to me to fall in very well
with the tunggul memh and the banshee, and I was
therefore quite prepared for the raising of the Devil
or any other uncanny manifestation.

I may as well say here that hantu is a ghost,
devil or spirit, and ber-hantu means to devil, to raise
the devil, or, at any rate, to engage in something as
nearly akin to a witches' revel on the Brocken as
Malay traditions and surroundings will permit. It
is a treatment commonly resorted to in Perak when
other remedies fail. When, however, the friends of
the patient decide that the time has arrived for b^r-
hantu, nothing will satisfy them but to have it, and
if the sick man or woman dies during the perform-

IS2

BER-HANTU

ance, there is still the satisfaction of knowing that
everything was done for them which love and skill
could devise, and the issue was with God. La-
illahd il- Allah, Muhammad Rasiil- Allah — " There is
but one God, and Muhammad is His Prophet."

This pious confession of faith has, however,
nothing to do with the ber-hantu; it comes in after-
wards when the seal of death is so evidently on the
lips of the sufferer that his friends cease to call on
the Devil, and commend the soul of the dying man
to God. The b^r-hantu is, of course, a survival of
prae-Islam darkness, and the priests abominate it,
or say they do ; but they have to be a little careful,
because the highest society affects the practice of
the Black Art.

To return to the King's house. In the middle
of the floor was spread a puddal, a small narrow
mat, at one end of which was seated a middle-aged
woman dressed like a man in a short-sleeved
jacket, trousers, a sarong, and a scarf fastened
tightly round her waist. At the other end of the
mat was a large newly-lighted candle in a candle-
stick. Between the woman and the taper were two
or three small vessels containing rice coloured with
turmeric, parched padi, and perfumed water. An
attendant sat near at hand.

IS3

MALAY SKETCHES

The woman in male attire was the Pdwang, the
Raiser of Spirits, the Witch, not of Endor, but of
as great repute in her own country and among her
own people. In ordinary life she was an amusing
lady named Raja Ngah, a scion of the reigning
house on the female side and a member of a family
skilled in all matters pertaining to occultism. In a
corner of the room were five or six girls holding
native drums, instruments with a skin stretched
over one side only, and this is beaten usually with
the fingers. The leader of this orchestra was the
daughter of Raja Ngah.

Shortly after I sat down, the proceedings began
by the Pdwang covering her head and face with a
silken cloth, while the orchestra began to sing a
weird melody in an unknown tongue. I was told
it was the spirit language ; the air was one specially
pleasing to a particular Jin, or Spirit, and the
invocation, after reciting his praises, besought him
to come from the mountains or the sea, from under-
ground or overhead, and relieve the torments of the
King.

As the song continued, accompanied by the
rhythmical beating of the drums, the Pdwang sat
with shrouded head in front of the lighted taper,
holding in her right hand against her left breast a

IS4

BER-HANTU

small sheaf of the grass called daun sambau tied
tightly together and cut square at top and bottom.

This chddak she shook, together with her whole
body, by a stiffening of the muscles, while all eyes
were fixed upon the taper.

At first the flame was steady, but by and by, as
the singers screamed more loudly to attract the
attention of the laggard Spirit, the wick began to
quiver and flare up, and it was manifest to the
initiated that the Jin was introducing himself into
the candle. By some means the Pdwang, who was
now supposed to be " possessed " and no longer
conscious of her actions, became aware of this, and
she made obeisance to the taper, sprinkling the
floor round it with saffron-coloured rice and per-
fumed water; then, rising to her feet and followed
by the attendant, she performed the same ceremony
before each male member of the reigning family
present in the room, murmuring all the while a
string of gibberish addressed to the Spirit. This
done, she resumed her seat on the mat, and, after a
brief pause, the minstrels struck up a different air,
and, singing the praises of another Jin, called upon
him to come and relieve the King's distress.

I ascertained that each Malay State has its own
special Spirits, each district is equally well provided,

I5S

MALAY SKETCHES

and there are even some to spare for special indivi-
duals. In this particular State there are four prin-
cipal Jin; they are the Jin ka-rdja-an, the State
Spirit — also called Jtinjong dilnia uddra — Supporter
of the Firmament ; Mdia uddra, the Spirit of the
Air ; Mahkota si-rdja Jin, the Crown of Royal
Spirits ; and S'tan Ali.

These four are known as Jin driiah, Exalted
Spirits, and they are the guardians of the Sultan
and the State. As one star exceeds another in
glory, so one Jin surpasses another in renown, and
I have named them in the order of their greatness.
In their honour four white and crimson umbrellas
were hung in the room, presumably for their use
when they arrived from their distant homes. Only
the Sultan of the State is entitled to traffic with
these distinguished Spirits ; when summoned they
decline to move unless appealed to with their own
special invocations, set to their own peculiar music,
sung by at least four singers and led by a B^duan
(singer) of the royal family. The Jin ka-rdja-an is
entitled to have the royal drums played by the State
drummers if his presence is required, but the other
three have to be satisfied with the instruments I
have described.

There are common devils who look after common
156

BER-HANTU

people : such as Hantu Songkei, Hantu Maldyu and
Hantu Bltan; the last the "Tiger Devil," but out
of politeness he is called "Blian/' to save his
feelings.

Then there is Kemdla ajdiby the "Wonderful
Jewel," Israng, Raja Ngah's special familiar, and a
host of others. Most hantu have their own special
Pdwangs, and several of these were carrying on
similar proceedings in adjoining buildings, in order
that the sick monarch might reap all the benefits to
be derived from a consultation of experts, and, as
one spirit after another notified his advent by the
upstarting flame of the taper, it was impossible not
to feel that one was getting into the very best
society.

Meanwhile a sixteen-sided stand, about six inches
high and shaped like this diagram, had been placed
on the floor near the Pdwang's
mat. The stand was decorated
with yellow cloth; in its centre
stood an enormous candle,
while round it were gaily de-
corated rice and toothsome
delicacies specially prized by Jin. There was
just room to sit on this stand, which is called
Petrdna panchalogam (meaning a seat of this
157

MALAY SKETCHES

particular shape), and the Sultan, supported by
many attendants, was brought out and sat upon it.
A veil was placed on his head, the various vessels
were put in his hands, he spread the rice round the
taper, sprinkled the perfume, and having received
into his hand an enormous chadak of grass, calmly
awaited the coming of the Jin Ka-rdja-an, while the
minstrels shouted for him with all their might.

The Sultan sat there for some time, occasionally
giving a convulsive shudder, and when this taper
had duly flared up and all the rites had been per-
formed, His Highness was conducted back again to
his couch, and the Pdwang continued her minis-
trations alone.

Whilst striding across the floor, she suddenly fell
down as though shot, and it was explained to me
that Israng, the spirit by whom she was possessed,
had seen a dish-cover, and that the sight always
frightened him to such an extent that his Pdwang
fell down. The cause of offence was removed, and
the performance continued.

There are other spirits who cannot bear the
barking of a dog, the mewing of a cat, and so on.

Just before dawn there was a sudden confusion
within the curtains which hid the Sultan's couch ;
they were thrown aside, and there lay the King, to

158

BER-HANTU

all appearance in a swoon. The Jin Ka-rdja-an
had taken possession of the sick body, and the mind
was no longer under its owner's control.

For a little while there was great excitement, and
then the King recovered consciousness, was carried
to a side verandah and a quantity of cold water
poured over him.

So ended the seance.

Shortly after, the Sultan, clothed and in his right
mind, sent to say he would like to speak to me.
He told me he took part in this ceremony to please
his people and because it was a very old custom,
and he added, " I did not know you were there till
just now ; I could not see you because I was not
myself and did not know what I was doing."

The King did not die, after all — on the contrary,
I was sent for twice again because he was not
expected to live till the morning, and yet he cheated
Death — for a time.

That reminds me of the ba shee. I saw it sitting
in a Malay house some months later, and they told
me the boys had caught it, that it was an owl, and
its name was Toh ka-tampi. It had very round,
yellow eyes, and there was no mistake about the
horns. It seems that with Malays it is an ill-
omened bird, the herald of misfortune and death,

159

MALAY SKETCHES

and it shares this reputation with two other owls,
which are called respectively Tumbok Idrong, that is
"Nail the coffin," and Chdrek kaf an, ^^ Ktn6. the
cloth for the shroud." Toh ka-tampi means " Old-
man- winnow- the -rice-for-the-burial- feast." The
names are rather gruesome, and are said to be
suggested by the peculiar cries of these "ghost
birds."

i6o

THE KING'S WAY

We know what Heaven or Hell may

bring
But no man knoweth the mind of

the King

RuDYARD Kipling

HE was the Sultan of an important Malay State,
but to those who knew him best he was, and
will remain, "Craddock's King," principally because
he always sent for Craddock whenever he wanted
anything that he thought needed the assistance of
a European officer, and, on the rare occasions when
he travelled outside his own dominions, Craddock
used to go with him as guide, interpreter, and shield.
The King was one with whom things had gone
badly until the appearance of the white man in his
country. His character had not endeared him to
the people, who should have been his subjects, but
were, almost without exception, his enemies ; and
the consequence was that when he ought to have

l6l L

MALAY SKETCHES

been elected to a high office, and later, when his
birth entitled him to be nominated Sultan, his
claims were ignored in favour of junior men. Up
to the age of fifty or more he had passed his life
in poverty, and even in want, and often in open
resistance to such authority as existed. These
strained relations with his own people made him
loyal to the British, and as his claims were indis-
putable, and the opportunity came when they might
be satisfied, he at last attained to the position
which was his by right.

I will try to draw the man as he was at this
time. Tall for a Malay, rather fair, with grey hair
and a white moustache ; very broad-shouldered and
thick-set, a powerful figure, though now inclined
to over-stoutness ; a firm, upright carriage ; in his
face an exceeding hauteur, and in his manner
something more than this — the plain evidence of
a masterful and overbearing disposition. The
strength of mind, the obstinacy of character,
were writ large in both face and figure ; while
an imperious manner was accentuated by a loud
voice and impatient speech, caused to some ex-
tent by the difficulty of understanding one whose
teeth were few, and whose tongue was plainly

over -large.

162

THE KING'S WAY

The King affected gay colours, and his appear-
ance, when he took his walks abroad, was striking,
not to say remarkable. A tartan silk jacket, com-
bining many violent colours and fastened at the
neck only, clothed his body ; this jacket had a high
collar which enclosed the wearer's bull-neck and
reached to the ears. The nether garment was a
pair of very wide and loose white silk trousers
fastened by many yards of a scarlet silk waist-
cloth. These trousers reached a point low down on
the calf of the leg, leaving a fair expanse of
uncovered limb between them and the sky-blue
canvas shoes which encased the stockingless feet.
On his head, tilted rakishly over one ear, the King
wore a wonderful round bright yellow cap, flat on
the top with Btiff sides, on which were sewn, in
Arabic characters of black cloth, a verse from the
Koran.

In his waist-cloth the King usually carried a short
knife in a polished wooden sheath, and when walk-
ing he leant upon a spear or long bamboo stick.
Both hands and feet were white with an unnatural
and mottled whiteness, caused. His Highness
averred, by eating the flesh of the white buffalo,
and, in walking, the toes were turned out to such
an extent as to give a decided waddle.

163

MALAY SKETCHES

For people with whom loyalty to their rajas is
an article of faith, the dislike in which the King was
held by them was extraordinary. It is charitable
to suppose that early disappointment had embittered
his life, for he possessed good qualities. He was
undeniably intelligent, and had a wider knowledge of
his country and its ancient customs than any other
man in it. He knew his own mind, was deter-
mined to obstinacy, and asked counsel of few. He
was a keen sportsman, courageous, and, having
sought the friendship of the British, never wavered
in his loyalty. If it be said that in this he con-
sulted his own interest and knew his unpopularity
with his own people, his consistency and good
faith were still a merit. On the other hand, his
defects and vices were numerous, and just those
likely to earn him the dislike of Malays. He was
incredibly mean, he was overbearing to cruelty,
rapaciously grasping, jealous of the good fortune of
any of his subjects, selfish, difficult of access, and
unconcerned with the misfortunes of others ; vin-
dictive to those who offended him or opposed his
wishes, a gambler who nearly always contrived to
win, and in matters where the other sex were con-
cerned, decidedly unreliable. He was not an opium-
smoker, nor was he in any sense a religious man,

164

THE KING'S WAY

and, though the " Defender of the Faith " in his own
country, he observed none of its outward forms. It
cannot, therefore, be said that he was in good odour
with the priesthood and yet one of his firmest friends
— for a time — was the priest of the neighbouring vil-
lage who, whenever a witness was needed to support
the King in any action or statement, was ready both
to vouch to supposed facts and prove his master's
case by the authority of Muhammadan writings.

The constant appeal to the priest for justification
and the persistence with which this man found
excellent reasons for the King's peculiar methods
was a little discouraging ; but there came an
estrangement. The King, accompanied by the
priest and others, visited a neighbouring British
possession, stayed there some days, and at the
moment of his return was faced by a serious
indignity. It appeared that someone in this place
who did not understand the King's peculiarities had,
or thought he had, sold to His Highness a tricycle
and a musical-box for which he could not obtain
payment, and, having ascertained that the King was
going and did not care about the things, this mis-
guided individual somehow obtained a summons
against His Highness to appear before a local
tribunal and answer to the plaint.

165

MALAY SKETCHES

The King, being informed, expressed his extreme
unconcern, and said that, as it was the priest's busi-
ness and his only, he could settle it. The priest
raised the amount necessary to meet the bill, and
the party returned to their own State with the
musical-box and tricycle.

Then "a private pique arose" between King and
Priest as to who should finally pay for these play-
things. For the first time these firm friends
appeared in opposition to each other, and both
parties gave their respective versions of the trans-
action before a highly edified and delighted Council
of Arbitration.

First the King : He knew nothing of any musical-
box, did not like musical-boxes, had no ear for
music, and did not understand the discordant
noises made by these inventions of the white man.
He had seen a thing of the kind in his house, had
heard it, had even himself made it play its absurd
tunes, did not enjoy it in the least, and had done it
without thinking, but knew it would please the priest
as he had bought the thing, and he supposed he
would not have done so unless he wanted to have
it played.

As for the tricycle, how in the name of misfortune
could a tricycle concern him ? The bare idea of a

i66

THE KING'S WAY

man of his age and figure riding a tric3'cle was
enough to make a dog bark (and here His Highness
laughed consumedly at the spectacle he had con-
jured up). Had anyone ever seen him ride a
tricycle ? Where was he going to ride it ? Was
it on the sandy shore of the river where he lived ?
and if not there, then where ? He understood that
tricycles would neither go through the jungle nor
across padi fields, and, if he were to take " the
creature " out shooting, he supposed it would not
greatly help him to get a shot at a bison or a
rhinoceros. Did anyone imagine he was going to
carry letters ? that he was going to join the Post
Office ? If the imputation were not so stupid he
could almost be angry with the priest, a man whom
he had heard over and over again say that the one
thing he desired was a tricycle, something on which
he could take exercise, and at the same time get
about his district. He had even asked him, the
King, to lend him money to buy the machine, but
he had no money to lend and tried to dissuade the
man because he thought that in his inexperience he
might fall and hurt himself. Malays did not under-
stand things that ran on three wheels without ever
a horse or a bullock, or even a buffalo to pull them.

He saw the tricycle lying under his house, and he

167

MALAY SKETCHES

heard the priest haggling with someone about the
price, but he would take any oath that the priest or
anyone else could devise that he had never set eyes
on the man who sold the thing. All he knew was
that he had been insulted by the issue of a sum-
mons because of the priest's extravagant tastes,
and, while any one who liked might pay, it would not
be he.

Then the Priest :

Long before they left the State, His Highness
told him that when they made this visit it was his
desire to purchase a musical-box (in the sweet
strains of which his soul delighted) and a tricycle,
the beautiful three-wheeled silent carriage which
cost little to start with and nothing to keep, wanted
no horses, nor harness, nor expensive and imperti-
nent horse-keepers, which never shied at bullock-
carts or ran away from elephants, and which lasted
through the lives of many beasts. Therefore, he,
the priest, the obedient slave of the King, had
sought the sweet-voiced box and the stomachless
carriage, and after much difficulty he had found
them. By the express order of the King the priest
had bidden the owners bring them to the house in
which the King was lodging, and there the whole
details of the two transactions were arranged.

i68

THE KING'S WAY

The people who trafficked in these goods could not
be taken into the presence of his master, and, in-
deed, the King had expressly declined to see them
(was not the King all-wise ?), but they had been
brought into a room of the house across which
hung a heavy curtain, and while he, the priest, dis-
cussed the terms with the seller on one side, the
King sat on the other, and not only heard all that
was said, but in the end, when the priest went
behind the curtain to consult his royal master, had
expressed his entire approval of the price, only
stipulating that he should first hear the box sing
and ride the stomachless horse. This he had
arranged with some little difficulty, because the
sellers were needy men and wanted the money ;
moreover, they seemed to distrust his master, the
King, for some reason which he could not fathom.
But he arranged that the singing-box and the seat
on three wheels should stay with his master for four
days, and that then they should be returned or paid
for ; those were the orders of the King. So they
stayed, and the King turned the handle of the box
and made it sing, or, more often, from prayer-time
to prayer-time he, the priest, had to turn the handle
and make music, and the King drank in the sound

and was glad. As for the three wheels, they lay

169

MALAY SKETCHES

under the house, and the King looked upon the
machine and said it was good and cheap and would
eat nothing.

These are the words of the Priest : "The four
days went by and the men came to be paid, and I
told my master, but he seemed to be busy with
other things, and I sent them away to come again
the next day. In this way the time passed till the
day for our departure, and I knew the men who
owned the box and the carriage were angry, but I
saw my master wanted the things. When at last
the trouble came, and the King said it was not his
business but mine, I told the men they could take
the box and the carriage back because they did not
please the King, but they would not, and I was
afraid lest shame should come on my master, and I
went out and borrowed the money and paid it.
Could I, who am a priest, play with a box that sings
not of God nor the Prophet ? Can I, who am a poor
man, who only live to pray and to preach, to exhort
the living and to bury the dead, can I ride on the
stomachless horse with three wheels, I whose duty
is in the mosque and by the grave ? My master
the King knows that in this thing as in others I
have but obeyed the voice of my master."

So Church and State quarrelled, and the priest
170

THE KING'S WAY

found no more favour in the sight of the King.
But there were many who said :

^'S^pMi Nasruan dengan Bahtek
Bir-sdtu rangkesa
Ber-cMrei jddi sentosaP

"They are like Raja Nasruan and his minister
Bahtek ; their union brought ruin, their divorce
solace." Indeed, it was the opportunity of the
proverb-monger, and such sayings as, " It is some-
times one's own forefinger which pokes one in the
eye," and, " While you carry the Raja's business on
your head, don't forget to keep your own under
your arm," were heard on all sides.

The King had a clerk who had served him faith-
fully for twenty years or more. The clerk had a
wife, and the King's eye fell upon her approvingly;
so the King sent the clerk into a far country to
chase a wild bird, and bestowed his favour upon the
wife who remained under his care. The King also
bestowed upon the lady sundry jewels of price,
things that please poor heathen women with hardly
any moral character and no education to speak of.

By-and-by the King got tired of the woman, as <
unprincipled Eastern kings will do, and he sought
about for some means, not to rid himself of her,

171

MALAY SKETCHES

that was simple enough, but to get back his gifts
(for they would serve again as they had done
already) and at the same time to throw a little dust
in the eyes of the clerk, who was known to be on
his way back. Accordingly, a youth of no account
was arrested by the King's people, and charged with
carrying on a liaison with the lady during the
absence of her husband. The crime was, of course,
aggravated by the fact that she was under the
special protection of the King ! The clear proof of
guilt was the alleged possession by the woman of a
sarong* belonging to the man.

This charge was sufficient ground for the display
of royal displeasure, and procured the restitution of
the jewels, but it failed to convince anyone that the
man accused by the King had done any wrong, and,
in spite of the strenuous exertions of His Highness
to get the man banished from the country, nothing
was done to him. The plan, therefore, miscarried
to some extent, and when the clerk returned it is
probable that he learnt the facts, for he declined to
further serve the King, and even said bluntly things
about his late master that were not altogether loyal.

I have elsewhere stated that Malays try to wipe

♦ The Sarong is the Malay national garment, a sort of skirt,
usually in tartan, worn by men and women alike.

172

THE KING'S WAY

out, what in their uncivilised minds they count as
dishonour, in a savage and bloodthirsty fashion, but
this does not apply when the offender is a raja and
the injured man of lesser rank. The person of a
raja is sacred to a Malay, and if he feels that he
has been disgraced beyond bearing, the result will
probably be, sooner or later, an access of blind fury
resulting in a case of amok.

The King had as many wives as the Muhammadan
law permitted, and, as his country possessed the
infinite blessing of a civil list which limited his own
income, he was always anxious that whenever he
took to himself a new wife she should receive an
allowance from the State. His Highness made a
special point of this grant to the ladies, because he
said the knowledge that if they divorced him or
compelled him to divorce them they would lose the
allowance, had an excellent effect on their behaviour.
He had succeeded in securing allowances for several
wives, when a new lady, named Raja Sarefa, con-
sented to share the royal smiles, and the King
immediately applied on her behalf for the usual
civil list. The application, however, was not suc-
cessful, though several times renewed.

Then the King fell ill of some fell disease that
no native medicine-man could diagnose, and the

173

MALAY SKETCHES

evil spirit, with which he seemed to be troubled,
had its will of him, so that all men said the King
must die.

During an interval of temporary return to con-
sciousness, when for a few hours the patient
seemed to have a rest from the attacks of the
tormentor, he ordered that a young nephew should
be sent for, also a divorced wife of his own, and a
priest. Then, against the earnest wishes of both
parties, he insisted upon these young people being
married in his presence, and shortly after relapsed
into his former state.

After weeks of torment, when every day seemed
certain to be his last, the iron constitution prevailed,
and the King recovered. In the first days of his
convalescence I went to see him, and found him
lying on his bed, in his eyes the light of conscious-
ness and intelligence, and sitting by him the wife,
Raja Sarefa.

He was weak, spoke slowly and in a small voice,
but said that by God's grace he only wanted time
to regain his strength. After expressing my thank-
fulness at seeing him so well on the way to
recovery, I said that I had often been over to see
him when he was ill, and that the Raja Sarefa had
tended him with extraordinary devotion, never

174

THE KING'S WAY

seeming to leave his bedside. At once he said,
" You noticed that, did you ? " I replied that I had
been very much struck by her care of him, "I was
blind," he said ; "I do not know what happened,
but I am very glad you remarked how carefully
Sarefa nursed me, and that you have mentioned it,
for now you will recognise that she ought to have
an allowance."

In the presence of the lady, even though she did
not raise her eyes from the floor, it was difficult not
to recognise that, if curses come home to roost,
blessings sometimes go astray.

After a respite of eighteen months, the evil spirit
again took possession of the King, and this time
made short work of him.

The scientific explanation, deriding the evil-spirit
theory, said that a tumour on the brain, caused by
no matter what, accounted for the first attack, and
that as sometimes, but rarely, happens, the growth
was for a time arrested, the tumour contracted, and
the pressure on the brain was removed. But the
mischief was there, and a sudden rapid development
of the disease brought on a return of the symptoms,
a violent but hopeless struggle, and death.

It is the custom in the country of which I now
write to, in a manner, canonise its Sultans. At the

175

MALAY SKETCHES

burial, when the moment arrives for carrying the
body to the place of sepulture, the dead man is
given a new name, by which he is ever afterwards
known. That name is chosen with some reference
to his earthly Hfe. Thus, there is Al-merhum or
Merhum Pasir Panjang (that is, "The Sultan who
died at Pasir Panjang"), Merhum Kahar- Allah
(" The late Sultan to whom God gave strength "),
and so on.

When this King was buried, the name conferred
upon him was Merhum Rafir- Allah, and the meaning
is, " May God pardon him."

Note. — Since writing the above, I have read the
following in the Home News :

" In the Lord Mayor's Court on Oct. 14, before

the Assistant Judge and a jury, the case of * Fischer

V. Brown' was concluded. This (says the Times)

was an action brought by Fischer and Co., a firm

of Bombay merchants, to recover from Messrs.

Brown, Saville, and Co., who carry on business in

this country, the sum of £7Z, money paid by the

plaintiffs to the defendants, for which they had

received no consideration. It appeared that in July,

1892, the plaintiffs received an order for a special

perambulator, which was to be given to His Highness

176

THE KING'S WAY

Tikah Sahib, Rajah of Patalia, as a birthday present
by his secretary, Sham Shir Sing. The perambu-
lator was to be painted dark green and old gold,
which were the colours of the Rajah, and there was
to be a good strong musical-box under the seat, and
also an automatic arrangement by which the per-
ambulator, on being wound up, would run by itself.
This order was given to the defendants by the
plaintiffs on July 4, and the perambulator was to
be ready for shipment to Bombay by Aug. 15, in
order that it should reach the Rajah by Oct. i,
which was the date of his birthday. The defendants
did not finish the work in time, and the Rajah's
birthday had passed before the present arrived, and
then the secretary refused to take it, and it had to
be sent back. In the meantime the defendants had
drawn a bill upon the plaintiffs for the price of the
perambulator, and this the plaintiffs had accepted
and had paid the money, which they were now
suing to recover. For the defence it was stated
that the cause of the delay in delivering the per-
ambulator was Mr. F. Fischer's interference. The
wheels and springs of the perambulator, it had
been agreed, should be electro-plated, but when
Mr. Fischer heard this he said it would not suit the

Rajah, and they must be gilded. He was told this

177 M

MALAY SKETCHES

could not be done in time, and it was implied by
the orders he gave (which were that the perambu-
lator should have elephant- headed handles and
papier-mache figures of elephants and peacocks)
that a further allowance of time would be given.
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiffs for the
amount claimed."

^78

XVI
A MALAY ROMANCE

Every heart in which heaven has set
the lamp of love, whether that heart
inclines to Mosque or Synagogue, if
its name be written in the Book of
Love it is freed from the fear of Hell,
and the hope of Paradise

Justin McCarthy's Omar
Khayyam

A QUARTER of a century ago there lived on
the bank of a broad river, just at the point
where stream meets tide, a Malay Raja and his
youthful wife. She has been dead for twenty
years, but in this land of brief regrets her memory
is still green, the fame of her wit and beauty has
become a byword with the people.

She was a girl of royal descent ; her name. Raja
Maimunah. Exceeding fair, for a Malay, slight but
graceful in figure, with very small hands and feet,
an oval face and splendid eyes, glistening blue-
white wells in which floated, lotus-like, the dark
iris, flashing or wooing in changeful expression

179

MALAY SKETCHES

from wide-open or half-closed lids deeply shaded by
long black lashes. Her nose was small, straight,
and well cut, and the curved smiling lips disclosed
teeth of perfect shape and singular whiteness. In
either cheek a dimple, lesong matt, as the Malays
call it, the dimple which so fascinates the beholder
that it will lure him even unto death. Her jet-
black hair, fringing the forehead in an oval frame,
was drawn straight back over the well-shaped head
and fastened in a simple knot with four ruby-studded
hairpins ; the heads firmly fixed against one side of
the coil, while the golden points protruded for an
inch or more beyond the other.

Her dress was that worn by all ladies of rank,
and usually consisted of a silk skirt of softly-
blended colours reaching to the ankles and fastened
at the waist by a belt with a large golden buckle.
The only other garment was a satin jacket of some
dark colour on which were stitched cunningly-
wrought designs of beaten gold. This jacket had
a tight collar, and the close-fitting sleeves were
fastened by a long row of jewelled buttons reaching
almost from wrist to elbow ; it was loose at the
waist and just covered the belt. Tiny heelless
shoes, embroidered with gold and silver thread,
completed the attire.

1 80

A MALAY ROMANCE

When out of doors, the Raja Maimunah would
wear a veil of darkest blue, black or white gossamer
embroidered with very narrow gold ribbon, a most
becoming head-dress, the product of Arabian skill.
Over this, again, was held coquettishly, to conceal
the face from male eyes, a scarf of rich Malay-red
silk, heavy with interwoven threads of gold, while
one or two more silken sarongs of varying colour
and richness of material were worn over the under-
skirt.

Jewels depend upon the wealth and station of
the wearer, but Maimunah's jacket was fastened
with buttons that matched the hairpins. She was
seldom seen without diamond solitaires in the ears
and a number of diamond rings on her fingers,
while on State occasions she wore heavy gold
bangles on her wrists and one or more gold neck-
laces.

I cannot draw an equally attractive picture of

Raja Iskander, the husband of this lady. He was

about thirty years of age, while she was one-and-

twenty. He was short and spare for a Malay, and

his distinguishing features were a large ugly mouth

with a downward turn at the corners and an almost

perpetual expression of extreme discontent.

His vanity was inordinate, his extravagance
i8i

MALAY SKETCHES

continually led him into difficulty, and he smoked
opium to excess and to the neglect of all his duties
and his interests ; moreover, he lacked courage, and
sought counsel from men of no standing, whose only
thought was their own profit.

A Malay Raja has many wives. He begins
early and rings the changes often, until (especially
if he have pretensions to become ultimately the
ruler of his country, as was the case with Iskander)
his relatives decide that he should marry a lady
of his own rank. Then, if he is young, her
people usually insist that any wife he has must
be divorced, and, that done, the marriage takes
place.

At the time of which I write, Raja Iskander had
been married to Maimunah for about three years ;
she was the mother of two children, but her husband
thought he had good reason to doubt her fidelity,
and he was palpably neglecting her for a concubine.
That he should have other wives or concubines was
of course only what she had been educated to
expect, and, in acting on his right, Raja Iskander
was simply following the practice of his ancestors
and the custom of the country. The Muhammadan
law is nevertheless extremely strict in its injunctions
that all wives are to be treated with equal considera-

A MALAY ROMANCE

tion, and, while their claims are clear, the concubine
has none. To neglect a wife for a concubine is a
dire offence to Malay women, and the slight is enor-
mously exaggerated when the wife is of high birth,
and the favourite only a woman of the people.

The house where Raja Iskander then lived was
within a hundred feet of the bank of the stream, an
unattractive spot fifty miles from the mouth of the
river, but yet not far enough to escape the tidal
influence and the unlovely accompaniments of turbid
water, muddy banks, and flat surroundings. Raja
Iskander passed a good deal of his time in boats,
the lazy life suited him and his habits, and, instead
of having to provide a house for each of the ladies
in his harem, he supplied a boat. That was much
more economical, and economy was an object, for,
like many people with extravagant tastes, his
extravagance was purely selfish.

The boats lay in the river in front of the house,
and as Raja Iskander's presence was the excuse for
a rendezvous of all the gamblers, cock-fighters, and
opium-smokers of the neighbourhood, a good many
boats besides his own were always in attendance.

Amongst the visitors attracted to this spot at this
time was a man called Raja Sleman, a stranger from
a neighbouring State.

183

MALAY SKETCHES

It might have been the cock-fighting or the
gambling always to be found in the society of Raja
Iskander that drew Raja Sleman to the place. It
might also have been the congenial society of
another opium-smoker, or possibly the fame of Raja
Maimunah's attractions. Whatever the lodestone,
Raja Sleman appeared with two boats and about
fifteen followers, and, once arrived, he elected to
lemain.

Raja Iskander passed most of his time on the
water, but Maimunah lived in the house on shore.
A very modest dwelling it was ; a building of mat
sides and thatched roof raised from the damp and
muddy earth on wooden piles, a flight of steps led
into the front of the house and a ladder served for
exit at the back. The interior accommodation con-
sisted of a closed-in verandah, one large room, and
a kitchen tacked on behind.

The edges of the muddy river were fringed by the
nipah palm, which is never seen beyond tidal influ-
ences ; the banks were covered by rank grasses,
the country was flat and desolate, the jungle insig-
nificant, and in the heat of the day the oppression
of steaming mud and shelterless plain was so great
that sleep seemed to force itself on insect, reptile,

and every living thing.

184

A MALAY ROMANCE

At night the myriads of fireflies sparkling in the
riverside bushes, their twinkling lights reflected in
the water, gave some relief to tired eyes ; but the
gain in the change of temperature and scene was
hardly appreciated when the mosquitoes and sand-
flies began their merciless attacks.

Under such circumstances and amidst such
surroundings, Raja Sleman came into the life of
Maimunah.

He was about the same age as Raja Iskander,
but in other respects there was a striking difference
between the two men. Sleman was a man of
pleasing features, extremely quiet, and of courtly
manners ; the casual observer would probably fail
to realise that this outward appearance concealed a
firm determination and a dauntless courage. Of
worldly goods he had little enough, and small
prospect of multiplying them, but in rank he was
almost, if not quite, the equal of Raja Iskander.

One day as Sleman sat in his boat he saw
MaimGnah and her maidens come down to the river
to bathe. In his country he had never beheld a
woman as beautiful as this one, and he fell hope-
lessly in love with Iskander's wife. Then each day
he watched for her, and never failed, morning and
evening, to follow her with his eyes for the few

185

MALAY SKETCHES

moments when she slowly wended her way from
house to river and back again.

Meanwhile, Maimunah, suffering from the spretce
injuria formce and chafing under the monotony of
existence, had heard all about the arrival of Sleman
and readily listened to the tnles of his valorous
deeds. Soon she began to look for him, and as he
was ever watching for her coming it was not long
before their eyes met. He pleased her, and, when
she saw in his face the admiration he had no desire
to conceal, she would drop the covering that hid all
but her eyes, and what he then beheld only increased
his passion.

Malay ladies are adepts in speaking the language
of the eyes, the chances of verbal speech are but
few, and so carefully is this art cultivated, so
thoroughly understood, that principals and witnesses
never fail to rightly interpret the signs.

Sleman and Maimunah had already mutually
declared themselves without the exchange of a
syllable, and it was with perfect confidence that
Sleman sought a closer intimacy by the friendly aid
of a messenger.

Iskander was too much engaged with his opium

and his latest favourite, too generally satisfied with

himself, to notice what was going on. Had he

i86

A MALAY ROMANCE

realised the state of affairs he would not have been
indifferent to the disgrace that must be his, should
his wife's liaison become public property. It is un-
likely that he had any suspicion of Sleman, but, if
he had, it would never occur to him that any man
would have the courage to do more than carry on a
clandestine intrigue, and of that he suspected Mai-
munah had already been guilty. Least of all would
it seem possible for a foreigner supported by a
dozen followers to brave the power and resentment
of well nigh the greatest chief of a powerful State.

In this, however, he was misled by the suave
manners of the quiet stranger.

Sleman's suit prospered, and he was not satisfied
to continue indefinitely filling the role of false friend
to Iskander and fearful lover to his wife. However
much he despised the man, however easily he found
he could profit by Iskander's indifference, he meant
to play a bolder game and make Maimunah his own
at all hazards if she were prepared to face the risk.

Her courage was equal to his own (for failure
meant probably death to her as to him), and one
night, while Iskander lay in his boat dreaming over
his opium-pipe, the stranger was carrying off his
royal spouse within earshot, almost from under his
very eyes.

187

MALAY SKETCHES

Once in Sleman's boat, and the bark had been
silently unmoored and allowed to drift out of sight
and hearing, little time was lost in getting out the
oars and pulling with might and main down river
towards the coast.

All night long the rowers bent to their work,
but when morning broke and less than half the
distance to the river's mouth had been traversed,
Sleman ordered the men to pull in to the bank,
fasten up the boat and rest.

It seemed a foolhardy proceeding to waste the pre-
cious time, for with the dawn the elopement would be
discovered and Iskander would be in pursuit before
the sun had cleared the tops of the jungle trees.

Raja Sleman's quiet serenity was not disturbed
by anticipations of capture or fear of the outraged
husband's fury. On the contrary, he procured a
small boat and a messenger, and he indited a letter
to Raja Iskander, informing him he had carried
away the Raja Maimunah, but that he had not
gone far, having only reached the place he named.
He added that he would wait there for one night
and one day against the coming of any who might
wish to try and take the lady from him, and that
after that time he should continue his journey to
the coast and thence to his own country.

i8S

A MALAY ROMANCE

Raja Iskander received this missive whilst yet
undecided what course to take in the untoward
disaster that had befallen him. The letter did not
greatly help him to arrive at a decision, and he was
still discussing with his chiefs who should have
the honour of pursuing and punishing the abductor
when the twenty-four hours expired.

Neither Iskander nor any of his people ever
started on that quest, and Raja Sleman carried
Maimunah in safety to his own country.

The disconsolate husband, whose ideas were in
accord with a civilisation beyond the education or
sympathetic comprehension of his subjects, decided
to divorce his faithless wife and leave her lover to
marriage and the punishment of his own con-
science. It is a painful fact that this conduct
earned him not the admiration but the contempt
of his people.

Iskander had one revenge : he discovered amongst
Maimunah's women two who had carried messages
between the lovers. One was a woman of twenty-
five, the other a girl of fourteen, and both were in-
continently strangled.

As for Sleman and Maimunah, they were duly
married, and she bore him a daughter in all respects
like her mother, though not, the old people say, her

189

MALAY SKETCHES

peer in beauty. The laudator fcjuporis acli is a
common and flourishing plant in Malaya.

In the two children born before the elopement, it
is difficult to trace any resemblance to their mother.

Maimunah died years and years ago, the victim
of a malignant disease ; but Sleman still lives in his
own country, his hair is getting grey, but otherwise
he shows few signs of age. Time has only inten-
sified the courteous bearing and quiet repose of
manner which seem to fitly accompany his gentle
winning voice ; no one would suspect that this
man, almost single-handed, carried off the chief
spouse of an Oriental prince, and then defied the
whole country to take her from him.

There are no local bards to record Sleman's story
in deathless song, and the people are so impregnated
with vice that they seek for no excuses to palliate
his conduct, and have no condemnation for this
ruthless destroyer of Iskander's happy home. But
they are Muhammadans, and seldom allow them-
selves the luxury of burning moral convictions. I
have never seen a missionary proselytising amongst
the Malays, but many years ago I was told that a
Christian missionary came to Malaya full of zeal
and confident of success. He began with a man
who seemed an earnest, truthful person, anxious to

190

A MALAY ROMANCE

learn, a promising subject. The missionary told
him the story of the Immaculate Conception. The
Malay listened to the end, showing great interest in
the miraculous narrative of the Blessed Virgin ; then
he said, "If that had happened to my wife, I should
have killed her."

191

XVII
MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

There are more things in heaven and

earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
Hamlet

MALAY superstitions are the survival of a time
antecedent to the advent of the gospel of
Islam, and their strong hold on the people is only
another proof of the conservative tendencies of the
race. What was the Faith of Malaya seven hundred
years ago it is hard to say, but there is a certain
amount of evidence to lead to the belief that it w^as
a form of Brahmanism and that no doubt had suc-
ceeded the original Spirit Worship.

I do not propose to attempt to enumerate all the
various forms of superstition, their name is legion,
but only to describe a few that are both curious and
interesting.

I have already referred to what is known as ber-

hanin, the practice of a kind of witchcraft for the

192

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

healing of the sick ; it reminds one of " casting out
devils in the name of Beelzebub the Prince of the
devils " — and I might here give some of the incan-
tations commonly spoken by the exorcist, but one
will suffice. Here is the translation of a most
potent exorcism believed to be efficacious against
the malevolent attacks of a thousand lesser
demons :

Heigh ! thou Spirit whose name is Jin Pari of
the Jin Aruah ; Rabiah Jamil was thy mother's,
Imam Jamil thy father's name ; thou art the grand-
child of Hakim Baisuri, the great-grandchild of
Malim of the Forest. Thou Spirit of the path
Lorin, Spirit of the rising ground Sri Permatang,
Spirit of the ant-hill known as " Piebald Horse."
Heigh ! you white ants Sekutanai, why do you,
Sekutapa, flying up stream make me think you are
on your way down, and flying down stream give the
impression that you are going to the interior ?

I know your origin, spawn of Hell's spouting
flame ; do not any longer torment this person.

If you disobey, I will curse you by the name of
the Most High, saying, " By the Grace of God, by
the Grace of God, by the Grace of God."

The final threat to drive out the demon by using
the name of the Almighty is curious as showing

193 N

MALAY SKETCHES

how the exorcist seeks by a judicious blending of
tradition with his latter-day Faith to get the better
of the tormentor.

A very widespread superstition is that certain
persons have familiar spirits who will, at the
instance of their owners, enter into and plague any
one whom it may be desired to injure. These evil
spirits are known as Bdjang, Polong, P^lsit, and
Langsiiior, the last being a female spirit. They are
either inherited or acquired by the practice of witch-
craft, and the way in which their possession is
brought home to any member of the community is
as little reasonable as the " proof" of the exercise
of similar powers in the Western witch not so many
centuries ago.

Some one in a village falls ill of a complaint, the

symptoms of which are unusual ; there may be

convulsions, unconsciousness, or delirium, possibly

for some days together or with intervals between

the attacks. The relatives will call in a native

doctor, and at her (she is usually an ancient female)

suggestion, or without it, an impression will arise

that the patient is the victim of a bdjang. Such an

impression quickly develops into certainty and any

trifle will suggest the owner of the evil spirit. One

method of verifying this suspicion is to wait till the

194

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

patient is in a state of delirium and then to question
him or her as to who is the author of the trouble.
This should be done by some independent person of
authority who is supposed to be able to ascertain
the truth.

A further and convincing proof is then to call in
a " Pawang" skilled in dealing with wizards (in
Malay countries they are usually men), and if he
knows his business his power is such that he will
place the sorcerer in one room, and, while he in
another scrapes an iron vessel with a razor, the
culprit's hair will fall off as though the razor had
been applied to his head instead of to the vessel !
That is supposing he is the culprit ; if not, of
course he will pass through the ordeal without
damage.

I have been assured that the shaving process is
so efficacious that, as the vessel represents the head
of the person standing his trial, wherever it is
scraped, the wizard's hair will fall off in a corre-
sponding spot. It might be supposed that under
these circumstances the accused is reasonably safe.
but this test of guilt is not always employed.
What more commonly happens is that when several
cases of unexplained sickness have occurred in a
village, with possibly one or two deaths, the people

195

MALAY SKETCHES

of the place lodge a formal complaint against the
supposed author of these ills and desire that he be
punished.

Before the advent of British influence it was the
practice to kill the wizard or witch whose guilt had
been established to Malay satisfaction, and such
executions were carried out not very many years
ago.

I remember a case in Perak less than ten years
ago when the people of an up-river village accused
a man of keeping a bdjang, and the present Sultan,
who was then the principal Malay Judge in the
State, told them he would severely punish the
bdjang if they would produce it. They went away
hardly satisfied and shortly after made a united
representation to the effect that if the person sus-
pected were allowed to remain in their midst they
would kill him. Before anything could be done
they put him, his family, and effects on a raft and
started them down the river. On their arrival at
Kuala Kangsar the man was given an isolated hut
to live in, but not long afterwards he disappeared.

The hereditary bdjang comes like other evils, the
unsought heritage of a dissolute ancestry, but the
acquired bdjang is usually obtained from the newly-
buried body of a stillborn child, which is supposed

196

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

to be the abiding-place of a familiar spirit until
lured therefrom by the solicitations of someone
who, at dead of night, stands over the grave and
by potent incantations persuades the bdjang to come
forth.

Polong and Pelsit are but other names for Bdjafig,
the latter is chiefly used in the State of Kedah
where it is considered rather chic to have a pelsit.
A Kedah lady the other day, eulogising the advant-
ages of possessing a familiar spirit (she said that
amongst other things it gave her absolute control
over her husband and the power of annoying people
who offended her), thus described the method of
securing this useful ally :

" You go out," she said, " on the night before

the full moon and stand with your back to the moon

and your face to an ant-hill so that your shadow

falls on the ant-hill. Then you recite cert2im j'ampi

(incantations), and bending forward try to embrace

your shadow. If you fail try again several times,

repeating more incantations. If not successful go

the next night and make a further effort, and the

night after if necessary — three nights in all. If

you cannot then catch your shadow, wait till the

same day on the following month and renew the

attempt. Sooner or later you will succeed, and,

197

MALAY SKETCHES

as you stand there in the brilliance of the moonlight,
you will see that you have drawn your shadow into
yourself, and your body will never again cast a
shade. Go home and in the night, whether sleeping
or waking, the form of a child will appear before
you and put out its tongue ; that seize and it will
remain while the rest of the child disappears. In
a little while the tongue will turn into something
that breathes, a small animal, reptile or insect, and
when you see the creature has life put it in a bottle
and the pehit is yours."

It sounds easy enough, and one is not surprised
to hear that everyone in Kedah, who is anybody,
keeps a pelsit.

Langsiiiory the female familiar, differs hardly at
all from the bdjang except that she is a little more
baneful, and, when under the control of a man, he
sometimes becomes the victim of her attractions,
and she will even bear him elfin children.

It is all very well for the Kedah ladies to sacrifice
their shadows to obtain possession of a pelsit, leaders
of society must be in the fashion at any cost ; but
there are plenty of people living in Perak who have
seen more than one ancient Malay dame taken out
into the river, and, despite her protestations, her
tears and entreaties, have watched her, with hands

Z98

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

and feet tied, put into the water and slowly pushed
down out of sight by means of a long pole with a
fork at one end which fitted on to her neck. Those
who witnessed these executions have no doubt of
the justice of the punishment, and not uncommonly
add that after two or three examples had been made
there would alwa3's ensue a period of rest from the
torments of the bdjang. I have also been assured
that the bdjang, in the shape of a lizard, has been
seen to issue from the drowning person's nose.
That statement, no doubt, is made on the authority
of those who condemned and executed the victim.

The following legend gives the Malay conception
of the origin of all Jin, hanfu, bdjang, and other
spirits.

The Creator determined to make Man, and for
that purpose He took some clay from the earth and
fashioned it into the figure of a man. Then He
took the Spirit of Life to endue this body with
vitality and placed the spirit on the head of the
figure. But the spirit was strong, and the body,
being only clay, could not hold it and was reft in
pieces and scattered into the air. Those fragments
of the first great Failure are the spirits of earth and
sea and air.

The Creator then formed another clay figure, but
199

MALAY SKETCHES

into this one He wrought some iron, so that when
it received the vital spark it withstood the strain
and became Man. That man was Adam, and the
iron that is in the constitution of his descendants
has stood them in good stead. When they lose it,
they become of little more account than their proto-
type the first failure.

Another article of almost universal belief is that
the people of a small State in Sumatra called
Korinchi have the power of assuming at will the
form of a tiger, and in that disguise they wreak
vengeance on those they wish to injure. Not
every Korinchi man can do this, but still the gift
of this strange power of metamorphosis is pretty
well confined to the people of the small Sumatran
State. At night when respectable members of
society should be in bed, the Korinchi man slips
down from his hut, and, assuming the form of a
tiger, goes about " seeking whom he may devour."

I have heard of four Korinchi men arriving in a
district of Perak, and that night a number of fowls
were taken by a tiger. The strangers left and
went further up country, and shortly after only
three of them returned and stated that a tiger had
just been killed, and they begged the local headman
to bury it 1

2CX)

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

On another occasion some Korinchi men appeared
and sought hospitahty in a Malay house, and there
also the fowls disappeared in the night, and there
were unmistakable traces of the visit of a tiger, but
the next day one of the visitors fell sick, and shortly
after vomited chicken-feathers !

It is only fair to say that the Korinchi people
strenuously deny the tendencies and the power
ascribed to them, but aver that they properly belong
to the inhabitants of a district called Chenaku in
the interior of the Korinchi country. Even there,
however, it is only those who are practised in the
elemu seht'r, the occult arts who are thus capable
of transforming themselves into tigers, and the
Korinchi people profess themselves afraid to enter
the Chenaku district.

It was my misfortune some years ago to be
robbed of some valuable property, and several
Malay friends strongly advised me to take the
advice of an astrologer or other learned person who
(so they said) would be able to give the name of
the thief, and probably recover most of the stolen
things. I fear that I had no great faith in this i
method of detection, but I was anxious to see what !
could be done, for the East is a curious place, and I
no one with an inquiring mind can have lived

MALAY SKETCHES

in it long without seeing phenomena that are not
always explained by modern text- books on Natural
Philosophy.

I was first introduced to an Arab of very remark-
able appearance. He was about fifty years old, tall,
with pleasant features and extraordinary grey-blue
eyes, clear and far-seeing, a man of striking and
impressive personality. 1 was travelling when I
met him, and tried to persuade him to return with
me, but that he said he could not do, though he
promised to follow me by an early steamer. He
said he would be able to tell me all about the
robbery, who committed it, where the stolen pro-
perty then was, and that all he would want was an
empty house wherein he might fast in solitude for
three days, without which preparation, he said, he
would not be able to see what he sought. He told
me that after his vigil, fast, and prayer, he would
lay in his hand a small piece of paper on which
there would be some writing, into this he would
pour a little water, and in that extemporised mirror
he would see a vision of the whole transaction.
He declared that, after gazing intently into this
divining-glass, the inquirer first recognised the
figure of a little old man. That having duly saluted
this /m, it was only necessary to ask him to conjure

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

up the scene of the robbery, when all the details
would be re-enacted in the liquid glass under the
eyes of the gazer, who would there and then
describe all that he saw. I had heard all this
before, only it had been stated to me then that the
medium through whose eyes the vision could alone
be seen must be a young child of such tender years
that it could have never told a lie ! The Arab,
however, professed himself not only able to conjure
up the scene, but to let me see it for myself, if I
would follow his directions. Unfortunately, my
grey-eyed friend failed to keep his promise, and I
never met him again.

A local Chief, however, declared his power to
read the past by this method, if only he could find
the truthful child. In this he appeared to succeed,
but when, on the following day, he came to disclose
to me the results of his skill, he said that a difficulty
had arisen because just when the child (a little boy)
was beginning to relate what he saw he suddenly
became unconscious, and it took the astrologer two
hours to restore him to his normal state. All the
mothers of tender-aged and possibly truthful
children declined after this to lend their offspring
for the ordeal.

My friend was not, however, at the end of his
203

MALAY SKETCHES

resources, and, though only an amateur in divina-
tion, he undertook to try by other methods to find
the culprit. For this purpose he asked me to give
him the names of everyone in the house at the time
the robbery was committed, I did so, and the next
day he gave me one of those names as that of the
thief. I asked how he had arrived at this knowledge,
he described the method and consented to repeat
the experiment in my presence. That afternoon I
wentwith him to a small house belonging to his sister.
Here I found my friend the Chief, his sister, and
two men whom I did not recognise. We all sat in a
very small room, the Chief in the centre with a copy
of the Koran on a reading-stand, near to him the
two men, opposite to each other, the sister against
one wall and I in a corner. A clean new unglazed
earthenware bowl with a wide rim was produced.
This was filled with water, and a piece of fair white
cotton cloth tied over the top, making a surface like
that of a drum.

I was asked to write the name of each person
present in the house when the robbery was com-
mitted on a small piece of paper, and to fold each
paper up so that all should be alike, and then to
place one of the names on the cover of the vessel.

I did so, and the proceedings began by the two

204

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

men placing each the middle joint of the fore-finger
of his right hand under the rim of the bowl on
opposite sides, and so supporting it about six inches
above the floor. The vessel being large and full of
water was heavy, and the men supported the strain
by resting their right elbows on their knees as they
sat cross-legged on the floor and face to face. It
was then that I selected one of the folded papers,
and placed it on the cover of the vessel. The Chief
read a page of the Koran, and as nothing happened
he said that was not the name of the guilty person,
and I changed the paper for another. This occurred
four times, but at the fifth the reading had scarcely
commenced when the bowl began to slowly turn
round from left to right, the supporters letting their
hands go round with it, until it twisted itself out of
their fingers and fell on the floor with a considerable
bang and a great spluttering of water through the
thin cover. " That," said the Chief, " is the name
of the thief."

It was the name of the person already mentioned
by him.

I did not, however, impart that piece of informa-
tion to the company, but went on to the end of my
papers, nothing more happening.

I said I should like to try the test again, and as
205

MALAY SKETCHES

the Chief at once consented we began afresh, and
this time I put the name of the suspected person on
first, and once more the vessel turned round and
twisted itself out of the hands of the holders, till it
fell on the floor and I was surprised it did not break.
After trying a few more I said I was satisfied, and
the ordeal of the bowl was over.

Then the Chief asked me whose name had been on
the vessel when it moved, and I told him. It was
a curious coincidence certainly. I wrote the names
in English, which no one could read ; moreover, I
was so placed that no one could see what I wrote,
and they none of them attempted to do so. Then
the papers were folded up so as to be all exactly
alike, they were shuffled together, and I did not
know one from the other till I looked inside myself.
Each time I went from my corner and placed a name
on the vessel already held on the fingers of its
supporters. No one except I touched the papers,
and no one but the Chief ever spoke till the seance
was over. I asked the men who held the bowl why
they made it turn round at that particular moment,
but they declared they had nothing to do with it,
and that the vessel twisted itself oft' their fingers
against their incHnation.

The name disclosed by this experiment was

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

certainly that of the person whom there was most
reason to suspect, but beyond that I learnt nothing.

Another plan for surprising the secret of a
suspected person is to get into the room where that
person is sleeping, and after making certain passes
to question the slumberer, when he may truthfully
answer all the questions put to him. This is a
favourite device of the suspicious husband.

Yet another plan is to place in the hand of a
pdwang, magician, or medium, a divining-rod formed
of three lengths of rattan tied together at one end,
and when he gets close to the person " wanted," or
to the place where anything stolen is concealed, the
rod vibrates in a remarkable manner.

A great many Malays and one or two Europeans
may be found who profess to have seen water
drawn from a kris. The modus operandi is simple.
The " pawang " (I dare not call him conjurer)
works with bare arms to show there is no deception.
He takes the kris (yours, if you prefer it) from its
wooden handle, and, holding the steel point down-
wards in his left hand, he recites a short incantation
to the effect that he knows all about iron and where
it comes from, and that it must obey his orders. He
then with the thumb and first two fingers of his

right hand proceeds to gently squeeze the steel,

207

MALAY SKETCHES

moving his fingers up and down the blade. After
a little while a few drops of water fall from the
point of the kris, and these drops quickly develop
into a stream that will fill a cup. The " pawang "
will then hand round the blade and tell you to bend
it ; this you will find no difficulty in doing, but by
making two or three passes over the kris the
" pawang " can render it again so hard that it cannot
be bent.

The only drawback to this trick or miracle is
that the process ruins the temper of the steel, and a
kris that has been thus treated is useless.

One evening I was discussing these various
superstitions with the Sultan of Perak, and I did
not notice that the spiritual teacher of His Highness
had entered and was waiting to lead the evening
prayer. The guru, or teacher, no doubt heard the
end of our conversation and was duly scandalised,
for the next day I received from him a letter, of
which the following is the translation :

" First praise to God, the Giver of all good, a
Fountain of Compassion to His servants.

" From Haji Wan Muhammad, Teacher of His
Highness the Sultan of Perak, to the Resident who
administers the Government of Perak.

208

MALAY SUPERSTITIONS

"The whole earth is in the hand of the most
High God, and He gives it as an inheritance to
whom He will of His subjects. The true religion
is also of God, and Heaven is the reward of those
who fear the Most High. Salvation and peace are
for those who follow the straight path, and only
they -mil in the end arrive at real greatness. No
Raja can do good, and none can be powerful except
by the help of God the Most High, who is also
Most Mighty.

" I make ten thousand salutations. I wish to

inquire about the practice of ber-hantu, driving

oneself mad and losing one's reason, as has been

the custom of Rajas and Chiefs in this State of

Perak ; is it right according to your religion, Mr.

Resident, or is it not ? For that practice is a

deadly sin to the Muhammadan Faith, because

those who engage in it lose their reason and waste

their substance for nothing ; some of them cast it

into the water, while others scatter it broadcast

through the jungle. How is such conduct treated

by your religion, Mr. Resident, is it right or wrong?

I want you in your indulgence to give me an answer,

for this practice is very hard on the poor. The

Headmen collect from the rayats, and then they

make elaborate preparations of food, killing a buffalo

209 o

MALAY SKETCHES

or fowls, and all tliis is thrown away as already
stated. According to the Muhammadan religion
such proceedings lead to destruction.

" I salute you many times, do not be angry, for
I do not understand your customs, Mr. Resident.

" (Signed) Haji Muhammad Abu Hassan."

210

XVIII
WITH A CASTING-NET

where fountains of sweet water run

between,
And sun and shadow chequer-chased

the green

JImi

PERAK is one of the largest and most populous
of the States of the Malay Peninsula, it is
the one where probably the rulers can claim the
clearest genealogy and the longest recorded descent,
and it is unquestionably here that all ancient rites
and customs have been most carefully preserved.

Whilst it was to Perak that the first British
Resident was appointed, and this State is now the
most wealthy, advanced, and prosperous of all those
under British influence, the Malays still maintain
their traditions and observe their honoured customs
as though railways and steamers, education and
sanitation had no more part in their lives than

MALAY SKETCHES

when Albuquerque was striving to effect a landing
on the shores of Malacca.

For ages it has been a practice of the Sultans of
Perak to reserve certain waters for their own fish-
ing, and certain jungle tracts (usually surrounding
a hot spring of mineral water) for their own hunting.
There they would resort, annually or oftener, and
with their relatives, chiefs, and followers take their
kingly pleasure, as it was duly chronicled had been
the custom of their ancestors.

In the lull after the first heavy rains, that is
about the month of December, when the river has
been swollen to flood-height for a couple of months,
the tuntong or river-turtles ascend the Perak River
in considerable numbers and lay their eggs on cer-
tain convenient sand stretches in the neighbourhood
of Bota, about lOO miles from the river's mouth.

The most frequented of these laying grounds
is a place called Pdsir Tilor (egg-sand), just below
Bota, and it is here that the ladies of the Court
annually assemble to dig up the eggs, which the
Malay considers one of the greatest delicacies
known to him.

The river-turtle is a great deal smaller than the
sea-turtle, but it lays a larger Qgg, and one much
more valued by Malays.

212

WITH A CASTING-NET

As soon as the river rises watchers are stationed
on the sands, and the turtles are said to lay three
times. The nests are dug between two and three
feet under the sand, and contain from about fifteen
to thirty-five eggs each. During the laying season
boats are not allowed to stop at the sands for fear
they should disturb the turtles.

When the first set of eggs has been laid and the
turtles have returned to the river, the watchers
open the nests and send the eggs up to the Sultan.
The second set of nests is opened by the royal
party, and the third is left to hatch, an operation
that takes six months. There is no sitting, the
young turtles simply emerge from the sand, walk
down into the river and swim away.

It is said that if the first and second nests are
left untouched, the turtles themselves open them
and scatter and destroy the eggs ; but that, after
the third "lay," they take their departure, having
accomplished their task.

Directly the watchers report that the turtles
have made the second nests, the Sultan and his
family, with the neighbouring chiefs and their
families, take boat and paddle down the stream to
Pasir Telor.

Fifteen or twenty large house-boats and several
213

MALAY SKETCHES

bamboo rafts containing about one hundred and
fifty people make an imposing procession. The
rafts are simply floating houses, with mat walls and
a high thatched roof, and are manned by crews of
from four to sixteen polers ; but the boats are
graceful and picturesque barges, of which the
foundation is a long dug-out of hard wood drawing
very little water, the freeboard is raised by the
breadth of one or two planks, and over the stern
half of the boat is built a palm-thatched covering
on a slight wooden frame, while curtains secure
privacy. Inside this house, the roof of which rises
in a sharp curve towards the stern, sit and lie on
mats and cushions the owner and his family or
friends. The crew occupy the forward half of the
boat, where they sit to paddle down stream or
stand to pole up. The steersman has a high seat
in the stern, from whence he is able to see clear of
the cabin-roof.

The covered portion of the barge which carries
the Sultan's principal wife is decorated with six
scarlet-bordered white umbrellas. Two officers
stand all day long, just outside the state-room,
holding open black umbrellas with silver fringes,
and two others are in the bows with long bamboo
pnles held close together and erect. The royal

WITH A CASTING-NET

bugler sits on the extreme end of the prow, and
from time to time blows a call on the antique silver
trumpet of the regalia. Flags are flown, other boats
carry gongs and drums, and altogether the pleasure-
fleet makes a brave show and a considerable noise,
attracting the attention of all the dwellers on the
riverine.

The journey from the Sultan's palace at Kuala
Kangsar occupies two days, and on the morning of
the third all the ladies of the party, with all their
attendants and children (a good many still in arms),
disembark for the ceremony of digging out the
turtle-eggs.

The ladies are in their smartest garments
and wear their costliest jewels. It is a blaze of
brilliant-coloured silks, of painted sarongs, cloth-of-
gold scarves, and embroidered gauze veils ; of bright
sunshades, gold bracelets, necklaces, and bangles ;
of curious jewelled brooches, massive hair-pins, and
rings flashing with the light of diamonds and
rubies.

The men appear in jackets, trousers, and sarongs
of hardly less striking hues ; but the horror of
Western dyes and Western schemes of colour has
not yet demoralised the Malay's innate sense of
beauty and fitness, and nothing offends the eye as

215

MALAY SKETCHES

all this wealth of bravery moves slowly across the
strand.

A scorching sun shines down on the gaily-clad
figures with their background of dark jungle, on the
yellow sands and sparkling river, with its burden
of picturesque boats, and gives light and shadow to
a charming picture.

The watchers have marked with twigs the various
nests, and each lady of rank, with her little crowd
of attendants, makes for one of these, and with her
hands begins to dig up the sand in search of the
eggs. But the nest is deep down, and the sides of
the hole have a way of falling in on the digger, so
a man or boy is desired to remove the overburden
and make things easy for the lady. The overlying
sand is quickly scooped out until one or two of the
white eggs are disclosed, and then the lady, sitting
on the edge and stooping far down, can just manage
to reach the nest, and the eggs are carefully
handed up.

Besides the pleasure of actually removing the
eggs with one's own hand, of displaying to admiring
eyes a vision of taper fingers and rounded wrist, of
showing how little it matters that the costliest
garments should trail in the sand, there is the
rivalry of whose nest yields the largest number of
ai6

WITH A CASTING-NET

eggs. Anything over twenty-five is considered a
satisfactory find.

By the time all the nests have been rifled, the
sands are growing so hot under the rays of the
fiery sun that bare feet can hardly endure what is
little short of torture. There is an almost hurried
return to the boats, the finery is exchanged for
simpler garments, and all the men and many of the
ladies take to the river, and there disport themselves
in a manner that is refreshing to sun-scorched
bodies and the eyes of the Western spectator who
is fortunate enough to see how it is possible to be
unconventionally natural and yet perfectly modest.

It is only on such occasions as this that a
strange man can see these ladies unveiled and even
so he is not expected to look at them or go very
near them ; but their bathing-costume differs hardly
at all from that which they commonly wear, and
they thoroughly enjoy this opportunity of revelling
in the clear waters of the sand-bedded stream.

Then every one scrambles back into the boats,

which are pushed off into deep water, the rowers

seize their paddles and with beat of gong and the

musical notes of the silver serunai, with jest and

laughter, pennons waving, and bright eyes sparkling

behind the rainbow-coloured blinds, the picturesque

217

MALAY SKETCHES

flotilla glides on its course down the long sunny
reach, in and out amongst the islets, round a
heavily-wooded, deeply-shadowed headland, past
the riverside hamlets and the orchards, the stately
palms, the clusters of bamboo that overhang the
water like great plumes of pale green feathers, and
so ever onward through sunlight and shadow till
another bourne is reached.

The graceful turn of the leading barge towards
a sand-spit flanked by a long inviting backwater,
the roll of a drum and every prow is headed for
the shallows of the bank that divides the dyer ntdti^
the " dead water," from the living hurrying stream.

The boats arrange themselves in divisions, the
crews land, make fires, and boil the rice for their
mid-day meal, while the cooking and breakfasting
of the members of the " court" is done on board
the various barges.

In this feudal and conservative country when

the people eat they mdkan, but the Raja does not

mdkan, with him it is santap. When " the masses"

bathe they mandi, but the same operation in the

case of a Raja is called seram ; a chief or a beggar

may sleep and that is tidor^ but when the Raja

sleeps he is said to ber-ddu. This does not mean

that a wide gulf divides Malay classes, there is

218

WITH A CASTING-NET

rather that communion as of the members of an
old Scotch clan, but respect and courtesy are
characteristic of the race, a prized legacy which it
is not yet considered a sign of either independence
or good manners to despise. People of the same
class, rajas and chiefs, children and parents,
brothers and sisters, speak to each other with
studied deference and never forget the little distinc-
tions that mark fine shades of rank or age. Boys
and girls are as careful in the observance of these
courtesies as are their elders.

Education and contact with Europeans will alter
all this, and in the next century there will be more
equality and probably less politeness and fraternity.
But then also there will be no royal preserves, no
class privileges, and no State junketings where
noble and peasant meet in generous rivalry of skill
with a single desire to snatch from the toil, the
disappointments, and the sorrows of life one week
of pleasure wherein individual joy may grow
greater in the knowledge that it is shared by many.

Future possibilities do not disturb our friends,
whose guiding principle is rather " insufficient
for the day is the pleasure thereof." They have
attacks of hatred and gloom, and then they kill,
if the desire is strong enough, but these fits

219

MALAY SKETCHES

are rare, and when not actively engaged in amusing
themselves they are lotus-eating, sometimes figura-
tively, sometimes in reality.

This is a time for action, and, the mid-day meal
disposed of, all the men of the party get ready their
casting-nets and don the garments that will least
hamper the free use of their limbs and will not be
injured by a thorough wetting.

The backwater has a narrow and shallow
entrance on the river, and this entrance is staked
across to guard it from what in the West would be
called poachers. Through the stakes a way has
now been made wide enough to admit of the pas-
sage of boats. The Sultan's barge and a few other
house-boats have passed the barrier, and these are
accompanied by a fleet of fifty uncovered dug-outs,
each with a light grating of split-bamboos over half
its length, and each carrying two or three paddlers,
one of whom steers and one man standing on the
extreme end of the bow ready to cast the net.

These nets are of local make, the mesh is small,
the thread of twisted strands of finest cotton, and
the length varies according to the ability of the
owner to cast it. A very short net is five or six
cubits in length from centre to edge, a long one is
twelve or thirteen cubits, and to cast that with

WITH A CASTING-NET

accuracy so that it reaches the water perfectly
extended requires a very skilful hand. The bottom
or edge of the net is weighted with small leaden
rings that sink it rapidly through the water, while
a fine cord from the centre is attached to the right
wrist of the thrower. The net is usually dyed a
dark brown with a solution made from the bark of
the mangrove.

The backwater where this annual netting is done
is a long narrow strip of fairly deep water widening
slightly in the centre and contracting at the ends.
On one side it is bordered by a low grass-grown
shore and on the other by a jungle-covered bank
from which the overhanging branches cast dark
shadows on the glassy surface, stirred here and
there into tiny wavelets by every passing zephyr.

By 3 P.M. all is ready ; some of the oldest and
most skilful netters stand in the bows of the royal
barges, a dozen young rajas are in dug-outs and
the others are occupied by their owners, men from
the neighbouring villages who have come to join in
the sport.

The Sultan gives the signal, and the boats move
oflf slowly and at once form themselves into a
crescent, with the royal barges in the centre. The
horns of the crescent draw towards each other, the

MALAY SKETCHES

boats make a simultaneous in-turn, the circle is
completed, and at the moment when it becomes
sufficiently circumscribed every net is cast, covering
the whole surface of the water within the ring of
boats. Directly the nets have been cast they sink,
the paddlers back-water, and each net is slowly
drawn to the surface and the fish taken are dis-
engaged from the fine meshes and thrown into the
boat under the bamboo grating.

Almost every net contains fish, and the numbers
vary from two or three to fifty or sixty bright
silvery fishes weighing from half a pound to a
pound each.

The operation is then repeated, and the fleet of
boats works its way slowly from end to end of the
backwater, a distance of about a mile.

Sometimes every net makes a good haul, some-
times only one or two do very well, and all the rest
indifferently. It is no easy matter with such an
insecure foothold to cast a long and heavy net, but,
well done, the act of casting is graceful and attrac-
tive. First the slack of the cord is taken up in
loops in the right hand and after it the net, until the
leaden rings clear the boat and reach to about the
thrower's knee. Then with his left hand he takes
up part of the skirt of the net and hangs it over his

WITH A CASTING-NET

right arm and shoulder. This done he seizes the
balance of the skirt in his left hand, swings his
body backwards and then forwards with a strong
propelling movement of arm, shoulder, and back that
sends the net straight out over the water to fall
perfectly extended, like a huge brown cobweb, the
outer edges sinking instantly under the weight of
the leaden rings and drawing together by reason of
the resistance of the inner surface of the net.

The game looks easy enough, but try it and you
will probably find yourself in the water at the first
cast with the net tied up into an inextricable knot.

Watch the experienced hand. The boats are
now at a bend in the middle of the backwater, the
circle is formed, the in-turn is given to the bows,
the ring narrows, and at this moment the scene is
picturesque to a degree and strangely weird.

Atmospheric changes come quickly here ; the sky
has become suddenly overcast, a heavy rain-cloud is
being rapidly driven before a rising wind, and the
water is now dark and gloomy. This cordon of low
black boats, so close to each other that they almost
touch, on every bow a half-bent, quaintly-clad form
with the net hanging in graceful folds from arm and
shoulder, while fifty dark earnest faces gaze eagerly
on the narrowing space. In that instant it flashes

223

MALAY SKETCHES

across the spectator's mind that some mystic rite of
fell intent is to be performed within that magic
zone. Then heigh ! Abracadabra ! The word is
given to cast, and from fifty boats the nets fly out
with a swirl and settle on the water with a gentle
hiss. But the skilful thrower waits for a second or
two, knowing that the fish, frightened by this rain of
lead, will dash for the only spot where there seems
to be a gap. Then deftly he casts a net with a
diameter of forty feet, and the moment he strains
the cord he realises that he has made an extraordi-
nary capture. He pulls the net up a little way, and
then, plunging his arms into the water, grasps the
meshes on either side and calls for help to raise the
struggling mass of fish. All eyes are fixed on the
lucky Raja, and as the take is lifted into the boat
there are shouts of delight and congratulation and
clapping of hands from the ladies, who are keenly
interested. By this single cast the thrower has
secured one hundred and twenty-one fish, and his
contribution for the afternoon is over seven hundred
■" tails."

Just as the furthest end of the backwater is

reached the rain, which has been long threatening,

comes down in torrents, and there is a race for

shelter and dry clothes. The dug-outs with three

224

WITH A CASTING-NET

or four paddlers easily beat the barges with a dozen,
but long before the river is reached the netters are
as wet as the fish, and have a swim in the warm
water of the river before changing into dry clothes.

Then there is a lull in the storm, and the more
enthusiastic return to the netting and, unmindful of
hunger, darkness, and rain, still cast the nets till
lO P.M., when they return thoroughly tired out, but
happy in the knowledge that the bag numbers over
ten thousand fish.

Amongst these late comers and most ardent
sportsmen are several ladies who, not satisfied with
the ease and dignity of a royal barge, have braved
the elements and gone fasting to share the excite-
ment of the netting in the discomfort of the dug-
outs.

That is how the Sultan of Perak's annual fishing
party takes its pleasure, and about the very same
time His Highness of Pahang will be leading a
similar expedition in the quiet waters of an old
channel of the Pahang River.

There, however, the method is rather different —

the water is poisoned with the juice of the tuba root,

and the stupefied fish are speared and netted as they

float and swim aimlessly about. The fun is much

the same, perhaps, but the pursuit is less sporting

225 p

MALAY SKETCHES

than by the means employed in Perak. It is not
however, perfectly easy to spear even drugged fish
without both skill and practice.

In Pahang, also, the pageant is conducted with
much state and ancientry, and, as the nature of the
pastime requires only a moderate eft'ort, the ladies
of the Harim smile on the proceedings and, armed
with silken nets on hafts of gold, themselves essay
to scoop up the scaly quarry. Amongst the ladies
of the Court are some the exceeding fairness of
whose skin, the perfect oval of their faces, and the
glances of their liquid eyes so embarrass the men
of the party that many a spear flies wide of its
mark.

There are some things still hidden from the ken
of Cook and the race of Globe trotters, and I do
not fear to reveal the secrets of this remote corner
of the earth, for, if any be thereby induced to visit
the Peninsula in search of such displays as I have
tried to describe, he will meet with disappointment.

You cannot, in the language of Western culture,
put a penny in the slot and set in motion the wheels
of this barbarous Eastern figure.

226

XIX

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

Such was our friend, formed on the

good old plan,
A true and brave and downright

honest man

Whittier

ON the 2nd November 1875, Mr. James
Wheeler Woodford Birch, British Resident
of Perak, was assassinated by Malays at a place
called Pasir Salak on the Perak River. I propose
to describe why and how this murder was com-
mitted.

Mr. Birch began life as a midshipman in the
Royal Navy. He abandoned the sea for Govern-
ment employment in Ceylon, where he spent the
best years of his life, and was promoted to be Gov-
ernment Agent of the Eastern Province, one of the
highest positions in the Island. In 1870 Mr. Birch
was appointed Colonial Secretary of the Straits
Settlements, and when Major-General Sir Andrew

227

MALAY SKETCHES

Clarke, R.E., then Governor of the Straits Settle-
ments, concluded the Pangkor Treaty with the Perak
Chiefs in 1874 and introduced a new departure in
the relations between the British Government and
the Malay States, he selected Mr. Birch for the
difficult post of adviser to the Sultan of Perak.

Mr. Birch assumed his duties in the end of 1874,
and very soon found that, looking to the people
with whom he had to deal and his own power-
lessness to enforce an order, he had undertaken a
well-nigh impossible task. At that time the Malay
Peninsula was a terra incognita to white men, and
the characteristics, customs, peculiarities and pre-
judices of the Malay had yet to be learnt.

Of all the States in the Peninsula Perak was
probably the least well suited for the schoohng of a
Resident and the initiation of the interesting but
dangerous experiment of Government by the advice
of a British officer.

It had a large Malay population, people whose
ancestors had for generations belonged to the place
and who were saturated with ancient customs, pre-
judices, and superstitions that had to be learned,
and Vidth many of which it was difficult to sym-
pathise. It had an unusual number of Rajas and

Chiefs, each with some kind of privilege or vested
228

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

interest. The revolting practice of debt-slavery,
under which the slaves often suffered indescribable
wrongs, was rife in the land, and, though contrary
to the Muhammadan religion, was supported and
clung to by all the upper classes. The State was
torn by internal dissensions, the jealousies and
rivalries of opposing claimants to the Sultanship
and oiher high offices. The rivers and jungle tracks
were the only means of getting about the country.
The white man was an unknown and unfeared
quantity.

Mr. Birch, unfortunately, for all his long Eastern
experience, knew very little of Malays and almost
nothing of their language, and, though he always
had with him a very capable Malay interpreter, the
inability to carry on a direct conversation with chiefs
and people greatly increased his difficulties. He was
not, however, the man to sit down in the face of
opposition either to save himself trouble or to ac-
knowledge defeat, and the consequence was that his
extraordinary energy in travelling about the country,
" spying out the land," and his persistence in attempt-
ing to redress grievances, to save lives, to bring the
guilty to punishment, and to induce the then Sultan,
Abdullah and his immediate following to mend their

ways, earned him the determined opposition of all

229

MALAY SKETCHES

those who disliked interference, and preferred the
state of uncontrolled lawlessness to which they were
accustomed.

Mr. Birch lived in Perak as its Resident for barely
twelve months, but to trace with care the reasons
why his relations with Abdullah grew daily more
strained till matters culminated in the assassination
of the Resident, would be to write a volume. It is
sufficient to state a few of the more prominent
facts.

First, it is necessary to say in the most positive
terms that Mr. Birch was assassinated solely and
entirely for political reasons, for the reasons I have
already given. He was white, he was a Christian
and a stranger, he was restless, climbed hills and
journeyed all over the country, he interfered with
murderers and other evil-doers, he constantly
bothered the Sultan about business and kept press-
ing him to introduce reforms, while every change is
regarded by the Malay with suspicion and distrust.
That was his crime in their eyes ; of personal feel-
ing there was none, wherever Mr. Birch went there
were people who had to thank him for some kind-
ness, some attention. The Malays have always
admitted this, and, if it seems strange that I should

make a point of the motive, it is because Europeans
230

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

who did not know have suggested that the Resident's
murder was due to non-pohtical causes, a suggestion
for which there is not a semblance of foundation.

By September 1875, matters had come to a dead-
lock. With the Resident, in what was called the
down-stream country, was a Sultan, Abdullali,
created by the British Government, but declining to
accept the advice of the Resident who had been
appointed at his special request. Abdullah's opposi-
tion was mainly negative but absolutely effective,
for as the Resident could only tender advice and
had no commission, and no sufficient means to
compel its adoption, his voice was that of one
" crying in the wilderness." Up-stream there was
another Sultan, Ismail, elected by some of the chiefs
but admitted to have no sufficient claim to the post.
Between the partisans of these rival Sultans, very
strained relations existed.

Then there was another claimant to the Sultan-
ship in the person of the Raja Muda Jusuf, who
lived still further up country, and while his claims
were undoubtedly the best, his personal unpopu-
larity was so great that the people would not accept
him as Sultan.

The success of the Residential idea (for no one
had attempted to formulate any scheme or system)

231

MALAY SKETCHES

depended on the existence of mutual confidence and
friendship between Sultan and Resident. That was,
unfortunately, wanting, and, as after many months
of patient effort on the part of Mr. Birch the desired
result seemed further away than ever, the governor
of the neighbouring colony (then Major-General Sir
W. Jervois, R.E.) determined to visit Perak and see
what chance there was of establishing administra-
tive authority, collecting revenue, and otherwise
carrying out the provisions of the Pangkor Treaty.

As the result of that visit and of interviews
between the Governor and the Chiefs, a proposition
was made to Sultan Abdullah that the government
of the State should be carried on in his name by
British officers. He hesitated for some days, but,
finding that the Raja Muda and others had at once
and gladly accepted the suggestion, he determined
to do the same, fearing, no doubt, that otherwise he
might be left out of the administration altogether.

It was the Malay fasting-month, the bulan pudsa^
when these last events occurred. It is not an
auspicious time for conducting negotiations with
Malays, they do not even attempt to work for that
month, they sleep for most of the day and sit up
most of the night, eating and talking, discussing
affairs and hatching plots. This, at least, is the case

232

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

with the upper classes, and it is they only who are
concerned in pohtical movements ; the common
people do not fast as a rule, and leave the plotting
to the chiefs, whose business they think it is to
scheme and to direct, theirs to obey.

In Lower Perak during this particular month of
Ramthan, an unusual amount of discussion had
been carried on between Sultan Abdullah and his
chiefs, and they determined not only that the
British Resident should be got rid of, but one
of them, entitled the Maharaja Lela, undertook to
do the business the next time Mr. Birch visited
him.

This man, the Maharaja Lela, was a chief of con-
siderable rank, after the Sultan he was the seventh
in the State. He lived at Pasir Salak, on the right
bank of the Perak River, about thirty miles above
the residence of Sultan Abdullah, and about forty
below that of ex-Sultan Ismail. He avoided Mr.
Birch whenever it was possible (though living only
five miles from him), and managed to keep friends
with both Sultans.

During the month, Sultan Abdullah, who was
then with his boats at Pasir Panjang, a couple of
miles below the Maharaja Lela's house, summoned
his chiefs and informed them that he had given over

233

MALAY SKETCHES

the government of the country to Mr. Birch. This
announcement was received in silence by the others,
to whom it was doubtless no news, but the Maha-
raja Lela said, " Even if your Highness has done
so, I do not care at all. I will never acknowledge
the authority of Mr. Birch or the white men. I
have received letters from Sultan Ismail, the Mentri
and the Penglima Kinta telling me on no account to
obey the English Government in Perak. I will not
allow Mr. Birch to set his foot in my kampong at
Pasir Salak."

The Sultan said, " Do you really mean that,
Maharaja Lela?" and the Chief replied, "Truly I
will not depart in the smallest degree from the old
arrangement."

Another chief, the Datoh Sagor, who lived on the
other side of the river, exactly opposite to Pasir
Salak, said, "What the Maharaja Lela does I will
do."

The Sultan then got up and withdrew.

Two or three days before the end of the month
the Sultan called another meeting of his chiefs at a
place called Durian Sa'batang, ten miles below the
small island on which the Resident's hut stood.
At that meeting the Sultan produced the proclama-
tions which were to be issued, placing the ad-

234

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

ministration in the hands of British officers, and
asked his chiefs what they thought of them. The
Laksamana, an influential chief, said, " Down here,
in the lower part of the river, we must accept the
proclamations " ; but the Maharaja Lela said, " In
my kampong I will not allow any white man to post
those proclamations. If they insist on doing so,
there will certainly be a fight." To this the Sultan
and other chiefs said, " Very well."

The Maharaja Lela immediately left, and having
loaded his boats with rice, returned up river to his
own kampong.

Pasir Salak was the usual collection of Malay
houses scattered about in groves of palm and fruit
trees by the river-bank. Prominent amongst these
was the Maharaja Lela's own dwelling, a large and
comparatively new building of a more than ordin-
arily substantial kind, round which he had for
months past been digging a great ditch and throw-
ing up a formidable earthwork crowned by a
palisade. These preparations had been duly noted
by the Resident.

Arrived at his own home, the Maharaja Lela sent
out messengers to summon all the men in his
immediate neighbourhood, and when they were
collected he addressed them and stated that Mr.

235

MALAY SKETCHES

Birch was coming up the river in a few days, and
that, if he attempted to post any notices there, the
orders of the Sultan and the down-river chiefs were
to kill him. The assembled people said that, if
those were the commands of the Sultan and the
Maharaja Lela, they would carry them out. The
chief then handed his sword to a man called Pandak
Indut, his father-in-law, and directed that everyone
should give to him the same obedience as to him-
self. The people then dispersed. It was one or
two days after this that Mr. Birch arrived at Pasir
Salak.

Before describing the events of the 2nd Novem-
ber I must go back for a moment.

A number of officers, of whom I was one, had
accompanied Sir W. Jervois in his journey to
Perak. When the Governor and those with him
left the State I was directed to remain behind with
Mr. Birch to assist him in his negotiations with the
chiefs. A fortnight later I went to Singapore with
important papers and the drafts of proclamations
defining the authority of the Resident under the new
arrangement. These proclamations were printed,
and I returned to Perak with them, joining Mr.
Birch in his house on the 26th October.

I found the Resident had met with an accident ;
236

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

he had slipped down and so badly sprained his
ankle that he could not walk without crutches.
Lieut, Abbott, R.N., and four bluejackets were at
Bandar Bharu (the Residency), where were also
quartered the Sikh guard (about eighty men), the
boatmen, and others.

Mr. Birch undertook to distribute the proclama-
tions himself in the down-river districts, and
directed me to go up river, to interview the ex-
Sultan Ismail, the Raja Muda, the Raja Bendahara,
and other up-country chiefs, and, having distributed
the proclamations at all important villages from
Kota Lama downwards, to try to meet him at
Pasir Salak on the 3rd November. There, he told
me, he expected trouble for which he was quite
prepared.

The Sikh guard was in a state bordering on
mutiny in the evening of the 27th, but by the
following morning they seemed to have returned
to their senses, and about noon I left Bandar
Bharu with two boats for the interior, Mr. Birch
starting down stream at the same time.

He must have got through his part of the work

more rapidly than he expected, for he reached

Pasir Salak with three boats at midnight on the

1st November, and anchored in midstream. The

237

MALAY SKETCHES

1st November was the Hdri Raya, the first day
after the Fast. At dayhght his boats went along-
side the bank, and the Resident's own boat was
made fast to the floating bath-house of a Chinese
jeweller, whose little shop stood on the high bank
a few feet from the riverside. This was the only
Chinese house in Pasir Salak.

Mr. Birch was accompanied by Lieut. Abbott,
an armed guard of twelve Sikhs, a Sikh orderly,
the Malay interpreter (an eminently respectable
Malay of nearly fifty named Muhammad Arshad),
and a number of Malay boatmen and servants.
There must have been about forty people in the
party. Mr. Birch had with him a 3-Pr. brass gun,
a small mortar, and a number of English fire-arms
and Malay weapons, besides other property.

Directly after their arrival Mr. Abbott borrowed
a small boat from the Chinaman and went across
the river to Kampong Gajah to shoot snipe, the
Chief of that place, the Datoh Sagor, returning in
the boat to Pasir Salak, where he at once sought
an interview with Mr. Birch.

After this conversation, which was held in the

Resident's boat, the Datoh Sagor and Mr. Birch's

interpreter went to the Maharaja Lela's house, and

the interpreter said to the Maharaja Lela that the

238

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

Resident wished to see him and would go to his
house for that purpose, but if the Chief preferred
it, and would go to Mr. Birch's boat, he would be
glad to meet him there. The Maharaja Lela said,
*' I have nothing to do with Mr. Birch," and the
interpreter returned to the boat and reported to his
master the result of his interview.

The news of the Resident's arrival had been
spread in every direction, and all those in the
neighbourhood were ordered to come in. By this
time, sixty or seventy men had assembled and were
now standing about on the bank of the river close
to Mr. Birch's boats. They were all armed with
spears and krises, and Mr. Birch asked the Datoh
Sagor what they wanted, and that they should be
told to stand further away. The Datoh told them
to move away, and they gave a few yards, but at the
same time began to abuse the Resident, calling him
an " infidel," and asking what he meant by coming
there asking questions and speaking like one in
authority. Probably the Resident did not under-
stand these ominous signs, but his boatmen heard
and realised that trouble was brewing.

Mr. Birch now gave some proclamations to the
interpreter, who took them on shore and posted
them on the shutters of the Chinaman's shop.

239

MALAY SKETCHES

Almost immediately, Pandak Indut, the Maharaja
Lela's father-in-law, tore them down and took them
off to the Maharaja Lela's house. That chiefs
dictum, was " Pull down the proclamations, and, if
they persist in putting them up, kill them." Then
it may be supposed he washed his hands of all
responsibility, and Pandak Indut went out to
execute his master's orders.

Meanwhile, Mr. Birch had handed to his inter-
preter some more proclamations to replace those
removed, and, after giving directions to prepare his
breakfast, went into the Chinaman's bath-house to
bathe, leaving his Sikh orderly at the door with a
loaded revolver. This bath-house was of the type
common in Perak, two large logs floating in the
stream, fastened together by cross-pieces of wood,
and on them built a small house with mat sides
about five feet high, and a roof closing on the sides
but leaving two open triangular spaces at front and
back. The structure is so moored that it floats
parallel to the bank, and a person even standing
up inside it cannot see what is taking place on the
shore close by.

It was now about lO a.m., and in spite of the

threatening attitude of the large crowd of armed

Malays standing in groups and passing between
240

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

the river-bank and their chiefs house, the Resident
was composedly bathing in the river, while his
people were some of them cooking on the bank,
others sleeping in the boats, and a few, the Malays,
anxiously expectant, fearing the signs boded a
catastrophe.

They had not long to wait. The interpreter
was still replacing the proclamations on the China-
man's hut, when Pandak Indut and a number of
other men came quickly from the Maharaja Lela's
house.

The crowd asked, " What are the Chiefs
orders ? "

Pandak Indut replied, " He leaves the matter to
me."

Going straight up to the Chinese shop, he began
tearing down the newly-posted papers ; the inter-
preter protested, and, seeing no heed was paid to
him, turned towards the bath-house. He had not
made half a dozen steps, when Pandak Indut over-
took him and thrust his spear into the man's
abdomen. The wounded man fell down the bank
into the river and caught hold of his master's boat,
but others followed him and cut him over the head
and hands, so that he let go and struggled out into
the stream.

24X Q

MALAY SKETCHES

The interpreter disposed of, Pandak Indut cried
out, " Here is Mr. Birch in the bath-house, come,
let us kill him," and, followed by three or four others
shouting amok, amok, they leapt on to the floating
timbers and thrust their spears through the open
space in the front of the house.

At that time men in the boats could see Mr.
Birch's head above the mat wall ; it disappeared
without any sound from him, and a moment after he
came to the surface of the water astern of the house.
Some of the murderers were already waiting there,
and one of them, a man called Siputum, slashed
the Resident over the head with a sword. He sank
and was not seen again.

The Sikh orderly, standing with a revolver at the
door of the bath-house, jumped into the river with-
out any warning to his master, swam off to one of
the boats and saved himself.

The river-bank was now the scene of a general

melee. A Malay boatman and a Sikh had been

killed, but the others had got one of the boats away

from the bank into midstream and towards it two

of Mr. Birch's Malays were swimming while they

supported the grievously wounded interpreter.

With difficulty they gained the boat and got the man

in. As they dropped down the river Mr. Birch's
242

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

coxswain urged the Sikhs to fire on the Malays,
but they said they could not do so without an
order ! He accordingly gave the order, and some
shots were fired which for a moment cleared the
bank. A small boat with two men in it put out
lower down stream to intercept the fugitives, and
two of them were wounded by shots from these
men. The coxswain then wrenched a rifle from a
Sikh and shot one of these assailants. After this
the boat proceeded unmolested to Bandar Bharu.
Long before they arrived there the interpreter died.

Mr. Abbott, shooting on the other bank, was
warned of what had taken place, and with great
difficulty got into a dug-out and made his way down
stream under the fire of the Malays on the bank.

The attack, the murder of the Resident, his in-
terpreter, the Sikh and the boatman, and the escape
of the rest of the party was the work of a few
minutes. Whilst still the passion of strife and
bloodthirst swayed the crowd, the Maharaja Leia
walked into their midst and asked whose hands had
done the Resident and his men to death. Instantly
Pandak Indut, Siputum, and the others, claimed
credit for their murderous work. The Chief said,
" It is well, none but those who struck blows can

share in the spoil." He then called a man forward

243

MALAY SKETCHES

and said, " Go and tell the Laksamana that I have
killed Mr. Birch." The message was delivered the
same day, and the Laksamana said, " Very well, I
will tell the Sultan."

That evening the Maharaja Lela sent a letter to
ex-Sultan Ismail describing what he had done, and,
to remove any doubt on the subject, he sent with it
the Resident's own boat.

These are the facts about Mr. Birch's assassina-
tion, and it may be of some interest to add that the
Resident's two boats were immediately rifled and
all their contents carried up to the Maharaja Lela's
house.

An attack upon the Residency was planned,
ordered to be carried out that night, and a number
of men started on the expedition, and even got
within a few hundred yards of Bandar Bharu ; but
it began to rain, and a man at whose house the
party called told them they would get a warm
reception, and it would be quite a different thing to
murdering the Resident, so they elected to return
with their object unattained.

By the help of a friendly Malay, a foreigner,

Mr. Birch's body was recovered, brought to Bandar

Bharu, and there buried on the night of the 6th

November.

244

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

The Maharaja Lela and his neighbour the Datoh
Sagor, having " burnt their ships," proceeded to
stockade their villages, and those stockades were
subsequently taken, the rebels driven out, and their
villages destroyed.

Sooner or later punishment overtook every man
directly concerned in this crime, and also nearly
all those who were indirectly responsible. Some
fell during the subsequent fighting, one died an
outlaw in the jungle.

The first man captured was Siputum. He was
brought in to Bandar Bharu late one evening in the
early part of 1876, and I went to see him in the
lock-up about midnight. A wilder looking creature
it would have been hard to find. He was a
Pdwang, a medicine man, a sorcerer. For many
weeks he had been a hunted outcast, and he seemed
to think that capture was almost preferable to the
life he had been leading. He sat on the floor and
described to me his share in Mr. Birch's murder,
pausing between the sentences to kill mosquitoes
on the wall of his cell. He volunteered the state-
ment that Mr. Birch was a good man, who had
been kind to him, and that what he did was by
order of his Chief, whom he was bound to obey.
The responsibility of the individual for his own

24s

MALAY SKETCHES

actions was a doctrine that was strange to him,
and he learnt it too late to profit by it.

In December 1876, the Maharaja Lela, the
Datoh Sagor, Pandak Indut, and four others were
arraigned before the Raja Muda Jusuf and Raja
Alang Husein, and charged with murdering Mr.
Birch and the others at Pasir Salak on the 2nd
November 1875.

They were prosecuted by Colonel Dunlop, R.A.,
and myself, on behalf of the Government, and
defended by an able and experienced member of
the Singapore Bar. After a trial which lasted
eight days, they were severally found guilty and
condemned to death, but the extreme penalty was
exacted only in the cases of the three first named.

Sultan Abdullah, and other Chiefs whose com-
plicity in the assassination was established by the
fullest evidence, were banished from the State, and
a like sentence was passed upon the ex-Sultan
Ismail and some of his adherents.

In Mr. Birch the British Government lost one of
its most courageous, able, and zealous officers, but,
by the action which his death made necessary, the
State of Perak gained in twelve months what ten
years of " advice " could hardly have accomplished.
That was not all, for the events of those twelve
246

JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH

months, when they came to be fully known, threw
a light on the inner life of the Malay and his
peculiar characteristics, that was in the nature of a
revelation. It is all too soon to forget the lesson
or disregard its teachings.

247

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

Haud multum abfuit quin interfi-
ceretur

Horace

From Captain Speedy, Queen^s Commissioner,

Larut, to H.E. Sir William Jervois,

Governor of the Straits.

TExtract :1 Larut, November gth, 1875,

" T N the second report, that of 7th instant, Sergeant
A Din states that he was told by one Kulup
Riau that Mr. Swettenham had been murdered by
the Raja Lela at Pasir Salak on the 5th instant. I
regret to state that I have every reason to beheve
that the report is but too true. My inspector, Din
Mahomed, reached Kuala Kangsar (where I sent
him with a party of men immediately on hearing of
Mr. Birch's death, to warn and guard Mr. Swetten-
ham) at 2 P.M. on 4th instant, but, on his arrival,
248

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

he found that Mr. Swettenham had unfortunately
left, to return by the river a few hours previously ;
owing to the rapidity of the current, the boats
should have reached Pasir Salak by the following
day. I have sent detectives, both Chinese and
Malay, to inquire into the matter, and to obtain,
if possible, the remains of these unfortunate
officers."

I came across the above passage in a Blue Book,
and I will explain why Captain Speedy had every
reason to believe in the certainty of my death, and
how it was that my remains were not to be collected
just then.

In the preceding sketch I mentioned that I left
Bandar Bharu at noon on the 28th October with
two boats, and intended, if it were possible, to
meet Mr. Birch at Pasir Salak about the 3rd
November.

Besides the Malay boatmen, I had with me a very
celebrated Selangor chief named Raja Mahmud, a
man whose whole life had been passed in jungle
warfare, and as he had come through it scathless he
was regarded by Malays as invulnerable and re-
spected accordingly. His latest exploit had been

to take command of a body of Malays in an engage-

249

MALAY SKETCHES

ment with Her Majesty's troops in a neighbouring
State (Sungei Ujong), and as I had subsequently
persuaded him to go to Singapore and give himself
up to the Governor, he had attached himself to me
and thoroughly enjoyed the possibility of trouble in
Perak.

Then I had a Manila boatman, one of the best
coxswains on the river, a marvellous dancer of
hornpipes and no less courageous than Raja Mahmud
himself — more so he could hardly be. Lastly,
Mahmud had a couple of men devoted to himself,
and I had a Chinese servant.

This being the wet season the river was high,
poling difficult and progress slow, so that it was
not till the morning of the 30th that we reached
Blanja, the village of Sultan Ismail. As Ismail
had been elected Sultan by a number of influential
chiefs who declined to recognise either Jusuf or
Abdullah (though both of them had far superior
claims), and, as by the Pangkor Treaty and re-
cognition of Abdullah, Ismail no doubt felt aggrieved,
I did not expect a very friendly reception from him,
nor did I suppose that I should be specially welcome
as the bearer of proclamations which could not be
otherwise than distasteful to him. It was only six
weeks since I had been at Blanja with the Governor,

250

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

and again a fortnight later I went there alone. Since
then Ismail (or his advisers in his name) had
summoned nearly all the principal people of the
upper country, and a very large number of boats
had arrived at Blanja, bringing all the chiefs and
their retainers. Moreover, to increase his following
the ex-Sultan had resorted to an expedient not un-
known in England ; certain high offices of State
were vacant, and into these he inducted his own
adherents — in fact, created peers, to give himself a
majority in the Upper House.

I waited half the day hoping to see Ismail, but
failed. They said he was asleep and meant to
remain asleep a long time. That is a common form
of Malay diplomacy, and, as I could not afford to
delay longer, I explained the proclamations, left a
number of copies and said I would call on Ismail
on my way back in a few days. As a piece ot
news they told me a customs station had been
established at Blanja, and everyone who passed
would be taxed, white men or Malays. I said I
should be glad to see the collector, and he was in-
troduced, but seemed embarrassed, and assured me
he was only carrying out his master's orders, so I
continued my journey. If any conclusion could be

drawn from the conversation and manner of the

251

MALAY SKETCHES

Blanja people, disturbances (war, they called it) were
imminent.

The next day I was at the Raja Muda's village,
and had a long talk with him. He also was for
war, but did not think the Malays would begin it.
He said no good would be done in the country, till
" the malcontents " had been taught a lesson. Un-
fortunately, as far as could be seen, all the chiefs
with very few exceptions, were in that category.
The people hardly count, they are passive and
recognise that they live to obey their leaders.

That night I reached Kuala Kangsar, and the
then important personage of the place, an old lady
who Uved on the hill where now the Residency
stands, informed me that she had been living in
daily fear of attack by the people of a neighbouring
village called Kota Lama. The shops in Kuala
Kangsar were all closed, and everyone was waiting
for the bursting of the storm.

The latest excitement here was that a notoriously
bad character named Raja Alang, living in a house
by the path which led from Kuala Kangsar to the
neighbouring district of Larut, saw a foreign Malay
(a man of Patani) walking past with his wife and
two children. When the man got opposite Raja
Alang's house he raised his trousers to keep them
252

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

out of the mud, and as Raja Alang considered this
disrespectful to him, he called to the man and told
him he must pay a fine of a hundred dollars. The
man was of course unable to comply with this mon-
strous demand, so the Raja took him, his wife and
children, into the house, and said he would keep
them there till the money was paid. After a couple
of days, during which they were given no food,
Raja Alang said he would sell the woman and chil-
dren to raise the amount of the fine. Just at dawn
on the following morning the Patani man got up,
took from a Malay lying near him a krisy and with
it stabbed the owner to death. Then he struck out
wildly, killing another man, a woman, his own two
children, and a child of Raja Alang, while he
wounded his own wife. Raja Alang hastily left the
house, hurting himself considerably, for he forgot
the steps in the hurry of his exit. The murderer
went next door and killed two more women and
then escaped. Altogether he killed nine people and
wounded three. It is a detail, I mention it only as
showing the state of society, and because this inci-
dent, at the time of my arrival, was, with rumours
of war, dividing the interests of the people of Kuala
Kangsar.

On the ist November I read and posted the pro-
253

MALAY SKETCHES

clamations in Kuala Kangsar, and on the following
day I went to see the Raja Bendahara, the third
highest officer in the State. He lived across the
river, and to him and a large crowd of his followers
I read the proclamation, and gave the Bendahara
some copies, which I asked him to have posted.

Amongst the crowd was Raja Alang, who gave
me his version of the amok, and denied that he had
ill-treated the Patani man. I see from the journal
I kept in those days that I expressed my surprise
that such things were not of daily occurrence, look-
ing to the infamous way in which the people were
treated by the Rajas, to which he replied that he had
done wrong but was now taubat (a reformed cha-
racter), that he wished to go to Mecca (the desire
of all Malays who want to wipe out a bad record
and rehabilitate themselves with society), and would
be obliged if I would lend him a thousand dollars
for the purpose !

On the 3rd November I distributed the proclama-
tions in villages between Kuala Kangsar and Larut,
and in the afternoon went with Raja Mahmud and
one boat up river to Kota Lama. This village had
then, as indeed it has still, the unenviable reputa-
tion of being the most impossible place in Perak.
It was a very large village, and the people in it
254

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

prided themselves on their independence ; their
neighbours called it impudence. A few months
before Mr. Birch had visited Kota Lama, but the
people turned out with firearms, and said that if he
landed they would shoot him. He had no means
of forcing a landing then, nor of compelling an
apology later, and, therefore, he had not since been
to the place.

I had been in Kota Lama a month before this ;
I went to see a man who had been shot through
the shoulder the night before by two men who had
a grudge against him, and had settled it in a
truly Irish fashion. They called at his house, and
while engaging him in conversation and eating his
strehy had measured the distance of his sleeping mat
from the walls of the house. It was a wooden
building, and, like all Malay houses, the floor was
raised high above the ground. That night they
had got underneath it, and, having carefully calcu-
lated their host's position, they fired simultaneously
and decamped. One bullet missed the victim's
head by an inch or two, and the other went through
the floor and the mat and penetrated his shoulder.

I now went to see this man again and found him
doing badly, and advised his relatives to send him
to Kuala Kangsar. Then we walked about the

255

MALAY SKETCHES

village^ talked to the people, and in the absence of
the headman I sent for his deputy. He came
accompanied by four or five men all armed to the
teeth, and we had a conversation wherein I think
each side did its best to " bluff" the other. It so
happened that we had come away without the pro-
clamations, and I asked the headman to send to
Kuala Kangsar, when I got back, and I would give
the papers, that he might post them in Kota Lama.

He said they only acknowledged one chief in
Kota Lama, and he was the Raja Bendahara, and
they would do nothing without his orders. I told
them I would ask the Bendahara to give the
necessary instructions, but inquired, " What about
the Sultan ? " To which they replied that he lived
a long way off. They added, "We won't hinder
you if you want to post the proclamations," but
they did not say it in the politest fashion, and I
told them the permission was unnecessary, as, if I
had had the proclamations, I should have posted
them. After this we had a long and comparatively
friendly talk, and it was nearly dark when I left
them.

Raja Mahmud stood by and said nothing, but
they knew well enough who he was, and it is
possible they might have acted differently had he
256

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

not been there. On our way back he told me he
was so amazed at the way the Kota Lama men talked
that he felt it wiser not to join in the conversation.

Arrived at Kuala Kangsar, I found the Raja
Muda Jusuf, and told him the result of my visit to
Kota Lama. The Raja Muda's feelings towards the
Kota Lama people were quite beyond expression,
and they were very cordially reciprocated.

The next morning, the 4th November, my work
being done, I started down river at 8.30 a.m.
I saw the Raja Muda before I left, and, again
referring to my journal, I find that he said : " No
early or permanent settlement can be made without
force, without making an example of some of the
opposition. They are quiet now because you are
here ; as soon as you go they will begin again. If
you and Raja Mahmud will come, and we may use
force, we can settle the matter in a fortnight."

Little as he thought it, the time for force was at
hand, for some was already past ; but if his pre- t
diction was right, his estimate of the means required
to settle matters was over-sanguine.

Stopping only for breakfast, my boats reached
Blanja at 4 p.m. It was my intention to spend
the night there, interview ex-Sultan Ismail, and
continue my journey the next day.

257 R

MALAY SKETCHES

The river at Blanja shoals rapidly towards the
left bank, which is bordered by a long and wide
strip of sand. The boats of those who call here
are dragged as close in as possible, and while our
men were engaged in doing this, and still some
distance from the shore, a man called Haji Ali
waded out to my boat and came on board. We
had noticed the unusual number of people on the
sands — not less than two or three hundred — and
of boats alongside there were at least fifty, but we
were hardly prepared for the news that awaited us.

This Haji Ali, a tall, well-made man in the prime
of life, was the genial person of evil reputatioTi
who, with Penglima Prang Semaun, had already
distinguished himself by murdering one of the low-
country chiefs. Notwithstanding this fact the Haji
was always anxious to convey the impression that
he was entirely friendly to me, but I distrusted him
in common with the rest of the Blanja faction.

Haji Ali seated himself in my boat and at once
stated that Mr. Birch had sone to Pasir Salak, that
there he and sixteen of his people had been mur-
dered by the Mahprr ja I.ela, who had then attacked
and captured Bandar Bharu, killing all the Sikhs
who had not saved themselves by flight. This

news was so startling that I could not believe it and
258

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

said so, but the man assured me it was true, and
added as a proof that the Maharaja Lela had sent
Mr. Birch's own boat to Blanja to prove to Ismail
the truth of his statement. Ismail, he said, had
dedined to receive the boat, telling the men who
brought it that as the Maharaja Lela had killed
Mr. Birch he had better keep his boat, and the
messengers had accordingly left with it only two
hours before our arrival.

At Haji Ali's first words Raja Mahmud had
caught up his kris, and was now tightening his
waist-belt and preparing for instant trouble.

The Haji completed his information by con-
siderately telling me that the Maharaja Lela and his
people had staked the river right across at Pasir
Salak, making it impassable for boats, that they
knew I was returning, and were waiting for me, it
being their belief that when once they had got rid
of Mr. Birch and myself they would have no further
interference from white men, as no one else knew
the country. He concluded with an invitation from
the ex-Sultan to go and see him on shore.

I thanked him, and to get rid of him asked him
to go back and say that I was coming.

As soon as he had left the boat I held a hasty
consultation with Raja Mahmud, who said it would

259

MALAY SKETCHES

be madness to land at Blanja, where we should be
like rats in a trap, and the only course was to go on at
once and at all hazards before they had time to stop us.

The idea of returning up-river was unpleasant and
well nigh impossible, it was therefore discarded at
once.

All the men in both my boats had heard what
Haji Ali said, and as some of them did not relish
the prospect of trying to run the gauntlet, I decided
to leave one boat and only take those who volun-
teered to go. That question was very soon settled,
every Perak man declined the journey ; my Manila
boy took the rudder, three foreign Malays and
Mahmud's two men formed the crew, and Mahmud
and I were the passengers. There was my Chinese
servant, he was not a man of war, and I thought he
would prefer to remain where he was, for they all
realised that the danger would be in staying with
me. When I asked him, however, he smiled a not
quite pleasant smile, and producing a long knife said
he did not mean to move. It was quite clear that
if it came to close quarters he would give a good
account of himself.

By this time we were ready to start, but just as
the men were preparing to get the boat out into
the stream, Haji Ali appeared again to take us on
260

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

shore. I at once told him that if his story was
true I could not stop at Blanja and must go on at
once. How far he had been acting before was
doubtful, but his surprise now was genuine enough.
He said, " It is impossible, the whole country down
stream is in arms, you cannot pass, it is certain
destruction." We told him that whatever it was
we were going, and we pointed out to him that as
the boat was moving into deep water he had not
much time to get out if he wanted to return to
the shore. He got out, and it was rather deep, but
he stood there and shouted, " No doubt you think
yourselves very fine fellows, but you will be killed
all the same."

He was still standing in the same place when
we had gone some distance, and as we passed out-
side the long line of boats the many people on
shore realised that we had started again and were
rapidly dropping down stream. It seemed to us
that for them the unexpected had happened.

The pleasure of thinking that we had at any rate
cheated the Blanja people did not last us long and
I believe every man in the boat — certainly I can
speak for myself — believed that he had started on
a journey of which sudden death was the inevitable
bourne.

261

MALAY SKETCHES

The Resident, we were told, had been murdered
at Pasir Salak, and we could not well doubt the
truth of that report. Then the people on both
banks of the river for miles above and below Pasir
Salak were on the watch for us ; the Residency
was in the hands of the Maharaja Lela's people,
the Sikhs killed or fugitives in the jungle ; worst of
all, the river at Pasir Salak was staked from bank
to bank, and if so no boat could pass that barrier.

There were two points of minor moment — first,
that the Residency boats were all painted white, we
had one of them, and no native-owned boat in the
country was white. That fact made us so conspi-
cuous that we did not think it worth while to lower
the Union Jack we carried at the stern. Secondly,
up to that time no house-boat had ever made the
journey from Blanja to Pasir Salak in anything like
twelve hours, and we calculated, therefore, that we
should reach the point of greatest danger in broad
daylight, probably about 9 a.m. the next morning.
Speed was our best chance, but here again we were
handicapped by the fact that our men had been
paddling since 8.30 a.m., they had had one meal,
and now there was a night's work before them and
no time to stop for cooking.

If the conditions were as they had been stated,

262

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

and as we believed them to be, nothing could save
us, for with two rifles and a shot gun we could
hardly hope to force the barrier unless aided by a
miracle.

The river was high, the current strong, and just
at dusk we reached Bota. Fastened by an island
opposite the village we saw Mr. Birch's own boat,
the " Dragon, ' and with that all doubt as to his
fate was at an end. Raja Mahmud suggested that
we might stop and attack the people in charge. The
idea was attractive and no doubt it would have been
a surprise to them, but we decided that it was un-
wise to waste the time and rouse the whole village.
As we passed the boat we could see no one in or
about it.

The night was moonless but starlit, fine and clear

enough for our purpose, dark enough to conceal us

when we were in the middle of the stream. But

the Perak is a river where the navigable channel

wanders from side to side in a way that often

baffles the most skilful pilot. The height of the

water lessened our difficulties, but for all that we

were driven at times very close to the banks.

Between 9 and 10 p.m. a thick white mist came

down and enveloped the river in impenetrable fog.

This was very confusing, for, while it lasted, it was

263

MALAY SKETCHES

impossible to see half a boat's length in any direc-
tion. The mist lifted and fell again at intervals all
through the night, and so dense was it that at one
time we lost our way, and at last discovered by a
snag that we had got the boat completely round
and were paddling up stream!

That discovery gave us rather a bad shock, for
we calculated that we had lost half an hour of pre-
cious time, and if we could make such a mistake
once it might occur again. It was possible because
we dared not have any light, and only smoked with
the utmost precaution.

I was so tired that about half-past ten I could no
longer keep awake, and several times the wearied
boatmen dropped asleep over their paddles. We
were not at all certain of our whereabouts, but
some time after eleven o'clock we realised, by the
succession of watch-fires on the banks and the
numbers of men moving about, that we were getting
into the zone of danger. It seemed to me, dozing
and waking, that this lasted for a long time ; we
were getting callous of the people on the bank when
we found that no one seemed to observe us however
close we were forced to go.

I had told them to rouse me when we got near

to Pasir Salak, for now, to our great surprise, it

264

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

seemed evident that we should reach the place
hours before dawn. About 1.30 a.m. Mahmud
quietly woke me, and the boatmen nerved them-
selves for the final effort.

We knew that to get past Pasir Salak it was
necessary to go right under one bank or the other,
and the deepest water was on the left or Kampong
Gajah side. That we decided to take. Huge fires
were blazing on the bank, and round each were
grouped a number of armed men — indeed, the whole
place was apparently on the qui vive. As noise-
lessly as possible, but none the less vigorously, the
men plied their paddles, and we made for the deep
water under the bank. Just at this moment the
thick white veil of mist came down over the river,
and under its sheltering cover we glided swiftly
down, the light of the blazing logs, close though
they were, shining vaguely through the fog, while
now and then a man's figure, of seemingly gigantic
proportions, loomed out from the fire-lit haze.

Every instant we expected to feel the shock of

the boat against the barrier, and we had determined

that when that happened we would push our boat

along it till we found the usual opening closed by

a floating log and guarded, as we supposed, by

boats. In the darkness we meant to try and force

265

MALAY SKETCHES

our way through or take one of the enemy's boats
on the down-stream side of the stakes.

We could hardly realise the truth when we
found ourselves at the lower end of the village
without having encountered any obstruction. The
barrier never existed in fact — only in the imagina-
tion of Haji All, or, more probably, the Maharaja
Lela had intended to make it, but the Malay habits
of laziness and procrastination defeated his plan.

Just as I was thinking a very sincere thanks-
giving, the bow of the boat suddenly ran on the
shore and stuck there fast. We were so close to
the bank that this happened without the slightest
warning. For an instant the steersman had given
the rudder a wrong turn, and we were stranded.
To my dismay, I saw on the high bank, exactly
over us, a large fire with eight or ten men round it.
I seized the shot-gun, Mahmud had a rifle, and we
knelt with fingers on trigger covering two of the
figures that were distinct enough in spite of the
mist, for we were hardly ten feet distant from them.

Two of our men with poles were making super-
human efforts to push off the boat, when a man on
the bank called out, " Whose boat is that ? " One
of our men replied, " Haji Mat Yassin's," having
seen his boat at Blanja. " Where are you from ? "

266

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

was the next inquiry, and the reply was, " Blanja."
" Where are you for ? " and other questions fol-
lowed, but by this time the bow of the boat was off
and we were drifting stern-foremost out into the
stream and the sheltering fog. As the distance
widened and shouts came to stop, the answers
returned were derisive and misleading, for every-
one felt that the real danger was past and the life
he had made up his mind to lose would not be
required of him that night after all.

It was true that we had yet to pass the Residency
at Bandar Bharu, five miles lower down, and we
had been told this was in the hands of the Maharaja
Lela, but there at least there was no barrier, and
we were confident that we had nothing more to
fear.

We passed Bandar Bharu quietly, we saw a light
on each bank and a man on watch by the light, and
we said to each other that it would be very easy to
shoot the men as they placed themselves so con-
veniently en evidence.

Ten miles lower down the river, it being then

only 3 A.M., we were suddenly hailed by a voice

threatening death and other penalties if we did not

immediately declare who we were. That was a

very welcome challenge, for I recognised the voice,

267

MALAY SKETCHES

and in a few seconds we were alongside a Selangor
steam-launch.

Only then we learnt that Bandar Bharu had not
fallen into the hands of the enemy, and we had
therefore come ten miles further than was necessary ;
but we congratulated ourselves on the forbearance
v^e nad snown m not shooting the sentries, and
later in the morning, when we got up to the
Residency, suggested that if the Sikh felt lonesome
in the night watches it would perhaps be wiser for
him not to stand in the full blaze of a large lamp.

The Maharaja Leia and his friends professed
themselves both surprised and disappointed when
they found I had arrived at Bandar Bharu, having
passed Pasir Salak without their knowledge. I
daresay, however, that some of them were not alto-
gether sorry that they had been spared a meeting
with Raja Mahmud, for he was reckoned a mighty
man of valour. In my case he was also a wise
counsellor, for subsequent disclosures proved that had
I landed at Blanja the intention was to immediately
attack and murder me, and when we so abruptly
left that place the ingenuous Haji AH and his friend
the Penglima Prang Semaun with a number of their
men were sent after us in fast boats on a mission
similar to the one they had previously undertaken
268

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

and successfully carried out. As we saw nothing
of them I conclude they did not exert themselves to
overtake us.

During the subsequent military operations in
Perak, Haji Ali fell into our hands, and, after some
weeks spent on a British man-of-war, he became
quite a reformed character. I occasionally see him
now, but he seems depressed, and when I find him
looking at me there is no anger in his face, only a
great sorrow as of a man who is misunderstood by
the world and who suffers without resentment.

I don't know why, but this expression is a source
of unfeigned amusement to the Malays who happen
to see it. It is very unfeeling of them.

269

XXI
NAKODAH ORLONG

Two things greater than all things

are,
One is Love and the other War

RuDYARD Kipling

ON the day after my arrival at Bandar Bharu,
Captain Innes, R.E., came from Penang
accompanied by two officers and sixty men of the
First Battalion of H.M. loth Regiment, together
with the Superintendent of the Penang Police (Hon.
H. Plunket) and twenty native constables armed
with rifles.

Captain Innes, an exceptionally able member of
his distinguished corps, was then in civil employ as
head of the Public Works Department in Penang.
When the news of Mr. Birch's murder reached that
place, the nearest British Settlement, Captain Innes
was sent with a force to take charge of the
Residency.

270

NAKODAR ORLONG

It is not my intention to detail the subsequent
events except in so far as is necessary for a right
understanding of an incident connected with the
death of a man called Nakodah Orlong, a Sumatran
Malay.

With the force at our disposal, which included
Lieut. Abbott, R.N., his four bluejackets, and
about fifty so-called Sikhs, it was determined to
attack Pasir SS,lak before the Maharaja Lela had
time to collect a large following. An immediate
advance was also considered advisable to prevent
the number of our enemies being increased by what
might look like our indecision. With Easterns, to sit
still and stockade your position is probably, under
such circumstances, the worst course possible.

We knew that the Maharaja Lela was throwing
up works, not only in his village, but outside of it,
and to force them it was decided to take two
howitzers and a rocket-tube.

The distance from Bandar Bharu to Pasir Salak
was five miles, every yard of it covered with
vegetation of some sort, the only road a narrow
path by the river-bank ; moreover, Pasir Salak was
not on our side of the river. It was, therefore,
settled that we should start at daylight the next
morning, the 7th November, in boats, that we

271

MALAY SKETCHES

should pole up stream two miles and walk the rest,
the guns being served by the bluejackets from two
boats that would be kept in line with the shore
party.

All that was wanted was a body of scouts to feel
the w^ay, and I undertook to find these. There
were Raja Mahmud, his two followers, and the
Manila boy already spoken of, but it was hard to
say where any other trustworthy Malays could be
got at such short notice. Late that evening,
however, Nakodah Orlong, whom I knew well, came
in, and when I asked him if he would join us he at
once consented, and said he could bring fourteen of
his own men with him. That made us twenty, and
was enough for the purpose.

We were up at 4.30 a.m. on the 7th, got all the
men into boats, and made a start by 7.30 a.m., not
without difficulty, however, for we were hard
pressed for hands to do the poling. It was only
after we had started that I learnt the intention of
taking guns had been abandoned, a very unfor-
tunate change of plan as it turned out. To attack,
without guns, any work defended by Malays means
a certain sacrifice of life, as we found to our cost,
and took care that the mistake was never repeated.

The carriage of guns and rockets through the jungle

272

NAKODAH ORLONG

means delay and hard work, but, whatever the
trouble and delay, hardly any consideration will
justify an attack without at least one gun.

The river journey was accomplished without
incident, a landing was effected, and the party
moved off. The scouts were in front, followed at
an interval by half the detachment of the lOth,
Captain Innes and the sailors with a rocket-tube
came next, then the Sikhs and Penang Police under
Mr. Plunket, and last of all the remainder of the
lOth Regiment.

We began the march gaily enough, not expecting
to meet with any resistance till near Pasir Salak.
After walking a mile or so, always close by the
river-bank, we came to a large field of Indian corn.
The plants were eight or ten feet high, and so
thick and close that it was impossible to see more
than three or four yards in any direction ; the ground
between the corn-stalks was planted with hill-padi,
and that was a couple of feet in height.

On entering this field we opened out to cover

as large a front as possible, and, when half way

through the corn, passed a gigantic fig-tree growing

on the edge of the river bank. On my right was

Nakodah Orlong, and to the right of him one of his

men called Alang; on my left was Raja Mahmud

273 s

MALAY SKETCHES

the Manila boy, and the rest of the scouts. We
had been walking fast, and of the rest of the force
we could see and hear nothing.

We were talking and laughing (being still a long
way from Pasir Salak) when suddenly we came to
the end of the cover, for the last few feet of the
corn had been cut down. At this moment Nakodah
Orlong said, "There they are," and the words were
hardly out of his mouth when we were greeted by
a volley from the enemy concealed behind a stockade
not a dozen yards in front of us.

Nakodah Orlong fell without uttering another
sound, and, the enemy maintaining a brisk fire, our
position was so uncomfortable that my own inclina-
tion was unhesitatingly to get out of the way.
Probably my intention was apparent, for Raja
Mahmud said, "Stand fast and shoot." I was
obliged to him and followed his advice,-but as the
Manila boy and I were the only passessors of
shooting-weapons, and the enemy were hidden
behind a rampart of logs and banana-stems, while
we had no shelter whatever, our continued exis-
tence was due simply to their want of skill.

The absurdity of the situation was apparent, and

its unpleasantness was heightened by the opening

of a brisk fusilade in our rear. That decided us
274

NAKODAH ORLONG

and we stepped back under cover, and then moved
to the sheltering trunk of the fig-tree. Arrived
there we found that besides Nakodah Orlong (about
whose fate there was no doubt, for he fell within a
yard of me), Alang was the only one missing. He
was the last man on the right, and, as no one had
seen him, we concluded that he also had been killed.
It was at once proposed that we should go back and
secure the bodies, but our own people keeping up a
merciless discharge in rear, and the enemy doing
their best in front, we were between two fires, and
thought it best to try and stop our friends at any
rate from shooting us.

We shouted, but that, of course, was no use, no
one could either see or hear us, and it was some
minutes before we were able to let Captain Innes
know of our position. In that time we realised
that even i large tree offers poor shelter from a cross
fire. It did not, however, take us long to decide
that the side towards the enemy was the safest.

That was only the beginning of misunderstanding ;
twice again during the day we were placed in the
same uncomfortable position, and a man kneeling
behind me was shot in the back of his thigh. Once
also the Sikhs made a determined attack on the men
with me as we were trying to outflank the Malays,

275

MALAY SKETCHES

and in spite of our shouts only desisted when almost
within touch of us. It is true, of course, that the
cover was so dense they could not see us until the
last moment. They were so dispirited by this waste
of effort, that they incontinently left the place and
went straight home in spite of all Plunket's attempts
to stop them. That was in no sense his fault, for
they were not his men, and he had never seen them
before the previous evening. The Penang police
had retired en masse at an even earlier hour, and
explained afterwards, with much force, that it was
not for this kind of work that they had engaged.

The enemy's stockade was a long rampart im-
penetrable to bullets ; it was faced by a deep and
wide ditch cut at right angles to the river, with one
end on the bank and the other in high jungle. The
work was backed by a thick plantation of bananas,
affording perfect cover, and those defending it were
commanded by the Maharaja Lela in person, and his
father-in-law Pandak Indut, foremost of Mr. Birch's
murderers.

I am not now concerned with the details of the
attack, it is sufficient to say that it did not take long
to prove how serious a mistake had been made in leav-
ing the howitzers behind. The rockets, an old pattern,
were ineffective, and as they all went over the top of
276

NAKODAH ORLONG

the stockade were greeted by the jeers of the enemy.
We were close enough to hear even what they said
in the intervals between the firing. Experience is
usually costly, and what we learnt on the 7th en-
abled us, a week later, to carry this and a succession
of other stockades without the loss of a man.

About I P.M. (our force being then reduced to the
officers, the men of the lOth, bluejackets, and Malay
scouts) Captain Innes gave the order to charge the
stockade. That was done, but without guns to clear
the way it was a hopeless task. We could not get
across the ditch in the face of an unseen, protected
enemy, while we were entirely at their mercy. We
had to retire with the loss of Captain Innes killed,
both the officers of the loth (Lieutenants Booth and
Elliott) severely wounded, and other casualties. If
men with weapons of precision and the knowledge
to handle them had held the work, none of our
party ought to have escaped. But with Malays you
can take liberties ; their weapons take some time to
load, but they are deadly enough at a few yards
distance if the men who hold them would not fire at
the tree-tops. The Mala/s idea is to loose off his
piece as often as he can, it makes a noise and that
puts heart into the man who fires, fear into the enemy.

Though we had gained nothing by rushing the
277

MALAY SKETCHES

place, the enemy did not like that style of attack
and retired, only we did not know it then. We were
engaged in counting the cost, picking up the wounded
and organising an orderly retreat, for it was late, we
had some miles to go, and we expected the Malays
would leave their shelter and come after us. Per-
sonally I did not know Captain Innes had been
killed, I was in the centre and he was on the extreme
right. My party was hampered by having to carry
a wounded man, and when we got back to the
middle of the field where Abbott and Plunket were
waiting, Innes and the others had already been
taken away. We had no surgeon, no stretchers,
and the return journey was one that is not pleasant
to recall.

We reached our boats at 3 p.m., and the Residency
a quarter of an hour later.

For some time I was very busy trying to attend
to the wounded, but then my Malay friends asked
me for a boat, as they said they must go and fetch
Nakodah Orlong's body, and see what had become
of Alang. A British soldier was also missing. I
gave the boat and they started.

About 8 P.M. they returned with Alang and the

body of his chief ; they had met the lad swimming

down the river with his master's body.
278

NAKODAH ORLONG

When Nakodah Orlong fell, and the rest of us
got away behind the great tree, this boy stayed by
the dead man, and as he was right in the line of the
thickest cross-fire, Alang pulled the body as close
to the bank as he could, and there remained from
morning till evening, making no sign, but simply
declining to abandon the corpse. A man even
came out from the stockade and attacked him with
a kris, wounding him on the hand, but Alang beat
him off. After the final charge, when our people
passed close by him, it was he who saw the Malays
retire, and he allowed us all to go away and leave
him without giving any indication ot his where-
abouts.

Then, the coast being clear, unable to carry the
body so great a distance, he dragged it into the
river and was swimming down stream with it when
the boat met him.

I went down to the boat to see Nakodah Orlong ;

he looked just as I had seen him last, except that

his hair and clothes were drenched with water and

there was a great hole in the centre of his forehead,

marking, no doubt, the track of an iron bullet from

a swivel-gun. Of that, however, he could never

have been conscious, nor yet of the devotion of the

man whose life had been in extremest peril through-

279

MALAY SKETCHES

out a long day to guard his chiefs dead body, with-
out thought of gain or praise, only determined that
none but loving hands should be laid upon the
voiceless, pulseless clay he once called master.

Given a glorious sunny day and a good cause,
the idea of ending existence suddenly and painlessly
in the pride of life and in face of the foe has its
attractions, and robs the inevitable of its sting.

But who can hope that after his death there will
be one other being whose love is great enough to
offer his own life a willing sacrifice to guard the
thing that was to-day a friend and to-morrow will
be corruption?

280

XXII
EVENING

Phffibus loosens all his golden hair
Right down the sky

Eric Mackay

THE tale of these little lives is told. If I have
failed to bring you close to the Malay, so
that you could see into his heart, understand some-
thing of his life, and perhaps even sympathise with
the motives that will lead him to acts of high
courage and self-sacrifice, then the fault is mine.

The glory of the Eastern morning, the freshness
and the fragrance of the forest, the sultry heat of
these plains and slopes of eternal green on which
the moisture-charged clouds unceasingly pour fat-
ness — these are the home of the Malay, the back-
ground against which he stands.

Come, we have done with it all ; let us leave the

plain, seething in the heat of early afternoon, and

ride up this mountain path, through all the wealth

281

MALAY SKETCHES

and the magnificence of tropical jungle, and look
down on the land for the last time.

Our callous eyes — surfeited with years of gazing
on brilliant colours, great stretches of sea and
forest, huge trees, a bewildering luxury of foliage,
beasts measured by the elephant and rhinoceros,
birds by the argus pheasant and the peacock — are
blind to the infinite beauty of our surroundings.
This path, by which we slowly rise to cooler alti-
tudes and a new flora, would excite in the stranger
feelings of wonder and rapturous delight.

The road itself is cut through soil of a deep
shade of terra cotta, the colour all the more vivid by
reason of the hues of green by which it is environed.
The sunlight strikes in rays of brilliant light across
this path, falling on red soil, granite boulder and
massive tree-trunk, intensifying colour and deepen-
ing shadow. Here and there are seen glimpses of
the plains below, the distant sea, the peaks and
valleys of other hill ranges, and the ear constantly
catches the delightful sound of falling water, the
voices of numerous streams dashing down the
steep mountain sides in cascades of sparkling
foam.

The path twists and winds, often by sharp zig-
zags, up the face of the hill, across a narrow saddle
282

EVENING

and then by an even steeper ascent, till at last we
gain the summit of the mountain.

Stand here. The limit of vision is wide ; you
will scarce find a grander spectacle in this Peninsula.
We are nearly 5,000 feet above the sea, and from
north to south the eye travels over a distance not
far short of two hundred miles. Eastward, those
distant hills are fully a hundred miles away, and
soon on the western horizon the sun will meet the
sea in a blaze of glory, as though kindling at the
touch of loving arms long waiting for his coming.

That faint blue peak in the north, hazy and
indistinct, is Gunong Jerai in Kedah, and the island
to the westward, which smiles through a golden
veil, is Penang. A grey streak of water shot with
gleams of sunlight divides it from the mainland, and
the forty miles of country thence to the foot of this
hill, and far south again to those blue islets off the
Binding coast, lie flat and fertile, a feast for the
eyes. Vivid green patches mark thousands of acres
of sugar-cane and rice-field, but the general effect is
an unbroken expanse of dark jungle, mostly man-
grove, for all this land from hill-base to sea-shore is
of comparatively recent formation, the erosion from
the hills carried down seawards and covered with a

wealth of foliage ever renewed by the excessive

283

MALAY SKETCHES

heat and excessive moisture of this forcing tropical
climate. No rocks, no bare hills, no arid plains,
everything covered with vegetation : new graves look
old in a month, the buildings of a year, for all their
seeming, might have stood for half a century.

Only at our feet does the hand of man make any
mark on the landscape. There, amid trees and
gardens, nestle the red roofs of Taiping. You might
cover the place with a tablecloth for all its many
inhabitants, its long wide streets, open spaces, and
public buildings.

And those pools of water all around the town,
what are those?

They are abandoned tin-mines, alluvial workings
from which the ore has been removed, and water
mercifully covers, in part, this desolation of gaping
holes and upturned sand.

The shore, due west and distant some twenty
miles from the foot of the range on which we stand,
is deeply indented by three great bays. They are
the mouths of three rivers, short, shallow and insig-
nificant in themselves ; it is difficult to understand
why they should make such an imposing entry on
the sea. A mile or two inland from the coast the
eye is caught by twenty little lakes, on which the

sun loves to linger, burnishing them to gold when
284

EVENING

the setting in which these jewels lie has turned to
purple. They are fragments of estuaries, deep
waveless lagoons winding through the mangroves,
and showing to the distant spectator only broken
reaches, ghmpses of bay and headland.

The shore-line is a ribbon of glistening light,
bordering the wide expanse of forest trees, whose
roots stand deep in water when the tide is high.
The mangrove cannot live beyond the reach of the
brine from which it seems to draw the sap of life,
and these mud flats, in their gradual accretion, are
as yet scarcely above the level of the sea.

Turning to the north-east, a deep valley lies
beneath us, the source of a long river, the Kurau.
Miles and miles beyond rise range after range of
lofty mountains, Biong and Inas and Bintang,
running into the heart of the Peninsula. Further
eastward is the country near the sources of the
Perak River, and across the narrow valley, through
which its upper waters dance in a succession of
rapids, may be discerned peaks of the main range
which look down on the China Sea.

Now we are facing the south-east and the valley

of the Perak River. The ridge on which we stand

divides it from the Province of Larut, and surely

there are few fairer sights in the East than this

285

MALAY SKETCHES

same valley through which the river, plainly visible
twenty miles away, winds in a silver streak. On
the right stands Gunong Bubu, the isolated mass
terminating in a needle-like point nearly 6000 feet
high. The spurs of this mountain spread out in
every direction, north to the Pass from Larut into
the Perak Valley, east to the Perak River, and
southwards nearly to the coast, In the south-east,
across the Perak River, rise five or six ranges of
hills of ever-increasing height. Over the first range
can be seen the valley of the Kinta, with its many
fantastic limestone cliffs standing clearly out ; then
follow Chabang, Korbu, and finally the mountains
dividing Perak from Pahang. Those hills fading
out of sight in the far-away south are near the
borders of Perak and Selangor.

As we turn our faces back to the setting sun,
the great disc, now grown a deep crimson, is sink-
ing through a bank of clouds into a sea of flame.
The waters beyond the influence of the sun's light
are a brilliant sapphire, a reflection of the sky above.
There is only one long, low bank of cloud, and that
is on the horizon.

A moment later and the sun itself has gone, but
from the spot where it disappeared is radiating a

lurid glow which kindles the clouds into fire and

2S6

EVENING

shoots rays of gold over Penang in the north and
the Binding Islands in the south, seventy miles
apart. This golden light spreads for a space up-
ward through the bank of clouds, till, paling into a
belt of grey that again deepens into blue, and ever
gaining in intensity, it rises to the zenith and fills
the emp3Tean.

Meanwhile the darkness which seemed to be
settling over the distant eastern ranges is gradually
suffused with soft tints of rose dore'e, transfiguring
peak after peak and clearly defining every ridge and
valley. This aftermath of day, wherein the sun
returns to kiss the hills with one last lingering
caress, fills the whole atmosphere with a rosy
effulgence, then fades reluctantly away. 'Twixt
western sea and eastern hill lies that great sea-
indented plain over which night settles slowly but
surely, while still the sky and hills are vivid with
colour. But even the plain assumes its night garb
with no less grace and beauty. A faint mist has
risen from swamp and river, and, spreading itself
over the land, takes soft hues of opal and heliotrope
deepening into purple, while only the pools and
river-reaches shine out, like scraps of mirror steal-
ing borrowed glory from the sky.

Soon this light wanes ; purple turns to grey, the
287

MALAY SKETCHES

colours fade from sky and sea, only the shore-line
keeps its sheen. Then this too dies, and great
white clouds, coming from out the mines and
marshes like a troop of giant spectres risen in their
grave-clothes, stalk slowly round the foothills of
the mountain, through the Pass into the valley of
the Perak River.

Here, at this elevation, the night is not quite
yet.

Close around us still the jungle, but the trees are
dwarfed, the boughs are covered with moss and
lichen, orchids and ferns flourish in the forks, gor-
geously blossomed creepers twine round the branches
and hang from tree to tree. The air is full of the
scent of the magnolia, the moss-carpeted ground is
gay with a myriad flowers, some brilliantly plumaged
songless birds flit silently between the trees, and a
great bat sails aimlessly across the waning light.
The shrill scream of the cicada is but faintly heard
far down the height, and night comes, like a closing
hand grasping in resistless darkness all things
visible. The only sound to break the silence is the
fitful and plaintive croak of a wood-frog.

If night treads closely on the heels of day, there
is no need for regret. The darkness is but for a
moment, and over the eastern peaks spreads a

288

EVENING

silvery sheen, herald of that great orb of splendour
which, rising rapidly, clears the mountain and sheds
a flood of wonderful, indescribable, mellow radiance
over forest, plain, and sea, softening what is crude,
pointing with brilliance the most striking features,
and casting into a fathomless shadow the dark
valleys of the western slopes. There is nothing
cold about this Eastern moon. Seen, half-risen,
against the dark foliage of the mountain, it glitters
like molten silver, dazzling the eyes, and as it soars
serenely upward seems the very perfection of beauty,
light, and purity.

Strange that the delight and glory of mankind
since ever the earth was peopled, the emblem of
unattainable longing, should be only a gigantic
cinder

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Monday, December 28, 2020

MALAY SKETCHES by Sir Frank Swettenham

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