The Project Gutenberg eBook of Malay sketches
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Malay sketches
Author: Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham
Release date: May 9, 2025 [eBook #76055]
Language: English
Original publication: London: John Lane, 1903
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MALAY SKETCHES ***
MALAY SKETCHES
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
UNADDRESSED LETTERS
_Crown 8vo, 6s. Third Edition_
“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
Athenæum._
“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._
[Illustration]
MALAY SKETCHES
BY
SIR FRANK ATHELSTANE SWETTENHAM
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON AND NEW YORK MDCCCCIII
THIRD EDITION
Printed by BALLANTYNE HANSON & CO.
London & Edinburgh
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ix
I. THE REAL MALAY 1
II. THE TIGER 12
III. A FISHING PICNIC 19
IV. THE MURDER OF THE HAWKER 25
V. MĔNG-GĔLUNCHOR 31
VI. ÂMOK 38
VII. THE JÔGET 44
VIII. THE STORY OF MAT ARIS 53
IX. LÂTAH 64
X. THE ETERNAL FEMININE 83
XI. IN THE NOON OF NIGHT 92
XII. VAN HAGEN AND CAVALIERO 103
XIII. THE PASSING OF PĔNGLIMA PRANG SĔMAUN 112
XIV. BĔR-HANTU 147
XV. THE KING’S WAY 161
XVI. A MALAY ROMANCE 179
XVII. MALAY SUPERSTITIONS 192
XVIII. WITH A CASTING-NET 211
XIX. JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH 227
XX. A PERSONAL INCIDENT 248
XXI. NAKODAH ORLONG 270
XXII. EVENING 281
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
Malâya 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 donc ce pays, disaient-ils l’un a l’autre, inconnu
a tout le reste de la terre, et où toute la nature est d’une
espèce si différente de la nôtre?”
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 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.
Malâya, land of the pirate and the _âmok_, 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, 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 rivière mène toujours à quelque en droit habité;
si nous ne trouvons pas des choses agréables, nous trouverons
du moins des choses nouvelles
“‘Allons,’ dit Candide, ‘recommandons-nous à la Providence’”
VOLTAIRE
MALAY SKETCHES
I
THE REAL MALAY
He was the mildest manner’d man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat
BYRON, _Don Juan_
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 understand the
inner man, and this knowledge can therefore 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 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 complexion, 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 trustworthy
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 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 importance. 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 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 will 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 _âmok_. 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, 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 beginning 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 compulsory 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 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 Korân
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 civilisation, 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 usefulness 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 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 menkind. 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, with 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 complexion, 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 marriage, 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 amount 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 participation in
the fêtes and pleasures of Malay society, is looked upon as a jealous,
ill-conditioned person.
Malays are extremely particular about questions of rank and birth,
especially when it comes to marriage, and _mésalliances_, 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
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 hobnail boots, and no screaming viragoes—because a word would get rid
of them. All forms of madness, 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.
I am not going to give away the secrets of the life behind the curtain;
if I wished to do so I might trip over difficulties of expression; but
in spite of the 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 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.
II
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 deliberately 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 transition 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 _sârong_, 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 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 speechless
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 _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 climb 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 outskirts of the wide surrounding ring of beaters where 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 prevent 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 prevent 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 neighbourhood have been
collected. The copse is surrounded 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 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.
III
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
LONGFELLOW
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 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 detonator 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 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 effort, 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
sufficient 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 supplies the forks and spoons. Whether it is the exercise,
the excitement, or the coldness of the two hours’ bath, that is most
responsible for the keen appetites is not worth inquiring, 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 people 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, but 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 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
ammunition 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 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.
IV
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 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 knowledge 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
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 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 naïvely 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 apparently 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 eye-witnesses going on
a similar errand, he persuaded 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 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.
V
MĔNG-GĔLUNCHOR
And falling and crawling and sprawling,
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 splashing and clashing
SOUTHEY
The Malays of Perak occasionally indulge themselves 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 of our time, I offer it to the jaded pleasure-seekers of the West.
Given a fine sunny morning (and that is what most mornings are in Perak)
you will drive four or 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 _mĕng-gĕlunchor_ 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 succession 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 inviting lynn not more than four feet deep. On
either 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 _mĕng-gĕlunchor_. 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 is 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 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 slightly 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 _mĕng-gĕlunchor_ 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 description, 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 shallow pool where half a dozen people will be on you before
you can get out of the 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
_mĕng-gĕlunchor_ 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 1 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 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 inconvenient 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 application of
Art to Nature, the Eastern pastime is capable of easy and successful
acclimatisation in the West. And as the knights and dames stroll slowly
down the wooded glen, and the sinking sun strikes long shafts of light
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
_Mĕng-gĕlunchor_.
VI
ÂMOK
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 _âmok_, and, as what, with our happy
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.
_Mĕng-âmok_ 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, killing
and wounding all who come in his way, regardless of age or sex, whether
they be friends, strangers, or his own nearest relatives.
Just before sunset on the evening of the 11th February, 1891, a Malay
named Imam Mamat (that is Mamat the priest) came quietly into the house
of his brother-in-law at Pâsir Gâram on the Perak River, carrying a spear
and a _gôlok_, _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,
immediately stabbing her fatally in the abdomen with the _gôlok_. 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 of 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
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.
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 _gôlok_. 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.
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 _aged_ 33
Bilal Abu, brother-in-law of Mamat ” 35
Ngah Intan, wife of Bilal Abu ” 32
Puteh, daughter of Bilal Abu ” 4
Mumin, son of Bilal Abu ” 7
Uda Majid ” 35
WOUNDED.
Kâsim, son of Bilal Abu _aged_ 14
Teh, daughter of Bilal Abu ” 6
Mat Sah ” 45
Lasam —
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 his
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 suffering 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 hæmorrhage 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 JÔGET
Every footstep fell as lightly
As a sunbeam on the river
LONGFELLOW’S _Spanish Student_
Malays are not dancers, but they pay professional performers to dance
for their amusement, 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 shuffling 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 accompanied
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
entertainment has an undoubted fascination for Malays but it generally
forms part of a theatrical performance, and for Western spectators it is
immeasurably dull.
In one of the Malay States, however, Păhang, 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 “Jôget”—a real dance with
an accompaniment of something like real music, though the orchestral
instruments are very rude indeed.
The dancers, _bûdak jôget_, belong to the Raja’s household, they may even
be attached to him by a closer tie; they perform seldom, only for the
amusement of their lord and his friends, and the public are not admitted.
Years ago I saw such a dance, and though peculiar to Păhang 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 Păhang on a political mission accompanied by a friend,
and we were vainly courting sleep in a miserable lodging, when at 1
A.M. a message came from the Sultan inviting us to witness a _jôget_.
We accepted with alacrity, and at once made our way to the _astâna_, a
picturesque, well-built and commodious house on the right bank of the
Păhang 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 curtain. The
three steps were to provide sitting accommodation according to their rank
for those admitted to the _astâna_. 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 daïs.
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 workmanship—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 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 1½ 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
_pinding_ 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 _sârong_), 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 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[1] 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 10 P.M. till 5 A.M.
The harmonicon is called by Malays _chĕlempong_, and the inverted bowls,
which give a pleasant and 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 _chânang_.
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
execution counts for excellence they proved the justice of the praise.
The Hall, of considerable size, capable of accommodating 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 ourselves I question whether there were more than
twenty spectators, but sitting on the top of the daïs near to the dancers
it was hard to pierce the surrounding 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 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 _Sèmbah_ 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 tilling of the
soil, the sowing of the seed, the reaping 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 information. 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 mĕnâri_ 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 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 Astâna, 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
WHITTIER
It was in the year 1876 that a man named Mat Aris, of no occupation and
less repute, persuaded one Sâhit to take his wife Salâmah 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 Sâhit and possess himself of
the woman Salâmah, 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’ journey through the primæval 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.
Sâhit 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 Malâya, and one is apt to
exaggerate one’s own troubles. Whatever gruesome peculiarities there
are about 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 conceivable kind of palm, of bush, of creeper,
flourishes there with a luxuriance, with a prodigality of vegetable
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 are armed with spikes of various
length, but all of about equal sharpness. Some are so formidable that the
thickest skinned beasts avoid contact with them, and no human apparel
has been devised, short of armour, that will resist their powers of
penetration and destruction. Under the creepers lie fallen trees, and the
ground is covered with ferns, rank grasses, and what is generally termed
undergrowth, so thick that the soil is often entirely hidden. It may be
added as a minor but unpleasant detail that this tangle of vegetation
harbours every species of crawling, jumping, and flying unpleasantness;
myriads of leeches that work their way through stockings and garments of
any but the closest texture; centipedes, scorpions, wasps, and stinging
flies, caterpillars that thrust their hairs into the skin and leave them
there to cause intolerable irritation, snakes poisonous and otherwise,
ants with the most murderous proclivities, and last, but not least,
mosquitoes that, when they find a human being, make the most of their
opportunity. I have not exhausted the catalogue of pests, but only given
a sample of what any traveller will meet in a day’s journey through a
Malay jungle. There is a wasp called “the reminder,” a thorn called
“Kite’s talons,” and an ant known as the “fire ant.” The names are as apt
as they are suggestive.
To force a way through such a place is an impossibility, 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 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 civilisation, 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 Sâhit 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 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
Headman 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 Kôta
Tampan, the first police station, he hurried on and gave the information
he possessed.
When Mat Aris arrived at Kôta Tampan he landed, and was at once arrested
by the native sergeant in charge of the station, who accused him of
murdering Sâhit. Mat Aris denied the charge, but the woman said her
name was Salâmah, and the sergeant said he must take them both to his
Divisional 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 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 opposite 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 neighbourhood, 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 Salâmah was known to be living with Mat Aris as his wife, and
it was also known that she had a child by him. Of Sâhit nothing more was
seen or heard.
Meanwhile the Government of Perak had established a station in the
neighbourhood of the spot where Sâhit had disappeared, and complaints of
the lawless proceedings of Mat Aris were constantly made to the officer
in charge of it, but he was helpless, 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 Sâhit, and that was Pah Patin the Sakai, but Pah
Patin did not speak, and Mat Aris and Salâmah 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 Salâmah, like the Sabine women, she seemed to have reconciled
herself to her captor.
But the strange part of this story is that, impossible as it may seem,
there was a witness who saw what took place in that hut in the forest,
whither the unsuspecting Sâhit had been lured with his wife under the
escort of Mat Aris.
That witness was a Sakai man who had been collecting _gĕtah_
(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 Sâhit 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 Salâmah, and then Sâhit; 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.
Half an hour later Mat Aris rose up softly and with a _kris_ stabbed
Sâhit 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 Salâmah still sleeping by the
corpse, and by order of Mat Aris fetched two more Sakais, and these three
buried Sâhit 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 landmarks were no longer the same,
and possibly the exact site of the grave was missed.
IX
LÂTAH
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 Charité_ in
Paris, where I witnessed some very remarkable and interesting 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
something more than usually uncanny in the sight of a person filled
with an inexplicable and unnatural delight in the contemplation of the
positive end of a magnet, and when the negative end is suddenly turned
towards him, to see him instantly fall down unconscious as though struck
by lightning.
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 hesitating 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 _lâtah_; 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 _ôrang lâtah_ to be found in every
_kampong_ in Krian, where the Malays are mostly from Kĕdah, in other
parts of Perak it is rare to ever meet a _lâtah_ 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 probably 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 _lâtah_ 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 Highness’s personal record was one of which he might
be proud, for he was said to have killed ninety-nine men (_sa’ râtus
kûrang sâtu_) 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 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 Tĕrmâsa_, 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 Tĕrmâsa, for all
its unpromising appearance, was a place for _men_, where those who had
a difference settled it promptly with the _kris_, 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 _kris_ she had brought for that purpose.
That was then the state of society in Bandar Tĕrmâsa.
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 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 surroundings 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 white men in the country.
Amongst the twenty-five police were two men of the name of Kâsim; they
were both natives of Amboina, but very different in disposition, and they
were known among their comrades as Kâsim _Bĕsar_ and Kâsim _Kĕchil_—that
is Kâsim Major and Kâsim Minor.
Kâsim Major was a quiet, reserved, silent man of about twenty-five, and
I afterwards realised that he had a somewhat violent temper when roused.
Kâsim 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 expeditions I noticed the men teasing Kâsim Minor, and saw
at once that he was _lâtah_. 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 Kâsim 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, Kâsim 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 Kâsim did not possess it. But the inspector
ascertained that the other police had found out by accident that their
comrade was _lâtah_, 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 Kâsim’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 Kâsim 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 Kâsim Major was also _lâtah_.
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
whatever they were told to do, but whatever was suggested by a sign.
I have seen many _lâtah_ people, male and female, but never any quite
like these two, none so susceptible to outside influence, so ready to
blindly obey a word or a sign.
The kindly disposition of Kâsim Minor made him quite harmless, but the
other Kâsim was rather a dangerous subject to play tricks with, as I will
presently explain.
The _lâtah_ 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 circumstance which has suddenly aroused attention. As a
rule it is necessary to _startle_ these people before they will say
or do anything 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 _lâtah_ person; for one reason because it is so exceedingly easy,
for another because they are inclined on the spur of the moment to do
ludicrous things or say something they would under ordinary circumstances
be ashamed of. _Almost_ invariably _lâtah_ 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 themselves (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 _lâtah_,” 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 _lâtah_ person, if the wind blows the
shutter of a window to with a bang, a _lâtah_ 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 _lâtah_ 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, _lâtah_ people are
undistinguishable from others. It is sufficient proof of this that
amongst my twenty-five police there should have been two men more
completely _lâtah_ than any I have seen before or since.
I took occasion to carefully observe the two Kâsims. 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
_lâtah_ 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 meaning glance, from that moment until the influence was
removed, the _lâtah_ 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 _lâtah_ 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, having attracted the
attention of either, if you said, “Kâsim, 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, Kâsim
would say, “It was not I who hit you, but that man who ordered me.”
I have seen Kâsim 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 “_Tôlong_ Kâsim” (“help!
Kâsim”), the instant he heard it he would jump up and crying “_Tôlong_
Kâsim,” 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.
I have said there was a ladderless watch-tower outside the stockade. The
police 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 Kâsim 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 Kâsim 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 Kâsim 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 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 throwing 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.
Kâsim 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 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 Kâsim and the drawn sword far too close to be
pleasant. I had some difficulty 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 Kâsim 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 _lâtah_ people before, but the two Kâsims were
rather a revelation, and he was perhaps inclined to doubt what I told him
they could be made to do. One morning we were bathing as usual at the
pond, and Kâsim the younger was in attendance carrying the towels, &c.
The bath was over, and we were all three standing on the bank, when my
friend said to Kâsim:
“_Mâri, kîta tĕrjun_” (come, let us jump in), at the same time feigning
to jump. Kâsim instantly jumped into the pond, disappeared, came up
spluttering, and having scrambled out, said: “_Itu tîdak baik, Tûan_”
(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 Kâsim 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, about four feet
high and two-and-a-half feet in diameter naturally 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 dancing and singing round the fire. Under such circumstances
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 Kâsims, in his character of an _ôrang lâtah_, for
the benefit of the strangers, and one of the men was inspired to fetch
the roll of matting, and solemnly presenting it to Kâsim the younger,
said, “Kâsim, here is your wife.”
Even now I do not forget the smile of beatitude and satisfaction with
which Kâsim Minor regarded that undesirable and figureless bundle.
Breathing the words in a low voice, almost sighing to himself, “Kâsim,
here is your wife,” he embraced the matting with great fervour,
constantly repeating “My wife! my wife!” Some one said, “Kiss her!”
and he kissed her—repeatedly kissed her. Then by another inspiration
(I do not say from whence), some one brought up the other Kâsim, and
introducing him to the other side of the roll of matting, said, also very
quietly, “Kâsim, this is _your_ wife!” and Kâsim 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 Kâsims 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 Kâsims possessed a wife.
I do not pretend to offer any explanation of the cause of this state
of mind which Malays call _lâtah_. I imagine it is a nervous disease
affecting the brain but not the body.
I have never met a medical man who has interested 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.
X
THE ETERNAL FEMININE
Le bonheur de saigner sur le cœur d’un ami
PAUL VERLAINE
There was a woman of Kelantan named Siti Maämih; 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.
Whilst these two were living 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 interference. Grant was not even remotely
connected with the matter, but he was white, and under such circumstances
a want of discrimination is not uncommon. 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. Therefore 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 Maämih, 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
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 probably 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 connection with the Malays then in
arms.
The day wore on, Grant had been out all morning 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 and know the jungle, as to be in another district. As
for hearing anything, that too was most unlikely: 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 personally 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, carrying 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 Maämih appeared, and instantly 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 do not know what fear
is; to them in such a situation 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 Maämih’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 Maämih’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 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 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 accomplish it in their hands.
The motive which kept Maämih 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 probably 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
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
resolve which, vanquishing fear, faces the unknown in the spirit
described by the Persian who, writing eight centuries ago, has found so
worthy an interpreter 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.”
XI
IN THE NOON OF NIGHT
Her soul upheld
By some deep-working charm
KIRKE WHITE
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 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 particularly 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 standing
just in the tiny ripple of the smallest wavelets 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 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 consuming 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.
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 neighbourhood 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.
It was in the month of Ramthân, 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 10
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 landwards 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 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 footsteps
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 hearing the child crying for
its mother. I could not see her anywhere, and she did not answer when I
spoke. Then I 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 disappearance, for, in a village such as this, where
the houses are more in the water than on land, where the pathless
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 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 moonlight, 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 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 companionship 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 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 overmuch, 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.
The ideal woman, the product of higher education and deep research in
divers subjects, supplies 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.”[2]
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 conveyed 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.
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.
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 recognised 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 indulgent eye, provided they did not interfere
with his _opium cum dignitate_ and his immediate surroundings.
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 disturbances 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 statement 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 replied, “Quite correct,” but, as he explained to me,
“_bĕnar ka-pâda dia, bûkan bĕnar ka-pâda kami_,” which being interpreted
means, “correct in their view, not in mine.” He was evidently tickled 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 every 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 irresponsible 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 Kĕdah.
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.
The Viceroy and his friends recovered possession of Klang and secured the
friendship and assistance of the Chinese miners at Kuala Lumpor.
These Chinese were led by one Ah Loi, a remarkable 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 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 complete 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
irrecoverable.
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 supplied 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 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, supplies 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 Cavaliero 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 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 discipline, 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
Patâling, 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.
Patâling was held by a considerable body of the enemy under two Malay
Rajas, and the weary 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 Patâling.
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 uncomfortable, 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 Patâling 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
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 PĔNGLIMA PRANG SĔMAUN
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 Mĕgat
Raja, married to a particularly well-favoured girl named Mĕriam. 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 Bandar were fired
by the description of Mĕriam’s charms, and one of them, a boy of good
family, position, and means, got sight of and fell in love with her.
The husband, Mĕgat Raja, was conveniently called away to accompany the
Sultan on a journey to Penang and Che Nuh, the youth aforesaid, profiting
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, Mĕgat 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 Mĕriam 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 Mĕgat Raja waiting on the ground beneath
them.
He drew back, but not before his presence had been perceived.
Mĕgat Raja called out “Who is that?”
Che Nuh replied “It is I, Che Nuh.”
The husband, drawing his _kris_, said “What are you doing in my house at
this time? Come down on to the ground.”
Mat Nuh was alone and Mĕgat Raja was accompanied 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,
therefore, the certainty of retaliation should they kill him, and the
uncertainty of his guilt, for Mĕriam was not the only woman in the house.
As the men stood mutually on the defensive, Mĕgat Raja asked him whom he
had come to see, and Che Nuh replied that it was a girl in the house.
Thinking to assure himself on this point, the husband entered the house
and questioned one of the servant-women, but dissatisfied with what he
heard he dashed out again determined to attack Che Nuh.
The latter had, however, taken advantage of Mĕgat Raja’s momentary
absence to get outside the gate of the palisade, and once there he
shouted for help and was soon surrounded by his friends.
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
Mĕgat 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 inclination 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 revenged 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 indignity by Mĕriam’s friends,
and it so happened that she possessed a relative named Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun, an adherent of the Sultan’s Wazîr, the Raja Bĕndahâra, and he was
reputed one of the principal warriors in the country.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun called upon the Chief of Bandar and laid a formal
complaint against Mĕgat Raja, demanding to know why he had taken the
law into his own hands and treated Mĕriam 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 Ôrang Kâya 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 Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, and when the latter wound
up his complaint by saying he would certainly attack Mĕgat 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 Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun 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
_kris_.”
Then he returned to his own home to think how this was to be worked out.
The Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun’s house was between these of the Shabandar,
up stream, and Mĕgat 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 important, and then deal with Mĕgat Raja at his
leisure.
Meanwhile, Che Nuh had expressed his desire to marry Mĕriam, but as his
relatives recognised that such an open avowal of his _liaison_ must lead
to trouble with Mĕgat Raja and his folk, they declined to allow him to do
this, and Che Nuh’s negative attitude towards the lady only increased the
wrath of her kinsman, Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun.
I have said that this bravo, for that was his _métier_, was the henchman
of the Raja Bĕndahâra, the highest authority in the State after the
Sultan. Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, having determined to kill the Shabandar,
felt it necessary to report the intention to his master and, mindful of
possible wrath to come, to ask his sanction.
Accordingly the Pĕnglima went up river to Blanja where the Bĕndahâra
lived, told his tale and asked for leave to kill the Shabandar.
The reply of the Bĕndahâra was, “If you think you are able to do it, go
on.”
That was enough. Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun 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 Pâsir Panjang (only a few miles above Bandar), with a
large following and a crowd of boats, and the Pĕnglima and his friend
determined to wreak their vengeance on the Shabandar on the _Râya Haji_,
the day to which the most religious Muhammadans prolong the fast of
Ramthân.
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, Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun,
Haji Ali, and three others, made a formal visit to the Shabandar,
obtained admission to his house, and found in it no one besides himself
and a Sumatran Raja, a visitor from down river. I say no one else but,
as Pĕnglima 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
unattended, accompanied him to the river-bank and there bid him farewell.
This was the moment for the development of the plot.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun took leave of the Shabandar 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 Dâtoh
towards him, and the reply to his question of what this meant was a stab
in the back from Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun’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 Pĕnglima 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.
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 Pĕnglima and his party
reinforced by their own men who had been awaiting the _dénoûement_.
Then gates and doors were closed, windows barred, cannon, pivot-guns,
and muskets loaded, and Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun 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 well-nigh sure
to come to harm in the assault.
The risk of that possibility deterred the Sultan’s people, who had
surrounded the house with stockades, and all that could be done was to
prevent the Pĕnglima, Haji Ali, 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, Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun proclaimed that he
was merely the instrument of the Sultan’s Wazîr, and that he had acted on
the authority of the Raja Bĕndahâra. 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 Pĕnglima and his people should be
given a safe-conduct to the Sultan at Pâsir Panjang.
Accordingly, the Pĕnglima 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 Pâsir Panjang, Pĕnglima Prang at once sent a messenger to
the Raja Bĕndahâra to inform him of the state of affairs and ask his
aid. The Bĕndahâra responded to this appeal by taking boat, and, with a
great following, descended the river to Pâsir Panjang. Once there, he
availed himself of an ancient custom called _îkat-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 _âmpun Tûan-ku, be-rîbu-rîbu âmpun_—“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 Bĕndahâra 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 Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, Haji Ali, and the three
other murderers of the Shabandar.
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 Dâtoh Shabandar in succession to
the dead man, in the hope that the gift of this dignity might make for
the general peace.
The Raja Bĕndahâra, accompanied by Pĕnglima 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 Bĕndahâra, for
so long as the Pĕnglima Prang was in his village he could not be attacked
without the Wazîr’s sanction. Application was duly made to the Bĕndahâra,
who replied that it would be contrary to custom to attack the Pĕnglima
Prang while living at his door, but that if they could get him away they
might do what they pleased.
The Pĕnglima 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 Mecca a man called Haji Mûsah, nearly related to the late
Shabandar.
Haji Mûsah was at this time a rather small, spare man of middle age, but
his heart was out of proportion to the size of his body, and when he
heard what had recently taken place in Bandar, and how Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun 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 Pĕnglima, and, if necessary, to include in the operations his
protector, the Raja Bĕndahâra.
The Sultan hesitated to give the desired permission, but the fact that
the proposal had been made very soon reached Blanja and the ears of both
the Wazîr and Pĕnglima 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 Mûsah to silence so arrogant a foe.
The Raja Bĕndahâra enraged at the idea that his name should have been
mentioned with so little respect, and apprehensive that Haji Mûsah might
find the means (as he knew he had the will) to carry out his suggestion,
cordially approved the Pĕnglima’s proposal.
It did not take long to collect from the neighbouring village of Lambor
enough men to fill two boats, and, as that was all the Pĕnglima wanted
for his purpose, the party had started for Bâtak Râbit (Haji Mûsah’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 knowledge of the beauties of Malay scenery is
very incomplete.
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 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 of Haji Mûsah. 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
separated from the main building, was connected with it by a platform.
It was here that Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, 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.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun had, however, calculated the chances, and he
counted on a successful 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 Mûsah’s house was cautiously
approached, and, the gate being locked, it was scaled, and the whole
party noiselessly established themselves beneath the house and waited for
daylight.
It so happened that the house contained only two men and two women—Haji
Mûsah and his wife, Haji Hawah, and their daughter and son-in-law, the
latter named Haji Sâhil.
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 situation, 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 Mûsah 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 Ali’s arms, and Haji Mûsah, drawing his wife into the
house and believing he had wounded Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, shouted as he
closed the door, “That has wetted you, Pĕnglima!”
Wetted him with blood.
Haji Ali called to the Pĕnglima, “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 Pĕnglima, 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 Mûsah 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.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun now summoned Haji Mûsah to surrender, but the reply
was, “I will not surrender.”
“Then,” said the Pĕnglima, “I will riddle the house with bullets.”
“Shoot away,” was the reply.
“I will burn the house down.”
“Burn it,” said Haji Mûsah, “and do whatever else you like, but I will
not give in.”
“Let us burn it,” said the Pĕnglima. 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 Pĕnglima, and he told Haji Ali to get
Haji Mûsah 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 Mûsah’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 Mûsah 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 from what they heard
said within and again called upon Haji Mûsah 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 Sâhil, what can we do, better make terms with them?”
Haji Mûsah stubbornly declined to listen to this persuasion 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 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 Mûsah 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 Pĕnglima 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 Mûsah declined to give himself up.
Shortly after, however, the loss of blood and pain of his stiffening limb
made movement impossible and compelled Haji Mûsah to abandon all idea of
further resistance.
The Pĕnglima and his friends having gained the house proceeded to make
themselves comfortable and did not attempt to disturb or annoy Haji
Mûsah 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 neighbourhood and reinforced the adherents of Haji
Mûsah, who so far had contented themselves with building and occupying
stockades to command Haji Mûsah’s house.
The Pĕnglima’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 Pĕnglima’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 Pĕnglima’s own two boats were chained to the landing-stage where they
were safe, for it would 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 Mûsah, 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 Pĕnglima, Haji Ali, and a number of their men slept
peacefully on the other side of the sheltering curtain that gave privacy
to the women.
Guided by the traitor, their movements hidden in Cimmerian darkness,
the little 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.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun 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 Pĕnglima
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 Pĕnglima 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 run the
gauntlet of the guard-boats, where capture was, as he said, certain.
The men of the band, the wretched Lambor contingent, elected, as the
Pĕnglima 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; tightening 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 Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun had expected; he had created
a diversion, and seizing his opportunity, accompanied by Haji Ali and a
few of his particular associates, he made for the river and got into one
of his boats, cast off and pulled out into the stream.
A very wily man was the Pĕnglima. 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 after him in full cry.
Still there was just a trifle of uncertainty about it, and that was the
Pĕnglima’s one chance of salvation.
The slightest hesitation now, the smallest of false steps, and neither
the Pĕnglima 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 Pĕnglima, “I bring the Shabandar’s orders to you
to keep a good look-out, they are attacking the Pĕnglima 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 bold disguise as that,
and, pulling straight for the down-stream boats, steering right on and
through them, the Pĕnglima called out, “_Jâga-jâga_, ‘be on your guard,’
the Shabandar sends orders to watch for the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, 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 tarrying, but eager to revenge the
murder of his brother, and feeling that at last the Pĕnglima and Haji Ali
were in his power, he determined to _mĕng-âmok_, to rush the house at
once without waiting for daylight.
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 Mûsah’s house, only to find
it empty, the renowned Pĕnglima and his amiable friend gone, and with
them a considerable quantity of dollars and everything 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 Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun.
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 Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun 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 Pĕnglima meanwhile had wasted no time. ’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.
Whilst the Pĕnglima 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 Mûsah it is not altogether surprising
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
refuge would be found in those inhospitable depths, the Pĕnglima and his
little 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 Pĕnglima 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 Pĕnglima’s Familiar did not desert him.
Of course the earth ought to have opened and 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 miserable skins?
It cannot be said that anything very unusual happened, 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.
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 particular
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 Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun was on such terms with Fortune
that he knew exactly the psychological moment at which to take her. Here
he remembered that the Malays call these floating islands _âpong_, 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 Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun; 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 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 Pĕnglima
Prang Sĕmaun, with Haji Ali and a considerable booty, arrived safely at
Blanja and received the congratulations of his master, the Raja Bĕndahâra.
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 desuetude; 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.
Malays are perhaps, in some respects, a few hundred years behind the
age, and I like to think that in this veracious story the Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun made his first appearance as the champion of a lady in distress.
XIV
BĔR-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 mêrah_, 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 rice-fields which
cover that fertile plain. But the Sultan’s house, a palm-thatched wooden
structure, three houses on 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 background. The tradition of ill-omen is of ancient origin,
but the fact that the Sultan now lies grievously 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 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 _bertam_, like 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 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 thousands 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 enravishment, 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 wending its uncertain, purposeless way through
the balmy Eastern night, was a creature with heavy 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 messenger 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 excrescence 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 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
concluded 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
_Bĕr-hantu_. That seemed to me to fall in very well with the _tunggul
mêrah_ 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
_bĕr-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 _bĕr-hantu_, nothing
will satisfy them but to have it, and if the sick man or woman dies
during the performance, 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-illahâ il-Allah, Muhammad Rasul-Allah_—“There is
but one God, and Muhammad is His Prophet.”
This pious confession of faith has, however, nothing to do with the
_bĕr-hantu_; it comes in afterwards 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 _bĕr-hantu_
is, of course, a survival of præ-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 _puâdal_, 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 _sârong_, and a scarf fastened tightly round her waist. At the other
end of the mat was a large newly-lighted candle in a candlestick. 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.
The woman in male attire was the _Pâwang_, 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 _Pâwang_ 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 underground or overhead, and
relieve the torments of the King.
As the song continued, accompanied by the rhythmical beating of the
drums, the _Pâwang_ sat with shrouded head in front of the lighted taper,
holding in her right hand against her left breast a small sheaf of the
grass called _daun sambau_ tied tightly together and cut square at top
and bottom.
This _châdak_ 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
_Pâwang_, 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
perfumed 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, and there are even some to spare for
special individuals. In this particular State there are four principal
_Jin_; they are the _Jin ka-râja-an_, the State Spirit—also called
_Junjong dŭnia udâra_—Supporter of the Firmament; _Mâia udâra_, the
Spirit of the Air; _Mahkôta si-râja Jin_, the Crown of Royal Spirits; and
_S’tan Ali_.
These four are known as _Jin âruah_, 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 _Bĕduan_ (singer) of the royal family. The _Jin ka-râja-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 people: such as _Hantu
Songkei, Hantu Malâyu and Hantu Blîan_; the last the “Tiger Devil,” but
out of politeness he is called “Blîan,” to save his feelings.
Then there is _Kĕmâla ajâib_, the “Wonderful Jewel,” _Israng_, Raja
Ngah’s special familiar, and a host of others. Most _hantu_ have their
own special _Pâwangs_, 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.
[Illustration]
Meanwhile a sixteen-sided stand, about six inches high and shaped like
this diagram, had been placed on the floor near the _Pâwang’s_ mat. The
stand was decorated with yellow cloth; in its centre stood an enormous
candle, while round it were gaily decorated rice and toothsome delicacies
specially prized by _Jin_. There was just room to sit on this stand,
which is called _Pĕtrâna panchalôgam_ (meaning a seat of this 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 _châdak_ of grass, calmly
awaited the coming of the _Jin Ka-râja-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 performed, His Highness was conducted back again to his couch, and
the _Pâwang_ continued her ministrations 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 _Pâwang_ 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 all appearance in a swoon. The _Jin Ka-râja-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 _séance_.
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 banshee. 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, and it shares this reputation with two other owls, which are
called respectively _Tumbok lârong_, that is “Nail the coffin,” and
_Chârek kafan_, “Rend 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.”
XV
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 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 indisputable, 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 extent by the difficulty of understanding one whose teeth were few,
and whose tongue was plainly over-large.
The King affected gay colours, and his appearance, when he took his
walks abroad, was striking, not to say remarkable. A tartan silk jacket,
combining 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 stiff sides, on which were sewn, in
Arabic characters of black cloth, a verse from the Korân.
In his waist-cloth the King usually carried a short knife in a polished
wooden sheath, and when walking 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.
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 determined 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 consulted 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; vindictive 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 concerned, decidedly unreliable.
He was not an opium-smoker, nor was he in any sense a religious man,
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 village 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 misguided individual somehow obtained
a summons against His Highness to appear before a local tribunal and
answer to the plaint.
The King, being informed, expressed his extreme unconcern, and said
that, as it was the priest’s business 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 playthings. For the first time these firm friends
appeared in opposition to each other, and both parties gave their
respective versions of the transaction 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 man of his age and figure riding a
tricycle was enough to make a dog bark (and here His Highness laughed
consumedly at the spectacle he had conjured 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 understand 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 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 summons 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
impertinent 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. The
people who trafficked in these goods could not be taken into the presence
of his master, and, indeed, 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,
discussed 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 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 found no more favour in
the sight of the King. But there were many who said:
“_Sĕpĕrti Nasrûan dëngan Bahtek_
_Bĕr-sâtu rangkêsa_
_Bĕr-chĕrei jâdi sentôsa._”
“They are like Raja Nasrûan 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 sometimes 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 faithfully 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,
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 _sârong_[3] 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 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 _âmok_.
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, consented to share the royal smiles, and the
King immediately applied on her behalf for the usual civil list. The
application, however, was not successful, though several times renewed.
Then the King fell ill of some fell disease that no native medicine-man
could diagnose, and the 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 consciousness, 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 consciousness 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
thankfulness 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 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 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 life. Thus, there is Al-mĕrhum or Mĕrhum
Pâsir Panjang (that is, “The Sultan who died at Pâsir Panjang”), Mĕrhum
Kahar-Allah (“The late Sultan to whom God gave strength”), and so on.
When this King was buried, the name conferred upon him was Mĕrhum
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 £73, 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 Tikah Sahib, Rajah of Patalia, as a birthday
present by his secretary, Sham Shir Sing. The perambulator 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
perambulator, 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.
1, 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 perambulator 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 could not be done in time, and it was implied
by the orders he gave (which were that the perambulator should
have elephant-headed handles and papier-maché 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.”
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 Maimûnah. 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 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, _lĕsong mâti_, 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.
When out of doors, the Raja Maimûnah 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 _sârongs_ of varying colour and richness of material were
worn over the under-skirt.
Jewels depend upon the wealth and station of the wearer, but Maimûnah’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 necklaces.
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 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 Maimûnah
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 consideration, 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 enormously 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 Slêman, a stranger from a neighbouring State.
It might have been the cock-fighting or the gambling always to be found
in the society of Raja Iskander that drew Raja Slêman to the place. It
might also have been the congenial society of another opium-smoker, or
possibly the fame of Raja Maimûnah’s attractions. Whatever the lodestone,
Raja Slêman appeared with two boats and about fifteen followers, and,
once arrived, he elected to remain.
Raja Iskander passed most of his time on the water, but Maimûnah 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 consisted 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 influences; the banks were covered by rank
grasses, the country was flat and desolate, the jungle insignificant, 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.
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 Slêman came
into the life of Maimûnah.
He was about the same age as Raja Iskander, but in other respects there
was a striking difference between the two men. Slêman 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 Slêman sat in his boat he saw Maimûnah 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 hopelessly 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 moments when she slowly
wended her way from house to river and back again.
Meanwhile, Maimûnah, suffering from the _spretæ injuria formæ_ and
chafing under the monotony of existence, had heard all about the arrival
of Slêman and readily listened to the tales 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.
Slêman and Maimûnah had already mutually declared themselves without the
exchange of a syllable, and it was with perfect confidence that Slêman
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 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 unlikely that he had any suspicion of Slêman, 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
Maimûnah 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.
Slêman’s suit prospered, and he was not satisfied to continue
indefinitely filling the _rôle_ 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 Maimûnah 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.
Once in Slêman’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,
Slêman ordered the men to pull in to the bank, fasten up the boat and
rest.
It seemed a foolhardy proceeding to waste the precious 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 Slêman’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 Maimûnah, 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.
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 Slêman carried Maimûnah 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 conscience. 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 Maimûnah’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 incontinently strangled.
As for Slêman and Maimûnah, they were duly married, and she bore him a
daughter in all respects like her mother, though not, the old people
say, her peer in beauty. The _laudator temporis acti_ is a common and
flourishing plant in Malâya.
In the two children born before the elopement, it is difficult to trace
any resemblance to their mother.
Maimûnah died years and years ago, the victim of a malignant disease;
but Slêman still lives in his own country, his hair is getting grey,
but otherwise he shows few signs of age. Time has only intensified
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 Slêman’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 themselves 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 Malâya full of zeal and
confident of success. He began with a man who seemed an earnest, truthful
person, anxious to 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.”
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 Malâya seven hundred years ago it is hard to say, but there is
a certain amount of evidence to lead to the belief that it was a form of
Brahmanism and that no doubt had succeeded 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 _bĕr-hantu_, the practice
of a kind of witchcraft for the 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 incantations 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 Âruah; Rabiah Jâmil
was thy mother’s, Imam Jâmil thy father’s name; thou art the grandchild
of Hakim Baisuri, the great-grandchild of Mâlim of the Forest. Thou
Spirit of the path Lôrin, Spirit of the rising ground Sri Permâtang,
Spirit of the ant-hill known as “Piebald Horse.” Heigh! you white ants
Sekutânai, why do you, Sekutâpa, 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 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 _Bâjang_, _Pôlong_, _Pĕlsit_, and _Langsûior_, the last being a
female spirit. They are either inherited or acquired by the practice of
witchcraft, 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 _bâjang_. 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
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 “_Pâwang_” 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 corresponding 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 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 _bâjang_, and the present
Sultan, who was then the principal Malay Judge in the State, told them he
would severely punish the _bâjang_ if they would produce it. They went
away hardly satisfied and shortly after made a united representation to
the effect that if the person suspected 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 _bâjang_ comes like other evils, the unsought heritage
of a dissolute ancestry, but the acquired _bâjang_ is usually obtained
from the newly-buried body of a stillborn child, which is supposed 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 _bâjang_ to come forth.
_Pôlong_ and _Pĕlsit_ are but other names for _Bâjang_, the latter is
chiefly used in the State of Kĕdah where it is considered rather _chic_
to have a _pĕlsit_. A Kĕdah lady the other day, eulogising the advantages
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 certain _jampi_ (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, 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 _pĕlsit_ is yours.”
It sounds easy enough, and one is not surprised to hear that everyone in
Kĕdah, who is anybody, keeps a _pĕlsit_.
_Langsûior_, the female familiar, differs hardly at all from the _bâjang_
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 Kĕdah ladies to sacrifice their shadows
to obtain possession of a _pĕlsit_, 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 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 always ensue a period of rest from the
torments of the _bâjang_. I have also been assured that the _bâjang_, 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_, _hantu_, _bâjang_, 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 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 prototype 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!
On another occasion some Korinchi men appeared and sought hospitality 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 Chenâku in the interior
of the Korinchi country. Even there, however, it is only those who are
practised in the _elĕmu sĕhir_, the occult arts who are thus capable of
transforming themselves into tigers, and the Korinchi people profess
themselves afraid to enter the Chenâku 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 method of
detection, but I was anxious to see what could be done, for the East is
a curious place, and no one with an inquiring mind can have lived 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 remarkable 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. I 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 property 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 _Jin_, it was only necessary to ask him to conjure 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 resources, and, though
only an amateur in divination, 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 went
with 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 Korân
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 committed 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 men placing each the middle joint of the forefinger 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 Korân, 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 information 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 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 _séance_
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 off their fingers against their
inclination.
The name disclosed by this experiment was 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 _pâwang_, 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 “pâwang” (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 downwards 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, 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 “pâwang” 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 “pâwang” 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.
“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 will 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 _bĕr-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 or fowls,
and all this 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.”
XVIII
WITH A CASTING-NET
Where fountains of sweet water run between,
And sun and shadow chequer-chased the green
JÂMI
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 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 fishing, 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 certain convenient sand
stretches in the neighbourhood of Bota, about 100 miles from the river’s
mouth.
The most frequented of these laying grounds is a place called _Pâsir
Tĕlor_ (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 egg, and one much more valued by Malays.
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 Pâsir Tĕlor.
Fifteen or twenty large house-boats and several 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 poles held close together and erect. The royal 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 _sârongs_,
cloth-of-gold scarves, and embroidered gauze veils; of bright sunshades,
gold bracelets, necklaces, and bangles; of curious jewelled brooches,
massive hairpins, and rings flashing with the light of diamonds and
rubies.
The men appear in jackets, trousers, and _sârongs_ 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 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 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 _serûnai_, with jest and laughter, pennons
waving, and bright eyes sparkling behind the rainbow-coloured blinds, the
picturesque 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 _âyer mâti_, 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
_mâkan_, but the Raja does not _mâkan_, with him it is _santap_. When
“the masses” bathe they _mandi_, but the same operation in the case of
a Raja is called _sêram_; a chief or a beggar may sleep and that is
_tîdor_, but when the Raja sleeps he is said to _bĕr-âdu_. This does
not mean that a wide gulf divides Malay classes, there is 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 distinctions 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 are rare, and when not actively engaged
in amusing themselves they are lotus-eating, sometimes figuratively,
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 passage 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 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 off 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 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 disengaged 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, sometimes 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 attractive. 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 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 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 extraordinary 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 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 10 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 excitement 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 Păhang will be
leading a similar expedition in the quiet waters of an old channel of the
Păhang 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 than by the means employed
in Perak. It is not however, perfectly easy to spear even drugged fish
without both skill and practice.
In Păhang, also, the pageant is conducted with much state and ancientry,
and, as the nature of the pastime requires only a moderate effort, the
ladies of the Harîm 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.
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 Pâsir
Sâlak on the Perak River. I propose to describe why and how this murder
was committed.
Mr. Birch began life as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He abandoned the
sea for Government employment in Ceylon, where he spent the best years
of his life, and was promoted to be Government 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 Clarke, R.E., then Governor of the Straits
Settlements, 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
powerlessness 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
prejudices of the Malay had yet to be learnt.
Of all the States in the Peninsula Perak was probably the least well
suited for the schooling 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, prejudices, and superstitions that had to be learned, and with
many of which it was difficult to sympathise. It had an unusual number of
Rajas and Chiefs, each with some kind of privilege or vested 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 other 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 acknowledge defeat,
and the consequence was that his extraordinary energy in travelling about
the country, “spying out the land,” and his persistence in attempting 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 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 pressing 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 feeling there
was none, wherever Mr. Birch went there were people who had to thank him
for some kindness, 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 who did not know have suggested that the Resident’s
murder was due to non-political causes, a suggestion for which there is
not a semblance of foundation.
By September 1875, matters had come to a deadlock. With the Resident,
in what was called the down-stream country, was a Sultan, Abdullah,
created by the British Government, but declining to accept the advice
of the Resident who had been appointed at his special request.
Abdullah’s opposition 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 Sultanship in the person of the
Raja Muda Jusuf, who lived still further up country, and while his claims
were undoubtedly the best, his personal unpopularity 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) 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 administrative 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 _bûlan puâsa_, 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 with
the upper classes, and it is they only who are concerned in political
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 Ramthân, 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 considerable rank, after the
Sultan he was the seventh in the State. He lived at Pâsir Sâlak, 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 Pâsir
Panjang, a couple of miles below the Maharaja Lela’s house, summoned his
chiefs and informed them that he had given over 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 Maharaja 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 Mĕntri and the Pĕnglima 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 Pâsir Sâlak.”
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 Dâtoh Sâgor, who lived on the other side of the river,
exactly opposite to Pâsir Sâlak, 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’bâtang, ten miles below
the small island on which the Resident’s hut stood. At that meeting
the Sultan produced the proclamations which were to be issued, placing
the administration in the hands of British officers, and asked his
chiefs what they thought of them. The Laksâmana, 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.
Pâsir Sâlak 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 ordinarily substantial kind, round which he had
for months past been digging a great ditch and throwing 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. 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 himself. The people
then dispersed. It was one or two days after this that Mr. Birch arrived
at Pâsir Sâlak.
Before describing the events of the 2nd November 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; 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 proclamations himself in the
down-river districts, and directed me to go up river, to interview the
ex-Sultan Ismail, the Raja Muda, the Raja Bĕndahâra, and other up-country
chiefs, and, having distributed the proclamations at all important
villages from Kôta Lâma downwards, to try to meet him at Pâsir Sâlak 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 Pâsir Sâlak with three boats at midnight on the
1st November, and anchored in midstream. The 1st November was the _Hâri
Râya_, the first day after the Fast. At daylight his boats went alongside
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
Pâsir Sâlak.
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 firearms 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 Gâjah to shoot snipe, the
Chief of that place, the Dâtoh Sâgor, returning in the boat to Pâsir
Sâlak, where he at once sought an interview with Mr. Birch.
After this conversation, which was held in the Resident’s boat, the Dâtoh
Sâgor and Mr. Birch’s interpreter went to the Maharaja Lela’s house,
and the interpreter said to the Maharaja Lela that the 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 Dâtoh Sâgor what they
wanted, and that they should be told to stand further away. The Dâtoh
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 understand 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. 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 chief’s 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 interpreter 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 10 A.M., and in spite of the threatening attitude of the
large crowd of armed Malays standing in groups and passing between the
river-bank and their chief’s 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 Chinaman’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 Chief’s 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 interpreter 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 overtook 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.
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 _âmok, âmok_, 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
Sipûtum, 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 without 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 _mêlee_. 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 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 interpreter, 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 Lela walked into their midst and asked whose
hands had done the Resident and his men to death. Instantly Pandak Indut,
Sipûtum, 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 and said, “Go and tell the
Laksâmana that I have killed Mr. Birch.” The message was delivered the
same day, and the Laksâmana 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 assassination, 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.
The Maharaja Lela and his neighbour the Dâtoh Sâgor, 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 Sipûtum. 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 _Pâwang_, 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
statement 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 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 Dâtoh Sâgor, 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 Pâsir
Sâlak 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 complicity 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 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.
XX
A PERSONAL INCIDENT
Haud multum abfuit quin interficeretur
HORACE
_From CAPTAIN SPEEDY, Queen’s Commissioner,
Larut, to H.E. SIR WILLIAM JERVOIS,
Governor of the Straits._
LARUT, _November 9th, 1875_.
[Extract:]
“In the second report, that of 7th instant, Sergeant Din
states that he was told by one Kulup Riau that Mr. Swettenham
had been murdered by the Raja Lela at Pâsir Sâlak on the 5th
instant. I regret to state that I have every reason to believe
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. Swettenham) at 2 P.M. on 4th instant, but, on his arrival,
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 Pâsir Sâlak 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 Pâsir Sâlak 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 respected accordingly. His latest exploit
had been to take command of a body of Malays in an engagement 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 recognition 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, 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 unknown 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 of 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 introduced, 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
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. Unfortunately, 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 lived 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 Kôta Lâma. 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 Patâni)
walking past with his wife and two children. When the man got opposite
Raja Alang’s house he raised his trousers to keep them 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 monstrous 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 children
to raise the amount of the fine. Just at dawn on the following morning
the Patâni man got up, took from a Malay lying near him a _kris_, 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
incident, at the time of my arrival, was, with rumours of war, dividing
the interests of the people of Kuala Kangsar.
On the 1st November I read and posted the proclamations in Kuala
Kangsar, and on the following day I went to see the Raja Bĕndahâra, 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
Bĕndahâra some copies, which I asked him to have posted.
Amongst the crowd was Raja Alang, who gave me his version of the _âmok_,
and denied that he had ill-treated the Patâni man. I see from the journal
I kept in those days that I expressed my surprise that such things were
not of daily occurrence, looking 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 character), 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 proclamations in villages between
Kuala Kangsar and Larut, and in the afternoon went with Raja Mahmud and
one boat up river to Kôta Lâma. This village had then, as indeed it has
still, the unenviable reputation of being the most impossible place
in Perak. It was a very large village, and the people in it prided
themselves on their independence; their neighbours called it impudence. A
few months before Mr. Birch had visited Kôta Lâma, 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 Kôta Lâma 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 _sîreh_, 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 calculated 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
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
proclamations, 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 Kôta
Lâma.
He said they only acknowledged one chief in Kôta Lâma, and he was the
Raja Bĕndahâra, and they would do nothing without his orders. I told
them I would ask the Bĕndahâra 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
not been there. On our way back he told me he was so amazed at the
way the Kôta Lâma 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 Kôta Lâma. The Raja Muda’s feelings towards
the Kôta Lâma 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 prediction 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.
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 reputation who, with Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, 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
gone to Pâsir Sâlak, that there he and sixteen of his people had been
murdered by the Maharaja Lela, 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 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 declined 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 considerately telling me that the
Maharaja Lela and his people had staked the river right across at Pâsir
Sâlak, 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 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 volunteered 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 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 outside 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.
The Resident, we were told, had been murdered at Pâsir Sâlak, 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 Pâsir Sâlak 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 Pâsir Sâlak 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 conspicuous 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 Pâsir Sâlak 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, 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 unwise 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 impossible to see
half a boat’s length in any direction. 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 precious 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 Pâsir Sâlak, for now, to
our great surprise, it seemed evident that we should reach the place
hours before dawn. About 1.30 A.M. Mahmud quietly woke me, and the
boatmen nerved themselves for the final effort.
We knew that to get past Pâsir Sâlak it was necessary to go right under
one bank or the other, and the deepest water was on the left or Kampong
Gâjah 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 noiselessly 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 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 imagination of Haji Ali, 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 thanksgiving, 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 superhuman 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?” was the next inquiry, and the reply was, “Blanja.” “Where
are you for?” and other questions followed, 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 everyone 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 conveniently _en évidence_.
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, 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 we had shown
in 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 Lela and his friends professed themselves both surprised and
disappointed when they found I had arrived at Bandar Bharu, having passed
Pâsir Sâlak without their knowledge. I daresay, however, that some of
them were not altogether 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 Ali and
his friend the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun with a number of their men were
sent after us in fast boats on a mission similar to the one they had
previously undertaken 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.
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. 10th 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.
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 Pâsir Sâlak 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 Pâsir Sâlak was five miles, every yard
of it covered with vegetation of some sort, the only road a narrow path
by the river-bank; moreover, Pâsir Sâlak 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 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 way, 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
unfortunate 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 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 10th, 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 10th Regiment.
We began the march gaily enough, not expecting to meet with any
resistance till near Pâsir Sâlak. 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 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 Pâsir Sâlak)
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 inclination 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 possessors of shooting-weapons, and the enemy were hidden
behind a rampart of logs and banana-stems, while we had no shelter
whatever, our continued existence 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 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 a 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, 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 impenetrable 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 leaving the howitzers behind. The rockets, an old pattern, were
ineffective, and as they all went over the top of 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 enabled us, a week later, to carry
this and a succession of other stockades without the loss of a man.
About 1 P.M. (our force being then reduced to the officers, the men of
the 10th, 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 10th (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 Malay’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 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.
Personally 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.
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 of his whereabouts.
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 throughout a long day to guard
his chief’s dead body, without 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?
XXII
EVENING
Phœbus 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
something 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 fatness—these are the
home of the Malay, the background 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 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 altitudes
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 deepening 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 zigzags, up the face of the
hill, across a narrow saddle 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 Gûnong Jerai
in Kĕdah, 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
Dinding 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 mangrove,
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 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 insignificant 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 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, glimpses 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 same valley through
which the river, plainly visible twenty miles away, winds in a silver
streak. On the right stands Gûnong 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 Păhang. 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 sinking 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 shoots rays of gold over Penang in the north and the Dinding Islands
in the south, seventy miles apart. This golden light spreads for a space
upward 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 empyrean.
Meanwhile the darkness which seemed to be settling over the distant
eastern ranges is gradually suffused with soft tints of _rose dorée_,
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 stealing
borrowed glory from the sky.
Soon this light wanes; purple turns to grey, the 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, gorgeously 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 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.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The attitude is that obtained by transferring the body directly from
a kneeling to a sitting position.
[2] “The Heavenly Twins,” book iii., chap. iii.
[3] The _Sârong_ is the Malay national garment, a sort of skirt, usually
in tartan, worn by men and women alike.
NOTE ON THE COVER DESIGN
_The colours used on the cover of this book 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
of 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 Acheen), 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 Wazîr (the Raja Bĕndahâra), 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. A. S._
_Xmas day, 1895._
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MALAY SKETCHES ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
