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THE
GOLDEN CHEESONESE
AND THE WAY THITHER
By ISABELLA L. BIRD
(MRS. BISHOP )
AHTHOR OF 'the HAWAIIAX ARCHIPELAGO,'
'a lady's life in the rocky mountains,' 'unbeaten tracks in japan,'
ETC.
WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS
" Down to the Golden Chersonese."
Milton, Par. Lust, Book xi.
fS^^'
/// '
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1883
{The right of translation is reserved.^
DS
651
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PrinKdly K. vt k. Cl.AKK, E,tinbiirj;h.
Co a 33£lobcti iHEtnorg,
THIS VOLUME IS
RETEREXTLT AST) SORROWFULLY
DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
In presenting to the public tlie last instalment of my
travels in the Far East, in 1879, I desire to offer, both
to my readers and critics, my grateful acknowledgments
for the kindness with which my letters from Japan were
received, and to ask for an equally kind and lenient esti-
mate of my present volume, which has been prepared for
publication under the heavy shadow of the loss of the
beloved and only sister to whom the letters of which it
consists were written, and whose able and careful criti-
cism, as well as loving iuterest, accompanied my former
volumes through the press.
It is by her wish that this book has received the title
of the " Golden Chersonese,'" a slightly ambitious one ; and
I must at once explain that my letters treat of only its
western portion, for the very sufficient reason that the
interior is unexplored by Europeans, half of it being
actually so little known that the latest map gives only
the position of its coast-line. I hope, however, that my
book will be accepted as an honest attempt to make a
pojjular contribution to the sum of knowledge of a beauti-
ful and little-traveUed region, with which the majority of
educated people are so little acquainted that it is con-
stantly confounded with the Malay Archipelago, but which
viii PllEFACE.
is practically under British rule, and is probably destined
to afford increasing employment to British capital and
enterprise.
The introductory chapter, and the explanatory chapters
on Sungei Ujong, Selangor, and Perak, contain information
of a rather more solid character than is given in my
sketches of travel, and are intended to make the letters
more intelligible and useful.^ The map by Mr. Daly is
the result of the most recent surveys, and is published
here by permission of the Eoyal Geographical Society.
As I travelled under official auspices, and was enter-
tained at the houses of officials everywhere, I feel it to
be due to my entertainers to say that I have carefully
abstained from giving their views on any subjects on
wliich they may have uttered them in the ease of friendly
intercourse, except in two or three trivial instances, in
which I have quoted them as my authorities. The
opinions expressed are wholly my own, whether right or
wrong, and I accept the fullest responsibility for them.
For the sketchy personal descriptions which are here
and there given, I am sure of genial forgiveness from my
friends in the Malay Peninsula, and from them also I
doubt not that I shall receive the most kindly allowance,
if, in spite of carefulness, I have fallen into mistakes.
In writing to my sister my first aim was accuracy, and
my next to make her see what I saw, but besides the
remarkably contradictory statements of the few resident
Europeans and my own observations, I had little to help
' These chapters arc based upon sundry reports and other official
j>a[(ers, and I have largely drawn upon those storehouses of accurate and
valuable information, Newbold's British Settlements in Malacca, and
Crawfurd's Dictionary of the Indian Islands.
PREFACE. ii
me, and realised every day how mucli truth there is in the
dictum of Socrates — " The body is a hindrance to acquiring
knowledge, and sight and hearing are not to be trusted."^
This volume is mainly composed of my actual letters,
unaltered except by various omissions and some corrections
as to matters of fact. The interest of my visits to the
prison and execution ground of Canton, and of my glimpses
of Anamese villages, may, I hope, be in some degree com-
municated to my readers, even though Canton and Saigon
are on the beaten track of travellers.
I am quite aware that " Letters " which have not
received any literary dress are not altogether satisfactory
either to author or reader, for the author sacrifices artistic
arrangement and literary merit, and the reader is apt to
find himself involved among repetitions and a multipli-
city of minor details, treated in a fasliion which he is
inclined to term " slipshod ; " but, on the whole, I think
that descriptions written on the spot, even with their
disadvantages, are the best mode of making the reader
travel with the traveller, and share his first impressions
in their original vividness. "With these explanatory
remarks I add my little volume to the ever-growing
library of the literature of travel.
I. L. B.
FebkuaPvY 1883.
1 Phoedo of Plato. Chapter x.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
The Aurea Chersmusiis — The Conquest of Malacca — The Straits Settle-
ments — The Configuration of the Peninsula — A Terra Incognita — The
Monsoons — Products of the Peninsula — The great Vanipu-e — Beasts
and Reptiles — Malignant and harmless Insects — Land and Water
Birds — Traditions of Malay Immigration — WUd and Civilised Races
— Kafirs — The Samangs and Orang-utan — Characteristics of the
Jakuns — Babas and Sinkehs — The Malaj^ Physiognomy — Language
and Literature — Malay Poetry and Music — Malay Asti-onomj- — Edu-
cation and La'w — Malay Sports — Domestic Habits — "Weapons —
Slavery and Debt Bondage — Government — "No Information."
Pages 1-27
LETTER I.
The Steamer Volga — Days of Darkness — First View of Hongkong — Hong-
kong on Fire — Apathy of the Houseless — The Fire breaks out again
— An Eclipse of Gaiety ..... 28-34
LETTER IL
A Delightful Climate — Imprisoned Fever Germs — " Pidjun " English-
Hongkong Harbour — Prosperity of Hongkong — Rampageous Crimi-
nal Classes — Circumspice ! . . . . 35-41
LETTER IIL
The s.s. Kin Kiang — First view of Canton — The Island of Shameen —
England in Canton — The Tartar City — Drains and Barricades — Can-
ton at Night — Street Picturesqueness — Ghastly Gifts — Oriental En-
chantments — The Examination Hall . . . 42-52
xii CONTENTS.
LETTER IV.
Faithful unto Death" — "Foreign Devils" — Junks and Boats — Chinese
Luxury — Canton Afloat — An Al Fresco Lunch — Light and Colour —
A mundane Disappointnient — Street Sights and Sounds — Street Cos-
tume — Food and Restaurants — A Marriage Procession — Temples and
Worshiji — Crippled Feet .... Pages 53-66
LETTER l\ .—{Continued.)
Outside the Naam-hoi Prison — The Punishment of the Cangruc— Crime
and Miserj' — A Birthday Banquet — "Prisoners and Captives" —
Prison Mortality — Cruelties and Iniquities — The Porch of the Man-
darin — The Judgment-Seat — The Precincts of the Judgment-Seat —
An Aged Claimant — Instruments of Punishment — The Question 1)y
Torture , . . . . . . 67-79
LETTER IN.— {Continued.)
The "Covent Garden" of Canton — Preliminaries of Execution — A Death
Procession— The "Field of Blood "—" The Death of the Cross"—
A Fair Comparison ..... 80-85
LETTER V.
Portuguese Missionaries — A Cliinese Hosjiital — Chinese Anaesthetics —
Surgery and Medicine — Ventilation and Cleanliness — A Chinese
" Afternoon Tea " — A new Inspiration . . . 86-92
LETTER VL
Cochin -China Pivcr — The Ambition of Saigon — A French Colonial
Metropolis — Euroi>ean Life in Saigon — A Cocliin-Cliinese Village —
"Afternoon Tea" in Clioquan — Anamesc Children — Anamite Costume
— Anamite River-Dwellings — An Amphibious Population — An Unsuc-
cessful Colony — "With the Big Toe" — Three Persecuting Kings —
Saigon ....... 93-106
LETTER VIL
Beauties of the Tropics — Singapore Hospitality — An Equatorial Metro-
CONTENTS. xiii
polls — An aimless Existence — The Gro-wtli of Singapore — "Farms"
and "Farmers" — The Staple of Conversation — The Glitter of " Bar-
baric Gold" — A Polyglot Population — A mediocre People — Female
Grace and Beauty — The "Asian Mystery" — Oriental Picturesque-
ness — The Metamorphosis of Singapore . . Pages 107-120
LETTER YIII.
St. Andrew's Cathedral — Singapore Harbour Scenes — Chinese Preponder-
ance — First Impressions of Malacca — A Town " Out of the Running."
121-125
LETTER IX.
The Lieutenant-Governor of Malacca — A charming Household — The Old
Stadthaus — A stately Habitation — An endless Siesta — A Tropic
Dream — Chinese Houses — Chinese Wealth and Ascendency — " Opium
Farming" — The Malacca Jungle — Mohammedan Burial-Places —
Malay Tillages — Malay Characteristics — Costume and Ornament —
Bigotrj' and Pilgrimage — The Malay Buffalo . . 126-141
LETTER X.
Malacca Medisevalism — Tiger Stories — The Chinese Carnival — Gold and
Gems — A Weight of Splendour — New Year Rejoicings — Syed Abdul-
rahman — A Mohammedan Princess — A Haunted City —Francis Xavier
—The reward of " Pluck "—Projects of Travel . 142-153
A CHAPTER ON SUNGEI UJONG.
The Puzzles of the Peninsula — Sungei Ujong — A Malay Confederation —
Syed Abdulrahman — The Revenue of Sungei Ujong — Scenery and
Productions— The new Datu Klana— A " Dual Control " 154-161
LETTER XL
A Mangrove Swamp — Jungle Dwellers — The Sempang Police Station —
Shooting Alligators — The River Linggi — A sombre-faced Throng —
Stuck fast at Permatang Pasir — Fair Impediments . 162-169
LETTER XIL
The Tomb of "a great Prophet" — "Durance Vile" — Fragile Travellers
xiv CONTENTS.
— Our Craft — A Night in the Jungle— Nocturnal Revelations — January
in the Perak Jungle — Glories of the Jungle — Activity and Stillness —
An uneasy Night — A slim Kepast — Betel Cliewing — A severe Disap-
pointment — Police Station at Rassa . . . Pages 170-183
LETTER XIII.
The Appurtenances of Civilisation — Babu — Characteristics of Captain
^lurray — An embodied Government — Chinese mining Enterprise —
A Chinese Gaming-house — The " Capitans China" — New Year Visits
— Sittings " In Eipiity " — A Court of Justice — The Serambang Prison
— " Plantation Hill " — A monster Bonfire — An Ant "World — An Ant
Funeral — Night on " Plantation Hill " — The murder of Mr. Lloyd — A
Chinese Dragon Play — A visit to a Malay Prince — Tlie Datu Bandar's
House — A great Temptation — The retiuu Journey — An obituary
Quotation ...... 184-206
A CHAPTER ON S£LANG0R.
Selangor — Capabilities of Selangor — Natural Capabilities — Lawlessness in
Selangor — British Interference in Selangor — A Hopeful Outlook.
207-213
LETTER XIV.
The s.s. rninlmc — Sunset at Malacca — A Night at Sea — Tlie Residency at
Klang — Our "Next-of-kin" — The decay of Klang — A remarkable
Chinaman — Theatrical Magnificence — Misdeed of a "Rogue Ele-
phant"— " A cobra ! a cobra ! " . . . 214-223
LETTER XIV.— (Continued.)
Yachting in the Malacca Straits — A Tropic Dream — The Bajah Moussa —
Tiger Stories — A grand Excitement — A "Man-eating Kri.s" — A royal
Residence — A Couucil of State — The Sultan's Attendants — The
•• Light of the Harem "—The Sultan's OlTering . 224-234
LETTER XV.
Tiger Mosquitos — Insect Tonnenta — A Hadji's Fate — Malay Custom —
Oaths and Lies— A false Alarm . . . 235-240
CONTENTS. XV
LETTER XVI.
A Viicliting Voyage — The Destruction of Selangor — Varieties of Slime —
Swamp Fever — An Unprosperous Region — A " Deadly - Lively "
Morning — A AVaif and Stray — The Superintendent of Police.
Pages 241-248
LETTER XVIL
The Dindings — The Traged}" on Pulu Pangkor — A Tropic Sunrise — Sir
W. Kobiuson's Departure — " A Touch of the Sun " — Kling Beauty —
A Question and Answer — The Bazaars of Georgetown — The Chinaman
goes Ahead— The Products of Pinang — Pepper Planting 249-259
A CHAPTER ON PERAK.
The Boundaries and Rivers of Perak — Tin Mining — Fruits and Vegetables
—The Gomuti Palm— The Trade of Perak— A Future of Coffee— A
Hopefid Outlook — Chinese Difficulties — Chinese Disturbances in Larut
—The "Pangkor Treaty"— A "Little War"— The Settlement of
Perak — The Resident and Assistant-Resident . . 260-272
LETTER XVIIL
Province Wellesley— Water Buffaloes— A Glorious Night— Perak Officials
—A "Dismal Swamp" — Elej^hants at Home — An Epigrammatic
Description— Tlie British Residency at Taipeng— Sultan Abdullah's
Boys— A Chinese Mining Toato- The "Armed Police"— An Alli-
gator's Victim— Major Swinburne — A Larut Dinner-party — A IMorning
HyniQ ....... 273-287
LETTER XIX.
The Chinese in Larut—" Monkey Cups "—Chinese Hospitality— A Sikh
Belle ....... 288-291
LETTER XX.
Novel Circumstances— The Excitements of the Jungle— Eternal Summer
—The Sensitive Plant— The Lotus Lake of Matang— Elephant Ugli-
ness—A Malay Mahout — A Xovel Experience— Domestic Pets— Malay
Hospitality— Land Leeches— "A Fearful Joy"— The end of my
First Elephant Ride — Kwala Kaugsa . . . 292-305
xvi CONTENTS.
LETTER XX.— (Continued.)
Mystification — A Grotesque Dinner-party — Mahmoud and Eblis — Fun and
Frolic — ilahruoud's Antics — A Perak Jungle — The Poetry of Tropical
Life — Village Life — The Officials of the Mosques — A Jloslem Funeral
—The "Royal Elephant "—Swimming the Perak— The Village of
Koto-lamah— A " Pirate's Nest "— Kajah Dris . Pages 306-320
LETTER XX.— (Continued.)
A Joyous Welcome — A Severe Mortification — The British Resident —
Daily Visitors — Rajah Dris — A Tipsy Ape — Marriage Ceremonies —
^larriage Festivities — Malay Children — The Rajah Muda Yusuf — A
Dreary Funeral — Fascinating Companionship — A Coco-nut Gatherer
— The Argus Pheasant — An Opium Wreck — Rhinoceros Horns —
Elephant Taming — Petrifying Influences of Islamism — A Dwindling
Race ....... 321-339
LETTER XXL
A Malay Interior — Malay Bird-Scaring — Rice Culture — Picturesque Dis-
raalness — A Bad Spell — An Alarm — Possibilities of Peril — Patience
and Kindness — Masculine Clatter . . . 340-348
LETTER XXIL
A Pleasant Canter — A Morning Hymn — The Pass of Bukit Berapit — The
"Wearing World" Again! — A Bad Spirit — Malay Demonology —
" Runnin;,' Amuck" — An Amok Runner's Career — The Supposed
Origin of Amok — Jungle Openings in Perak — Debt-Slavery — The
Fate of Three Runaway Slaves — Moslem Prayers — "Living like
Leeches" — Malay Proverbs — A "Ten-thousand-man Umbrella"
349-364
LETTER XXIIL
" Gang Murders " — Malay Nicknames — A Persecuted Infant — The Last of
the Golden Chersonese ..... 365-368
Appendix ...... 369-379
Index . , . . .381
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Author's First Ride in Perak
Orang-utan (Male and Female)
Smoking the Mosquitos
Elk Horn Fern .
Greater Moth Orchid
Areca Palm {Areca catechu)
Police Station at Rassa
A British Marriage Present
An Equatorial Jungle Stream
A Kling .
Gomuti Palm
Chinese Houses and Malay Bathin
Kangsa River
A Malay " Dug-out," Perak River
Street in Kwala Kangsa .
Malay Youth and Maiden .
An Opium Wreck
ig-Shed
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THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE.
IXTEODL'CTOEY CHAPTEE.
Canton and Saigon, and whatever else is comprised in the
second half of my title, are on one of the best beaten
tracks of travellers, and need no introductorj remarks.
But the Golden Chersonese is still somewhat of a
terra incognita ; there is no point on its mainland at which
European steamers call, and the usual conception of it is
as a vast and malarious equatorial jungle sparsely peopled
by a race of semi-ci^■ilised and treacherous Mohammedans.
In fact it is as little known to most people as it was to
myself before I Aisited it, and as reliable information con-
cerning it exists mainly in valuable volumes now out of
print, or scattered through blue books and the transactions
of the Asiatic Society of Singapore, I make no apology for
prefacing my letters from the Malay Peninsula with as
many brief preliminary statements as shall serve to make
them intelligible, requesting those of my readers who are
familiar with the subject to skip this chapter altogether.
The Aurea Chersonesus of Ptolemy, the " Golden Cher-
sonese" of Milton, the Malay Peninsula of our day, has
no legitimate claim to an ancient history. The controversy
respecting the identity of its ]Mount Ophir with the Ophir
of Solomon has been " threshed out" without much result,
and the supposed allusion to the Malacca Straits by Pliny
is too vague to be interesting.
B
2 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. istrod.
The region may be said to have been rediscovered in
1513 by the Portuguese, and the first definite statement
concerning it appears to be in a letter from Emanuel, King
of rortugal, to the Tope. In the antique and exaggerated
language of the day, he relates that his general, the famous
All niquerque, after surprising conquests in India, had sailed
to the Aiirea Chersoncsus, called by its inhabitants Malacca.
He had captured the city of jMalacca, sacked it, slaughtered
the ]Moors (Mohammedans) who defended it, destroyed its
twenty-five thousand houses abounding in gold, pearls,
precious stones, and spices, and on its site had built a
fortress with Avails fifteen feet thick, out of the ruins of
its mosques. The king, who fought upon an elephant,
was badly wounded and fled. Further, on hearing of the
victory, the King of Siam, from whom Malacca had been
" usurped by the Moors," sent to the conqueror a cup of
gold, a carbuncle, and a sword inlaid with gold. This
conquest was vaunted of as a great triumph of the Cross
over the Crescent, and as its result, by the year 1600,
nearly the whole commerce of the Straits had fallen into
the hands of the Portuguese.
Of the remaining " Moorish" or Malay kingdoms,
Acheen, in Sumatra, was the most powerful, so powerful,
indeed, tliat its king was able to besiege the great strong-
hold (if Malacca more than once with a fleet, according to
the annalist, of " more than five hundred sail, one hundred
of whicli were of greater size tlian any then constructed
in Europe, and the warriors or mariners that it bore
amounted to sixty thousand, commanded by the king in
person." The first mention of Johore, or Jlior, and Perak
occurs about the same time, Perak being represented as
a very powerful and wealthy State.
The Portuguese, by their persevering and relentless
religious crusade against the Mohammedans, converted all
the States wliicli were adjacent to their conquests into
CHAP. THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS. 3
enemies, and by 1641 their empire in the Straits was
seized upon by the Dutch, who, not being troubled by
much rehgious earnestness, got on very well Avith the
Malay Princes, and succeeded in making advantageous
commercial treaties with them.
A curious but fairly accurate map of the coasts of the
Peninsula w'as prepared in Paris in 1668 to accompany
the narrative of the French envoy to the Court of Siam,
but neither the mainland nor the adjacent islands attracted
any interest in this country till the East India Company
acquired Pinang in iTTo, Province "VYellesley in 1798,
Singapore in 1823, and Malacca m 182-4. These small
but important colonies were consolidated in 1867 into
one Government imder the Crown, and are now known as
the Straits Settlements, and prized as among the most
valuable of our possessions in the Far East. Though
these settlements are merely small islands or narrow
strips of territory on the coast, their population, by the
census of 1881, exceeded four hundred and twenty- two
thousand souls, and in 1880 their exports and imports
amounted to £32,353,000 I
Besides these little bits of British territory scattered
along a coast -line nearly four hundred miles in length,
there are, on the west side of the Peninsula, the native
States of Kedah, Perak, Selangor, and Sungei Ujong, the
last three of which are under British " protection ;" and
on the east are Patani, KCdantan, Tringganu, and Pahang ;
the southern extremity being occupied by the State of
Johore. The interior, which is scarcely at all known, con-
tains towards its centre the Xegri Sembilan, a confedera-
tion of eight (formerly nine) small States. The population
of the native states of the Peninsula is not accurately
known, but, inclusive of a few wild tribes and the
Chinese immigrants, it is estimated at three hundred and
ten thousand, which gives imder nine inhabitants to the
4 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
square mile, the popiilatiou of the British settlements
being about four hundred and twenty to the square mile.
The total length of the Peninsula is eight hundred
miles, and its l)readth varies from sixty to one hundred
and fifty miles. It runs down from lat. lo'' 50' N. to
1°41']S'. The northern part, forming the Isthmus of
Kraw, which it is proposed to pierce for a ship canal, runs
nearly due north and south for one hundred and forty miles,
and is inhabited by a mixed race, mainly Siamese, called
by the Malays Sansam. This Isthmus is under the rule
of Siam, which is its northern boundary, and the northern
and eastern States of Kedah, Patani, Kelantan, Pahang,
and Tringganu, are more or less tributary to this ambitious
empire, which at intervals has exacted a golden rose, the
token of vassalage, from every State in the Peninsula.
Except at the point where the Isthmus of Kraw joins
Siam, the Peninsula is surrounded by the sea — to the east
Ijy the China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, and to the south
and west by the Straits of Malacca and the Bay of Bengal.
The area of the mainland is conjectured to be the same as
that of Britain, but the region occupied 1)y the Malays
does not exceed sixty-one thousand one hundred and fifty
square miles, and is about half the size of Java.
Its configuration is not very well known, but a granitic
mountain cliain, rising in Perak to ascertained lieiglits of
eight thousand feet, runs down its wh(;le lengtli near the
centre, with extensive outlying spurs, and alluvial plains
on both sides densely covered with jungle, as are also the
mountains. Tliere are no traces of volcanic formation,
though thermal springs exist in Malacca. The rivers are
numerous, but with one exception small, and are seldom
navigaljle beyond the reach of tlie tides, excej)t by ilat-
bottomed boats. It is believed that there are scarcely
any lakes.
The general formation is granitic, overlaid by sandstone.
CHAr. A TERRA INCOGNITA. 5
laterite or clay ironstone, and to the north by limestone.
Iron ores are found everywhere, and are so little regarded
for their metallic contents that, though containing, accord-
ing to ]\Ir. Logan, a skilful geologist, sixty per cent of pure
metal, they are used in Singapore for macadamising the
roads ! Gold has been obtamed in all ages, and formerly
in considerable quantities, but the annual yield does not
now exceed nineteen thousand ounces. The vastest tin-
fields in the world are found in the western Malay States,
and hitherto the produce has been " stream tin " only, the
metal not having been traced to its veins in the rock.
The map, the result of recent surveys by Mr. Daly,
and published in 1 8 8 2 by the Eoyal Geographical Society,
shows that there is a vast extent, more than half of the
Malay Peninsula, unexplored. Its most laborious explorer
confesses that " of the internal government, geography,
mineral products, and geology of these regions, we do not
know anything," and, he adds, that " even in this nineteenth
century, a country rich in its resources, and important
through its contiguity to our British possessions, is still a
closed volume." " If we let the needle in, the thread is
sure to foUow" (meaning that if they let an Englishman
pass through their territories, British annexation would be
the natural sequence), was the reason given to Mr. Daly for
turning him back from the States of the Negri Sembilan.
The climate is singularly healthy for Europeans as
well as natives, although both hot and moist, as may be
expected from being so close to the equator. Besides, the
Peninsula is very nearly an insular region ; it is densely
covered with evergreen forests, and few parts of it are
more than fifty miles from the sea. There are no diseases
of chmate except marsh fevers, which assail Europeans if
they camp out at night on low, swampy grounds.
In 5° 15' N., about the latitude of the northern
boundary of Perak, at the sea-level the mean annual
6 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
temperature is nearly 80°, with a range of 20°; at
Malacca in 2° 14' K it is 80°, with a range of 15°;
and at Singapore in lat. 1° 17' it is 82°, with a range
of 24°. Though the climate is undeniably a "hot" one,
the heat, tempered by alternating land and sea breezes,
is seldom oppressive except just before rain, and the
thermometer never attains anything approaching those
torrid temperatures which are registered in India, Japan,
the United States, and other parts of the temperate zones.
The rainfall is not excessive, averaging about one
hundred and ten inches annually, and there is no regular
rainy season. In fact it rains in moderation all tlie
year round. Three days seldom pass without refreshing
showers, and if there are ten rainless days together, a rare
phenomenon, people begin to talk of " the drought." Prac-
tically the year is divided into two parts by the " mon-
soons."^ The monsoon is not a storm, as many people
suppose, from a vague association witli the word "tj^Dhoon,"
but a steady wind, blowing in the case of the Malay
I'eninsula for six months from the north-east, bringiug
down the Chinamen in their junks, and for six months
from the south-west, bringing traders from Arabia and
India. The climate is the pleasantest during the north-
east monsoon, which lasts from October to April. It is
durinti the south-west monsoon that the heavier rains
accompanied by electrical disturbances occur. The central
mountain range i)rotects tlie Peninsula alternately from
both monsoons, the high Sumatran mountains protecting
its west side from the south-west winds. Tlie east side
is exposed for six montlis to a modified north-east mon-
soon. Everywliere else throughout the almost changeless
year, steadily alternating land and sea breezes with gentle
varialile winds and calms prevail, interrupted occasionally
' This woril is rccognistd as a rorruption by Portuguese and Jjiitisli
tongues of tlie Arabic word mvsim, "season."
CHAP. PRODUCTS OF THE PENINSULA. 7
on the west coast during the " summer " by squalls from
the south-west, which last for one or two hours, and are
known as " Sumatrans." Hurricanes and earthquakes are
unknown. Drenching dews fall on clear nights.
The Peninsula is a gorgeous tropic land, and, with its
bounteous rainfall and sunshine, brings forth many of the
most highly-prized productions of the tropics, with some
that are pecidiar to itself. Its botany is as yet very
imperfectly known. Some of its forest trees are very
valuable as tim^ber, and others produce hard- veined woods
which take a high polish. Eattans, Malacca canes, and
gutta are well known as among its forest products ; gutta,
with its extensive economical uses, having been used only
for Malay horsewhips and knife-handles previous to 1843.
The wild nutmeg is indigenous, and the nutmeg of com-
merce and the clove have been introduced and thrive.
Pepper and some other spices flourish, and the soil with
but a little cultivation produces rice wet and dry, tapioca,
gambir, sugar-cane, coffee, yams, sweet potatoes, cocoa,
sago, cotton, tea, cinchona, indiarubber, and indigo. Still
it is doubtful whether a soil can be called fertile which
is incapable of producing the best kinds of cereals. Euro-
pean vegetables are on the whole a dismal failure. Con-
servatism in diet must be given up by Europeans ; the
yam, edible arum, and sweet potato must take the place
of the " Irish potato," and water-melons and cucumbers
that of our peas, beans, artichokes, cabbages, and brocoli.
The Chinese raise coarse radishes and lettuce, and possibly
the higher grounds may some day be turned into market
gardens. The fruits, however, are innumerable, as well as
wholesome and delicious. Among them the durian is the
most esteemed by the natives, and the mangosteen by
Europeans.
The fauna of the Peninsula is most remarkable and
abundant ; indeed, much of its forest-covered interior is
8 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
inhabited by wild beasts alone, and gigantic pachyderms,
looking like monsters of an earlier age, roam unmolested
over vast tracts of country. Among this thick-skinned
family are the elephant, the one-horned rhinoceros, the
Malayan tapir, and the wild hog, the last held in abomina-
tion by the Malays, but constituting the chief animal food
of some of the wild tribes.
A small bear with a wistful face represents the Planti-
grade family. The Quadrumana are very numerous.
There are nine monkeys, one, if not two apes, and a
lemur or sloth, which screens its eyes from the light.
Of the Digitigrada there are the otter or water-dog,
the musang and climbing musang, the civet cat, the
royal tiger, the spotted black tiger, in whose glossy raven
black coat the characteristic markings are seen in certain
lights ; the tiger cat, the leopard, the Java cat, and four
or five others. Many of these feline animals abound.
Among the ruminants are four species of deer, two
smaller than a hare, and one as large as an elk ; a wild
goat similar to the Sumatran antelope; the domestic goat,
a mean little beast ; the buffalo, a great, nearly hairless,
gray or pink beast, bigger than the buffalo of China and
India ; a short-legged domestic ox, and two wild oxen or
bisons, which are rare.
The bat family is not numerous. The vampire flies
high, in great flocks, and is very destructive to fruit. This
frugiverous bat, known popularly as the " flying fox," is
a very interesting looking animal, and is actually eaten
by the people of Ternate. At the height of tlie fruit
season, tliousands of these creatures cross from Sumatra
to the mainland, a distance never less than forty miles.
Their strength of wing is enormous. I saw one captured
in the steamer Nevada, forty-five miles from the Navi-
gators, with wings measuring, wlien extended, nearly five
feet across. These are formed of a jet black membrane,
CHAP. BEASTS AND REPTILES. 9
and have a higlily -polished claw at the extremity of each.
The feet consist of five polished black claws, with which the
bat hangs on, head downwards, to the forest trees. His
body is about twice the size of that of a very large rat,
black and furry underneath, and with red foxy fur on the
head and neck. He has a pointed face, a very black nose,
and prominent black eyes, with a remorseless expression
in them. An edible bat of vagrant habits is also found.
Ponies are imported from Sumatra, and a few horses
from Australia, but the latter do not thrive.
The domestic cat always looks as if half his tail had
been taken off in a trap. The domestic dog is the Asiatic,
not the European dog, a leggy, ugly, vagrant, uncared-for
fellow, furnishing a useful simile and little more.
Weasels, squiiTels, polecats, porcupines, and other
small animals exist in numbers, and the mermaid, of the
genus Halicore, connects the inhabitants of the land and
water. This Duyong, described as a creature seven or
eight feet long, with a head like that of an elephant de-
prived of its proboscis, and the body and tail of a fish,
frequents the Sumatran and Malayan shores, and its flesh
is held in great estimation at the tables of sultans and
rajahs. Besides these (and the list is long enough) there
are many small beasts.
The reptiles are unhappily very numerous. Craufurd
mentions forty species of snakes, including the python
and the cobra. Alligators in great numbers infest the
tidal waters of the rivers. Iguanas and lizards of several
species, marsh-frogs, and green tree frogs abound. The
land-leeches are a great pest. Scorpions and centipedes
are abundant. There are many varieties of ants, among
them a formidable looking black creature nearly two
inches long, a large red ant, whose bite is like a bad pinch
from forceps, and which is the chief soiu'ce of formic acid,
and the termes, or wliite ant, most destructive to timber.
10 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. ixtrod.
The carpenter beetle is also found, an industrious
insect, which riddles the timber of any building in which
he effects a lodgment, and is as destructive as dry rot.
There are bees and wasps, and hornets of large size, and
a much dreaded insect, possibly not yet classified, said to
be peculiar to the Peninsula, which inflicts so severe a
wound as to make a strong man utter a cry of agony.
But of all tlie pests the mosquitos are the worst. A
resident may spend some time in tlie country and know
nothing from experience of scorpions, centipedes, land-
leeches, and soldier ants, but he cannot escape from the
mosquito, the curse of these well-watered tropic regions.
In addition to the night mosquito, there is a striped
variety of large size, known as the " tiger mosquito," much
to l)e feared, for it pursues its bloodthirsty work in the
daytime.
Among the harmless insects may be mentioned the
cicada, which fills the forest with its cheery din, tlie
green grasshopper, spiders, and flies of several species,
dragon-flies of large size and brilliant colouring, and
butterflies and moths of surpassing beauty, whicli delight
in the hot, moist, jungle openings, and even surpass the
flowers in the glory and variety of their luies. Among
them the atlas motli is found, measuring from eight to ten
inches across its wings. The leaf insects are also fascinat-
ing, and the fire-flies in a mangi'ove swamp on a dark,
still night, moving in gentle undulations, or flashing into
coruscations after brief intervals of quiescence, are incon-
ceivably beautiful.
The birds of the Peninsula are many and beautiful.
Sun-birds rival the flashing colours of the humming-birds
in the jungle openings; king-fisliers of large size and
brilliant blue plumage make the river banks gay ; shriek-
ing paroquets with coral-coloured beaks and tender
L'rf'on feathers, abound in tlie forests ; great, heavy-billed
CHAP. LAND AND WATER BIRDS. 11
hornbills hop ciimbroiisly from branch to branch, rival-
ling in their awkward gait the rhinoceros hornbills ; the
Javanese peacock, with its gorgeous tail and neck covered
with iridescent green feathers instead of blue ones, moves
majestically along the jungle tracks, together with the
ocellated pheasant, the handsome and high-couraged jungle
cock, and the glorious Argus pheasant, a bird of twilight
and night, with " a hundred eyes '' on each feather of its
stately tail.
According to Mr. Newbold, two birds of paradise
{Paradisca regia and Paradisca gularis) are natives of the
Peninsula,^ and among other bright-winged creatures are
the glorious crimson -feathered pergam, the pencilled
pheasant, the jieacock pheasant, the blue pheasant par-
tridge, the mina, and the dial bird, with an endless variety
of parrots, lories, green-feathered pigeons of various sizes,
and woodpeckers. Besides these there are falcons, owls,
or "spectre birds," sweet-voiced butcher birds, storks,
fly-catchers, and doves, and the swallow which builds the
gelatinous edible nest, which is the foundation of the
expensive luxury " Bird's Nest Soup," frequents the
verdant islands on the coast,
Xor are our own water birds wantuiQ'. There are
bitterns, rails, wild-duck, teal, snipes ; the common, gray,
and whistling plover ; green, black, and red quails ; and
the sport on the plains and reedy marshes, and along the
banks of rivers, is most excellent.
Turtles abound off the coast, and tortoises, one variety
with a hard shell, and the other with a soft one and a
rapid movement, are found in swampy places. The river
lisli are neither abundant nor much esteemed ; but the
sea furnishes much of the food of both Malays and
^ ilr. "Newbold is ordinarily so careful and accurate that it is almost
presumiituous to hint that in this particular case lie may not have been
able to verify the statements of the natives by actual observation.
12 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
Chinese, and the dried and salted fish prepared on the
coast is considered very good.
At European tables in the settlements the red mnllet,
a highly-prized fish, the pomfret, considered more deli-
cious than the turbot, and the tungeree, \Yith cray-fish,
crabs, prawns, and shrimps, are usually seen. The tongue-
fish, something like a sole, the gray mullet, the hammer-
headed shark, and various fish, with vivid scarlet and
yellow stripes alternating with black, are eaten, along
with cockles, " razor shells," and king-crabs. The lover of
fishy beauty is abundantly gratified l)y the multitudes
of fish of brilliant colours, together with large medusa*,
which dart or glide through the sunlit waters among the
coral -groves, where every coral spray is gemmed with
zoophytes, whose rainbow -tinted arms sway with the
undulations of the water, and where sea-snakes writhe
themselves away into the recesses of coral caves.
Nature is so imposing, so magnificent, and so prolific
on the Malay I'eninsula, that one naturally gives man
the secondary place which I have assigned to him in this
chapter. The whole population of the Golden Chersonese,
a region as large as Clreat Britain, is not more than three-
(juarters of a million, and less than a half of this is Malay.
Neither great wars, nor an ancient history, nor a valuable
literature, nor stately niiiis, nor barbaric splendours, attract
scholars or sight-seers to the Peninsula.
The Malays are not the Aborigines of this singidar
spit of land, and they are its colonists rather than its
conquerors. Tlieir histories, which are chiefly traditional,
state that the extremity of the I'eninsida was peopled by
a Malay emigration from Sumatra about tlie middle of
the twelfth century, and that the descendants of these
colonists settled Malacca and other ])laces on the coast
about a century later. Tradition refers the peopling of
tlie interior States to another and later migration from
CHAP. WILD AND CIVILISED RACES. 13
Sumatra, with a chief at its head, who, with all his
followers, married Aboriginal wives, the Aboriginal tribes
retreating into the jungles and mountains as the Malays
spread themselves over the region now known as the
States of the Negri Sembilan. The conquest or colonisa-
tion of the Malay Peninsula by the Malays is not, how-
ever, properly speaking, matter of history, and the origin
of the Malay race and its early history are only matters
of more or less reasonable h^-pothesis. It is fair, however,
to x^resume that Sumatra was the ancient seat of the race,
and the wonderful ^'alley of Menangkabau, surrounded by
mountains ten thousand feet in height, that of its earliest
civilisation. The only Malay "colonial" kingdoms on
the Peninsula which ever attamed any importance were
those of Malacca and Johore, and even their reliable
history begins with the arrival of the Portuguese. The
conversion of the Sumatra Malays to Mohammedanism
arose mainly out of their commercial intercourse with
Arabia ; it was slow, not violent, and is supposed to
have begun in the thirteenth century.
A population of " Wild Tribes," ^'ariously estimated at
from eight thousand to eleven thousand sovils, is still found
in the Peninsula, and even if research should eventually
prove them not to be its Aborigines, they are, without
doubt, the same races wliicli were found inhabiting it
by the earliest Malay colonists.
These are frequently called by the Malays " Orang
Benua," or " men of the country," but they are likewise
called " Orang-utan," the name which we apply to the
big ape of Borneo. The accompanying engraving repre-
sents very faithfully the " Orang-utan " of the interior.
The few accounts given of the wild tribes vary consider-
ably, but apparently they may be divided into two classes,
the Samangs, or Oriental Xegroes or Negritos, and the
Orang Benua, frequently called Jakuns, and in Perak
14
THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE.
INTROD.
Sakei. By the Malays they are called indiscriminately
Kafirs or infidels, and are interesting to them only in so
Ornug-utan (male and female).
tar as they can use them fur hearing hurdens, clearing
jungle, procuring gutta, and in chihl-stealiug, an abomin-
CHAP. THE SAMANGS AND ORANG-UTAN. 15
able Malay custom, \Yhich, it is hoped, has received its
death-blow in Perak at least.
The Samangs are about the same height as the Malays,
but their hair, instead of being lank and straight like theirs,
is short and curly, though not woolly like that of the
African negro, and their complexions or rather skins are
of a dark brown, nearly black. Their noses, it is said,
incline to be flat, their foreheads recede, and their lips are
thick. They live in rude and easily removable huts made
of leaves and branches, subsist on jungle birds, beasts,
roots, and fruits, and wear a scanty covering made from
the inner bark of a species of Artocarpus. They are expert
hunters, and have most ingenious methods of capturing
both the elephant and the " recluse rhinoceros." They
■are divided into tribes, which are ruled by chiefs on the
patriarchal system. Of their customs and beliefs, if they
have any, almost nothing is known. They are singularly
shy, and shun intercourse with men of other races. It
has been supposed that they worship the sun.
The Orang Benua or Orang-utan, frequently called
Sakeis or Jakuns, consist of various tribes with different
names, thinly scattered among the forests of the chain of
mountains which runs down the middle of the Peninsula
from Kedah to Point Piomania.^ In appearance and colour
they gi-eatly resemble the Malays, and there is a very
stroncf general resemblance between their dialects and pure
Malayan. They have remarkably bright and expressive
eyes, with nothing ^Mongolian about their internal angles.
and the forehead is low rather than receding. The mouth
is wide and the lips are large, the lower part of the face
projects, the nose is small, the nostrils are divergent, and
* I was so fortunate as to see two adult male Jakuns and one female, but
my information respecting them is derived chiefly from ilr. Syers, Super-
intendent of Police in Selangor, and from Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant-
Resident in Perak.
16 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. intkod.
the cheek-bones are promiiieut. The hair is black, but it
often looks rusty or tawny from exposure to the sun,
against which it is their only protection. It is very abun-
dant and long, and usually matted and curly, but not
woolly. They have broad chests and very sturdy, muscular
limbs. They are, however, much shorter in stature than
the Malays, the men in some of the tribes rarely exceeding
four feet eight inches in height, and the women four feet
four. Their clothing consists of a bark cloth waist-cloth.
Some of the tribes live in huts of the most primitive de-
scription supported on posts, while others, often spoken
of as the " tree people," build wigwams on platforms,
mainly supported by the forking branches of trees, at a
height of from twenty to thirty feet. These wild people,
says Mr. 1 )aly, lead a gregarious life, rarely remaining long
in one place for fear of their wives and children being
kidnapped by the Malays. They fly at the approach of
strangers. As a rule, their life is nomadic, and they live by
hunting, fishing, and on jungle fruits. They are divided
into tribes governed by elders. They reverence the sun, but
have no form of worsliip, and are believed to be destitute
of even the most rudimentary ideas of religion. Their
weapon is the sumpitan, a blow-gun, from which poisoned
arrows are expelled. They have no ceremonies at birth,
marriage, or death. They are monogamists, and, according
to Mr. Syers, extremely affectionate. One of their strongest
emotions is fear, and their timidity is so great that they
frequently leave the gutta which they have collected at
the foot of a tree, not daring to encounter tlic trader from
whom they expect some articles in excliaiige; while the
fear of ridicule, according to ]\Ir. Maxwell, keeps them far
from the liaunts of the Malays.
The liayet, or Orang Laut, " subjects," or men of the
sea, inhabit the coast and the small islets off the coast,
erecting temporary sheds when they go ashore to build
CHAP. BABAS AND SINKEHS. 17
boats, mend nets, or collect gum-damar and wood oil, but
usually living in their boats. They differ little from the
Malays, who, however, they look down upon as an inferior
race, except that they are darker and more uncouth look-
ing. They have no religious (!) beliefs but in the influence
of evil spirits, to whom at times they perform a few pro-
pitiatory rites. Many of them become Mohammedans.
They live almost entirely upon fish. They are altogether
restless and impatient of control, but, unlike some savages,
are passionately fond of music, and are most ingenious in
handicrafts, specially in boat-building.
The Chinese in the Peninsula and on the small islands
of Singapore and Pinang are estimated at two hundred
and forty thousand, and their numbers are rapidly in-
creasin<T, owinsj to direct immigration from China. It is
by their capital, industry, and enterprise that the resources
of the Peninsula are being developed. The date of their
arrival is unknown, but the Portuguese found them at
Malacca more than three centuries ago. They have been
settled in Pinang and Singapore for ninety-three and
sixty-three years respectively ; but except that they have
given up the barbarous custom of crushing the feet of
girls, they are in customs, dress, and habits, the exact
counterparts of the Cliinese of Canton or Amoy. Many
of them have become converts to Christianity, but this
has not led to the discarding of then- queues or national
costimie. The Chinese who are born in the Straits are
called Babas. The immigrant Chinese, who are called
SinJcchs, are much despised by the Bahas, who glory
specially in being British-born subjects. The Cliinese
promise to be in some sort the commercial rulers of the
Straits.
The Malays proper inhabit the Malay Peninsula, and
almost all the coast regions of Borneo and Sumatra. They
all speak more or less purely the Malay language ; they
c
18 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
are all Mohammedans, and they all write in the Arabic
character. Their colour is a lightish, olive-tinted, reddish
brown. Their hair is invariably black, straight, and coarse,
and their faces and bodies are nearly hairless. Tliey have
broad and slightly flat faces, with high cheek bones, wide
mouths, with broad and shapely lips, well formed chins,
low forelieads, black eyes, oblique, but not nearly so much
so as those of the Chinese, and smallish noses, with broad
and very open nostrils. They vary little in their height,
which is below that of the average European. Their frames
are lithe and robust, their chests are broad, their hands
are small and refined, and their feet are thick and short.
The men are not handsome, and the women are decidedly
ugly. Both sexes look old very early.
The ]\Ialays undoubtedly must be numbered among
civilised peoples. They live in houses which are more or
less tasteful and secluded. They are well clothed in gar-
ments of both native and foreign manufacture ; they are a
settled and agricultural people ; they are skilful in some of
the arts, specially in the working of gold and the damas-
cening of krises ; the upper classes are to some extent
educated ; they have a literature, even though it be an
imported one, and they have possessed for centuries sys-
tems of government and codes of land and maritime laws
which, in theory at least, show a considerable degree of
enlightenment.
Their religion, laws, customs, and morals are bound
up together. They are strict Mussulmen, but among the
uneducated especially they mix up their own traditions
and superstitions with the Koran. The pilgrimage to
Mecca is the universal object of Malay ambition. They
practise relic worship, keep the fast of Eamadhan, wear
rosaries of beads, observe the hours of prayer with their
foreheads on the earth, provide for the "religious welfare"
of their villages, circumcise their children, offer buffaloes
CHAP. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. J 9
in sacrifice at the religious ceremonies connected with
births and maniages, build mosques everywhere, regard
Mecca as the holy city, and the Koran, as expounded by
Arab teachers, as the rule of faith and practice.
Much learning has been expended upon the origin of
Malayan, but it has not been reliably traced beyond the
ancient empire of Menangkabau in Sumatra. ]\Ioham-
medanism undoubtedly brought with it a large introduc-
tion of Arabic words, and the language itself is written
in the Arabic character. It has been estimated by that
most painstaking and learned scholar, Mr. Crawfurd, that
one hundred parts of modern Malayan are composed of
twenty-seven parts of primitive Malayan, fifty of Poly-
nesian, sixteen of Sanskrit, five of Arabic, and two of
adventitious words, the Arabic predominating in all litera-
ture relating to religion. Malay is the lingua franca of
the Straits Settlements, and in the seaports a number
of Portuguese and Dutch words have been incorporated
with it.
The Malays can hardly be said to have an indigenous
literature, for it is almost entirely derived from Persia, Siam,
Arabia, and Java. Arabic is their sacred language. They
have, however, a celebrated historic Malay romance called
the Hang Tuah, parts of which are frequently recited in
their villages after sunset prayers by their village racon-
teurs, and some Arabic and Hindu romances stand high
in popular favour. Their historians all wrote after the
Mohammedan era, and their histories are said to contain
little that is trustworthy ; each State also has a local
history preserved with superstitious care and kept from
common eyes, but these contain little but the genealogies
of their chiefs. They have one Malay historical composi-
tion, dated 1021 a.h., which treats of the founding of the
Malay empire of Menangkabau in Sumatra, and comes
down to the founding of the empire of Johore and the
20 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
conquest of Malacca by Albuquerque in 1511. This has
been thought worthy of translation by Dr. Leyden.
Their ethical books consist mainly of axioms princi-
pally derived from Arabic and Persian sources. Their
religious works are borrowed from the Arabs. The Koran,
of course, stands first, then comes a collection of prayers,
and next a guide to the religious duties required from
Mussulmen. Then there are books containing selections
from Arabic religious works, with learned commentaries
upon them by a Malay Hadji. It is to be noticed that
the Malays present a compact front against Christianity,
and have successfully resisted all missionary enterprise.
They have a good deal of poetry, principally of an
amorous kind, characterised, it is said, by great simplicity,
natural and pleasing metaphor, and extremely soft and
melodious rhyme. They sing theii' poems to certain
po])ular airs, which are committed to memory. Malay
music, though plaintive and less excruciating than Chinese
and Japanese, is very monotonous and dirge-like, and not
pleasing to a European ear. The pentatonic scale is
employed. Tlie violin stands first among musical instru-
ments in their estimation. They have also the guitar,
the flageolet, the leolian fiute, a bamboo in which holes
are cut, w^hicli produce musical sounds when acted upon
by the wind, and both metallic and wooden gongs.
They have no written system of conmion aritlimetic,
and are totally unacquainted witli its higher branches.
Their numerals above one thousand are borrowed from the
Hindus, and their manner of counting is the same as
that of the Ainos of Yezo.
Their theory of medicine is derived from Arabia, and
abounds in mystery and superstition. They regard man
fis composed of four elements and four essences, and
assimilate his constitution and passions to the twelve
signs of the zodiac, the seven planets, etc., exaggerating
CHAP. MALAY ASTRONOMY. 21
tlie mysterious sympathy between man and external
nature. The successful practice of the hakim or doctor
must be based on the principle of " preserving the balance
of power" among the foiu- elements, which is chiefly
effected by moderation in eating.
They know nothing of astronomy except of some
meagre ideas derived through the Arabs from the Ptole-
maic system, and Mr. Newbold, after most painstaking
research, failed to discover any regular treatise on astro-
nomy, though Arabic and Hindu tracts on interpretations
of dreams, horoscopes, spells, propitious and unpropitious
moments, auguries, talismans, love philters, medicinal
magic and recipes for the destruction of people at a dis-
tance, are numerous. They acknowledge the solar year,
but adopt the lunar, and reckon the months in three
different ways, dividing them, however, into weeks of
seven days, marking them by the return of the Moham-
medan Sabbath. They suppose the world to be an oval
body revolving on its axis four times within a year, with
the sun, a circular body of fire, moving round it. The
majority of the people still believe that eclipses are
caused by the sun or moon being devoured by a serpent,
and they lament loudly during their continuance.
The popular modes of measuring distance are ingeni-
ous, but, to a stranger at least, misleading. Thus Mr.
Daly, in attempting to reach the interior States, received
these replies to his inquiries about distance — "As far as a
gunshot may be heard from this particular hill;" "If you
wash your head before starting it will not be dry before
you reach the place," etc. They also measure distances
by the day's walk, and by the number of times it is neces-
sary to chew betel between two places. The hours are
denoted by terms not literally accurate. Cockcrowing is
daybreak, 1 p.m., and midnight ; 9 a.m., Lepas Baja,
is the time when the buffaloes, which cannot work when
22 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
the sun is hi.uli, are relieved from the plough ; Tetabawe
is 6 P.M., the word signifyiug the cry of a bird "which is
silent till after sunset. The Malay day begdns at sunset.
They are still maritime in their habits, and very com-
petent practical sailors and boat-builders ; but though for
centuries they divided with the Arabs the carrying trade
between Eastern and Western Asia, and though a mongrel
Malay is the nautical language of nearly all the peoples
from New Guinea to the Tenasserim coast, the Malays
knew little of the science of navigation. They timed
their voyages by the constant monsoons, and in sailing
from island to island coasted the Asiatic shores, trusting,
when for a short time out of sight of land, not to the
compass, though they were acquainted with it, but to
known rocks, glimpses of headlands, the direction of the
wind, and their observation of the Pleiades.
They have no knowledge of geography, architecture,
painting, sculpture, or even mechanics ; they no longer
make translations from the Arabic or create fiction, and
the old translations of works on law, ethics, and science
are now scarcely studied. Education among them is at
a very low ebb; but the State of Kedah is beginning
to awake to its advantages. Where schools exist the
instruction consists mainly in teaching tlie children to
repeat, in a tongue which they do not understand, certain
passages from tlie Koran and some set prayers.
As to law. Sir Stamford liaiHes observed in a formal
despatch, " Nothing has tended more decidedly to the
deterioration of the Malay character than the want of a
well-defined and generally acknowledged system of law."
There are numerous legal compilations, however, and nearly
every State has a code of its own to a certain extent ;
there are maritime and land codes, besides " customs " bad
and good, which override the written law; while in Perak,
Selangor, and Sungei Ujong an ill undijrstood adaptation of
CHAP. MALAY SPORTS. 23
some portions of British law further complicates matters.
" The glorious uncertainty " of law is nowhere more fully
exemplified than on this Peninsula. It is from the Golden
Island, the parent Empire of Menangkabau, that the Malays
profess to derive both their criminal and civil law, their
tribal system, their rules for the division of land by
boundary marks, and the manner of government as adapted
for sovereigns and their ministers. The existence of the
various legal compilations has led to much controversy
and even bloodshed between zealots for the letter of the
Koran on one side, and the advocates of ancient custom
on the other. Among the reasons which have led to the
migration of Malays from the native states into the Straits
Settlements, not the least powerful is the equality of rights
before Enghsh law, and the security given by it to pro-
perty of every kind. In the Malay country itself, occu-
pied by Malays and the Chinese associated with them,
there are four Malays to the square mile, whilst under the
British flag some one hundred and twenty-five Malays to
the square mile have taken refuge and sought protection
for their industry under our laws !
Cock-fighting, which has attained to the dignity of a
literature of its own, is the popular INIalay sport ; but the
gTand sport is a tiger and buffalo fight, reserved for rare
occasions however, on account of its expense. Cock-
fighting is a source of gigantic gambling and desperate
feuds. The birds, which fight in full feather and with
sharpened steel spurs, are very courageous, and die rather
than give in. Wrestling among young men and tossing
the wicker ball, are favourite amusements. There are
professional dancmg girls, but dancing as a social amuse-
ment is naturally regarded with disfavour. Children have
various games peculiar to themselves, which are abandoned
as childish things at a criven age. Riddles and enimuas
occupy a good deal of time among the higher classes.
24 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
Chess also occupies much time, but it is much to be feared
that the vice of gambling stimulated by the Cliinese, who
liave introduced both cards and dice, is taking the place
of more innocent pastimes.
The Malays, like other Mohammedans, practise
polygamy. They are very jealous, and their women are
veiled and to a certain extent secluded ; but they are
affectionate, and among the lower classes there is a
good deal of domesticity. Their houses are described
in tlie following letters. The food of the poorer
classes consists mainly of rice and salt-fish, curries of
both, maize, sugar-cane, bananas, and jungle fruits,
cocoa-nut milk being used in the preparation of food
as well as for a beverage. As luxuries they chew
betel -nut and smoke tobacco, and althougli intoxicants
are forljidden, they tap the toddy palm and drink of
its easily fermented juice. Where metal finds its way
into domestic utensils it is usually in the form of tin
water bottles and ewers. Every native possesses a sweep-
ing broom, sleeping mats, coarse or fine, and bamboo or
grass baskets. Most families use an iron pan for cooking,
with a half cocoa-nut shell for a ladle. A large nut shell
filled witli palm-oil, and containing a pith wick, is the
ordinary jMalay lamp. Among the poor, fresh leaves
serve as j^lates and dishes, but the chiefs possess cliina.
The Malay weapons consist of the celebrated hris,
with its flame-shaped wavy blade ; the sword, regarded,
however, more as an ornament ; tlie parang, which is both
knife and weapon ; the steel-headed spear, which cost us
so many lives in the Perak war; matchlocks, blunder-
busses, and lelaJis, long heavy brass guns used for the
defence of the stockades behind which tlie ]\Ialays usually
tight. They make their own gunpowder, and use cart-
ridges made of cane.
Tlie ]\Ialays, like the Japanese, have a most rigid
CHAP. SLAVERY AND DEBT BONDAGE. 25
epistolary etiquette and set forms for letter writing.
Letters must consist of six parts, and are so highly ela-
borate, that the scribes who indite them are almost looked
upon as litterateurs. There is an etiquette of envelopes
and wafers, the number and colour of which vary mth
the relative positions of the correspondents, and any error
in these details is regarded as an insult. Etiquette in
general is elaborate and rigid, and ignorant breaches of
it on the part of Europeans have occasionally cost them
their lives.
The systems of government in the Malay States vary
in detail, but on the whole may be regarded as absolute
despotisms, modified by certain rights, of which no rulers
in a Mohammedan country can absolutely deprive the
ruled, and by the assertion of the individual rights of
chiefs. Sultans, rajahs, maharajahs, datus, etc., under
ordinary circumstances have been and still are in most
of the unprotected States unable to control the chiefs
under them, who have independently levied taxes and
black mail till the harassed cultivators came scarcely to
care to possess property which might at any time be
seized. Forced labour for a quarter of the labouring
year was obligatory on all males, besides military service
when called upon.
Slavery and debt bondage exist in all the native
States, except in Selangor and Sungei Ujong, where it has
recently been abolished, as it is hoped it will be in Perak,
The slaves of the reigning princes were very easily
acquired, for a prince had only to send a messenger bear-
ing a sword or hris to a house, and the parents were
obliged to give up any one of their children without delay
or question. In debt slavery, which prevails more or less
among all classes, and has done a great deal to degrade the
women of the Peninsula, a man owing a trifling debt
incurred througli extravagance, misfortune, or gambling,
26 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. introd.
can be seized by his creditor ; when he, his wife, and
children, including those wlio may afterwards be born,
and probably their descendants, become slaves.
In most of the States the reigning prince has regular
officers under him, chief among whom are the Bandahara
or treasurer, who is the first minister, chief executive
officer, and ruler over the peasantry, and the Tumongong
or chief magistrate. Usually the throne is hereditary,
but while the succession in some States is in the male
line, in others it is in the female, a sister's son being the
heir ; and there are instances in which the chiefs have
elected a sultan or rajah. The theorij of government
does not contain anything inherently vicious, and is well
adapted to Malay circumstances. Whatever is evil in
practice is rather contrary to the theory than in accord-
ance with it. The States undoubtedly have fallen, in
many ways, into evil case ; the privileged few, consisting of
the rajahs and their numerous kindred and children,
oppressing the unprivileged many, living in idleness on
wliat is wrung from their toil. The Malay sovereigns in
most cases have come to be little more tlian the feudal
heads of bodies of insubordinate chiefs, while even the
headmen of the villages take upon themselves to levy
taxes and a(hninister a sort of justice. Nomadic cultiva-
tion, dislike of systematic labour, and general insecurity
as to the boundaries and tenure of land, have furtlier
impoverished the common people, while Islamism exercises
its usual freezing and retarding infhience, producing the
fatal isolation wliich to weak peoples is slow decay.
When Sir A. Clarke was appointed Governor of the
Straits Settlements in 1873 he went to the Curator of
the Geographical Society's library in quest of maps and
information of any kind about the country to wliich he
wa.s going, but was told by tliat courteous functionary
that thf're was absolutely no information of the slightest
CHAP. "NO INFORMATION." 27
value in their archives. Since then the protectorate
which we have acquired over three of the native States
and the war in Perak have mended matters somewhat r
but Mr. Daly, in appearing in May last before the same
Society with the map which is the result of his partial
survey, regrets that we have of half of the Peninsula
" only the position of the coast-line " ! Of the States
washed by the China Sea scarcely anything is known, and
the eastern and central interior offer a wide field for the
explorer.
The letters which follow those written from China
and Saigon relate to the British settlements in the Straits
of Malacca, and to the native States of Perak, Selangor,
and Sungei Ujong, which, since 1874, have passed under
British " protection." The preceding brief sketch is neces-
sarily a very imperfect one, as to most of my questions
addressed on the spot and since to the best informed
people, the answer has been, " Xo information." The
only satisfaction that I have m these preliminary pages
is, that they place the reader in a better position than I
was in when I landed at Malacca. To a part of this
beautifid but little known region I propose to conduct
my readers, venturing to hope for their patient interest
in my journeyings over the bright waters of the Malacca
Straits and in the jungles of the Golden Cheksoxese.
I. L. B.
•28 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter i.
LETTER I.
S.S. "Volga," China Sea,
Christmas Eve, 1878.
The sno\vy dome of Fujisan, reddening in the sunrise,
rose above the violet woodlands of Mississippi Bay as
we steamed out of Yokohama harbour on the 19th, and
three days later I saw the last of Japan — a rugged coast,
lashed by a wintiy sea.
The Palace, Victoria, Hongkong,
December 27.
Of the voyage to Hongkong little need be said. The
Volf/a is a miseraljle steamer, witli no place to sit in, and
nothing to sit on l)ut the benches by the dinner-table in
the dismal saloon. The master, a worthy man, so far as
I ever saw of him, was Goth, Vandal, Hun, Visigoth,
all in one. The ship was damp, dark, dirty, old, and
cold. She was not warmed by steam, and the fire could
not be lighted because of a smoky chimney. There were
no lamps, and the sparse candles were obviously gi-udged.
The stewards were dirty and desponding, the serving in-
lios])ital)le, the cooking diiiy and greasy, the food scanty,
the table-linen frowsy. There were four French and two
Japanese male passengers, who sat at meals in top-coats,
comforters, and hats. I had a large cabin, the salo7i des
flames, and the undivided attention of a very competent
LETTER I. DAYS OF DARKNESS. 29
but completely desponding stewardess. Being debarred
from the deck by incessant showers of spray, sleet, and
snow, and the cold of mid- winter being unbearable in the
dark, damp, saloon, I went to bed at four for the first
two days. On the third it blew half a gale, wth a short
violent sea, and this heavy weather lasted till we reached
Hongkong, five days afterwards. During those cold, dark
noisy days, when even the stewards could scarcely keep
their feet, I suffered so much in my spine from the violent
movements of the ship that I did not leave my cabin ;
and besides being unable to read, write, or work, owing to
the darkness, I was obliged to hold on by day and night
to avoid being much hurt by the rolling, my berth being
athwart ships ; consequently that week, which I had
relied upon for " overtaking " large arrears of writing and
sewing, was so much lost out of life, — irrecoverably and
shamefully lost, I felt, — as each dismal day dawned and
died without sunrise or sunset, on the dark and stormy
Pacific. No one, it seemed, knew any more English than
"Yes" and "No;" and as the ship knocked French out
of my memory, I had not even the resource of talking
with the stewardess, who told me on the last day of our
imprisonment that she was " triste, triste," and " one mass
of bruises ! "
In this same gale, but on a dry day, we came close
up with the mainland of Eastern Asia. Coasts usually
disappoint. This one exceeded all my expectations ; and
besides, it was the coast of Asia, the mysterious continent
which has been my dream from childhood — bare, lofty,
rocky, basaltic ; islands of naked rock separated by nar-
row channels, majestic perpendicular cliffs, a desolate
uninhabited region, lashed by a heavy sea, with visions
of swirling mists, shrieking sea-birds, and Chinese liigh-
sterned fishing -boats with treble -reefed, three-cornered
brown sails, appearing on the tops of surges, at once to
30 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter i.
vanish. Soon we were among mountainous islands ; and
then, by a narrow and picturesque channel, entered the
outer harbour, with the scorched and arid peaks of Hong-
kong on one side ; and on the other the yet redder and
rockier mainland, without a tree or trace of cultivation,
or even of habitation, except here and there a few stone
huts clustering round inlets, in which boats were lying.
We were within the tropic of Cancer, but still the cold,
coarse bluster continued, so that it was barely possible to
see China except in snatches from behind the deck-house.
Turning through another channel, we abruptly entered
the inner harbour, and sailed into the summer, blue sky,
blue water, a summer sun, and a cool breeze, while a tender
veil of blue haze softened the outlines of the flushed
mountains. Victoria, which is the capital of the British
colony of the island of Hongkong, and which colloqui-
ally is called Hongkong, looked magnificent, suggest-
ing Gibraltar, but far, far finer, its I'eak eighteen hundred
feet in height — a giant among lesser peaks, rising abruptly
from the sea al)ove the great granite city which clusters
upon its lower declivities, looking out from dense
greenery and tropical gardens, and the deep shade of
palms and bananas, the lines of many of its streets traced
in foliasre, all contrasting with the scorched red soil and
barren crags wliich were its universal aspect before we
acquired it in 184 o. A forest of masts above the town
betokened its commercial importance, and " P. and 0.'
and Mcssagcrics Maritimcs steamers, ships of war of all
nations, low-hulled, big-masted clippers, store and hos-
pital ships, and a great fishing fleet lay at anchor in the
harbour. The English and liomish cathedrals, the Epis-
copal Palace, with St. Paul's College, great high blocks of
commercial buildings, huge sugar factories, great barracks
in terraces, battery above battery. Government House,
and massive stone wharves, came rapidly into view, and
LETTER I. HONGKONG ON FIRE. 31
over all, its rich folds siDreadiiig out fully on the breeze,
tioated the Enolish tiajr.
But dense volumes of smoke rolling and eddying,
and covering with their black folds the lower slopes and
the town itself made a surprising spectacle, and even as
we anchored came off the rapid tolling of l)ells, the
roll of drums, and the murmur of a " city at unrest."
No one met me. A few Cliinese boats came off, and
then a steam launch with the M. M. agent in an obvi-
ous flurry. I asked him how to get ashore, and he
replied, " It's no use going ashore, the town's half burned,
and burning still ; there's not a bed at any hotel for
love or money, and we are going to make up beds
here." However, through the politeness of the mail
agent, I did go ashore in the launch, but we had to
climb through and over at least eight tiers of boats,
crammed with refugees, mainly women and children, and
piled up with all sorts of household goods, whole and
broken, which had been thrown into them promiscuously
to save them. " The palace of the English bishop," they
said, was still untouched; so, escaping from an indescrib-
able hubbub, I got into a bamboo chair, with two long
poles which rested on the shoulders of two lean coolies,
who carried me to my destination at a swinging pace
through streets as steep as those of Varenna. Streets
choked up with household goods and the costly contents
of shops, treasured books and nick-nacks lying on the
dusty pavements, with beds, pictures, clothing, mirrors,
goods of all sorts; Chinamen dragging their possessions to
the hills ; Chinawomen, some of them with hoofs rather
than feet, carrpng their children on their backs and
under their arms ; officers, black with smoke, working at
the hose like firemen; parties of troops marching as
steadily as on parade, or keeping guard in perilous places;
Mr. Pope Henessey, the Governor, ubiquitous in a chair
32 THE GOLDEN CHEESONESE. letter i.
with four scarlet bearers ; men belonging to the insur-
ance companies running about with drawn swords, the
miscellaneous population running hither and thither ; loud
and frequent explosions, heavy crashes as of tottering
walls, and, above all, the loud bell of the Eomish
cathedral tolling rapidly, calling to work or prayer, made
a scene of intense excitement ; while utterly unmoved,
in grand Oriental calm (or apathy), with the waves of
tumult breaking round their feet, stood Sikh sentries,
majestic men, with swarthy faces and great crimson
turbans. Through the encumbered streets and up grand
flights of stairs my bearers brought me to these pictur-
esque grounds, which were covered over with furniture and
goods of all descriptions brought hither for safety, and
Chinese families camping out among them. Indeed, the
Bishop and Mrs. Burdon had not only thrown open their
beautiful grounds to these poor people, but had accom-
modated some Chinese families in rooms in the palace
under their own. The apathy or calm of the Chinese
women as they sat houseless amidst their possessions was
very striking. In the broad, covered corridor which runs
round the palace everything the Burdens most value was
lying ready for instantaneous removal, and I was warned
not to unpack or take off my travelling dress. The Bishop
and I at once went down to the fire, which was got
under, and saw the ^vreck of the city and the houseless
people camping out among the things they had saved.
Fire was still burning or smouldering everywhere, high
walls were falling, hose were playing on mountains of
smouldering timber, wliole streets were blocked with
masses of fallen brick and stone, charred telegraph poles
and fused wires were lying about, with lialf burned
ledgers and half burned everything. The coloured popu-
lation exceeds one hundred and fifty-two thousand souls,
and only those who know the Babel whicli an eastern
LETTER I. THE FIRE BREAKS OUT AGAIN. 33
crowd is capable of making under ordinary circum-
stances can imagine what the deafening dm of human
tongues was under these very extraordinary ones. In
the prison, which was threatened by the flames, are over
eight hundred rufiians of all nations, and it was held
by one hundred soldiers with ten rounds of ammuni-
tion each, prepared to convey the criminals to a place
of safety, and to shoot any who attempted to escape.
The dread of these miscreants, which was everywhere
expressed, is not unreasonable, for the position of Victoria,
and the freedom and protection afforded by our laws,
together with the present Governor's known sympathies
with coloured people, have attracted here thousands of the
scum of Canton and other Cliinese cities, to say nothing
of a mass of European and Asiatic ruffianism, much of
which is at all times percolating through the magnificent
Victoria prison.
On returning, I was just beginning to unpack when
the flames burst out again. It was luridly grand in the
twilight, the tongues of flame lapping up house after
house, the jets of flame loaded with blazing fragments,
the explosions, each one succeeded by a burst of flame,
carrying liigh into the air all sorts of projectiles, beams
and rafters paraffin soaked, strewing them over the
doomed city, the leaping flames coming nearer and nearer,
the great volumes of smoke, spark-laden, rolling towards
us, aU mingling with a din indescribable. Burning
fragments shortly fell on the window-sills, and as the
wind was very strong and setting this way, there seemed
so little prospect of the palace being saved, that im-
portant papers were sent to the cathedral, and several
of the refugees fled with their things to the hills. At
that moment the wind changed, and the great drift of
flame and smoke was carried in a comparatively harmless
direction, the fire was got well in hand the second time,
D
34 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter i.
tlie official quarter was saved, and before 10 p.m. we
were able for the first time since my arrival at mid-day
to sit down to food.
]\Iost people seem much upset as well from personal
peril as from sympathy, and all parties and picnics for
two days are given up. Even the newspapers did not
come out tliis morning, the types of one of them being in
this garden. The city is now patrolled night and day
b}' strong parties of marines and Sikhs, for both the
disposition to loot and the facilities for looting are very
great. I. L. B.
LETTER II. A DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE. 35
LETTEE II.
The Palace, Victoria,
December 29.
I LIKE and admire Victoria. It is so pleasant to come
in from the dark, misty, coarse, loud-tongued Pacific, and
the December colourlessness of Japan to bright blue
waters crisped by a perpetual north wind — to the flam-
ing hills of the Asian mainland, which are red in the early
morning, redder in the glow of noon, and pass away in
the glorious sunsets through ruby and vermilion into an
amethyst haze, deepening into the purple of a tropic night,
when the vast expanse of sky which is seen from this
high elevation is literally one blaze of stars. Though
they are by no means to be seen in perfection, there are
here many things that I love, — bananas, poinsettias, pap-
ayas, tree-ferns, dendrobiums, dracenas, the scarlet passion-
flower, the spurious banyan, date, sago, and traveller's
palms, and numberless other trees and shrubs, children of
the burning sun of the tropics, carefidly watered and
tended, but exotics after all.
It is a most delightful winter climate. There has not
been any rain for three months, nor will there be any for
two more; the sky is cloudless, the air dry and very
bracing. It is cold enough at night for fires, and autumn
clothing can be worn all the day long, for though the sun
is bright and warm, the shade temperature does not rise
above 65°, and exercise is easy and pleasant. At night
36 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ii.
even at a considerable heiglit, tlie lowest temperature is
40°. It is impossible to praise the climate too higlily,
with its bright sky, cool dry air, and five months of rainless-
ness, but I should write very differently if I came here
four months later, when the mercury ranges from 80° to
90° both by day and night, and the cloudy sky rests ever
on the summits of the island peaks, and everything is
moist, and the rain comes down continually in torrents,
rising in hot vapours when the sun shmes ; and people
become limp and miserable, and their possessions limp
and moiddy, and insect life revels, and human existence
spent in a vapour bath becomes burdensome. But the
city is healtliy to those who live temperately. It has,
however, a remarkable peculiarity. Standing in and on
rock, one fancies that fever would not be one of its
maladies, but the rock itself seems to have imprisoned
lever germs in some past age, for whenever it is quarried
or cut into for foundations, or is disturbed in any way,
fever immediately breaks out.
Victoria is a beautiful city. It reminds me of Genoa,
but that most of its streets are so steep as to be impass-
able for wheeled vehicles, and some of them are merely
grand flights of stairs, arched over by dense foliaged trees,
so as to look like some tropical, coloured, deep colonnades.
It has covered green balconies with festoons of creepers,
lofty houses, streets narrow enough to exclude much of the
sun, ])eople and costumes of all nations, processions of
J'ortuguese priests and nuns ; and all its many-coloured
life is seen to full advantage under this blue sky and
brilliant sun.
This house is magnificently situated, and very large
and airy. l*art is the Episcopal Palace, and the rest St.
Paul's College, of which Pishop Purdon is warden. The
mountainous grounds are beautiful, and the entrance
blazes with poinsettias. There are no female servants,
LETTER II, PIDJUN ENGLISH. 37
but Chinese men perform all the domestic service satis-
factorily. I learn that for a Chinese servant to appear
without his skull-cap is rude, but to appear with his pig-
tail woimd round his head instead of pendant, is a gross
insult ! The " Pidjun English " is revoltmg, and the
most dignified persons demean themselves by speaking it.
The word "pidjun " appears to refer generally to business.
" My pidjun " is undoubtedly " my work." How the
whole English-speaking community, without distinction of
rank, has come to communicate with the Chinese in this
baby talk is extraordinary.
If you order a fire you say something like this :
" Eire makee, chop, chop, here, makee fire number one ; "
chop being quick, and number one good, or " first class."
If a servant tells you that some one has called he says,
" One piecey manee here speak niissey," and if one asks
who he is, he very likely answers, " No sabe," or else, "Num-
ber one, tink," by which he implies that the visitor is, in
his opinion, a gentleman. After the courteous, kindly
Japanese, the Chinese seem indifferent, rough, and dis-
agreeable, except the well-to-do merchants in the shops,
who are bland, complacent, and courteous. Their rude
stare and the way they hustle you in the streets and shout
their " pidjun " English at you is not attractive. Then
they have an ugly habit of speaking of us as barbarian or
foreign devils. Since I knew the word I have heard it
several times in the streets, and Bishop Burdon says that
before his servants found out that he knew Chinese, they
were always speaking of him and Mrs. Burdon by this
very ugly name.
[Victoria is, or should be, well known, so I will not
describe its cliques, its boundless hospitalities, its extra-
vagances in li\dng, its quarrels, its gaieties, its picnics,
balls, regattas, races, dinner parties, lawn tennis parties,
amateur theatricals, afternoon teas, and all its other modes
38 THE GOLDEN CHEESONESE, letter ii.
of creating a whirl which passes for pleasure or occupa-
tion. Rather, I would write of some of the facts con-
cerning this very remarkable settlement, which is on its
way to being the most important British colony in the
Far East.
Moored to England by the electric cable, and replete
with all the magnificent enterprises and luxuries of Eng-
lish civilisation, with a population of one himdred and
sixty thousand, of which only seven thousand, including
soldiers and sailors are white, and possessing the most
imposing city of the East on its shores, the colony is
only forty years old, the island of Hongkong having been
ceded to England in 1841, while its charter only bears
the date of 1 843. The island, which is about eleven miles
long, from two to five broad, and with an area of about
twenty-nine square miles, is one of a number situated off
the south-eastern coast of China at the mouth of the
Canton river, ninety miles from Canton. It is one of the
many " thieves' islands," and one of the fiirst necessities
of the administration was to clear out the hordes of sea
and river pirates which infested its very intricate neigh-
bourhood. It Hes just within the tropic of Cancer in lat.
22" X, and long. 114" E. The Ly-ee-moon Pass, the
narrow strait which separates it from the Cliinese main-
land, is only half a mile wide. Kow-loon, on the main-
land, an arid peninsula, on which some of the Hongkongese
have been attempting to create a suburb, was ceded to
England in 1861. The whole island of Hongkong is
picturesque. The magnificent harbour, wliich has an area
of ten square nules, is surrounded by fantastic, broken
mountains from three thousand to four thousand feet
high, and the magnificent city of Victoria extends for
four miles along its soutliem shore, with its six thousand
houses of stone and brick and the princely mansions and
roomy bungalows of its merchants and officials scrambling
LETTER II. PROSPERITY OF HONGKONG. 39
up tlie steep sides of the Peak, the highest poiiit of the
island, carrying verdure and shade with them. Damp as
its summer is, the average rainfall scarcely exceeds
seventy-eight inches, but it is hotter than Singapore in
the hot season, though the latter is under eighty miles
from the Equator.
The causes by which this little island, which pro-
duces nothing, has risen into first-rate importance among
our colonies are, that Victoria, with its magnificent
harbour, is a factory for our Chinese commerce, and
offers unrivalled facilities for the military and naval forces
which are necessary for the protection not only of that
commerce but of our interests in the far east. It is hardly
too much to say that it is the naval and commercial
terminus of the Suez Canal. Will it be believed that
the amount of British and foreign tonnage annually enter-
ing and leaving the port averages two millions of tons ?
and that the number of native vessels trading to it is about
fifty-two thousand, raising the total ascertained tonnage to
upwards of three millions and a half, or half a million
tons in excess of vSingapore ? To tliis must be added
thousands of smaller native boats of every build and rig
trading to Hongkong, not only from tlie Chinese coasts
and rivers, but from Siam, Japan, and Cochin China.
Besides the '" P. and 0," the Messcujerics Maritimcs, the
Pacific Mail Company, the Eastern and Australian Mail
Company, the Japanese "Mitsu Bichi" Mail Company,
etc., all regular mail lines, it has a number of lines of
steamers trading to England, America, and Germany,
with local lines both Chinese and English, and lines of
tine sailing cliiDpers, which, however, are gi-adually falling
into disuse, owing to the dangerous navigation of the
China seas, and the increasing demand for speed.
Victorian firms have almost the entire control of the
tea and silk trade, and Victoria is the centre of the trade
40 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ii.
in opium, sugar, flour, salt, earthenware, oil, amber, cotton,
and cotton goods, sandal-wood, ivory, betel, vegetables,
live stock, granite, and much else. The much abused
term " emporium of commerce " may most correctly be
applied to it.
It has tive docks, three slips, and every requisite for
making extensive repairs for ships of war and merchant-
men.
It has telegi'aphic communication with the whole
civilised world, and its trade is kept thereby in a con-
tinual fever.
It has a large garrison, for which it pays to England
.£20,000 a year. Were it not for this force, its six
hundred and tifty policemen, of whom only one hundred
and ten are Europeans, might not be able to overawe even
as much as they do the rowdy and ruffianly elements
of its heterogeneous population. As it is, the wealthier
foreign residents, for the security of their property, are
obliged to supplement the services of the public care-
takers by employing private watchmen, who patrol their
grounds at night. It must be admitted that the criminal
classes are very rampageous in Victoria, whether from
undue and imwise leniency in the treatment of crime,
or whether from the extraordinary mass of criminals tt»
which our flag aftbrds security is not for a stranger to
say, though the general clamour raised when I visited
the great Chinese prison in Canton, " I wish I were in
your prison in Hongkong," and my own visit to the
Victoria prison, render tlie former suspicion at least per-
missible.
Hongkong possesses the usual establisliment of a
Crown Colony, and the government is administered by
a fJovemor, aided by a Legislative Council, of wliich he is
the President, and which is composed of the Chief Justice,
the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, tlie Trea-
LETTER 11. CIRCUMSPICE! 41
surer, and four unofficial members, nominated by the
Crown on the Governor's recommendation.
The enormous preponderance of the mixed Oriental
population is a source of some difficulty, and it is not
easy by our laws to punish and destroy a peculiarly
hateful form of slavery which is recognised by Chinese
custom, and which has attained gigantic proportions in
Victoria. There is an immense preponderance of the
masculine element, nearly six to one among the Europeans,
and among the Orientals the men are nearly two and a
half times as numerous as the women.
As Victoria is a free port, it is impossible to estimate
the value of its imports and exports, but its harbour, full
of huge merchantmen and craft of all nations, its busy
wharves, its crowd of lighters loading and unloading by
day and night, its thronged streets and handsome shops, .
its huge warehouses, packed with tea, silk, and all
the costly products of the East, and its hillsides terraced
with the luxurious houses of its merchants, all say,
" CiECUMSPiCE, these are better than statistics ! "]
I. L. B.
42 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter in.
LETTEE III.
S.S. " Kin Kiang," December 30.
You will remember that it is not very long since a
piratical party of Chinese, shipping as steerage passengers
on board one of these Hongkong river steamers, massacred
the officers and captured tlie boat. On board this gi-eat,
white, deck-above -deck American steamer there is but
one European passenger besides myself, but there are four
liundred and fifty second-class passengers. Chinamen, with
the exception of a few Parsees, all handsomely dressed,
nearly all smoking, and sitting or lying over the saloon
deck up to the saloon doors. In the steerage there are
fifteen hundred Chinese steerage passengers, all men.
The Cliinese are a noisy people, their language is in-
harmonious, and the lower class male voices at least
are harsh and coarse. The fifteen hundred men seem
to be all sliouting at once, and the din which comes
up through tlie hatcliways is fearful. This noisy mass
of humanity is practically imprisoned below, for there is
a heavy iron grating securely padlocked over each exit,
and a European, " armed to tlie teeth," stands by eacli,
ready to shoot the first man who attempts to force
it. In this saloon there is a stand of six rifles with
l)ayonets, and four revolvers, and, as we started, a man
carefully took the sheaths off the bayonets, and loaded the
firearms with ball cartridge.
Canton, January 1, 1879. — The Canton river for
LETTER III. FIRST VIEW OF CANTON. 43
the ninety miles up here has nothing interesting about it.
Soon after leaving Hongkong the country becomes nearly
a dead level, mainly rice-swamps varied by patches of
bananas, with their great fronds torn to tatters by the
prevailing strong breeze. A very high pagoda marks
Whampoa, once a prosperous port, but now, like Macao,
nearly deserted. An hour after disgorging three boat
loads of Chinamen at Whampoa, we arrived at the be-
ffinninsr of Canton, but it took more than half-an-hour of
cautious threading of our way among junks, sampans,
house-boats, and slipper-boats, before we moored to the
crowded and shabby wharf. If my expectations of
Canton had been much raised they would certainly
have been disappointed, for the city stands on a per-
fectly level site, and has no marked features within or
around it except the broad and bridgeless tidal river
which sweeps through it at a rapid rate. In the distance
are the White-cloud hills, which w^ere painted softly in
amethyst on a tender gi-een sky, and nearer are some
rocky hills, which are red at all hours of daylight.
Boats and masts conceal the view of the city from the
river to a great extent, but even when from a vantage
ground it is seen spread out below, it is so densely packed,
its streets are so narrow, and its open spaces so few, that
one almost doubts whether the million and a half of
people attributed to it are really crowded within the
narrow area. From the river, and indeed from any point
of view. Canton is less imposing even than Tokiyo. Few
objects rise above the monotonous level, and the few are
unimpressive. There are two or three pagodas looking
like shot towers. There is a double-tow^ered Eomish
cathedral of great size, not yet finished. There is the
" Nine-storied pagoda." But in truth the most prominent
objects from the river are the " godowns " of the pawn-
brokers, lofty, square towers of gray brick which
44 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter hi.
dominate the city, V^^J ^ very important part in its
social economy, and are very far removed from those
establishments witli the trinity of gilded balls, which
liide themselves shamefacedly away in our English by-
streets. At one part of the river-side there are some
substantial looking foreign houses among trees, on the
site of the foreign factories of former days, but they and
indeed all else are hidden by a crowd of boats, a town
of boats, a floating suburb. Indeed, boats are my earUest
and strongest impressions of what on my arrival I was
hasty enough to think a mean city. It is not only along
the sides of the broad Pearl river, but along the network
of innumerable canals and creeks which communicate
with it, that they are found.
These boats, the first marvel of a marvellous city, have
come between me and my landing. Wlien the steamer
had disgorged her two thousand passengers, Mr. Mackrill
Smith, whose guest I am, brought me in a bamboo chair,
carried by two coolies, through a covered and crowded
street of merchandise six feet wide, to Shameen, the
island in the river on which the foreigners reside ; most
of tlie missionary community, however, living in the
buildings on the site of the old factory farther down.
I am now domiciled on Shameen, a reclaimed mud
flat, in the beautiful house belonging to tlie firm of
Jardine, Matheson, and Co. Tliis island, which has on
the one side the swift flowing Canton river, with its
ever shifting life, has on the other a canal, on which an
enormous population lives in house boats, moored stem
and stern, without any space between them. A stone
bridge, with an iron gate, gives access into one of the
best parts of Canton, commercially speaking ; but all the
business connected with tea, silk, and other productions,
which is caiTied on by such renowned firms as Jardine,
Matheson, and Co., the Dents, the Deacons, and others,
LETTER III. ENGLAND IN CANTON. 45
is transacted in these handsome dwellings of stone or
brick, each standing in its tropical garden, with a wall
or ornamental railing or bamboo hedge surrounding it,
but without any outward sign of commerce at all. The
settlement, insular and exclusive, hears little and knows
less of the crowded Chinese city at its gates. It repro-
duces English life as far as possible, and adds a bound-
less hospitality of its own, receiving all strangers who
are in any way accredited, and many who are not. A
hioli sea-wall with a broad concrete walk, shaded by
banyan-trees, runs round it, a distance of a mile and
a quarter. It is quite flat, and covered with carefully
kept grass, intersected with concrete walks and banyan
avenues, the tropical gardens of the rich merchants giving
variety and colour.
The community at present consists of forty-five
people — English, French, and German. The establish-
ment of the electric telegraph has not only favoured
business, but has enabled some of the senior partners
of the old firms to return home, leaving very junior
partners or senior clerks here, who receive their instruc-
tions from England. Consequently, in some of these large
family dwellings there are only young men " keeping bach."
There are a pretty English church, a club bungalow, a book
club, lawn tennis and croquet grounds, and a small hall
used for dancing, lectures, and amateur theatricals. No
wheeled vehicle larger than a perambulator ever disturbs
the quiet. People who go into the city are carried in
chairs, or drop down the river in their luxurious covered
boats, but for exercise they mostly walk on the bund, and
play croquet or lawn tennis. In this glorious weather
the island is very charming. It is possible to spend the
whole year here, as the tidal breezes modify the moist
heat of summer ; but the EngHsh children look pale and
languid even now.
46 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter hi.
Canton, Jammry 4. — If I were to describe Canton,
and had time for it, my letters would soon swell to the
size of Archdeacon Gray's quaint and fascinating book.
Walks in Canton; but I have no time, and must content
myself with brief sketches of two or three things which
have greatly interested me, and of the arrangement and
management of the city ; putting the last first, if I am
able " to make head or tail of it," and to cram its leading
features into a letter.
Viewing Canton from the " five storied pagoda," or
from the dignified elevation of a pawn tower, it is
apparent that it is surrounded by a high wall, beyond
which here and there are suburban villages, some wealthv
and wood-embosomed, others mean and mangy. The river
divides it from a very populous and important suburb.
Within the city lies the kernel of the whole, the Tartar
city, occupied by the garrison and a military colony
numbering about twenty thousand persons. This interest-
ing area is walled round, and contains the residence of the
Tartar General, and tlie consulates of the great European
Powers. It is well wooded, and less closely built than
the rest of Canton. Descending from any elevation one
finds oneself at once involved at any and every point in
a maze of narrow, crowded streets of high brick and
stone houses, mostly from five to eight feet wide. These
streets are covered in at the height of the house roofs,
by screens of canvas matting, or thin boards, which afford
a pleasant shade, and at the same time let the sunbeams
glance and trickle among the long, pendant signboards
and banners which swing aloft, and upon the busy,
many-coloured, jostling throng below.
Every street is paved witli large slabs of granite, and
under each of the massive foot -ways (for carriage-ways
there are none) there is a drain for carrying off the rain-
water, which is then conveyed into six large culverts, from
o
LETTER III. DRAINS AND BARRICADES. 47
them into four creeks which intersect the city, and thence
into the river. These large drains are supervised by the
" prefect," who is bound by an ancient law to have them
thoroughly cleansed every autumn, while each of the
small drains is cleansed by the orders and at the expense
of the " vestry" of the street under which it passes. This
ancient sanitary law, like many other of the admirable
laws of this empire, is said to be by no means punctili-
ously carried out ; and that Canton is a very healthy
city, and that pestilences of any kind rarely gain a footing
in it, may be attributed rather to the excellent plan of
sending out the garbage of the city daily to fertilise the
gardens and fields of the neighbourhood, than to the
vigilance of the municipal authorities.
There are hea\y and ancient gates or barricades which
enclose each street, and which are locked at night, only
to be opened by favour of the watchmen who guard
them. Their closing brings to an end the busy street
life, and at 10 p.m. Canton, cut up into small sections,
barred out from each other, is like a city of the dead.
Each gate watchman is appointed and paid by the
" vestry " of the street in which he keeps guard. They
wear uniform, but are miserable dilapidated looking
creatures, and I have twice seen one fast asleep. In the
principal streets night watchmen are stationed in watch-
towers, which consist of small mat huts, placed on scaffolds
raised far above the house-tops, on bamboo poles bound
tocjether with stron^ cords. These men are on the look-out
for armed bands of robbers, but specially for fire. They
are provided with tom-toms and small gongs on which to
proclaim the hours of the night, but, should fire arise,
a loud, rapid, and incessant beating of the gong gives the
alarm to all the elevated brotherhood in turn, who at
the same time, by concerted signals, inform the citizens
below of the ward and street in which the fire has
48 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter hi.
originated. In each principal street there is a very large
well, covered with granite slabs, with its exact position
denoted on a granite slab on the adjoining wall. These
wells, which are abundant reservoirs, are never opened
except in case of fire.
Besides these watchmen, eleven hundred military con-
stabulary are answerable for the good order of the "new
city " and its suburbs, and a thousand more, called the
Governor's brigade, garrison the outer gates in the city wall
and several interior guard-houses, all the inner gates being
garrisoned by Tartar troops. Canton is divided into thirty-
six wards, under twelve officers in summer, but in winter,
as now, when burglars are supposed to be more on the
alert, this numl)er is increased. Each officer having soldiers
under him traverses at intervals during the night every
street under his jurisdiction, and these armed followers,
whether to intimidate criminals or to show their vigilance,
are in the habit of discharging their old-fasliioned match-
locks and gingalls as they patrol. In consequence of so
many precautions, which are carried out very thoroughly,
fires and burglaries are much minimised, and the proverb
" as safe as Canton " appears to have a substantial
foundation. The barricaded streets at night have an
eerie solemnity aliout them. One night, my present
liostess, Mrs. H. and I prowled through some of them
([uite imattended, on our way back from a friend's dwell-
ing, roused up the watchmen to unlock and unbar the
gates, saw no other people astir, went down one of the
water streets, hailed a boat, and were deposited close
to the door of our own abode about midniofht, such
an event being quite of common occurrence in tliis
quarter.
In the streets the roofs of the houses and shops are
rarely, if ever, regular, nor are the houses themselves
arranged in a direct line. This queer effect results from
LETTER III. STREET PICTURESQUEXESS. 49
queer causes. Every Chinese house is built on the
principles of geomancy, which do not admit of straight
lines, and were these to be disregarded the astrologers
and soothsayers under whose auspices all houses are
erected, predict fearful evils to the impious builders. There
are few open spaces in Canton, and these are decorated
not with statues, but with monumental arches of brick,
red sandstone, or gray granite, which are put up as
memorials of virtuous men and women, learned or aged
men, and specially dutiful sons or daughters. Such
memorials are erected by citizens, and in some cases by
Imperial sanction or decree.
The public buildings and temples, though they bear
magnificent names, are extremely ugly, and are the sub-
jects of slow but manifest decay, while the streets of
shops exceed in picturesqueness everything I have ever
seen. Much of this is given by the perpendicular sign
boards, fixed or hanging, upon which are painted on an
appropriate background immense Chinese characters in
gold, vermilion, or black. Two or three of these belong
to each shop, and set forth its name and the nature of
the goods which are to be purchased at it. The effect of
these boards as the sun's rays fall upon them here and
there is' fascinating. The interiors of the shops are lofty,
glass lamps hang from the ceilings and large lanterns
above every door, and both are painted in bright colours,
with the characters signifying happiness, or with birds,
butterflies, flowers, or landscapes. The shop wall which
faces the door invariably has upon it a gigantic fresco or
portrait of the tutelary god of the building, or a sheet of
red paper on which the characters forming his name are
placed, or the character Shan, which implies all gods, and
these and the altars below are seen from the street. There
is a recess outside each shop, and at dusk the joss-sticks
burning in these fill the city with the fragrance of incense.
E
50 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter hi.
As there are streets of shops and trades, so there are
streets of dwelling-houses, but even the finest of these
present a miserable appearance to the passers-by, for all
one can see is a lofty and dimly lighted stone vestibule,
furnished with carved ebony chairs with marble seats
and backs, and not infrequently with gigantic coffins
placed on end, the gift of pious juniors to their seniors !
A porter stands in this vestibule ready to open the lofty
triple gate which admits to the courtyard of the interior.
Many Chinese mansions contain six or seven courtyards,
each with its colonnade, drawing, dining, and reception
rooms, and at the back of all there is a flower garden
adorned with rockeries, fish - ponds, dwarf trees, and
miniature pagodas and bridges.
The streets in which the poor dwell are formed of
low, small, dark, and dirty houses, of two or three rooms
each. The streets of dwellings are as mean and ugly as
those of shops are brilliant and picturesque.
This is a meagre outline of what may be called the
anatomy of this ancient city, which dates from the fourth
century B.C., when it was walled only by a stockade of
bamboo and mud, but was known by the name of " the
martial city of the south," changed later into " the city
of rams." At this date it has probably greater import-
ance than it ever had, and no city but London irajn-esses
me so much with the idea of solid wealth and increasing
prosperity.
My admiration and amazement never cease. I
grudge the hours that I am obliged to spend in sleep ; a
week has gone like half a day, each hour heightening my
impressions of the fascination and interest of Canton, and
of tlie singular force and importance of the Chinese.
Canton is intoxicating from its picturesqueness, colour,
novelty, and movement. To-day I have been carried
eighteen miles through and round it, revelling the whole
LETTER III. ORIENTAL ENCHANTMENTS. 51
time in its enchantments, and drinking for the first time
of that water of wliich it may truly be said that whoso
drinks " shall thirst again " — true Orientalism. As we
sat at mid-day at the five-storied pagoda, which from a
corner of the outer wall overlooks the Tartar city, and
ever since, through this crowded week, I have mshed
that the sun would stand still in the cloudless sky, and
let me dream of gorgeous sunlight, light without heat, of
narrow lanes rich in colour, of the glints of sunlight on
embroideries and cloth of gold, resplendent even in the
darkness, of hurrying and coloured crowds in the shadow,
with the blue sky in narrow strips high above, of gor-
geous marriage processions, and the " voice of the
bridegroom and the voice of the bride," of glittering trains
of mandarins, of funeral processions, Avith the wail of
hired mourners clad in sackcloth and ashes, of the Tartar
city with its pagodas, of the hills of graves, great cities
of the dead outside the walls, fiery-red under the tropic
blue, of the " potter's field " with its pools of blood and
sacks of heads, and crosses for crucifixion, — now, as on
Calvary, symbolical of shame alone, — of the wonderful
river life, and all the busy, crowded, costumed hurry of the
streets, where blue banners hanoinfr here and there show
that in those houses death has stilled some busy brains
for evermore. And I should like to tell you of the
Buddhist and Confucian temples, of the monastery garden,
which is the original of the famous " AYillow Pattern," of
the great Free Dispensary which is to rival that of the
Medical Mission, of the asylums for lepers, foundlings,
the blind, aged men and aged women, dating from the
fourteenth to the seA^enteenth centuries, originally well con-
ceived and noble institutions, but reduced into inefficiency
and degradation by the greed and corruption of genera-
tions of officials, of the " Beggars' Square " and beggars'
customs, of the trades, and of the shops with their
52 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter hi.
splendours, of the Examination Hall with its streets
numbering eleven thousand six hundred and seventy-
three cells for the candidates for the literary honours
which are the oidy road to office and distinction hi
("hina, but Canton deserves a volume, and Archdeacon
Grav has written one ! I- ^- ^'
LETTER IV. "FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 53
LETTEK IV.
Rev. B. C. Henry's,
Cantox, Jan. 6.
In the week in which I have been here I have given
myself up to ceaseless sight-seeing. Almost the first sight
that I saw on arriving in this quarter, which is in Canton
itself, was a number of Christian refugees, old men,
women, and children, who, having fled from a bloody per-
secution which is being waged against Christianity about
ninety miles from Canton, are receiving shelter in the com-
pound of the German mission. It was late in the evening,
and these poor refugees, who had sacrificed much for their
faith and had undergone great terror, were singing hymns,
and reading and worsliipping in Chinese. In the place
from which they came a Christian of wealth wished to build
a church, and last week he was proceeding to do so,
when the heathen, instigated by the district mandarin,
seized upon him and four other Christians, and when he
would neither say the word nor make the obeisance
which is regarded as equivalent to denying Christ, they
wrapped liim in cotton wadding soaked in oil, tied him
to a cross, and burned him, no extremity of torture
availing to shake his constancy. They cut off the arms
and legs of the four other persons, tied crosses to the
trunks, and then burned them. Tliis deed, done so near
Canton, has caused great horror among the foreigners
both here and at Hongkong, and the deepest sympathy
54 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
is felt both with the converts and the missionary priests.
In the sympathy with the lieroism and sufferings of those
who have been " faithful unto deatli," all the Protestant
missionaries join heartily, as in the belief that these
victims are reckoned among " the noble army of martyrs."
It is estimated that there are seven hundred and fifty
thousand Eomish Christians in China, many of them of
the third or fourth generation of Christians, and in some
places far in the interior there are whole villages of them.
The Portuguese and French missionary priests who devote
themselves for life to this work dress, eat, and live as
Chinamen, and are credited with great devotion.
It is most interesting to be brought by the spectacle
of these poor refugees so near to the glory and the woe of
martyrdom, and to hear that the martyr spirit can still
make men " obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross." A placard was posted up some time ago calling
for a general massacre of the native Christians on Christ-
mas Day. It attributes every vice to the " Foreign
Devils," and says that, " to preserve the peace and purit}-
of Chinese society, those whom they have corrupted must
be cut off." One phrase of tliis placard is, " The wicked-
ness of these foreign devils is so great that even pigs and
dogs would refuse to eat their flesh ! "
Mr, and Mrs. Henry speak Chinese, and are both
fearless, and familiar witli the pliases of Canton life. Of
all the places I have seen. Canton is the most overwhelm-
ingly interesting, fascinating, and startling. " See Canton
and die," I would ahnost say, and yet I can give no idea
of all tliat has taken such a strong hold of me. I should
now be quite content to see only the manifold street life,
witli its crowds, processions, and din, and the strange
and ever-sliifting water life, altogether distinct from the
land life. The rice-paper pictures give a very good idea
of tlie forms and colours of the boats, but the thousands
LETTER IV. JUNKS AND BOATS. 55
of them, and the rate at which they are propelled, are
altogether indescribable either by pen or pencil.
There are jnnks vtdth big eyes on either side of the
stem, " without Avhich they could not see their way," ^ and
with open bows with two six-pounders grinning through
them. Along the sides there are ten guns, and at the
lofty, square, quaint, broad, carved stern, two more. This
heavy armament is carried nominally for protection against
pirates, but its chief use is for the production of those
stunning noises which Chinamen delight in on all occa-
sions. In these helpless and unwieldy -looking vessels
which are sailed with an amount of noise and apparent
confusion which is absolutely shocldng to any one used to
our strict nautical discipline, the rudder projects astern
six feet and more, the masts are single poles, the large
sails of fine matting, and what with their antique shape,
rich colouring, lattice work and carving, they are the most
picturesque craft afloat. Then there are " passage boats "
from the whole interior network of rivers and canals,
each district having its special rig and build, recognisable
at once by the initiated. These sail when they can, and
when they can't are propelled by large sweeps, each of
which is worked by six men who stand on a platform
outside. These boats are always heavily laden, crowded
with passengers, and " armed to the teeth " as a protection
against river pirates, and they carry crews of from thirty-
five to fifty men.
At some distance below Shameen there are moored
tiers of large, two-storied house boats, with entrance doors
seven feet high, always open, and doorways of rich wood
carving, through which the interiors can be seen with
their riclily decorated altars, innumerable coloured lamps,
chairs, and settees of carved ebony with white marble let
^ These eyes are really clianns, but the above is the explanation given
to "griffins."
56 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
into the seats and backs, embroidered silk hangings,
gilded mirrors and cornices, and all the extravagances of
Chinese kixury. Many of them have gardens on their
roofs. These are called " flower boats," and are of noisy
and evil reputation. Then there are tiers of three-roomed,
comfortable house boats to let to people who make their
homes on the water in summer to avoid the heat. " Mar-
riage boats," green and gold, with much wood carving and
flags, and auspicious emblems of all kinds ; river junks,
with their large eyes and carved and castellated sterns
lying moored in treble rows ; duck boats, with their noisy
inmates ; florists' boats, with platforms of growing plants
for sale; two-storied boats or barges, with glass sides,
floating hotels, in which evening entertainments are given
with much light and noise ; restaurant boats, much
gilded, from which proceeds an incessant beating of gongs ;
washing boats, market boats, floating shops, which supply
the floating population with all marketable commodities ;
country boats of fantastic form coming down on every
wind and tide ; and, queerest of all, " slipper boats,"
looking absurdly like big shoes, which are propelled in
and out among all the heavier craft by standing in the
stem.
One of the most marvellous features of Canton is the
city of house boats floating and stationary, in which about
a quarter of a million people live, and it may with truth
be added are born and die. This population is quite dis-
tinct in race from the land population of Canton, which
looks down upon it as a pariah and alien caste. These
house boats, some of which have a single bamboo circular
roof, others two roofs of different heights, and which in-
clude several thousand of the marvellous slipjier boats, lie
in tiers along the river sides, and packed closely stem and
stem along the canals, forming bustling and picturesque
water streets. j\Iany of the Ijoats moored on the canals
LETTER IV. CANTON AFLOAT. 57
are floating shops, and do a brisk trade, one end of tlie
boat being the shop, the other the dwelling-house. As the
'■' slipper boats " are only from fifteen to twenty feet long,
it may be imagined, as their breadth is strictly proportion-
ate, that the accommodation for a family is rather circum-
scribed, yet such a boat is not only the home of a married
pair and their children, but of the eldest son with his wife
and children, and not unfrequently of grandparents also !
The bamboo roofs slide in a sort of telescope fashion, and
the whole interior space can be enclosed and divided. The
bow of the boat, whether large or small, is always the
family joss-house ; and the water is starred at night with
the dull, melancholy glimmer, fainter, though redder than
a glow-worm's light, of thousands of burning joss sticks,
making the air heavy with the odour of incense. Unlike
the houses of the poor on shore, the house boats are
models of cleanliness, and space is utilised and economised
by adaptations more ingenious than those of a tiny yacht.
These boats, which form neat rooms with matted seats by
day, turn into beds at night, and the children have sepa-
rate "rooms." The men go on shore during the day and
do labourer's work, but the women seldom land, are
devoted to "housewifely" duties, and besides are to be
seen at all hours of day and night flying over the water,
plying for hire at the landings, and ferrying goods and
passengers, as strong as men, and clean, comely, and
pleasant-looking ; one at the stern and one at the bow,
sending the floating home along with skilled and sturdy
strokes. They are splendid boat-women, and not vocifer-
ous. These women don't bandacce their feet.
Their dress is dark brown or blue cotton, and consists
of wide trousers and a short, loose, sleeved upper garment
up to the throat. The feet are big and bare, the hair is
neat and drawn back from the face into a stiff roll or
chignon, and they all wear jade-stone earrings. You see
58 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
a woman cooking or sewing in most housewifely style in
one of these slipper boats, but if you hail it, she is plying
the heavy oar in one moment, and as likely as not with
a wise-looking baby on her back, supported by a square
piece of scarlet cloth embroidered in gold and blue silks.
Not one of this ri\'er population has yet received Christi-
anity. Very little indeed is known about them and their
customs, but it is said that their morals are low, and that
when infanticide was less discouraged than it is now, the
river was the convenient grave of many of their newly-
born female children. I spent most of one afternoon
alone in one of these boats, diving into all canals and
traversing water streets, hanging on to junks and " pass-
age boats," and enjoying the variety of river life to the
full.
On another day I was carried eighteen miles through
Canton on a chair by four coolies, Mr. Smith and his
brother walking the whole distance, a great testimony to
the invigorating influences of the winter climate. As to
locomotion, one must either walk or be carried. A human
being is not a heavy weight for the coolies, but it is dis-
tressing to see that the shoulders of very many of them
are suiferiiig from bony tumours, arising from the pressure
of the poles. We lunched in the open air upon a stone
table under a banyan-tree at the " Five - Storied Pagoda "
which forms the north-east corner of tlie great wall of
Canton, from which we looked down upon the singular
vestiges of the nearly forgotten Tartar conquest, the walled
inner city of the Tartar conquerors, containing the Tartar
garrison, the Yamun (official residence) of the Tartar
governor, the houses of the foreign consuls, and the
unmixed Tartar population. The streets of this foreign
kernel of Canton are narrow and dirty, with mean, low
houses with tiled roofs nearly flat, and small courtyards,
more like the houses of Western than Eastern Asia.
LETTER IV. LIGHT AND COLOUR. 51)
These Tartars do not differ much in ]jhysiognoniy from
the Chinese. They are somewhat uglier, their stature is
shorter, and the women always wear three rings in their
ears. I saw more women in a single street in one day in
the Tartar city than I have seen altogether in the rest of
Canton.
The view from that corner of the wall (to my tliink-
ing) is beautiful, the flaming red pagoda with its many
roofs ; the singularly picturesque ancient gray wall, all
ups and downs, watch-towers, and strongholds, the Tartar
city below, with the " flowery pagoda," the mosques, the
bright foKage of the banyan, and the feathery grace of
the bamboo ; outside the wall the White -Cloud hills,
and nearer ranges burrowed everywhere for the dead,
their red and pink and orange hues harmonised by a thin
blue veil, softening without obscuring, all lying m the
glory of the tropic winter noon — light without heat,
colour without glare. Vanish all memories of grays and
pale greens before this vi\idness, this wealth of light and
colour I Colour is at once music and vitality, and after
long deprivation I revel in it.
This wall is a fine old structure, about twenty feet
wide and as many high, with a broad pavement on which
to walk, and a high platform on the outside, with a battle-
ment pierced for marksmen. It is hardly ever level for
ten yards, but follows the inequalities of the ground, and
has picturesque towers wliich occur frequently. It is
everywhere draped with ferns, which do not help to keep
it in repair. The " Five -storied Pagoda," which flames
in red at one of its angles, is a striking feature in the
view. As we sat on stone seats by stone tables in what
might be called its shadow, under the cloudless heaven,
with the pure Orientalism of the Tartar city spread out
at our feet, — that unimaginable Orientalism which takes
one captive at once, and, like the first sight of a palm or
60 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
a banana, satisfies a longing of which one had not previ-
ously been conscious, — a mundane disappointment was
severely felt. We had been, as the Americans say,
" exercising " for five hours in the bracing air, and I had
long been conscious of a craving for solid food wliich no
Orientalism could satisfy ; and our dismay was great not
only to find that the cook had put up lunch for two
when there were three hungry persons, but that the
chicken was so underdone that we could not eat it, and as
we were not starving enough to go and feed at a cat and
dog or any other Chinese restaurant, my hosts at least,
wlio have not learned that bananas are sustenance for
men as well as " food for gods," w^ere famished. As we
ate " clem pie " or " dined with Duke Humphrey," two
water buffaloes, dark gray ungainly forms, with little more
hair than elephants, recurved horns, and muzzles like
deer, watched us closely, until a Tartar drove them off.
Such beasts, wliich stand in the water and plaster them-
selves with nmd like elephants, are the cows and draught
oxen of Cliina. Two nice Chinese boys sat by us, and
Mr. Smith practised Chinese upon them, till a man came
out angrily and took them away, using many words of
which we only understood " Barbarian Devils." The
Cantonese are n(jt rude, however. A foreign lady can
walk alone without being actually molested, though as a
rule Chinese women are not seen in the streets. I have
certainly seen half a million men, and not more than
ninety women, and those only of the poorest class. The
middle and upper class women never go out except in
closed palanquins with screened windows, and are nearly
as much secluded as the women of India.
Passin" throufih the Tartar citv and some streets of
aristocratic dulness, inliabited by wealthy mercliants, we
spent some hours in the mercantile quarter, which is
practically one vast market or bazaar, thronged with
LETTER IV. STREET SIGHTS AND SOUNDS. 61
masculine humanity from morning till night. Eight feet
is the width of the widest street but one, and between
the passers-by, the loungers, the people standing at stalls
eating, or drinking tea, and the itinerant vendors of
o-oods, it is one long pzts^. Then, as you are elbowing
your feeble self among the big men, who are made truly
monstrous by their many wadded garments of silk and
brocade, you are terrified by a loud yell, and being igno-
miniously hustled out of the way, you become aware that
the crowd has yielded place to a procession, consisting of
several men in red, followed by a handsome closed palan-
quin, borne by four, six, or eight bearers in red liveries,
in which reclines a stout, magnificently-dressed mandarin,
utterly obli^T-Ous of his inferiors, the representative of
high caste feeling all the world over, either reading or
absorbed, never taking any notice of the crowds and
"litter which I find so fascinating. More men in red,
and then the crowd closes up again, to be again divided
by a plebeian chair like mine, or by pariahs running with a
cofQn fifteen feet long, shaped like the trunk of a tree, or
by coolies carrying burdens slung on bamboo poles, uttering
deafening cries, or by a marriage procession with songs and
music, or by a funeral procession with weeping and wail-
ing, succeeding each other incessantly. All the people in
the streets are shouting at the top of their voices, the
chair and baggage coolies are yelling, and to complete the
bewildering din the beggars at every corner are demand-
ing charity by striking two gongs together.
Colour riots in these narrow streets, with their higli
houses with projecting upper stories, much carved and
gilded, their deeply-projecting roofs or eaves tiled with
shells cut into panes, which let the light softly through,
while a sky of deep bright blue fills up the narrow slit
between. Then in the shadow below, which is fitfull}'
Kghted by the sunbeams, hanging from all the second
62 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
stories at every possible interval of height, each house
liaviug at least two, are the richly-painted boards of
which I wrote before, from sLx to ten feet long, some black,
some heavily gilded, a few orange, but the majority red
and perfectly plain, except for the characters several
inches long down the middle of each, gold on the red and
l)lack, and black on the gold and orange — these, with
lianners, festoons, and the bright blue draperies which for
a hundred days indicate mourning in a house, form to-
gether a spectacle of street picturesqueness such as my
eyes have never before beheld. Then all the crowd is in
costume, and such costume ! The prevailing colour for
the robe is bright blue. Even the coolies put on such a
one when not working, and all above the coolies wear
them in rich, ribbed silk, lined witli silk of a darker
shade. Over this a sleeveless jacket of rich dark blue or
puce brocade, plain or quilted, is worn, the trousers, of
wliich little is seen, being of brocade or satin. The
stockings are white, and the shoes, which are on thick,
white, canoe-shaped soles, are of black satin. The cap,
which is always worn, and quite on the back of the head,
is of black satin, and the pigtail, or ]ilait of hair and purse
silk mixed, hangs down nearly to the bottom of the robe.
Then the most splendid furs are worn, and any number
of quilted silk and brocade garments, one above another.
And these big, prosperous -looking men, wlio are so
richly dressed, are only the shopkeepers and the lower
class of merchants. The mandarins and the rich mer-
chants seldom put their feet to the ground.
The shops just now are filled with all sorts of bril-
liant and enticing things in anticipation of the great
festival of the New Year, which begins on the 21st. At
tlie New Year they are all closed, and the ricli merchants
vie with each other in keeping tliem so ; those whose
sliops are closed the longest, sometimes even for two
LETTER iv. FOOD AND RESTAURANTS, 03
months, gaining a great reputation for wealth thereby.
Streets are given up to shops of one kind. Thus there is
the " Jade-Stone Street," entirely given up to the maldng
and sale of jade-stone jewellery, which is very costly, a
sin'de bracelet of the finest stone and workmanship
costing £600. There is a whole street devoted to the
sale of coffins ; several in which nothing is sold but
furniture, from common folding tables up to the costliest
settees, bedsteads, and chairs of massive ebony carving ;
chinaware streets, book and engraving streets, streets of
silk shops, streets of workers in brass, silver, and gold,
who perform their delicate manipulations before your
eyes ; streets of secondhand clothing, where gorgeous
embroideries in silk and gold can be bought for almost
nothing ; and so on, every street blazing with colours,
splendid with costume, and abounding with wealth and
variety.
We went to a " dog and cat restaurant," where a
number of richly-dressed men were eating of savoury
dishes made from the flesh of these animals. There are
thousands of butchers' and fishmongers' shops in Canton.
At the former there are always hundreds of split and
salted ducks hanging on lines, and pigs of various sizes
roasted whole, or sold in joints raw ; and kids and
buffalo beef, and numbers of dogs and cats which, though
skinned, have the tails on to show what they are. I had
some of the gelatinous " birds'-nest " soup, without know-
ing what it was. It is excellent ; but as these nests are
brought from Sumatra and are very costly, it is only a
luxury of the rich. The fish sho]3s and stalls are legion,
but the fish looks sickening, as it is always cut into
slices and covered with blood. The boiled chrysalis of a
species of silkworm is exposed far sale as a great delicacy,
and so are certain kinds of hairless, fleshy caterpillars.
In our peregrinations we came upon a Yamun, with
64 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
its vestibule hung with scarlet, the marriage colour, as
well as the official colour. Within the door the " wed-
ding garments " were hanging for the wedding guests,
scarlet silk crepe, richly embroidered. Some time later
the bridal jjrocessiou swept through the streets, adding a
new glory to the colour and movement. First marched a
troop of men in scarlet, carrying scarlet banners, each one
emblazoned with the literary degrees of the bride's fatlier
and grandfather. Then came ten heavily-gilded, carved,
and decorated pavilions, containing the marriage presents,
borne on poles on the shoulders of servants ; and after
them the bride, carried in a locked palanquin to the
bridegi"oom's house, completely shrouded, the palanquin
one mass of decoration in gold and blue enamel, the
carving fully six inches deep ; and tlie procession was
closed by a crowd of men in scarlet, carrying the bride-
groom's literary degrees, with banners, and instruments of
music. It is the China of a thousand years ago, unaltered
bv foreign contact.
There are many beggars, and a " Beggars' Square,"
and the beggars have a " king," and a regular guild, with
an entrance fee of £1. The shopkeepers are obliged by
law to give them a certain sum, and on the occasion oi'
a marriage or any other festivity, the giver sends a fee to
the " king," on tlie understanding that he keeps his lieges
from bothering the guests. They make a fearful noise
with their two gongs. There is one on the Shameen
bridge who has a callosity like a horn on his forehead,
witli which he strikes the pavement and produces an
audible thump.
After the cleanliness, beauty, and good repair of the
Japanese temples, those of Canton impress me as being
very repulsive. In Japan the people preserve their
temples for their exquisite beauty, and there are a great
many sincere Buddhists ; but China is irreligious ; a nation
LETTER IV. TEMPLES AND WORSHIP. 65
of atheists or agnostics, or slaves of impious supersti-
tious. In an extended tramp among temples I have not
seen a single male worshipper or a thing to please the
eye. The Confucian temples, to wliich mandarinism
resorts on certain days to bow before the Confucian
tablets, are now closed, and their courts are overgrown
with weeds. The Buddhist temples are hideous, both
outside and inside, built of a crumblino- red brick, with
very dirty brick iloors, and the idols are frightful and
tawdry. We went to several which have large monas-
teries attached to them, with great untidy gardens, with
ponds for sacred fish and sacred tortoises, and houses for
sacred pigs, w^hose sacredness is shown by their mon-
strous obesity. In the garden of the Temple of Longevity,
the scene of the " Willow Pattern," dirty and degraded
priests, in spite of a liberal douceur to one of them, set
upon us, clamouring hum-sha, attempting at the same
time to shut us in, and the two gentlemen Avere obliged
to use force for our extrication. In the court of the
" Temple of Horrors," which is surromided by a number
of grated cells containing life-sized figures of painted
wood, undergoing at the hands of other figures such hell-
torments as are decreed for certain offences, there is per-
petually a crowd of fortune-tellers, and numbers of
gaming-tables always thronged with men and boys.
Each temple has an accretion of smaller temples or
shrines round it, but most, on ordinary occasions are
deserted, and all are neglected and dirty. Where we
saw worshippers they were always women, some of whom
looked very earnest, as they were worshipping for sick
children, or to obtain boys, or to ensure the fidelity of
their husbands. " Worship " consists in many prostra-
tions, in the offering of many joss-sticks, and in burning
large squares of gilded paper, this being supposed to be
the onlv wav in which 2old can reach either gods or
66 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
ancestors. One or two of the smaller temples were
thronged by women of the poorest class, whose earnest
faces were very touching. Idolatry is always pathetic.
It is not, however, idol worship which sits like a night-
mare on China, and crushes atlieists, agnostics, and
lieathens alike, but ancestral worship, and the tyranny of
the astrologers and geomancers.
I like the faces of the lower orders of Chinese
women. They are both strong and kind, and it is
pleasant t© see women not deformed in any way, but
clothed completely in a dress which allows perfect free-
dom of action. The small-footed women are rarely seen
out of doors ; but the sewing- woman at Mrs. Smith's has
crippled feet, and I have got her shoes, which are too
small for the Engiisli baby of four months old ! The
l)utler's little daughter, aged seven, is having her feet
" bandaged " for the first time, and is in torture, but bears
it bravely in the hope of " getting a rich husband." The
sole of the shoe of a properly diminished foot is about
two inclies and a half long, but the mother of this suffer-
ing infant says, witli a quiet air of truth and trimnph,
that Chinese women suffer less in the process of being
crippled than foreign women do from wearing corsets !
To these Eastern women the notion of deforming the
figure for the sake of appearance only is unintelligible
and repulsive. The crippling of the feet has another
motive. I. L. B.
LETTER IV. OUTSIDE THE XA AM -HOI PRISON. 67
LETTEE lY. — {Continued).
Yesterday, after visiting the. streets devoted t<? jade-stone
workers, jewellers, saddlers, dealers in musical instru-
ments, and furriers, we turned aside from the street
called Sze-P'aai-Lau, into a small, dirty square, on one
side of which is a brick wall, with a large composite
quadruped upon it in black paint, and on the other the
open entrance gate of the Yamun, or official residence of
the mandarin whose jurisdiction extends over about half
Canton, and who is called the Naam-Hoi magistrate.
Both sides of the road passing through tliis square, and
especially the open space in front of the gate which leads
into the courtyard of the Yamun, were crowded with
unshaven, ragged, forlorn, dirty wretches, heavily fettered
round their ankles, and with long heavy chains padlocked
round their necks, attached, some to large stones with
holes in the centre, others to short thick bars of iron.
Two or three, into whose legs the ankle fetters had cut
deep raw grooves, were lying in a heap on a ragged mat
in the corner ; some were sitting on stones, but most were
standing, or shifting their position uneasdy, dragging their
weighty fetters about, making a jarring and dismal clank
with every movement. These unfortunates are daily
exposed thus to the scorn and contempt of the passers-
by as a punishment for small thefts. Of those who
were seated on stones or who were kneeling attempting
to support themselves on their hands, most wore square
C8 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
wooden collars of considerable size, weighing thirty
pounds each, round their necks. These cangucs are so
constructed that it is impossible for their wearers to
raise their hands to their mouths for the purpose of
feeding themselves, and it seemed to be a choice pastime
for small boys to tantalise these criminals by placing
food tied to the ends of sticks just within reach of their
mouths, and then suddenly withdrawing them. Apart from
the weight of their fetters, and of the cangue in which
they are thus pilloried, these men suffer much from
hunger and thirst. They are thus punished for petty
larcenies. Surely " the way of transgressors is hard."
The bearers set me down at the gate of the Yamun
among the festering wretches dragging the heavy weights,
the filthy and noisy beggars, the gamblers, the fortune-
tellers, the messengers of justice, and the countless
hangers-on of the prison and judgment-seat of the Naam-
Hoi magistrate, and passing through a part of the court-
yard, and do^^^l a short, narrow passage, enclosed by a
door of rough wooden uprights, above which is a tiger's
head, with staring eyes and extended jaws, we reached
the inner entrance, close to wliich is a much blackened
altar of incense, foul with the ashes of innumeral)le joss-
sticks, and above it an equally blackened and much worn
figure of a tiger in granite. To this beast, which is
regarded by tlie Chinese as possessing virtue, and is the
tutelary guardian of Cliinese prisons, the gaolers offer
incense and worsliip night and day, with the object of
securing its aid and vigilance on their behalf.
Close to the altar were the gaolers' rooms, dark,
dirty, and inconceivably forlorn. Two of the gaolers
were lying on their beds smoking opium. There we met
the head gaoler, of all Chinamen that I liave seen the
most repulsive in appearance, manner, and dress ; for his
long costume of frayed and patched brown silk looked as
LETTER IV. CRIME AND MISERY. 69
if it had not been taken off for a year ; the lean, brown
hands which chitched the prison keys with an instinctive
grip were diity, and the nails long and hooked like claws,
and the face, worse I thought than that of any of the
criminal horde, and scored with lines of grip and greed,
was saturated with opium smoke. This wretch pays for
liis place, and in a few years will retire with a fortune,
gains arising from bribes wrung from prisoners and their
friends by threats and torture, and by defrauding them
daily of a part of their allowance of rice.
The prison, as far as I can learn, consists mainly of
six wards, each with four large apartments, the walls of
these wards abutting iipon each other, and forming a
parallelogram, outside of which is a narrow, paved path-
way, on wliich the gates of the wards open, and which
has on its outer side the high boundary wall of the
prison. This gaoler, this fiend, — made such by the
customs of his country, took us down a passage, and
unlockmg a wooden grating turned us into one of the
aforesaid " wards," a roughly paved courtyard about fifty
feet long by twenty-four broad, and remained standing in
the doorway jangling his keys.
If crime, vice, despair, suffering, filth, and cruelty can
make a hell on earth, this is one. Over its dismal gate-
way may well be written, "Whoso enters here leaves hope
behind."
This ward is divided into four "apartments," each
one having a high wall at the back. The sides next the
court are formed of a double row of strong wooden bars,
black from age and dirt, which reach from the floor to
the roof, and let in light and air through the chinks
between them. The interiors of these cribs or cattle-
pens are roughly paved with slabs of granite, slimy with-
accumulations of dirt. In the middle and round the
sides are stout platforms of laths, forming a coarse.
70 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
black gridiron, on which the prisoners sit and sleep. In
each ward there is a shrine of a deity who is supposed
to have the power of melting the wicked into contrition,
and to this accursed mockery, on his birthday, the prison-
ers are compelled to give a feast, wliich is provided by
the gaoler out of his peculations from their daily allow-
ances. No water is allowed for washing, and the tubs
containing the allowance of foul drinking water are
placed close to those which are provided for the accumu-
lation of night soil, etc., the contents of which are only
removed once a fortnight. Two pounds of rice is the
daily allowance of each prisoner, but this is reduced to
about one by the greed of the gaoler.
As we entered the yard, fifty or sixty men swarmed
out from the dark doorways which led into their dens,
all heavily chained, with long, coarse, matted hair
hanging in wisps, or standing on end round their death-
like faces, in filthy rags, with emaciated forms caked
with dirt, and bearing marks of the torture ; and nearly
all with sore eyes, swelled and bleeding lips, skin dis-
eases, and putrefying sores. These surrounded us closely,
and as, not without a shudder, I passed through them
and entered one of their dens, they pressed u])on us,
blocking out the light, uttering discordant cries, and clam-
ouring with one voice, kum-sha, i.e., backsheesh, looking
more like demons tlian living men, as abject and de-
praved as crime, despair, and cruelty can make them.
"Within, the blackness, the filth, tlie vermin, the
stench, overpowering even in this cool weatlier, the
rubbisli of rags and potslierds, cannot be described.
Here in semi-starvation and misery, with nameless cruel-
ties practised upon them without restraint, festering in
one depraved mass, are the tried and untried, the con-
demned, tlie guilty and innocent (?), the murderer and
pirate, the debtor and petty thief, all huddled together,
LETTER IV. " PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES." 71
without hope of exit except to the adjacent judgment-
seat, with its horrors of " the question by torture/' or to
the " field of blood " not far away. On earth can there
be seen a spectacle more hideous than that of these abject
^vretches, with their heavy fetters eating into the flesh of
their necks and ankles (if on their wasted skeletons,
covered with vermin and running sores, there is any flesh
left), their thick, matted, bristly, black hair — contrasting
with the shaven heads of the free — the long, broken claws
on their fingers and toes, the hungry look in their
emaciated faces, and their clamourous cry, hiLiii-sha !
hum-slia ! They thronged round us clattering their
chains, one man saying that they had so little rice that
they had to " drink the foul water to fill themselves ;"
another shrieked, " Would I were in your prison in
. Hongkong," and this was chorused by many voices
saying, " In your prison at Hongkong they have fish
and vegetables, and more rice than they can eat, and
baths, and beds to sleep on ; good, good is the prison of
your Queen !" but higher swelled the cry of hum-sha,
and as we could not give alms among several hundred,
we eluded them, though with difficulty, and, as we
squeezed through the narrow door, execrations followed
us, and high above the heavy clank of the fetters and
the general din rose the cry, " Foreign Devils " (Fan-
Kwai), as we passed out into sunshine and liberty, and
the key was turned upon them and their misery.
We went into three other large wards, foul with
horror, and seething with misery, and into a smaller one,
nearly as bad, where fifteen women were incarcerated,
some of them with infants devoured by cutaneous
diseases. Several of them said that they are there for
kidnapping, but others are hostages for criminal relations
who have not yet been captured. This imprisonment of
hostages is in accordance with a law which authorises the
72 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
seizure and detention of persons or families belonging to
criminals who liave fled or are in concealment. Such are
imprisoned till the guilty relative is brought to justice, for
months, years, or even for a lifetime. Two of these women
told us that they had been there for twenty years.
There are likewise some single cells — hovels cluster-
ing under a wall, in which criminals who can aftord to
pay the gaoler for them may enjoy the luxury of solitude.
In each ward there is a single unfettered man, — always a
felon, — who by reason either of bribery or good conduct,
is appointed to the place of watchman or spy among his
fellows in crime. There is a turnkey for each ward, and
these men, with the unchained felons who act as watch-
men, torture new arrivals in order to force money from
them, and under tliis process some die.
In the outer wall of the prison there is a port-hole,
just large enough to allow of a body being pushed through
it, for no malefactor's corpse must be carried through the
prison entrance, lest it should defile the "Gate of Eighteous-
ness." There is also a hovel called a deadhouse, into which
these bodies are conveyed till a grave has been dug in some
" accursed place," by members of an " accursed " class.
In addition to the large mortality arising from poor
living and its concomitant diseases, and the exhaustion
l)roduced by repeated torture, epidemics frequently break
out in the hot weather in those dark and fetid dens, and
oftentimes nearly clear out the prison. On such occasions
as many as four hundred have succumbed in a month.
The number of criminals who are executed from this
prison, either as sentenced to death, or as unable to
bribe the officials any further, is supposed to be about
five hundred annually, and it is further supposed that
iialf tliis numlicr die annually from starvation and torture.
Sometimes one hundred criminals are beheaded in an
hour, as it is feared may be the case on the Governor
LETTER IV. CRUELTIES AND INIQUITIES. 73
going out of office, -when it is not unusual to make a gaol
delivery in this fashion.
In numerous cases, when there is a press of business
before the judgment-seat and a dead lock occui-s, accusers
and witnesses are huddled indiscriminately into the Naam-
Hoi prison sometimes for months ; and as the Governor or
magistrate takes no measures to provide for them during
the interval, some of the poorer ones who have no friends
to bribe the gaoler on their behalf perish speedily. At
night, in the dens which I have described, the hands of
the prisoners are cliained to their necks, and even in the
day-time only one hand is liberated. I thought that many
of the faces looked quite imbecile. The gaoler, as we
went out, kept holding out his long-clawed, lean, brown
hand, muttering about his promised kum-sha, very fearful
lest the other turnkeys, who were still lying on their
beds smoking opium, shoidd come in for any share of it.
Mr. Henry,^ my host and very able cicerone, is an
American missionary, and as such carries with him the
gospel of peace on earth and good will to men. Surely if
the knowledge of Hun who came " to preach liberty to
the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound," were diffused and received here, and were
spread with no niggard hand, the prison of the Naam-
Hoi magistrate, with its unspeakable horrors, would go
the way of all our dungeons and bedlams.
But this is not all. From the prison it is only a
short distance to the judgment-seat, and passing once
^ I cannot forbear adding a note on the extent of Mr. Henry's work in
1881. He preached 190 times in Chinese, and 5 times in English ; hekl
ri2 Bible class meetings, and 13 communion services ; baptized 45 adults
and 8 children ; travelled on mission work b}' boat 2540 miles, by chair
80 miles, and on foot 670 miles ; visited 280 different towns and villages,
and distributed 14,000 books, receiving assistance in the latter work only
on one short journey. His life is a happy combination of American energy
and Chiistian zeal.
THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE.
LETTER lY,
more through the " Gate of Eighteousness," we crossed
a large court, infested by gamblers and fortune-tellers,
and presented ourselves at a porch with great figures
painted on both its doors, and gay with the red insignia
of mandarinisra, which is the entrance to the stately
residence of tlie Xaam-Hoi magistrate, one of the gTeat
subordinate dignitaries of Canton. In the porch, as it
might have been in that of Pilate or Herod, were a
number of official palanquins, and many officials and
servants of the mandarin witli red-crowned hats turned
up from their faces, and privates of the city guard, mean
and shabby persons. One of these, for a kum-sTia of
course, took us, not through the closed and curtained
doors, but along some passages, from which we passed
through a circular brickwork tunnel to the front of the
judgment-seat at which all the inmates of the Naam-Hoi
prison may expect sooner or later to be tried. My nerves
were rather shaken with what I had seen, and I trembled
as a criminal might on entering this chamber of horror.
In brief, the judgment -seat is a square hall, open
at one end, with a roof sujDported on three columns.
WATER.
SLIME.
FILTH.
6
(l)
c
3
:',
'
1
PAVEMENT.
MID.
JUDGE.
6
i 2 2
ESTRASCE.
Naam-Hoi Jcdoment-Hall.
LETTER IV. THE JUDGMENT -SEAT. 75
In the plan which I send, No. 1 is the three pillars ; No.
2 the instruments of torture ranged against the wall; No.
3 four accused men wearing heavy chains, and kneeling
with their foreheads one inch from the ground, but not
allowed to touch it. These men are undergoing the
mildest form of torture — protracted kneeling without
support in one position, with coarse sand under the bare
knees. No. 4 is a very old and feeble man, also kneeling, a
claimant in an ancient civil suit. No. 6 indicates a motley
group of notaries, servants, attendants, lictors, alas ! The
table (No. 5) is of dark wood, covered with a shabby red
clotk On it are keys, petitions, note-books, pens, and
ink, an official seal, and some small cups containing
tallies, which are thrown down to indicate the number of
blows which a culprit is to receive. This was all.
In a high-backed, ebony arm-chair, such as might be
seen in any English hall, sat the man who has the
awful power of life and death in his hands. It is almost
needless to say that the judge, who was on the left of the
table, and who never once turned to the accused, or
indeed to any one, was the only seated person. He was
a young man, with fine features, a good complexion, and
a high intellectual brow, and had I seen him under other
circumstances, I should have thought hun decidedly pre-
possessing looking. He wore a black satin hat, a rich,
blue brocade robe, almost concealing his blue brocade
trousers, and over this a sleeved cloak of dark blue satin,
lined with ermine fur. A look of singular coldness and
hauteur sat jDermanently on his face, over which a flush
of indescribable impatience sometimes passed. He is not
of the people, tliis lordly magistrate. He is one of the
pri\'ileged literati. His Literary degrees are high and
numerous. He has both place and power. Little risk
does he run of a re\dew of his decisions, or of an appeal
to the Emperor at Pekin. He spoke loud and with
76 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter i v.
much rapidity and emphasis, and often beat impatiently on
the floor with his foot. He used the mandarin tongue,
and whether cognisant of the dialect of the prisoners or
not, he put all Ids questions through an interpreter, who
stood at his left, a handsomely dressed old man, who
wore a gold chain with a dependent ivory comb, with
wliich while he spoke he frequently combed a small and
scanty gray moustache.
Notaries, attendants with scarlet-crowned hats, and a
rabble of men and boys, in front of whom we placed our-
selves, stood down each side. The open hall, though lofty,
is shabby and extremely dirty, with an unswept broken
pavement, littered at one side with potsherds, and dis-
figured by a number of more or less broken black pots as
well as otlier rubbish, making it look rather like a shed
in an imtidy nursery garden than an imperial judgment-
hall. On the pillars there are certain classical inscriptions,
one of which is said to be an exhortation to mercy. Pieces
of bamboo of different sizes are ranged against the south
wall. These are used for the bastinado, and there were
various instruments ranged against the same wall, at wliich
I could only look fitfully and with a shudder, for they are
used in " Tlie Question by Torture," which rapid method
of gaining a desired end appears to be practised on wit-
nesses as well as criminals.
The yard or uncovered part of tliis place has a pave-
ment in the middle, and on one side of this the most
loathsome trench I ever beheld, such a one as I think
could not l)e found in the foulest slum of the dirtiest city
in Europe, not only loathsome to the eye, but emitting a
stench whicli even on that cool day miglit produce vertigo,
and this under the very eye of the magistrate, and not
more than thirty feet from the judgment-seat.
On tlie other side by which we entered, and which
also has an entrance direct from the prison, is a slimy.
LETTER IV. AN AC4ED CLAIMANT. 77
green ditch, at the back of which some guards were loung-
ing, with a heap of felons in chains attached to heavy
stones at their feet. Above, the sky was very blue, and
the sun of our Father which is in heaven shone upon
" the just and the unjust."
The civil case took a long time, and was adjourned, and
the aged claimant was so exhausted with kneeling before
the judge, that he was obliged to be assisted away by two
men. Then another man knelt and presented a petition,
which was taken to "avizandicm." Then a guard led in
by a chain a prisoner, hea\T.ly manacled, and with a heavy
stone attached to his neck, who knelt with his forehead
touching the ground. After some speaking, a boy who
was standing dangling a number of keys came forward,
and, after much ado, unlocked the rusty padlock which
fastened the chain round the man's neck, and he was led
away, dragging the stone after him with his hands. He
had presented a formal petition for this favour, and I wel-
comed the grantmg of it as a solitary gleam of mercy, but
I was informed that the mitigation of the sentence came
about through bribery on the part of the man's relatives,
who had to buy the goodwill of four officials before the
petition could reach the magistrate's hands.
More than an hour and a half had passed since we
entered, and for two hours before that the four chained
prisoners had been undergoing the torture of kneeling on
a coarsely sanded stone in an immovable and unsupported
position. I was standing so close to them that the dress
of one touched my feet. I could hear their breathing,
which had been heavy at first, become a series of gasps,
and cool as the afternoon was, the sweat of pain fell
from their brows upon the dusty floor, and they were so
emaciated that, even through their clothing, I could see the
outlines of their bones. There were no counsel, and no
witnesses, and the judge asked but one question as he
78 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
beat his foot impatiently on the floor, "Are you guilty ?"
They were accused of an a<j;gravated robbery, and were
told to confess, but they said that only two of them were
guilty. They were then sent back to the tender mercies
of the opium-smoking gaoler, probably to come back again
and again to undergo the severer forms of torture, till no
more money can be squeezed out of their friends, when
they will ])robably l)e beheaded, death being the legal
penalty for robbery with aggravations.
Tliere is no regidar legal process, no jury, no one
admitted to plead for the accused, and owing to the way
in which accusations are made and the intimate associa-
tion of trial with bribery, it is as certain that many inno-
cent persons suffer as it is that many guilty escape. From
such a system one is compelled to fall back upon the
righteousness of the Judge of all the earth ; and as I
stood in that hideous judgment -hall beside tlie tortured
wretches, I could not shut out of my heart a trembling
hope that for these and the legion of these, a worthier
than an earthly intercessor pleads before a mightier than
an eartlily judge.
It is not clear whether torture is actually recognised
by Chinese law, but it is practised in almost every known
form by all Chinese magistrates, possibly as the most
expeditious mode of legal procedure which is known. It
is also undoubtedly the most potent agent in securing
bribes. The legal instruments of summary punishment
which hang on the wall of the Naam-Hoi judgment-hall
consist of three boards with proper grooves for squeezing
the fingers, and the bastinado, which is inflicted with bam-
boos of different weights. The illegal modes of " putting
the question," i.e. of extorting a confession of guilt, as com-
monly practised are, prolonged kneeling on coarse sand,
with the brow within an inch of the ground ; twisting the
ears with " roughened fingers," and keeping them twisted
LETTER IV. THE QUESTION BY TORTURE. 79
while the prisoner kneels on chains ; beating the lips to a
jelly with a thick stick, the result of which was to be
seen in several cases in the prison ; suspendmg the body
by the thumbs ; tying the hands to a bar under the knees,
so as to bend the body double during many hours ; tlie
thumb-screw ; dislocating the arm or shoulder ; kneeling
upon pounded glass, salt, and sand mixed together, till the
knees are excoriated, and several others, the product of
fiendish ingenuity. Severe flogging with the bamboo,
rattan, cudgel, and knotted whip successively, is one of tlie
most usual means of extorting confession ; and when death
results from the process, the magistrate reports that the
criminal has died of sickness, and in the few cases in which
there may be reason to dread investigation, the adminis-
tration of a bribe to the deceased man's friends ensures
silence.
The canguc, if its wearers were properly fed and
screened from the smi, is rather a disgrace than a cruel
mode of punishment. Death is said to be inflicted for
aggravated robbery, robbery with murder, highway rob-
bery, arson, and piracy, even without the form of a trial
w^hen the culprits are caught in fiagrante delicto ; but
though it is a frequent punishment, it is by no means
absolutely certain for what crimes it is the legal penalty.
We left the judgment-seat as a fresh relay of crimi-
nals entered, two of them with faces atrocious enough for
any crime, and passed out of the courtyard of the Yamun
through the " Gate of Eighteousness," where the prisoners,
attached to heavy stones, were dragging and clanking their
chains, or lying in the shade full of sores, and though the
red sunset light was transfiguring all things, the glory had
faded from Canton and the air seemed heavy with a curse.
80 THE CiOLDEX CHERSONESE. letter iv.
LETTEK lN.—{Contimied.)
Although I went to the execution ground two days before
my visit to the jii'ison, the account of it belongs to this
place. Passing through the fruit -market, the " Covent
Garden" of Canton, where now and in their stated
seasons are exposed for sale, singly and in fragrant heaps,
among countless other varieties of fruits, the orange,
pommeloe, apple, citron, banana, rose-apple, pine-apple,
custard-apple, j)ear, quince, guava, carauibola, persimmon,
loquat, pomegi'auate, grape, water melon, musk melon,
peacli, apricot, plum, mango, mulberry, date, coco -nut,
olive, walnut, chestnut, lichi, and papaya, through the un-
savoury precincts of the " salt fish market," and along a
street the speciality of which is the manufacture from
palm leaves of very serviceable rain cloaks, we arrived at
the Ma T'au, a cul dc sac resembling in shape, as its name
imports, a horse's head, with the broad end opening on
tlie street. This " field of blood," which counts its slain
by tens of tliousands, is also a " potter's field," and is
occupied throughout its wliole length by the large earthen
pots which the Chinese use instead of tubs, either in pro-
cess of manufacture or drying in the sun. This Ma T'au,
tlie place of execution, on wliich more than one hundred
heads at times fall in a morning, is simply a pottery yard,
and at the hours when space is required for the execu-
tioner's purposes more or fewer pots are cleared out of the
wav, according,' to the number of the condemned. The
LETTER IV. PRELIMINARIES OF EXECUTION. 81
spectacle is open to the street and to all passers-by.
Against the south wall are five crosses, which are used
for the crucifixion of malefactors. At the base of the
east wall are four large earthenware vessels full of quick-
lime, into which heads which are afterwards to be ex-
posed on poles are cast, until the flesh has been destroyed.
From this bald sketch it may be surmised that few acces-
sories of solemnity or even propriety consecrate the last
tragedy of justice.
In some cases crimmals are brought directly from
the judgment-seat to the execution ground on receiving
sentence, but as a rule the condemned persons remain in
prison ignorant of the date of their doom, till an official,
carryiug a square board with the names of those who are
to die that day pasted upon it, enters and reads the names
of the doomed. Each man on answering is made to sit
in something like a dust-basket, in which he is borne
through the gate of the inner prison, at which he is in-
terrogated and his identity ascertained by an official, who
represents the Viceroy or Governor, into the courtyard of
the Yamun, where he is pinioned. At this stage it is
usual for the friends of the criminal, or the turnkeys in
their absence, to give him " auspicious " food, chiefly fat
pork and Saam-su, an intoxicating wine. Pieces of
betel- nut, the stimulating qualities of which are well
known, are invariably given. These delays being over,
the criminal is carried into the presence of the judge, who
sits not in the judgment-hall but in the porch of the
inner gateway of his Yamun. On the prisoner giving
his name, a superscription bearing it, and proclaiming his
crime and the manner of his death, is tied to a slip of
bamboo and bound to his head. A small, wooden ticket,
also bearing his name and that of the prison from which
he is taken to execution, is tied to the back of his neck.
Then the procession starts, the criminals, of whom
G
82 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter iv.
there are usually several, being carried in open baskets in
the following order : — Some spearmen, the malefactors, a
few soldiers, a chair of state, bearing the ruler of the Naam-
Hoi county, attended by equerries ; and another chair of
state, in which is seated the official who, after all is over,
pays worship to the five protecting genii of Canton, a
small temple to whom stands close to the potter's field,
and who have power to restrain tliose feelings of revenge
and violence which the spirits of the decapitated persons
may be supposed hereafter to cherish against all who
were instrumental in their decapitation. Last of all
follows a herald on horseback, carrying a yellow banner
inscribed " By Imperial Decree," an indispensable adjunct
on such occasions, as without it the county ruler would
not be justified in commanding the executioner to give
the death stroke. This ruler or his deputy sits at a
table covered with a red cloth, and on being told that all
the preliminaries have been complied with, gives the word
for execution. The criminals who have been uncere-
moniously pitched out of the dust baskets into the mud
or gore or dust of the execution ground, kneel down in a
row or rows, and the executioner with a scimitar strikes
off head after head, each with a single stroke, an assistant
attending to hand him a fresh sword as soon as the first
becomes blunt. It is said that Chinese criminals
usually meet their doom with extreme apathy, but occa-
sionally they yield to extreme terror, and howl at the
top of their voices, " Save life ! Save life !" As soon as
tjie heads have fallen, some coolies of a pariah class take
up the tnmks and put them into wooden shells, in whicli
they are eventually buried in a cemetery outside one of
the city gates, called " The trench for the bones of ten
tliousand men." It is not an uncommon thing, under
ordinary circumstances, for fifteen, twenty, or tliirty-five
wretches to suffer the penalty of death in this spot ; and
LETTER IV. THE " FIELD OF BLOOD." 83
this nrnnber swells to very large dimensions at a gaol
delivery, or during a rebellion, or when crews of pirates
are captured in the act of piracy. My friend Mr. Bul-
keley Johnson of Shanghai saw one hundred heads fall in
one morning.
Mr. Henry says that the reason that most of the
criminals meet deatli with such stoicism or indifference
is, that they have been worn down previously by starva-
tion and torture. Some are stupefied with Saamsu. It
is possible in some cases for a criminal who is fortunate
enough to have rich relations to procure a substitute ; a
coolie sells himself to death in such a man's stead for
a hundred dollars, and for a week before his surrender
indulges in every kind of expensive debauchery, and
when the day of doom arrives is so completely stupe-
fied by wine and opium, as to know nothing of the terror
of death.
We had not gone far into tliis aceldema when we
came to a space cleared from pots, and to a great pool of
blood and dust mingled, blackening in the sun, then
another and another, till there were five of them almost
close together, with splashes of blood upon the adjacent
pots, and blood trodden into the thirsty ground. Against
the wall opposite, a rudely constructed cross was resting,
dark here and there with patches of blood. Among the
rubbish at the base of the wall there were some human
fragments partly covered with matting ; a little farther
some jaw-bones with the teeth in them, then four more
crosses, and some human heads lying at the foot of the
wall, from which it was evident that dogs had partially
gnawed off the matting in which they had been tied up.
The dead stare of one human eye amidst the heap haunts
me still. A blood-splashed wooden ticket, with a human
name on one side and that of the Naam-Hoi prison on the
other, was lying near one of the pools of blood, and I
84 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. i.ktter iv.
picked it up as a memento, as the stroke which had
severed its string had also severed at the same time the
culprit's neck. The place was ghastly and smelt of
blood.
The strangest and most thrilling sight of all was the
cross in this unholy spot, not a symbol of victory and
hope, but of the lowest infamy and degradation, of the
vilest death which the vilest men can die. Nor was it the
solid, lofty structure, fifteen or twenty feet high, which art
has been glorifying for a thousand years, but a rude gibbet
of unplaned wood, roughly nailed together, barely eight feet
high, and not too heavy for a strong man to carry on his
shoulders. Most likely it was such a cross elevated but
little above the heads of the howling mob of Jerusalem,
which Paul had in view when he wrote of Him who
hung upon it, " But made Himself obedient imto death,
ew7i the death of the cross." To these gibbets infamous
criminals whose crimes are regarded as deserving of a
lingering death are tightly bound with cords, and are then
slowl)'' hacked to pieces with sharp knives, unless the
friends of the culprit are rich enough to bribe the execu-
tioner to terminate the death agony early by stabbing a
vital part.
These facts do not require to be dressed out with
words. They are most effective when most baldly stated.
I left the execution ground as I left the prison — with
the prayer, which has gained a new significance, "For
all prisoners and captives we l)eseech Thee to hear us,
good Lord ;" but though our hands are nationally clean
now as regards the administration of justice and the
treatment of criminals, we need not hold them up in
holy horror as if the Chinese were guilty above all other
men, for the framers of the Litany were familiar with
dungeons perhaps worse than tlie prison of the Naam-Hoi
magistrate, and with forms of torture which spared not
LETTER IV. A FAIR COMPARISON. 85
even women, and the judges' and gaolers' palms were
intimate with the gold of accused persons. It is simply
tliat heathenism in Canton is practising at this day what
Christianity in Europe looked upon with indifference for
centuries. I. L. B.
86 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter v.
LETTEE V.
Hongkong, January 10.
The year seems already getting old and frowzy. Under
these blue skies, and with all the doors and windows
open, I should think it midsummer if I did not look at
the kalendar. Oh how I like blue, sunny skies, instead
of gray and grim ones, and blazing colours instead of the
dismal grays and browns of our nondescript winters !
I left Canton by the Kin-Kiang on Monday with
two thousand Chinese passengers and two Portuguese
missionary priests, the latter wearing Chinese costume,
and so completely got up as Chinamen that had the}-
not spoken Portuguese their features would not have
been sufficient to undeceive me. They were noble-look-
ing men, and bore upon their faces the stamp of con-
secration to a noble work. On the other steamer, the
Tchawj, instead of a man with revolvers and a cutlass
keeping guard over the steerage grating, a large hose
pipe is laid on to each hatchway, through wliich, in
case of need, boiling water can be sent under strong
pressure. Just as we landed here, about five hundred
large fishes were passed through a circular net from a
well in the steamer into a well in a fishing boat, to
which all the fishmongers in Hongkong immediately
resorted.
(I pass over the hospitalities and festivities of Hong-
kong, and an afternoon with the Governor in the Victoria
LETTER V. A CHINESE HOSPITAL. 87
Prison, to an interesting visit paid with Mr., now Sir J.
Pope Hennessey to the Chinese Hospital.)
We started from Government House, with the Gover-
nor, in a chair with six scarlet bearers, attended by
some Sikh orderlies in scarlet turbans, for a " State Visit "
to the Tung-Wah Hospital, a purely Chinese institution,
built some years ago by Chinese merchants, and supported
by them at an annual cost of $16,000. In it nothing
European, either in the way of drugs or treatment, is
tried. There is a dispensary connected with it, where
advice is daily given to about a hundred and twenty
people ; and, though lunacy is rare in China, they are
building a lunatic asylum at the back of the hospital.
The Tung-Wah hospital consists of several two-
storied buildings of granite, with large windows on each
side, and a lofty central building which contains the
directors' hall, the accommodation for six resident physi-
cians, and the business offices. The whole is surrounded
by a well-kept garden, bounded by a very high wall.
We entered by the grand entrance, which has a flagged
pavement, each flag consisting of a slab of granite twelve
feet long by three broad, and were received at the foot of
the grand staircase by the directors and their chairman, the
six resident doctors, and Mr. jSTg Choy, a rising Chinese
barrister, educated at Lincoln's Inn, who interpreted for
us in admirable English. He is the man who goes
between the Governor and the Chinese community, and is
believed to have more influence with the Governor on all
questions which concern Chinamen than anybody else.
These gentlemen all wore rich and beautiful dresses of
thick ribbed silk and ficmred brocade, and, unless thev
were much padded and wadded, they had all attained to
a remarkable embonpoint.
The hall in which the directors meet is lofty and
very handsome, the roof being supported on massive
S8 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter v.
pillars. One side is open to the garden. It has a superb
ebony table in the middle, with a chair massive enough
for a throne for the chairman, and six grand, carved ebony
chairs on either side.
Our procession consisted of the chairman and the
twelve directors, the six stout middle-aged doctors, Mr.
Xg Choy, the Governor, the Bishop of Victoria, and
myself ; but the patients regarded the unwonted spectacle
with extreme apathy.
The wards hold twenty each, and are tliWded into
wooden stalls, each stall containing two beds. Partitions
seven feet high run down the centre. The beds are matted
wooden platforms, and the bedding white futons or
wadded quilts, which are washed once a week. The
pillows are of wood or bamboo. Each bed has a shelf
above it, with a teapot upon it in a thickly wadded
basket, which keeps the contents hot all day, the infusion
being, of course, poured off the leaves. A ticket, with the
patient's name upon it, and the hours at whicli he is to
take his medicine, hangs above each person.
Xo amputations are performed, but there are a good
many other operations, such as the removal of cancers,
tumours, etc. The doctors were quite willing to answer
questions, within certain limits ; but when I asked them
about the composition and properties of their drugs they
Ijecame reticent at once, and said that they were secrets.
They do not use chloroform in operations, but they all
asserted, and their assertions were corroborated by Mr.
Xg Choy, that they possess drugs which throw their
patients into a profound sleep, during which the most
severe operations can be painlessly performed. They
asserted further that such patients awake an hour or two
afterwards quite cheerful, and with neither headache nor
vomiting ! One of them showed me a bottle containing
a dark brown powder which, he said, produced this result,
LETTER V. SURGERY AND MEDICINE. 89
but he would not divulge the name of one of its constitu-
ents, saying that it is a secret taught him by his tutor,
and that there are several formulas. It has a pungent
and slightly aromatic taste.
The surgery and medicine are totally uninfluenced by
European science, and are of the most antiquated and
barbaric description. There was a woman who had had a
cancer removed, and the awful wound, which was uncovered
for my inspection, was dressed with musk, lard, and am-
bergris, with a piece of oiled paper over all. There was
also exhibited to us a foot which had been pierced by a
bamboo splinter. Violent inflammation had extended up
to the knee, and the wound, and the swollen, blackened
limb were being treated with musk and tiger's fat. A
man with gangrened feet, nearly dropping ofl" had them
rolled up in dark-coloured paste, of which musk and oil
were two ingredients. All the wounds were deplorably
dirty, and no process of cleaning them exists in this
system of surgery.
The Governor and Bishop were not allowed to go into
the women's ward. It looked very clean and comfort-
able, but a woman in the last death-agony was unattended.
They never bleed, or leech, or blister, or apply any counter-
irritants in cases of inflammation. They give powdered
rhinoceros' horns, sun-dried tiger's blood, powdered tiger's
liver, spiders' eyes, and many other queer things, and for
a tonic and febrifuge, where we should use quinine, they
rely mainly on the ginseng {Panax quinquefolia ?) of
which I saw so much in Japan. They judge much by
the pulse and tongue. The mortality in this hospital is
very large, not only from the nature of the treatment,
but because Chinamen who have no friends in Victoria go
there when they are dying, in order to secure that their
bodies shall be sent to their relations at a distance.
There were fifteen sick and shipwrecked junkmen there.
90 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter v.
covered with sores, who looked very far down in the scale
of humanity.
After going through the wards I went into the labor-
atory, where six men were engaged in preparing drugs,
then to the " chemical kitchen," where a hundred and
fifty earthen pipkins on a hundred and fifty earthen
furnaces were being used in cooking medicines under the
superintendence of eight cooks in spotless white clotliing ;
then to the kitchen, which is large and clean ; then alone
into the dead-house, which no Chinese will enter except
an unclean class of pariahs, who perform the last offices
for the departed and dress the corpses for burial. This
gloomy receptacle is also clean.
Great attention is paid to cleanliness and ventilation.
Dry earth is used as a deodoriser, but if there be a bad
odour they burn sandal-wood. They don't adopt any
disinfectants, indeed they don't appear to know their use.
The patients all lie with their backs to the light, and
there is a space five feet wide between the beds and the
windows. All the windows were open both at tlie top
and bottom, so as to create a complete current of air, and
the airiness and freedom from smells and closeness were
quite remarkable, considering the state in which the
wounds are, which is worse than I dare attempt to de-
scribe. The hospital is conducted on strictly " temper-
ance principles," i.e., no alcoholic stimulants are given,
which is not remarkable, considering how little compara-
tively tliey are used in China, and witli what moderation
on the whole by those who use them. There were seventy-
five patients in the wards yesterday, and the cases were
mostly either serious originally, or have been made so by
the treatment. There are one hundred and twenty beds.
There is much to admire in this hospital, — tlie humane
arrangements, the obvious comfort of the patients, and the
admirable ventilation and perfect cleanliness of the beds
LETTER V. A CHINESE "AFTERNOON TEA." 91
and wards, but the system adopted is one of the most anti-
quated quackery, and when I think of the unspeakably
horrible state of the wounds, the mortifying limbs, and the
gangrened feet ready to drop off, I almost question Governor
Hennessey's wisdom in stamping the hospital with his
approval on liis " State Visit."
The Governor and I were received in the board-room
after our two hours' inspection, where we were joined by
Mrs. Hennessey, and entertained by the directors at what
might be called " afternoon tea." But when is the China-
man not drinking tea ? A monstrous plateau of the pre-
served and candied fruits, in the making of which the
Chinese ladies excel, had been placed upon the ebony
table, and when we were seated in the stately ebony
chairs on the chairman's right, with the yellow, shining-
faced, wadded or corpulent directors opposite to us, excel-
lent tea with an unusual flavour was brought in, and
served in cups of antique green dragon china. The
Governor made kindly remarks on the hospital, which
fluent Mr. Ng Choy doubtless rendered into the most
fulsome flattery; the chairman complimented the Gover-
nor, and unlimited " soft sawder," in Oriental fashion,
passed all round.
It is proper in China on such an occasion to raise the
tea-cup with both the hands to a good height and bow to
each person, naming at the same time the character so
continually seen on tea -cups and sake bottles, — Happiness,
— which is understood to be a wish for happiness in this
formula, " May your happmess be as the Eastern Sea ; "
but the wish may also mean " May you have many sons."
It is strange that these Chinamen, who showed all fitting
courtesy to Mrs. Hennessey and me, would only have
spoken of their wives apologetically as " the mean ones
within the gates ! " It was a charming Oriental sight,
the grand, open-fronted room with its stone floor and
92 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter v.
many pillars, the superbly dressed directors and their
blue-robed attendants, and the immense costumed crowd
outside the gate in the sunshine, kept back by crirason-
turbaned Sikh orderlies.
If civilisation were to my taste, I should linger in
Victoria for the sake of its beauty, its stirring life, its
costume and colour, its perfect winter climate, its hospi-
talities, its many charming residents, and for various
other reasons, and know nothing of its feuds in state,
church, and society. But I am a savage at heart, and
weary for the wilds first, and then for the 1)eloved little
home on the wooded edge of the moorland above the
Northern Sea, which gleams like a guiding star, even
through the maze of sunshine and colour of this fascinat-
ing Eastern world. To-day I lunched at (acting) Chief
Justice Snowden's, and he urges me to go to Malacca
on my w^ay home. I had never dreamed of the " Golden
Chersonese ; " but I am much inspired by his descrip-
tions of the neighbourhood of the Equator, and as he
has lent me Newbold's Malacca for the voyage, and has
given me letters to the Governor and Colonial Secretary
of the Straits Settlements, you wull next hear from me
from Singapore ! I. L. B.
LETTER VI. A COCHIN-CHINA RIVER, 93
LETTER VI.
SS. « SiNDH,"
China Sea, January.
Tpiis steamer, oue of the finest of the Messageries Mari-
times line, is perfect in all respects, and has a deck like
that of an old-fashioned frigate. The weather has been
perfect also, and the sea smooth enough for a skiff. The
heat increases hourly though, or rather has increased
hourly, for hotter it cannot be ! Punkahs are going
continually at meal times, and if one sits down to write
in the saloon, the " punkah- wallah " spies one out and
begins his refreshing labours at once. But we took on
board a host of mosquitos at Saigon, and the nights are
consequently so intolerable that I weary for the day.
The twenty- four hours spent at Saigon broke the
monotonous pleasantness of our voyage very agreeably to
me, but most of the passengers complain of the wearisome
detention in the heat. In truth, the mercury stood
at 92°!
At daybreak yesterday we were steaming up a branch
of the great Me-kong river in Cochin-China, a muddy
stream, densely fringed by the nipah palm, whose dark
green fronds, ten and twelve feet long, look as if they
grew out of the ground, so dumpy is its stem. The
country, as overlooked from our lofty deck, appeared a
dead level of rice and scrubby jungle intermixed, a vast
alluvial plain, from which the heavy, fever-breeding mists
were rising in rosy folds. Every now and then we passed
94 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vi.
a Cochin-Chinese village — a collection of very draughty-
looking wooden huts, roofed with palm leaves, built over
the river on gridiron platforms supported on piles. Eacli
dwelling of the cluster had its boat tethered below it. It
looked a queer amphibious life. Men were lying on the
gridirons smoking, women were preparing what might be
the breakfast, and babies were crawling over tlie open
floors, born with the instmct not to tumble over the edge
into the river below. These natives were small and dark,
although of the Mongolian type, with wide mouths and
high cheek bones — an ugly race, and their attitudes, their
tumble -to -pieces houses, and their general forlornness,
gave me the impression that they are an indolent race as
well, to be ousted in time possibly by the vigorous and
industrious Chinaman.
After proceeding for about forty miles up this mighty
Me-kong or Cambodia river, wearying somewhat of its
nipah -hinged allu\dal flats, and of the monotonous
domestic economy of which we had so good a view, we
reached Saigon, wdiich has the wild ambition to propose
to itself to be a second Singapore ! All my attempts to
learn anything about Saigon on board have utterly failed.
People tliink that they told me something altogether new
and sufficient when they said that it is a port of call for
the French mail steamers, and one of the hottest places
in the workl ! This much I knew before I asked them !
If they know anytliing more now, no dexterity of mine
can elicit it. Tliere was a general stampede ashore as
soon as we moored, and gharries — covered spring carts,
— drawn by active little Sumatra ponies, and driven
by natives of Southern India, known as Klings, were
immediately requisitioned, but nothing came of it ap-
parently, and when I came back at sunset I found
that, after an liour or two of apparently purposeless
wanderings, all my fellow -passengers liad returned to
LETTER VI. A FRENCH COLONIAL METROPOLIS. 95
the ship, pale and depressed. True, the mercury was
above 90° !
Arri\"in!]f in this condition of most unblissful imorance,
I was astonished when a turn in the river brought us close
upon a considerable town, straggling over a great extent
of ground, interspersed with abundant tropical greenery,
its river front consisting of a long, low line of much
shaded cafes, mercantile offices, some of them flying
consular flags, and Government offices, behind which lies
the city with its streets, shops, and great covered markets
or bazaars, and its barracks, churches, and convents.
The Me-kong, though tortuous and ofttimes narrow,
is navigable as the Donnai or Saigon branch up to and
above Saigon for vessels of the largest tonnage, and the
great Sindh steamed up to a wharf and moored alongside
it, almost under the shade of great trees. A French
three-decker of the old type, moored higher up, serves
as an hospital. There were two French ii-onclads, a few
steamers, and some hig sailing ships at anchor, but
notliing looked busy, and the people on the wharf were
all loafers.
After all my fellow -passengers had driven ofi* I
stepped ashore and tried to realise that I was in Cochin-
China or Cambodia, but it would not do. The irrepres-
sible Chinaman in his loose cotton trousers was as much
at home as in Canton, aud was doing all the work that
was done ; the shady lounges in front of the cafes were
full of Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans, smoking and
dozing with their feet upon tables or on aught else which
raised them to the level of their heads ; while men in
linen suits and pith helmets dashed about in buggies
and gharries, and French officers and soldiers lounged
weariedly along all the roads. There was not a native to
be seen ! A little later there was not a European to be
seen ! There was a universal siesta behind closed jalou-
96 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vi.
sies, and Saigon was abandoned to Chinamen and leggy
dogs. Then came tlie cool of the afternoon, i.e. the
mercury, with evident reluctance, dawdled down to 84° ;
military bands performed, the Europeans emerged, smok-
ing as in the morning, to play billiards or ecart(5, or sip
absinthe at their cafes ; then came the mosquitos and
dinner, after which I was told that card-parties were made
up, and that the residents played till near midnight.
Thus, from observation and hearsay, I gathered that the
life of a European Saigonese was made up of business in
bajtc and pyjamas Avith cheroot in mouth from 6 to
9.30 a.m., then the bath, the toilette, and the breakfast
of claret and curry ; next the sleeping, smoking, and
lounging till tiiiin ; after tiffin a little more work, then
the band, billiards, dearth, absinthe, smoking, diinier, and
card-parties, varied by official entertainments.
Rejecting a guide, I walked about Saigon, saw
its streets, cafes, fruit markets, bazaars, barracks, a
botanic or acclimatisation garden, of which tigers were
the chief feature, got out upon the wide, level roads,
bordered with large trees, which run out into the country
for miles in perfectly straight lines, saw the handsome
l)ungalovvs of the residents, who surround themselves with
many of the luxuries of Paris, went over a beautiful con-
vent, where the sisters who educate native girl children
received me with kindly courtesy, and eventually driving
in a gharrie far beyond the town, and then dismissing it,
I got into a labyrinth of lanes, each with a high hedge
of cactus, and without knowing it found that I was in a
native village, Choquau, a village in which every house
seems to be surrounded and hidden by high walls of a
most malevolent and obnoxious cactus, so as to ensure
absolute privacy to its proprietor. Each dwelling is under
the shade of pommeloe, orange, and bamboo. By dint of
much peeping, and many pricks which have since in-
LETTER VI. A COCHIN-CHINESE VILLAGE. 97
liamed, I saw that the poorer houses were built of
unplaned planks or split bamboo, thatched with palm
leaves, with deep verandahs, furnished with broad matted
benches with curious, round bamboo j)illows. On these
men, scarcely to be called clothed, were lying, smoking or
chewing the betel-nut, and all had teapots in covered
baskets within convenient reach. The better houses are
built of an ornamental framework of carved wood, tlie
floor of which is raised about three feet from the ground
on brick pillars. The roofs of these are rather steep, and
are mostly tiled, and have deep eaves, but do not as
elsewhere form the cover of the verandah. While I was
looking through the cactus screen of one of these houses,
a man came out with a number of low caste, leggy, flop-
eared, mangy dogs, who attacked me in a cowardly
bullying fashion, yelping, barking, and making surreptitious
snaps at my feet. Their owner called them off, however,
and pelted them so successfully that some ran away
whimpering, and two pretended (as dogs will) to have
broken legs. This man carried a coco -nut, and on my
indicating that I was thirsty, he hesitated, and then
turning back, signed to me to follow him into his house.
This was rare luck !
Within the cactus screen, which is fully ten feet high,
there is a gravelled area, on which the neat-looking house
stands, and growing out of the very thirsty ground are
coco palms, bananas, bread fruit, and papayas. There are
verandahs on eacli side of the doorway with stone benches;
the doorway and window frames are hung with "portieres"
of split reeds, and a ladder does duty for door steps.
The interior is very dark, and divided into several apart-
ments. As soon as I entered there was a rush as if of
bats into the darkness, but on being re-assured, about
twenty women and boy and girl children appeared, and
contemplated me with an apathetic stare of extreme
H
98 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vi.
soleinnity. Eemember the mercury was 92°, so the
women may be excused for ha\'ing nothing more than
petticoats or loose trousers on in the privacy of their
home, the children for being in a state of nudity, and the
man for being clothed in a loin clotli • As I crew used
to the darkness I saw a toothless old woman smoking in
a corner, fanned by two girls who, I believe, are dt)mestic
slaves. Xear one of the window openings a young woman
was lounging, and two others were attenti\'ely removing
vermin from lier luxuriant but ill kept hair. Mats and
bamboo pillows covered the floors, and most of the inmates
had been rudely disturbed in a siesta.
I was evidently in the principal apartment, for tiie
walls were decorated with Chinese marine pictures, among
which were two glaring daubs of a Madonna and an
Ecce Homo. There was also a rude crucifix, from which
I gather that this is a Eoman Catliolic family. There
were two teapots of tea on a chair, a big tub of pommeloes
on the floor, and a glazed red earthenware bowl full of ripe
bananas on another chair. A sort of sickle, a gun, and
some bullock gear hung against the wall. In the middle
of the room there was a sort of trap in the floor, and
there was the same in two other apartments. Through
this all rubbish is conveniently dropped. A woman
brought in a coco -nut, and poured the milk into a
gourd calabash, and the man lianded me the dish of
bananas, so I had an epicurean rei:)ast, and realised that
I was in Cochin- Cliina ! They were courteous people,
and not only refused the quarter dollar Avhich I pressed
upon tliem, Ijut gave me a liandkerchief full of bananas
when I left them, being pleased, however, to accept a
])uggree.
The neat gravel area, the covered walls, and neatly
tileil roof, the lattice work, the boards suspended from the
door-posts, with (as I have since learned), texts from
LETTER vr. ANAMESE CHILDREX. 99
the Chinese Classics in gold upon them, and the large
establishment, show that the family belongs to the upper
class of Anamites, and leave one quite unprepared for the
reeking, festering heap of garbage below the house, the
foul, fetid air, and swarming vermin of the interior, and
the unwashedness of the inmates. I bowed myself out,
the gate was barred behind me, and in two minutes I had
lost what I supposed to be my way, and havmg left the
maze of cactus walled paths beliind, was entangled in a
maze of naiTow collage paths through palms and bananas,
flowering trees covered with creepers and orchids, and a
wonderful profusion of small and great ferns. Getting
back into the cactus -hidden village I fovmd groups of
pretty dark-skinned children, quite naked, playing in the
deep dust, while some no bigger were lounging in the
shade smoking cigars, lazily watching the clouds of
smoke which they puffed out from their chubby cheeks.
Finding my own footsteps in the deep dust, I got
back to a pathway with a monstrous bamboo hedge on
one side, and a rice-field on the other, in which was a
slimy looking pond with a margin of pink water lilies, in
which a number of pink buffaloes of large size were
wallowing with much noise and rough play, plastering
their sensitive hides with mud as a protection against
mosquitos.
With some difficulty, by some very qiieer paths, and
with much zigzagging, I at last reached Cholen,^ a native
town, said to be three or eight miles from Saigon, and
was so exhausted by the fatigue of the long walk in such
a ferocious temperature that I sat by the roadside on a
stump under a huge tropical tree, considering the ways
of ants and Anamites. Children with brown chubby
^ Cliolen, i.e. the big market, has a population which is variously
estimated at from 30,000 to 80,000 souls. lam inclined to think that
the lowest estimate is nearest the mark. — I. L. B.
100 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vi.
faces, which had never been washed since birth, and
according to all accounts will never be washed till death,
stood in a row, staring the stare of apathy, with a quiet
confidence. They had no clothes on, and I admired their
well-made forms and freedom from skin disease. The
^Mongolian face is pleasant in childhood. A horde of
pariah dogs in the mad excitement of a free fight passed,
covering me with dust. [By the way, I am told that
hydrophobia is unknown in Cochin-China.] Then some
French artillerymen, who politely raised their caps ; then
a quantity of market girls, dressed like the same class in
China, but instead of being bareheaded they wore basket hats
made of dried leaves, fully twenty-four inches in diameter
by six in depth. These girls walked well, and looked
liappy. Then a train of Anamese carts passed, empty,
the solid wooden wheels creaking frightfully round the
ungreased axles, each cart being drawn by two buffaloes,
each pair being attached to the cart in front by a rope
through the nostrils, so that one driver sufficed for eleven
carts. The native men could not be said to be clothed,
Ijut, as I remarked before, the mercury was above 90°.
They were, however, protected both against sun and rain
by hats over three feet in diameter, very conical, peaked at
the top, coming down umbrella fashion over the shoulders,
and well tilted back.
After laboriously reaching Cliolen, I found far the
greater part of the town to be Chinese rather than Ana-
mese, with Chinese streets, temples, gaming-liouses, club-
houses, and that general air of business and industry
which seems characteristic of the Chinese everywhere ;
but still groping my way about, I came upon what I
most wished to see — the real Anamese town. There is a
river, the Me-kong or one of its branches, and the town —
the real native Cholen — consists of a very large collection
of river-dwellings, little, if at all, superior to those whicli
LETTER VI. AXAMITE EIVER- DWELLINGS. 101
we passed iu coming up. I spent an hour among them,
and I never saw any house whose area could be more
than twelve feet square, while many were certainly not
more than seven feet by six. Such primitive, ramshackle,
shaky-looking dwellings I never before have seen. As
compared with them, an Aino hut, even of the poorest
kind, is a model of solidity and architectural beauty.
They looked as if a single gust would topple them and
their human contents into the water. Yet, if it were
better carried out, it is not a bad idea to avoid paying
any Anamese form of rent, to secure perfect drainage, a
never-failing water supply, good fishing, immunity from
reptiles, and the easiest of all highways at the very door.
These small rooms with thatched roofs and gridiron
floors, raised on posts six or eight feet above the stream,
are reached from the shore by a path a foot wide, consisting
of planks tied on to posts. The river-dwellings, I must
add, are tied together with palm fibre rope. One of
average size can be put together for eleven shillings. In
front of each house a log canoe is moored, into which it
is easy to drop from aboA'e when the owner desires any
change of attitude or scene.
I ventured into two of these strange abodes, but it
was dizzy work to walk the plank, and as difficult to
walk the gridiron floor in shoes. Both were wretched
habitations, but doubtless they suit their inmates, who
need nothing more than a shelter from the sun and rain.
The men wore only loin cloths. The women were
clothed to the throat in loose cotton garments ; the
children wore nothing. In both the men were fishinoj for
their supper over the edge of their platforms. In one a
woman was cooking rice ; and in both there was a good
store of rice, bananas, and sweet potatoes. There was no
furniture in either, except matted platforms for sleeping
upon, a few coarse pipkins, a red earthenware pitcher or
102 THE GOLDEX CHERSONESE. letter vi.
two, and some calabashes. On the wall of one was a
crucifix, and on a rafter in the other a wooden carving of
a jolly-looking man, mallet in hand, seated on rice bags,
intended for Daikoku, the Japanese God of Wealth. The
people were quite unwashed, but the draught of the river
carried off the bad smells which ought to have been there,
and, fortunately, a gridiron floor is unfavourable to
accumulations of dirt and refuse. These natives look
apathetic, and are according to our notions lazy ; but I am
weary of seeing the fevered pursuit of wealth, and am
inclined to be lenient to these narcotised existences, pro-
vided, as is the case, that they keep clear of debt, theft,
and charity.
Below this amphibious town there is a larger and
apparently permanent floating village, consisting of
hundreds of boats moored to the shore and to each other,
poor and forlorn as compared with the Canton house
boats, but yet more crowded, a single thatched roof
sheltering one or more families, without any attempt at
furniture or arrangement. The children swarmed, and
looked healthy, and remarkably free from eye and skin
diseases. There were Eomish pictures in some of these
boats, and two or three of them exhibited the cross in a
not inconspicuous place. In my solitary explorations I
was not mobbed or rudely treated in any way. The
people were as gentle and inoffensive in their manners
as the Japanese, without their elaborate courtesy and
civilised curiosity.
Having seen all I could see, I turned shipwards, weary,
footsore, and exhausted ; my feet so sore and blistered,
indeed, that long before I reached a gharrie I was
obliged to take off my boots and wrap them in handker-
chiefs. The dust was deep and made heavy walking, and
the level straightness of a great part of the road is weari-
some. Overtaking even at my slow rate of progress a
LETTER VI. AN UNSUCCESSFUL COLONY. 103
string of creaking buffalo carts, I got upon the hindmost,
but after a little rest found the noise, dust, and slow pro-
gress intolerable, and plodded on as before, taking two and a
half hours to wallc three miles. About a mile from Cliolen
there is an extraordinary burial-ground, said to cover an
area of twenty square miles. (?) It is thickly peopled
with the dead, and profuse vegetation and funereal lichens
give it a profoundly melancholy look. It was chosen by
the Cambodian kings several centuries ago for a ceme-
tery, on the advice of the astrologers of the court. The
telegraph wire runs near it, and so the old and the new-
age meet.
On my weary way I was overtaken by a young French
artillery officer, who walked with me till we came upon
an empty gharrie, and was eloquent upon the miseries of
Saigon. It is a very important military station, and a
sort of depot for the convicts who are sent to the (com-
paratively) adjacent settlement of New Caledonia. A large
force of infantry and artillery is always in barracks here,
but it is a most sickly station. At times 40 per cent of
this force is in hospital from climatic diseases, and the
number of men invalided home by every mail steamer,
and the frequent changes necessary, make Saigon a very
costly post. The French don't appear to be successful
colonists. This Cochin - Chinese colony of theirs, which
consists of the six ancient southern provinces of the em-
pire of Anam, was ceded to France in 1874, but its
European population is still under twelve thousand, ex-
clusive of the garrison and the Government officials. The
Government consists of a governor, aided by a privy
council. The population of the colony is under a million
and a half, including eighty -two thousand Cambodians
and forty -thousand Chinese. According to my various
informants — this young French officer, a French nun,
and a trader of dubious nationality, in whose shop I
104 THE GOLDEN CHERSOXESE. letter vr.
rested — France is doing its best to promote the pros-
perity and seciu'e the goodwill of the natives. The land-
tax, which was very oppressive under the native princes,
has been lowered, municipal government has been secured
to the native towns, and corporate and personal rights
have been respected. These persons believe that the
colony, far from being a source of profit to France, is kept
up at a heavy annual loss, and they regard the Chinese
as the only element in the population worth having.
They think the Anamese very superior to the Cambodians,
from whom indeed they conquered these six provinces,
but the Cambodians are a bigger and finer race physically.
I do not think I have said how hideous I tliink the
adult Anamese. Somewhere I have read that two thousand
vears before our era the Chinese called them Giao-chi,
which signifies "with the big toe." This led me to look par-
ticularly at their bare feet, and I noticed even in children
such a w^ide separation of the big toe from the rest as to
convey the perhaps erroneous impression that it is of
unusual size. The men are singularly wide at the hips,
and walk with a laughably swaggering gait, which is cer-
tainly not affectation, but is produced by a sufficient ana-
tomical cause. I never saw such ugly, thick-set, rigid
bodies, such uniformly short necks, such sloping shoulders,
such flat faces and flatter noses, such wide, heavy, thick-
lipped mouths, such projecting cheek bones, such low fore-
heads, such flat-topped heads, and such tight, thick skin,
which suggests the word hide-botmd. The dark, tawny
complexion has no richness of tint. Both men and women
are short, and the teeth of both sexes are blackened by
the constant chewing of the betel-nut, which reddens the
saliva, which is constantly flowing like blood from the
corners of their mouths. Though not a vigorous, they
a])pear to be a healthy people, and have very large fami-
lies, Tliey suffer chiefly from " forest fever " in the forest
LETTER VI. THREE PEESECUTIXG KINGS. 105
lands, but tlie rice swamps, deadly to Europeans, do not
harm them.
I rested for some time at a very beautiful convent,
and was most kindly entertained by some very calm,
sweet-looking sisters, who labour piously among the female
Anamese, and have schools for girls. The troops are sta-
tioned at Saigon for only two years, owing to the imhealthi-
ness of the climate, but these pious women have no
sanitarium, and live and die at their posts. Various things
in the convent chapel remind one of the faithfulness unto
death both of missionaries and converts. In this century
alone three successive kings rivalled each other in perse-
cuting the Christians, both Europeans and native, over and
over again murdering all the missionaries. In 1841 the
king ordered that all missionaries should be drowned, and
in 1851 his successor ordered that whoever concealed a
missionary should be cut in two. The terrible and san-
guinary persecution which followed this edict never ceased,
till years afterwards the French frightened the king into
toleration, and put an end, one hopes for ever, to the per-
secution of Christians. The sisters compute the native
Christians at seven thousand, and have sanguine hopes for
the future of Christianity in French Cochin-China, as well
as in Cambodia, which appears to be under a French
protectorate.
I do not envy the French tlieir colony. According
to my three informants, Europeans cannot be acclimatised,
and most of the children born of white parents die shortly
after birth. The shores of the sea and of the rivers are
scourged by severe intermittent fevers, and the whole of
the colony by dysentery, which among Europeans is par-
ticularly fatal. The mean temperature is 83° F., the
dampness is unusual, and the nights are too hot to refresh
people after the heat of the day.^
^ The chief production of the country is rice, which forms half the sum
106 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vi.
After leaving the convent I resumed my gliarrie, and
the driver took me, what I suppose is the usual " course "
for tourists, through a quaint Asiatic town inhal^ited by a
mixed, foreign poi)ulation of Hindus, Malays, Tagals, and
Chinese merchants, scattered among a large indigenous
population of Anamese fishermen, servants, and husband-
men, through the colonial district, which looked asleep or
dead, to the markets, where the Chinamen and natives of
India were in the full swing and din of buying and sell-
ing all sorts of tropical fruits and rubbishy French goods,
and through what may be called the Government town or
official quarter. It was getting dark when I reached the
wharf, and the darkness enabled me to hobble unperceived
on board on my bandaged feet. The heat of the nmrky,
lurid evening was awful, and as thousands of mosquitos
took possession of the ship, all comfort was banished, and
I was glad when we steamed down the palm-fringed Saigon
or Donnai waters, and through the mangrove swamps at
the mouths of the Me-kong river, and past the lofty Cape
St. Jacques, with its fort, into the open China Sea.
I. L. B.
total of the exports. The other exports are chiefly salt-fish, salt, uiulyed
cotton, skins of beasts, and pepper. About seven hundred vessels enter
and leave Saigon in a year.
LETTER VII. BEAUTIES OF THE TEOPICS. in?
LETTER YII.
Singapore, January 19, 1879.
It is liot — so hot ! — but not stifling, and all the rich-
flavoured, coloured fruits of the tropics are here — fruits
\\'hose generous juices are drawn from the moist and
heated earth, and whose flavours are the imprisoned rays
of the fierce sun of the tropics. Such cartloads and piles
of bananas and pine-apples, such heaps of custard-apples
and " bullocks' hearts," such a wealth of gold and gi'een
giving off fragrance ! Here, too, are treasures of the
heated, crvstal seas — things that one has dreamed of after
reading Jules Yerne's romances. Big canoes, manned by
dark-skinned men in white tm^bans and loin-cloths, floated
round our shij), or lay poised on the clear depths of
aquamarine water, with fairy freights — forests of coral
white as snow, or red, pink, violet, in massive branches or
fern-like sprays, fresh from their warm homes beneath the
clear warm waves, where fish as bright-tinted as them-
selves flash through them like "li\in" lioht." There
were displays of wonderful shells, too, of pale rose-pink,
and others with rambow tints which, like rainbows, came
and went — nothing scanty, feeble, or pale !
It is a drive of two miles from the pier to Singapore,
and to eyes which have only seen the yeUow skins and
non-vividness of the Far East, a world of wonders opens
at every step. It is intensely tropical; there are man-
grove swamps, and fringes of coco-palms, and banana-
108 THE GOLDEN CHEESONESE. letter vii.
groves, date, sago, and travellers' palms, tree-ferns, india-
rubber, mango, custard -apple, jack-fruit, durian, lime,
pomegranate, pine-apples, and orchids, and all kinds of
strangling and parrot-blossomed trailers. Vegetation rich,
profuse, endless, rapid, smothering, in all shades of vivid
green, from the pea-green of spring and the dark velvety
green of endless summer to the yellow-green of the plum-
age of the palm, riots in a heavy shower every night and
the heat of a perennial sunblaze every day, wliile monkeys
of various kinds and bright-winged birds skip and flit
through the jungle shades. There is a perpetual battle
between man and the jungle, and the latter, in fact, is
only brought to bay within a short distance of Singapore.
I had scarcely finished breakfast at the hotel, a
shady, straggling building, much infested by ants, when
Mr. Cecil Smith, the Colonial Secretary, and his wife
called, full of kind thoughts and plans of furtherance ;
and a little later a resident, to whom I had not even a
letter of introduction, took me and my luggage to his
bungalow. All the European houses seem to have very
deep verandahs, large, lofty rooms, punkahs everywhere,
windows without glass, brick floors, and jalousies and
" tatties " (blinds made of grass or finely-split bamboo) to
keep out the light and the flies. This equatorial heat is
neither as exhausting or depressing as the damp summer
heat of Japan, though one does long " to take off one's
flesh and sit in one's bones."
I wonder how this unexpected and hastily-planned
expedition into the Malay States will turn out ? It is so
unlikely that the different arrangements will fit in. It
seemed an event in the dim future ; but yesterday my
host sent up a " chit " from his office to say that a Chinese
steamer is to sail for Malacca in a day or two, and would
I like to go ? I was only allowed five minutes for deci-
sion, l)ut I have no difficulty in making up my mind
LETTER VII. AN EQUATORIAL METROPOLIS. 109
when an escape from ci\dlisation is possible. So I wrote
back that if I could get my money and letters of intro-
duction in time I would go, and returned to dine at Mr.
Cecil Smith's, where a delightfully cultured and intel-
lectual atmosphere made civilisation more than tolerable.
The needed letters were written, various hints for my
guidance were thrown out, and I drove back at half-past
ten under heavens which were one blaze of stars amidst
a dust of nebulas, like the inlaid gold spots amidst a dust
of gold on old Japanese lacquer, and through a moist,
warm atmosphere laden with the hea\'y fragrance of in-
numerable night-blossoming flowers.
Singapore, as the capital of the Straits Settlements
and the residence of the Governor, has a garrison, defensive
works, ships of war hanging about, and a great deal of
military as well as commercial importance, and " the roll
of the British drum " is a reassuring sound in the midst
of the unquiet Chinese population. The Governor is
assisted by lieutenant-governors at Malacca and Penang,
and liis actual rule extends to the three " protected "
States of the Malay Peninsula — Sungei-Ujong, Selangor,
and Perak — the affairs of which are administered by
British Ptesidents, who are more or less responsible to
him.
If I fail in making you realise Singapore it is partly
because I do not care to go into much detail about so
well known a city, and partly because my own notions of
it are mainly of overpowering greenery, a kaleidoscopic
arrangement of colours, Chinese predominance, and abound-
ing hospitality. I almost fail to realise that it is an
island ; one of many ; all, like itself, covered withve geta-
tion down to the water's edge ; about twenty-seven miles
long by fourteen broad, with the city at its southern
end. It is only seventy miles from the equator, but it is
neither unhealthy nor overpoweringly hot ! It is low
110 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vii.
aud undulating, its highest point, Bukit Timor or the Hill
of Tin, being only five hundred and twenty feet high.
The greatest curse here used to be tigers, which carried
off about three hundred people yearly. They were sup-
posed to have been extirpated, but they have reappeared,
swimming across from the mainland State of Johore it is
conjectured ; and as various lonely Chinese labourers have
been victimised, there is something of a " scare," in the
papers at least. Turtles are so abundant that turtle-soup
is anything but a luxury, and turtle flesh is ordinarily sold
in the meat shops.
Eain is officially said to fall on two hundred days of
the year, but popularly every day ! The rainfall is only
eighty-seven inches, however, and the glorious vegetation
owes its redundancy to the dampness of the climate. Of
course Singapore has no seasons. The variety is only in
the intensity of the heat, the mercury being tolerably
steady between 80° and 84°, the extreme range of tem-
perature being from 71° to 92°. People sleep on Malay
mats spread over their mattresses for coolness, some dis-
pense with upper sheets, and others are fanned all night
by punkahs. The soft and tepid land and sea breezes
mitigate tlie heat to a slight extent, but I should soon
long for a blustering north-easter to break in upon the
oppressive and vapour bath stillness.
As Singapore is a military station, and ships of war
hang about constantly, there is a great deal of fluctuating
society, and the officials of the Straits Settlements Govern-
ment are numerous enough to form a large society of their
own. Tlien there is the merchant class, English, German,
French, and American ; and there is tlie usual round of
gaiety, and of the amusements which make life intolerable.
I think that in most of these trojiical colonies the ladies
exist only on the hope of going " home 1 " It is a dreary,
aimless life for them — scarcely life, only existence. The
LETTER VII. THE GROWTH OF SINGAPORE. 1 1 1
greatest sign of vitality in Singapore Europeans that I can
see is the furious hurry in Trriting for the mail. To all
sorts of claims and invitations, the reply is, " But it's mail
day, you know," or, " I'm waiting for the mad," or, " I'm
awfully behind hand with my letters," or, " I can't stir
till the mail's gone !" The hurry is desperate, and even
the feeble Englishwomen exert themselves for " friends at
home." To judge from the flurry and excitement, and the
dri\T.ng down to the post-oftice at the last moment, and
the commotion in the parboiled community, one woidd
suppose the mail to be an uncertain event occurring once
in a year or two, rather than the most regular of weekly
fixtures ! The incoming mail is also a great event, though
its public and commercial news is anticipated by four
weeks by the telegraph.
The Americans boast of the rapid progress of San
Francisco, with which the Victorians boast that Mel-
bourne is running a neck-and-neck race ; but if boasting
is allowable, Singapore may boast, for m 1818 the island
was covered with dense primeval forest, and only a few
miserable fishermen and pu-ates inlialjited its creeks and
rivers. The prescience of Sir Stamford Eaffles marked it
out in 1819 as the site of the first free port in the
Malayan Seas, but it was not till 1824 that it was
formally ceded to the East India Company by the Sultan
of Johore, and it only became a Crown colony in 1867,
when it was erected into the capital of the Straits
Settlements, which include Malacca and Penang.
Like Victoria, Singapore is a free port, and the
vexatiousness of a custom-house is unknown. The only
tax which sliipping pays is 1-|- per cent for the support
of sundry lighthouses. The list of its exports suggests
heat. They are chiefly sugar, pepper, tin, nutmegs,
mace, sago, tapioca, rice, buffalo hides and horns, rattans,
gutta, indiarubber, gambir, gums, coffee, dye-stuffs, and
1 1 2 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vii.
tobacco, but the island itself, though its soil looks rich
from its redness, only produces pepper and gambir. It
is a great entrepot, a gigantic distributing point.^
The problem of raising a revenue without customs
duties is solved by a stamp-tax, land-revenue, and (by
far the most important) the sale of the monopolies
of the preparation and retailing of opium for smoking,
and of spirits and other excisable commodities, these
monopolies being " farmed " to private individuals, mostly
Chinamen. It is rather puzzling to hear "farmers" spoken
of so near the equator ! A revenue of nearly half a mil-
lion annually and a public debt of one hundred thousand
pounds is not bad for so young a colony. The prosper-
ity of the Straits Settlements ports is a great triumph
for free traders, and a traveller, even if, like myself, he
has nothing but a canvas roll and a " Gladstone bag,"
conoratulates himself on being saved from the bother of
unstrapping and restrapping stiffened and refractory
straps, and from the tiresome delays of even the most
courteous custom-house officers.
The official circle is large, as I before remarked. A
Crown colony where the Government has it all its own
way must be the paradise of officials, and the high sense
of honour and the righteous csp)rit cle corps which char-
acterise our civil servants in the Far East, and a con-
scientious sense of responsibilities for the good govern-
ment and wellbeing of the heterogeneous populations over
which they rule, seem as good a check as the general run
of colonial parliaments.
The Governor, Sir William Eobinson (now Sir F. A.
Weld) is assisted by an Executive Council of eight
1 The exports and imports of Singapore amounted in 1823 to £2,120,000,
in 1859-1860 to £10,371,000, and in 1880 to £23,050,000 ! In the latter
year, tonnage to the amount of tliree millions of tons arrived in its
liarbour. It must be observed that the imports to a very large extent
are exported to other places.
LETTER VII. THE STAPLE OF CONVERSATION. 113
members, and a Legislative Council consisting of nine
official and six non - official members, includino- Mr.
"VVhampoa, C.M.G., a Cbinaman of great wealth and en-,
lightened public spirit, who is one of the foremost men
in the colony. Then on the Civil Establishment there
are a legion of departments, — the Colonial Secretary's
office with a branch office and Cliinese Protectorate, a
Land Office, Printing Office, Treasury, Audit Office, Post
Office, Public "Works and Survey Department, Marine
Department, Judicial Department, Attorney -General's
Department, Sheriff's Department, Police Court and
Police Department, and Ecclesiastical, Educational,
Medical, and Prison Staff's.
It is natural that when the mail has been worn
threadbare and no stirrmg incidents present themselves,
such as the arrival of a new ship of war or a tour-
ing foreign prince, and the receptions of Mr. Wliampoa
and the Maharajah of Johore have gTown insipid, that
much of local conversation should consist of speculations
as to when or whether Mr. will get promotion,
when Mr. will go home, or how much he has
saved out of his salary; what influence has procured
the appointment of Mr. to Selangor or Perak,
instead of Mr. , whose qualifications are higher ;
whether Mr. 's acting appointment will be con-
firmed; whether Mr. will get one or two years'
leave ; whether some vacant appointment is to be filled
up or abolished, and so on ad infinitum. Such talk
girdles the colonial world as completely as the telegTaph,
which has revolutionised European business here as
elsewhere.
The island is far less interesting than the city. Its
dense, dark jungle is broken up mainly by pepper and
gambir plantations, the latter specially in new clearings.
The labourers on these are Chinese, and so are the wood-
I
114 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vri.
cutters and sawyers, ■who frequent the round - topped
wooded undulations. The climate is hotter and damper,
to one's sensations at least, than the hottest and dampest
of the tropical houses at Kew, and heat-loving insects
riot. The ants are a pest of the second magnitude,
mosquitos being of the first, the palm-trees and the
piles of decaying leaves and hark being excellent
nurseries for larvie. The vegetation is luxuriant, and in
the dim, green twilight which is created by enormous
forest trees there are endless varieties of ferns, calla-
diums, and parasitic plants ; but except Mdiere a road
has been cut and is kept open by continual labour,
the climbing rattan palms make it impossible to ex-
plore.
My short visit has been mainly occupied with the day
at the Colonial Secretary's Lodge, and in walking and
dri\'ing tlirough the streets. The city is ablaze with
colour and motley with costume. The ruling race does
not show to advantage. A pale-skinned man or woman,
costumed in our ugly, graceless clothes, reminds one not
pleasingly, artistically at least, of our dim, pale islands.
Every Oriental costume from the Levant to China floats
through the streets — robes of silk, satin, brocade, and white
muslin, emphasised by the glitter of " barl:>aric gold;" and
Parsees in spotless white, Jews and Arabs in dark rich silks;
Klings in Turkey red and white ; Bombay merchants in
great white turltans, full trousers, and draperies, all white,
with crimson silk girdles; Malays in red saro7u/s; Sikhs in
pure white Madras muslin, their gi-eat height rendered
nearly colossal by the classic arrangement of their
draperies ; and Chinamen of all classes, from the coolie in
his blue or brown cotton, to the wealthy merchant in his
frotliy silk crdpe and rich brocade, make up an irresistibly
fascinating medley.
The Englisli, though powerful as the ruling race, are
LETTER VII. A POLYGLOT POPULATION. 115
numerically nowhere, and certainly make no impression
on the eye. The Chinese, who number eighty -six
thousand out of a population of one hundred and thirty-
nine thousand, are not only numerous enough, but rich and
important enough to give Singapore the air of a Chinese
town with a foreign settlement. Then there are the
native Malays, who have crowded into tlie island since
we acquired it, till they number twenty-two thousand, and
who, besides being tolerably industrious as boatmen and
fishermen, form the main body of the police. The Parsee
merchants, who like our rule, form a respectable class of
merchants here, as in all the great trading cities of the
East. The Javanese are numerous, and make good ser-
vants and sailors. Some of the small merchants and
many of the clerks are Portuguese immigrants from
Malacca ; and traders from Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes, Bali,
and other islands of the Malay Archipelago are scattered
among the throng. The washermen and grooms are nearly
all Bengalees. Jews and Arabs make money and keep
it, and are, as ever}n^^here, shrewd and keen, and only
meet their equals among the Chinese. Among the twelve
thousand natives of India who have been attracted to
Smgapore, and among all the mingled foreign nationalities,
the Klings from the Coromandel coast, besides being the
most numerous of all next to the Chinese, are the most
attractive in appearance, and as there is no check on the
immigration of their women, one sees the unveiled
Kling beauties in great numbers.^
These Klings are active and industrious, but they
^ The Smgapore census returns for 1881 are by no means "dry read-
ing," and they give a very imposing idea of the importance of the island.
It is interesting to note that of the 434 enumerators employed only seven
were Europeans !
The nimaber of houses on the island is 20,462, the total population is
139,208 souls, viz., 105,423 males and 33,785 females. The total increase
in ten years is divided as follows : —
IKi THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vii.
lack fibre apparently, and tliat quick -sightedness for
opportunities which makes the Chinese the most success-
ful of all emigrants. Not a Malay or a Kling has raised
huuself either as a merchant or in any other capacity
to wealtli or distinction in the colony. The Klings
make si)lendid boatmen, they drive gharries, run as
syces, lend small sums of money at usurious interest,
sell fruit, keep small shops, carry " chit books," and
make themselves as generally useful as their mediocre
abilities allow. They are said to be a harmless people
so far as deeds go. They neither light, organise, nor get
into police rows, but they quarrel loudly and vociferously,
and their vocabulary of abuse is said to be inexhaustible.
The Kling men are very fine-looking, lithe and active,
and, as they clothe but little, their forms are seen to
great advantage. The women are, I think, beautiful —
not so much in face as in form and carriage. I am
never weary of watcliing and admiring their inimitable
grace of movement. Tlieir faces are oval, their foreheads
low, their eyes dark and liquid, their noses shapely, l)ut
disfigured by the universal adoption of jewelled nose-
rings ; tlieir lips full, but not tliick or coarse ; their
Europeans ami Americans . . 823
Eurasians 930
ChincKc 32,194
Malays and other natives of the Arcliipelago . . 6,954
Tamils and other natives of India .... 637
Other nationalities ....... 559
increase has been among
Among the "Malays
Among tliese "other nationalities" the gieat
the Arabs, who have nearly doubled their number
.ind other natives of the Ar(hi]iela<,'o" arc included, Achinese, Boyanese,
IJugis, Dyak.s, .Ja\\'i- Pckans, and Manilamen.
The European resident population, exclusive of the soldiers, is only
1283. The Chinese population is 86,766 ; the Malay, 22,114 ; the Tamil,
10,475 ; the Javanese, 5881 ; and the Eurasian, 3091. In the very small
European population 19 nationalities are included, the Germans numeri-
cally following the British. Of 15,368 domestic servants, only 844 are
women.
LETTER VII. FEMALE GRACE AND BEAUTY. 117
heads small, aud exquisitely set ou long, slender throats ;
their ears small, but much dragged out of shape by the
wearing of two or three hoop-earrings in each ; and their
glossy, wavy, black hair, which gTOws classically low on
the forehead, is gathered into a Grecian knot at the
back. Their clothing, or ratlier drapery, is a mystery,
for it covers and drapes perfectly, yet has no maJce, far
less fit, and leaves every graceful movement unimpeded.
It seems to consist of ten wide yards of soft white
muslin or soft red material, so ingeniously disposed
as to drape the bust and lower limbs, and form a
irirdle at the same time. One shoulder and arm are
usually left bare. The part which may be called
a petticoat — though the word is a sliu' upon the grace-
ful drapery — is short, and shows the finely -turned
ankles, high insteps, and small feet. These women are
tall, and straight as arrows ; their limbs are long and
rounded ; their appearance is timid, one might almost
say modest, and their walk is the poetry of movement.
A tall, graceful Kling woman, draped as I have described,
gliding along the pavement, her statuesque figure the
perfection of graceful ease, a dark pitcher on her head,
just touched by the beautiful hand, showing the finely
moulded arm, is a beautiful object, classical in form,
exquisite in movement, and artistic in colouring, a
creation of the tropic sun. What thinks she, I wonder,
if she thinks at all, of the pale European, paler for
want of exercise and engrossing occupation, who steps
out of her carriage in front of her, an ungraceful heap
of poufs and frills, tottering painfully on high heels, in
tight boots, her figure distorted into the shape of a
Japanese sake bottle, every movement a struggle or a
jerk, the clothing utterly unsuited to this or any chmate,
impeding motion, and affecting health, comfort, and
beauty alike ?
118 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vii.
It is all fiiscinating. Here is none of tlie indolence
and apathy which one associates with Oriental life, and
which I liax'e seen in Polynesia. These yellow, hrown,
tawny, swarthy, olive-tinted men are all intent on gain ;
Imsy, industrious, frugal, striving, and, no matter what
their creed is, all paying homage to Daikokn. In spite
of the activity, rapidity, and earnestness, the movements
of all hut the Cliinese are graceful, gliding, stealthy,
the swarthy faces have no expression that I can read,
and the dark, liquid eyes are no more intelligihle to me
than the eyes of oxen. It is the " Asian mystery " all
over.
It is only the European part of Singapore which is
dull and sleepy looking. No life and movement congre-
gate round the shops. The nierchants, hidden away
behind jalousies in their oflices, or dashing down the
streets in covered buggies, make but a i^oor show. Their
houses are mostly pale, roomy, detached bungalows,
almost altogether hidden by the bountiful vegetation ol'
the climate. In these their wives, growing paler every
week, lead half-expiring lives, kept alive by the efforts
of ubiquitous " punkah- wallahs ;" writing for the mail, the
one active occupation. At a given hour they emerge,
and drive in given directions, specially round the
esi)lanade, wliere for two hours at a time a double row
of handsome and showy e([uipages moves continuously
in opposite directions. The number of carriages and the
style of dress of their occupants are surprising, and yet
y)eople say that large fortunes are n(jt made now-a-
days in Singapore ! Besides the daily drive, the ladies,
the officers, and any men who may be described as of
" no occupation," divert themselves with kettle-drums,
dances, lawn tennis, an<l various other devices for killing
time, and this with the mercury at 80°! Just now the
Maharajali of Joliore, sovereign of a small state on the
LETTER VII. ORIENTAL PICTURESQUENESS. 119
nearest part of the mainland, a man much petted and
decorated by the British Government for unswerving
fidehty to British interests, has a house here, and his
receptions and dinner parties vary the monotonous round
of gaieties.
The nati\e streets monopolise the picturesqueness
of Singapore with their bizarre crowds, but more inter-
esting still are the bazaars or continuous rows of open shops
which create for themselves a perpetual twilight by hang-
ins: tatties or other screens outside the side walks,
forming long shady alleys, in which crowds of buyers
and sellers chaffer over their goods, the Chinese shop-
keepers asking a little more than they mean to take, and
the Klings always asking double. The bustle and noise
of this quarter are considerable, and the vociferation
mingles with the rmging of bells and the rapid beating
of drums and tom-toms, an intensely heathenish sound.
And heathenish this great city is. Chinese joss-houses,
Hindu temples, and Mohammedan mosques almost jostle
each other, and the indescribable clamour of the temples
and the din of the joss-houses are faintly pierced by
the shrill cry from the minarets calling the faithful
to prayer, and proclaiming the divine unity and the
mission of Mahomet in one breath.
How I wish I could convey an idea, however faint,
of this huge, mingled, coloured, busy. Oriental population ;
of the old Kling and Chinese bazaars ; of the itinerant
sellers of seaweed jelly, water, vegetables, soup, fruit, and
cooked fish, whose unintelligible street cries are heard
above the din of the crowds of coolies, boatmen, and
gharriemen waiting for hire ; of the far-stretcliing suburbs
of Malay and Chinese cottages ; of the sheet of water, by
no^means clean, round which hundreds of Bengalis are
to be seen at all hours of daylight unmercifully beating
on great stones the delicate laces, gauzj' silks, and elaborate
120 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter vii.
floimcings of the European ladies; of the ceaseless rush
and hum of industry, and of the resistless, overpowering,
astonishing Cliinese element, which is gradually turning
Singapore into a Chinese city ! T must conclude abruptly,
or lose the mail. I. L. B.
LETTER vm. ST. ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL. 121
LETTER VIIL
SS. " Rainbow," Malacca Roads,
Jan. 20.
Yestekday I attended morning service in St. Andrew's,
a fine colonial cathedral, prettily situated on a broad grass
lawn among clumps of trees near the sea. There is some
stained glass in the apse, but in the other windows, includ-
ing those in the clerestory, Venetian shutters take the
place of glass, as in all the European houses. There are
thirty-two punkahs, and the Indians who worked them,
any one of whom might have been the model of the
Mercury of the Naples Museum, sat or squatted outside
the chm'ch. The service was simple and the music very
good, but in the Te Deum, just at the verse " Thou art
the King of Glory, Christ," I caught sight of the
bronze faces of these " punkah- wallahs," mostly bigoted
Mussulmen, and was overwhelmed by the realisation of
the small progress which Christianity has made upon the
earth in nineteen centuries. A Sinhalese D.D. preached
an able sermon. Just before the communion we were
called out, as the Eaiiiboio was about to sail, and a
harbour boat, manned by six splendid Klings, put us on
board.
The Bainhoiu is a very small vessel, her captain half
Portuguese and half Malay, her crew Chinese, and her cabin
passengers were all Chinese merchants. Her engineer is
a Welshman, a kindly soul, who assured Mr. - — - — , when
he commended me to his care, that " he was a family
l-2'2 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter viir.
man, and that nothing gave him greater pleasure than
seeing that ladies were comfortable," and I owe to his
good offices the very small modicum of comfort that I
had. Waiting on the little bridge was far from being
wearisome, there was such a fascination in watching the
costumed and manifold life of the harbour, the black-
hulled, sullen-looking steamers from Europe discharging
cargo into lighters, Malay prahus of all sizes but one form,
sharp at both ends, and with eyes on their bows, like the
Cantonese and Cochin China boats, reeling as though they
would upset under large mat sails, and rowing-boats
rowed by handsome, statuesque Klings. A steamer from
Jeddah was discharging six hundred pilgrims in most
picturesque costumes ; and there were boats with men in
crimson turbans and graceful robes of pure white muslin,
and others a mass of blue umbrellas, while some contained
Brahmins with the mark of caste set conspicuously on
their forelieads, all moving in a veil of gold in tlie setting
of a heavy fringe of coco-palms.
We sailed at four, with a strong, favourable breeze,
and the sea was really delightful as we passed among
green islets clothed down to the water's edge with dense
tropical vegetation, right out into the open water of the
Straits of Malacca, a burning, waveless sea, into which
the sun was descending in mingled flame and blood.
Then, dinner for three, consisting of an excellent curry,
was spread on the top of the cabin, and eaten by the
captain, engineer, and myself, after which the engineer
took nic below to arrange for my comfort, and as it was
obviously impossilile for me to sleep in a very dirty and
very small liole, tenanted by cockroaches disproportion-
ately large, and with a temperature of eighty-eight degrees,
he took a mattress and pillows upon the bridge, told me
his history, and that of his coloured wife and sixteen
rhildren under seventeen, of his pay of £35 a montli, lent
LETTER VIII. CHINESE PREPONDERANCE. 123
me a box of matches, and vaiiislied into the lower
regions with the consoling words " If you want anything
in the night, just call ' Engineer ' down the engine sky-
light." It does one's heart good to meet M'ith such a
countryman.
The Raiiibov: is one of the many tokens of pre-
ponderating Chinese influence in the Straits of Malacca.
The tickets are Chinese, as well as the ownership and
crew. The supercargo who took my ticket is a
sleek young Chmaman in a pigtail, girdle, and white
cotton trousers. The cabin passengers are all China-
men. The deck was packed with Chinese coolies on
their way to seek wealth m the diggings at Perak.
They were lean, yeUow, and ugly, smoked a pipe
of opium each at sundown, wore their pigtails coiled
roimd their heads, and loose blue cotton trousers. We
had slipped our cable at Smgapore, because these coolies
were clambering up over every part of the vessel, and
defying all attempts to keep them out, so that " to cut
and rmi " was our only chance. The owners do not
allow any intoxicant to be brought on board, lest it
should be given to the captain and crew, and they should
take too much and lose the vessel. I am the only Euro-
pean passenger and the only woman on board. I had a
very comfortable night lying on deck in the brisk breeze
on the waveless sea, and though I watched the stars,
hoping to see the Southern Cross set, I fell asleep, till I
was awoke at the very earliest dawn by a most formid-
able Oriental shouting to me very fiercely I thought, with
a fierce face ; but it occurred to me that he was trying to
make me understand that they wanted to wash decks, so
I lifted my mattress on a bench and fell asleep again,
waking- to find the anchor being let go in the j\Ialacca
roads six hours before we should have arrived.
I am greatly interested with the first view of Malacca
124 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. i-etteu viii.
one of the oldest European towns in the East, originally
Portuguese, then Duteli, and now, though under English
rule, mainly Chinese. There is a long bay with dense
forests of coco-palms, backed by forests of I know not
what, then rolling hills, and to the right beyond these a
mountain known as Mount Ophir, rich in gold. Is this
possibly, as many think, the Opliir of the Bible, and this
land of gems and gold truly the " Golden Chersonese ? "
There are islets of emerald green lying to the south,
and in front of us a town of antiquated appearance,
low houses, mucli coloured, with flattish, red-tiled roofs,
many of them built on piles, straggling for a long dis-
tance, and fringed by massive-looking bungalows, half
buried in trees. A hill rises near the middle, crowned
by a ruined cathedral, probably the oldest Cln-istian
cliurcli in the Far East, witli slopes of bright green grass
below, timbered near their base with palms and trees of
a nearly lemon -coloured vividness of spring -green, and
there are glimpses of low, red roofs behind the liill. On
either side of tlie old-world-looking town and its fringe
<jf bungalows are glimpses of steep, reed roofs among the
coco-palms. A long, deserted -looking jetty runs far out
into the shallow sea, a few Cliiuese junks lie at anchor,
in the distance a few Malay fishermen are watching tlieir
nets, l)ut not a l^reatli stirs, the sea is witliout a ripple,
the gray clouds move not, the yeHow plumes of tlie
palms are motionless ; the sea, the sky, the town, look all
alike asleep in a still, moist, balmy heat.
Stfidthaus, Malacca, 4 p.ni. — Presently we were sur-
rounded by a crowd of Malay boats with rude sails made
of mats, but their crews might have been phantoms for
any noise they made. By f)ne of these I sent my card
aud note of introduction to the Lieutenant-Governor. Aw
liour afterwards the captain told me that the Governor
usually went into the country early on Monday morning
LETTER VIII. A TOWN "OUT OF THE RUNNING." 125
for two days, -which seemed uufortunate. Soon after, thr
captain and engineer went ashore, and I was left among-
a crowd of Chinamen and Mahiys without any possibility
of being understood by any of them, to endure stifling
heat and provoking uncertainty much aggravated by the
want of food, for another three hours. At last, when
very nearly famished, and when my doubts as to the
wisdom of this novel and impromptu expedition had
became very serious indeed, a European boat appeared,
moving with the long steady stroke of a man-of-war's boat,
rowed by six native policemen, with a frank -looking
bearded countryman steering, and two peons in white,
with scarlet-and-gold hats and sashes in the bow, and as
it swept up to the Baioibow's side the man in white
stepped on board, and introduced himself to me as j\Ir.
Biggs, the colonial chaplain, deputed to receive me on
behalf of the Governor, who was just leaving when ni}
card arrived. He relieved all anxiety as to my destin-
ation by saying that quarters were ready for me in the
Stadthaus.
We were soon on a lovely shore under the cathedral-
crowned hill, where the velvety turf slopes down to the
sea under palms and trees whose trunks are one mass of
ferns, brightened by that wonderful flowering tree vari-
ously known as the " flamboyant " and the " flame of
the forest " (Poinciana Begia). Very still, hot, tropical,
sleepy, and dreamy, Malacca looks, a town " out of the
running," utterly antiquated, mainly un-English, a verit-
able Sleepy Hollow. I. L. B.
126 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
LETTER IX.
Stadthaus, Malacca,
Janmmj 21-23.
This must surely fade like a dream, this grand old Stadt-
haus, this old-world quiet, this quaiut life ; but when it
fades I think I shall have a memory of having been
" once in Elysium." Still, Elysium should have no
mosquitos, and they are nearly insupportable here ; big
spotted fellows, with a greed for blood, and a specially
poisonous bite, taking the place at daylight of the retiring
nocturnal host. The Chinese attendant is not careful,
and lets mosquitos into my net, and even one means a
sleepless night. They are maddening.
I was introduced to my rooms, with their iioors of
red Dutch tiles, their blue walls, their whitewashed raft-
ers, their doors and windows consisting of German shutters
only, their ancient beds of portentous height, and their
generally silent and haunted look, and then went to
tiflin with Mr. and j\Irs. Biggs. Mr. Biggs is a student
of hymnology, and we were soon in full swing on this
mutually congenial sul)ject. Mrs. Biggs devotes her time
and strength to the training and education of young Portu-
guese girls. I pass their open bungalow as I go to and
from the TJovernor's cottage, and it usually proves a trap.
Ca])tain Shaw, who has been for many years Lieuten-
ant-(lovernor of Malacca, is a fine, hearty, frank, merry,
manly, Irish naval officer, well read and well informed,
devoted to Malacca and its interests, and withal a man
LETTER IX. A CHARMING HOUSEHOLD. 127
of an especially nnselfish, loving, and tender nature,
considerate to an unusual degree of the happiness and
comfort of those about him. Before I had been here
many hours I saw that he was the light of a loving
home.^ He can be firm and prompt when occasion
requires firmness, but his ordinary rule is of the gentlest
and most paternal description, so that from the Chinese
he has won the name of " Father," and among the Malays,
the native population, English rule, as administered by
him, has come to be known as " the rule of the just."
The family, consisting of the Governor, his wife, and two
daughters just grown up, is a very charming one, and
their quiet peaceful life gives me the opportunity which
so rarely falls to the lot of a traveller of becoming really
intimate with them.
The Government bungalow, in which I spend most of
my time, is a comfortable little cottage, with verandahs
larger than itself. In the front verandah, festooned with
trailers and orchids, two Malay military policemen are
always on guard, and two scornful-looking Bengalis in
white trousers, white short robes, with sashes of crimson
silk striped with gold, and crimson -and -gold flat hats
above their handsome but repellent faces, make up the
\-isible part of the estabhsliment. One of these Bengalis
has been twice to Mecca, at an expense of £40 on each
visit, and on Friday appears in a rich Hadji suit, in which
he goes through the town, and those Mussulmen who are
not Hadjii bow down to him. I saw from the very first
that my project of visiting the native States was not
smiled upon at Government House.
The Government bungalow being scarcely large enough
for the Governor's familv. I am lodged in the old Dutch
^ I should not have reproduced this paragraph of my letter were
Captain Shaw still alive, but in five Aveeks after my happy visit he died
almost suddenlj', to the indescribable grief of his family and of the people
of Malacca, by whom he was greatly beloved.
1 28 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
Stadthaiis, formerly the residence of the Dutch Governor,
and which has enough of solitude and faded stateliness to
lie fearsome, or at the least eerie, to a solitary guest like
myself, to whose imagination in the long, dark nights,
creeping Malays or pilfering Chinamen are far more likely
to present themselves than the stiff beauties and formal
splendours of the heyday of Dutch ascendancy. The
Stadthaus, which stands on the slope of the hill, and is
the most prominent building in Malacca, is now used as
the Treasury, Post Office, and Government offices generally.
There are large state reception-rooms, including a ball-
room, and suites of apartments for the use of the Governor
of the Straits Settlements, the Chief-Justice, and other
high officials, on their visits to Malacca. The Stadthaus,
at its upper end on the hill, is only one storey high, but
where it abuts on the town it is three and even four.
The upper part is built rt)und tliree sides of a Dutch
garden, and a gallery under the tiled verandah runs all
round. A set of handsome staircases on the sea side
leads to the lawn-like liill with the old cathedral, and the
Itungalows of the Governor and colonial chaplain. Ste-
phanotis, passiflora, tuberose, alamanda, Bougainvillea, and
other trailers of gorgeous colours, climb over eveiything,
and make the night heavy with their odours. Tliere
must be more than forty rooms in this old place, besides
great arched corridors, and all manner of queer staircases
and corners. Dutch tiling and angularities and conceits
of all kinds abound.
My room opens on one side upon a handsome set of
staircases under the verandah, and on the other upon a
])assage and staircase with several rooms with doors of
connuunication, and has various windows opening on the
external galleries. Like most European houses in the
I'eninsula, it has a staircase which leads from the bedroom
tf) a somewhat grim, Ijrick-floored room below, containing
LETTER IX. A STATELY HABITATION. 129
a large high tub, or bath, of Shanghai pottery, in which
you must by no means bathe, as it is found by experience
that to take the capacious dipper and pour water upon
yourself from a height, gives a far more refreshing shock
than immersion when the water is at 80° and the air at
83°.
The worst of my stately habitation is, that after four
in the afternoon there is no one in it but myself, unless a
Chinese coolie, who has a lair somewhere, and appears in
my room at all sorts of unusual hours, after I think I
have bolted and barred every means of ingress. However,
two Malay military policemen patrol the verandahs out-
side at intervals all night, and I have the comfort of
imagininc{ that I hear far below the clank of the British
sentries who guard the Treasury. In the early morning
my eyes always open on the Governor's handsome Moham-
medan servant in spotless white muslin and red headdress
and girdle, bringing a tray with tea and bananas. The
Chinese coolie who appears mysteriously attends on me,
and acts as housemaid, our communications being entirely
by signs. The mosquitos are awful. The view of the
green lawns, the sleeping sea, the motionless forest of
coco-palms along the shore, the narrow stream and
bridge, and the quaint red-tiled roofs of the town, is very
charming and harmonious, yet I often think, if these
dreamy days went on into months, that I should welcome
an earthquake shock, or tornado, or jarring discord of
some rousing kind, to break the dream produced by the
heated, steamy, fragrant au', and the monotonous silence.
I have very little time for writing here, and even
that is abridged by the night mosquitos, which muster
their forces for a desperate attack as soon as I retire to
the Stadthaus for two hours of quiet before dinner, so I
must give the features of Malacca mainly in outline.
Having written this sentence, I am compelled to say that
K
130 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
the feature of Malacca is that it is featureless ! It is a
land where it is " always afternoon " — hot, still, dreamy.
Existence stagnates. Trade pursues its operations in-
visibly. Commerce hovers far off on the shallow sea.
The British and French mail steamers give the port a
wide offing. It has no politics, little crime, rarely gets
even two lines in an English newspaper, and does nothing
towards making contemporary history. The Lieutenant-
Governor has occupied the same post for eleven years. A •
company of soldiers vegetates in quarters in a yet sleepier
region than the town itself. Two Chinese steamers make
it a port of call, but, except that they bring mails, their
comings and goings are of no interest to the very small
English part of the population. Lying basking in the
sun, or crawling at the heads of crawling oxen very like
hairless buffaloes, or leaning over the bridge looldng at
nothmg, the Malays spend their time when they come
into the town, their very movements making the lack of
movement more perceptible.
The half-breed descendants of the Portuguese, who
kept up a splendid pomp of rule in the days of Francis
Xavier, seem to take an endless siesta behind their
closely-covered windows. I have never seen an English-
man out of doors except Mr. Hayward, the active super-
intendent of military police, or Mr. Biggs, who preserves
his health and energies by systematic constitutionals.
Portuguese and Dutch rule have passed away, leading,
as their chief monuments — the first, a ruined cathedral,
and a race of half-breeds ; and the last, the Stadthaus
and a flat-faced meeting-house. A heavy shower, like
a " thunder-plump," takes up a pait of the afternoon,
after which the Governor's carriage, with servants in
scarlet liveries, rolls slowly out of Malacca, and through
the sago -palms and back again. If aught else which
is European breaks the monotony of the day I am
LETTER IX. A TROPIC DREAM. 131
not aware of it. The streets have no particular features,
thouQ-h one cannot but be aware that a narrow stream
full of boats, and spanned by a handsome bridge, divides
the town into two portions, and tliat a handsome
clock -tower (both tower and bridge erected by some
wealthy Chinese merchants) is a salient object below the
Stadthaus. Trees, trailers, fruits, smother the houses,
and blossom and fruit all the year round ; old leaves,
young leaves, buds, blossom, and fruit, all appearing at
once. The mercury rarely falls below 79° or rises above
8-4°, The softest and least perceptible of land and sea
breezes blow alternately at stated hours. The nights are
very still. The days are a tepid dream. Since I arrived
not a leaf has stirred, not a bird has sung, the tides ebb
and flow in listless and soundless ripples. Far off, on the
shallow sea, phantom ships hover and are gone, and on an
indefinite horizon a blurred ocean blends with a blurred
sky. On Mount Ophir hea%'y cloud-masses lie always
motionless. The still, heavy, fragrant nights pass with
no other sounds than the aggressive hum of mosquitos
and the challenge of the sentries. But through the
stormy days and the heavy nights Nature is always busy
in producing a rapidity and profusion of growth which
would turn Malacca into a jungle were it not for axe and
billhook, but her work does not jar upon the general
silence. Yet with all this indefiniteness, dreaminess,
featurelessness, indolence, and silence, of which I have
attempted to convey an idea, Malacca is very fascinating,
and no city in the world, except Canton, will leave so
vivid an impression upon me, though it may be but of a
fragrant tropic dream and nothing more.
Yesterday Mrs. Biggs took me a drive through Ma-
lacca and its forest en\drons. It was delightful ; every
hour adds to the fascination which this place has for me.
I thought my tropic dreams were over, when seven years
132 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
ago I saw the summit peaks of Oahu sink sunset -flushed
into a golden sea, but I am dreaming it again. The road
crosses the bridge over the narrow stream, which is, in
fact, the roadway of a coloured and liighly picturesque
street, and at once enters the main street of Malacca,
wliich is parallel to the sea. On the sea side each house
consists of three or four divisions, one behind the other,
each roof being covered with red tiles. The rearmost
division is usually built over the sea, on piles. In the
middle of each of the three front divisions there is a
courtyard. The room through which you enter from
the street always has an open door, through which you
see houses showing a high degi'ee of material civilisation,
lofty rooms, handsome altars opposite the doors, massive,
carved ebony tables, and carved ebony chairs with marble
seats and backs standing against the walls, hanging
pictures of the kind called in Japan kakemono, and rich
bronzes and fine pieces of porcelain on ebony brackets.
At night, when these rooms are lighted up with eight or
ten massive lamps, the appearance is splendid. These
are the houses of Chinese merchants of the middle
class.
And now I must divulge the singular fact tliat
Malacca is to most intents and purposes a Chinese
city. The Dutch, as I ^v^ote, liave scarcely left a
trace. The Portuguese, indolent, for the most part
poor, and lowered by native marriages, are without
influence, a most truly stagnant population, hardly to
be taken into account. Their poor - looking houses
resemble those of Lisbon. The English, except in
so far as relates to the administration of government,
are nowhere, though it is under our equitable rule
tliat tlie queerly mixed population of Chinese, Portu-
guese, half - breeds, Malays, Confucianists, Buddhists,
Tauists, Itomanists, and Mohammedans " enjoy great
LETTER IX. CHINESE WEALTH AND ASCENDENCY. 133
quietness."^ Of the population of the towu the majority
are said to be Chinese, and still their crowded junks
are rolling down on the north-east monsoon. As I
remai'ked before, the coasting trade of the Straits of
Malacca is in their hands, and to such an extent have
they absorbed the trade of this colony, that I am told
there is not a resident British merchant in Malacca.
And it is not, as elsewhere, that they come, make
money, and then return to settle in China, but they
come here with their wives and families, buy or build
these handsome houses, as well as large bungalows in
the neighbouring coco-groves, own most of the planta-
tions up the country, and have obtained the finest site
on the hill behind the town for their stately tombs.
Every afternoon their carriages roll out into the country,
conveying them to their substantial bungalows to smoke
and gamble. They have fabulous riches in diamonds,
pearls, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. They love
Malacca, and take a pride in beautifying it. They
have fashioned their dwellings upon the model of those
in Canton, but whereas cogent reasons compel the rich
Chinaman at home to conceal the evidences of his
wealth, he glories in displaying it under the security
of British rule. The upper class of the Chinese mer-
chants live in immense houses within walled gardens.
The wives of all are secluded, and inhabit the back
regions and have no share in the remarkably " good
time " which the men seem to have.
Along with their industrious habits and their charac-
ter for fair trading, the Chinese have brought to Malacca
gambling and opium - smoking. One - seventh of the
whole quantity of opium exported from India to China
^ By the census of 1881 the resident European population of the
Settlement of Malacca consists of 23 males and 9 females, a "grand" total
of 32 ! The Eurasian population, mainly of Portuguese mixed blood, is
134 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
is intercepted and consumed in the Straits Settlements,
and the Malacca Government makes a large revenue
from it. The Chinaman who " farms the opium " — i.e.,
who purchases from the Government the exclusive right
to sell it — pays for his monopoly about £50 per day.
It must be remembered, however, that every man who
smokes opium is not what we understand by an " opium-
smoker," and that between the man who takes his
daily pipe of opium after his supper, and the unhappy
opium-slave who reduces himself to imbecility in such
dens as I saw in Canton, there is just as much difference
as there is in England between the " moderate drinker "
and the " habitual drunkard." Slavery is prohibited in
Malacca, and slaves from the neighbouring State fly for
freedom to the shelter of the British flag : but there is
reason to suppose that the numerous women in the
households of the Chinese merchants, though called
servants, are persons who have been purchased in China,
and are actually held in bondage. Apart from these
exceptions, the Chinese population is a valuable one,
and is, in its upper classes, singularly public -spirited,
law-abiding, and strongly attached to British rule.
I saw no shops except those for the sale of fish, fruit,
2213. The Cliincse numbers 19,741, 4020 being females. The Malay
l>oiiulation is 67,488, tlie females being 2000 in excess of the males, the
Tamils or Klings are 1781, the Arabs 227, the Aborigines of the Peninsula
308, the Javanese 399, the Boyanese 212, and the Jawi-1'ekans 867.
Besides these there are stray Achinese, Africans, Anamese, IJengalis,
Bugis, Dyaks, Manilamen, Siamese, and Sinlialese, numbering 174. The
total population of the territory is 93,579, viz., 52,059 males and 41,520
females, an increase in ten years of 15,823. The decrease in the number
of resident Europeans is 31 '9 jier cent. In "natives of India" 42 per
cent, and in " other nationalities" 48 '9 jier cent. On the other lian<l the
Chinese population has increased by 6259 or 46'4 per cent, ami tlie
Malays by 11,264, or 1 9*3 per cent. The town of Malacca contains 5538
houses, and the country districts 11,177. The area of the settlement is
640 square miles, and the density of the population 146 to the square
mile ; only twelve of the pojiulation are lunatics.
LETTER IX. THE MALACCA JUNGLE. 135
and coarse native pottery, but doubtless most things which
are suited to the wants of the mixed population can be
had in the bazaars. As we drove out of the town the
houses became fewer and the trees denser, with mosques
here and there among them, and in a few minutes we were
in the great dark forest of coco, betel, and sago palms,
awfully solemn and oppressive in the hot stillness of the
evening. Every sight was new, for tliough I have seen
the coco-palm before, the palm-fringes of the coral islands,
with their feathery plumes have little kinship with the
dark, crowded coco-forests of Malacca, with their endless
vistas and mysterious gloom. These forests are inter-
sected by narrow, muddy streams, suggestive of alli-
gators, up which you can go in canoes if you lie down,
and are content with the yet darker shade produced
by the nipah, a species of stemless palm, of which the
poorer natives make their houses, and whose magnificent
fronds are often from twenty to twenty -two feet in
length. The soft carriage road passes through an avenue
of trees of great girth and a huge spread of foliage,
bearing glorious yellow blossoms of delicious fragrance.
Jungles of sugar-cane often form the foreground of dense
masses of palms, then a jungle of pine-apples surprises
one, then a mass of lianas, knotted and tamyled, with
stems like great cables, and red blossoms as large as
breakfast cups. The huge trees which border the road
have their stems and branches nearly hidden by orchids
and epiphytes — chiefly that lovely and delicate one
whose likeness to a hoverinw dove won for it the
name of the "Flower of the Holy Ghost," an orcliid
{Feristeria electa) which lives but for a day, but in its
brief life fills the air with fragrance. Then the trees
change, the long tresses of an autumn-flowering orchid
fall from their branches over the road ; dead trees
appear transformed into living beauty by multitudes of
136 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
ferns, among which the dark-green shining fronds of the
Asphnmm nidus, measuring four feet in length, specially
delight the eye ; huge tamarinds and mimosa add the
grace of their feathery foliage ; the banana unfolds its
gigantic fronds above its golden fruitage ; clumps of the
betel or areca palms, with their slender and absolutely
straight shafts, make the coco-palms look lilve clumsy
giants ; the gutta-percha, indiarubber, and other varieties
of ficus, increase the forest gloom by the brown velvety
undersides of their shining dark -green leafage ; then
comes the cashew-nut tree, with its immense spread of
branches, and its fruit an apple with a nut below ; and
the beautiful bread-fruit, with its green " cantalupe
melons," nearly ripe, and the gigantic jak and durian,
and fifty others, children of tropic heat and moisture, in
all the promise of perpetual spring, and the fulfilment of
endless summer, the beauty of blossom and the boun-
teousness of an unfailing fruitage crowning them through
all the year. At their feet is a tangle of fungi, mosses,
ferns, trailers, lilies, nibongs, reeds, canes, rattans, a dense
and lavish undergrowth, in which reptiles, large and
small, riot most congenially, and in which broods of
mosquitos are hourly hatched, to the misery of man and
beast.
Occasionally a small and comparatively cleared spot
appears, with a crowded cluster of graves, with a pawn-
shaped stone at the head of each, and the beautiful
Frangipani,^ the " Temple Flower" of Sinhalese Buddhism,
but the " Grave Flower " of Malay Mohanmiedanism,
sheds its ethereal fragrance among the tombs. The dead
lie lonely in the forest shade, under the feathery palm-
fronds, but the living are not far to seek.
It is strange that I should have written thus far and
have said nothing at all about the people from whom
' Plumieria s}).
LETTER IS. MALAY VILLAGES. 137
this Peninsula derives its name, "who have cost us not a
little blood and some treasure, with whom our relations
are by no means well defined or satisfactory, and who,
though not the actual aborigines of the country, have at
least that claim to be considered its rightful owners
which comes from long centuries of possession. In truth,
between English rule, the solid tokens of Dutch posses-
sion, the quiet and indolent Portuguese, the splendid
memories of Francis Xa^'ier, and the numerical preponder-
ance, success, and wealth of the Chinese, I had absolutely
forgotten the Malays, even though a dark-skinned mili-
tary policeman, with a gliding, snake-like step, whom
I know to be a Malay, brings my afternoon tea to the
Stadthaus 1 Of them I may write more hereafter.
They are symbolised to people's minds in general by the
dagger called a kris, and by the peculiar form of frenzy
which has given rise to the phrase " running amuck."
The great coco-groves are by no means solitary, for
they contain the kavijioags, or small raised \-illages of the
Malays. Though the Malay builds his dismal little
mosques on the outskirts of Malacca, he shuns the town,
and prefers a life of freedom in his native jungles, or on
the mysterious rivers which lose themselves among the
mangrove swamps. So in the neighbourhood of Malacca
these kampongs are scattered through the perpetual twi-
light of the forest. They do not bmld the houses very
close together, and whether of rich or poor the architecture
is the same. Each dwelling is of planed wood or plaited
palm-leaves, the roof is high and steep, the eaves are
deep, and the whole rests on a gridiron platform, sup-
ported on posts, from five to ten feet high, and approached
by a ladder in the poorer houses and a flight of steps in
the richer. In the ordinary houses mats are laid here
and there over the gridiron, besides the sleeping-mats ;
and this plan of an open floor, though tvjmg to unac-
138 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
customed Europeans, has various advantages. As, for
instance, it ensures ventilation, and all ddhris can be
throv.-n through it, to be consumed by the fire which is
lighted every evening beneath the house to smoke away
the mosquitos. A baboon, trained to climb the coco-
palms and throw down the nuts, is an inmate of most of
the houses.
The people lead strange and uneventful lives. The
men are not inclined to much effort except in fishing or
hunting, and, where they possess rice land, in ploughing
for rice. They are said to be quiet, temperate, jealous,
suspicious, some say treacherous, and most bigoted j\Ius-
sulmen. The women are very small, keep their dwell-
ings very tidy, and weave mats and baskets from reeds
and palm-leaves. They are clothed in cotton or silk
from the ankles to the throat, and the men, even in the
imdress of their own homes, usually wear the sarong, a
picturesque tightish petticoat, consisting of a wide piece
of stuff kept on by a very ingenious knot. They are not
savages in the ordinary sense, for they have a complete
civilisation of their own, and their legal system is derived
from the Koran. They are dark brown, with rather low fore-
heads, dark and somewhat expressionless eyes, high cheek-
bones, flattish noses with broad nostrils, and wide mouths
with thick lips. Their hair is black, straight, and shining,
and the women dress it in a plain knot at the back of
the head. To my thinking both sexes are decidedly
ugly, and there is a coldness and aloofness of manner
about them wliich chills one even where they are on
friendly terms with Europeans, as the people whom we
visited were with Mrs. Biggs.
Tlie women were lounging about the houses, some
cleaning fish, others pounding rice ; but they do not care
for work, and the little money which they need for buy-
ing clotlies tliey can make by selling mats or jungle
LETTER IX. COSTUME AND ORNAMENT. 139
fniits. Their lower garment, or sarong, reaching from
the waist to the ankles, is usually of red cotton of a
small check, Avith stripes in the front, above which is
worn a loose sleeved garment, called a kabaya, reaching
to the knees, and clasped in front with silver or gold,
and frequently with diamond ornaments. They also wear
gold or silver pins in their hair, and the sarong is girt
or held up by a clasp of enormous size, and often of
exquisite workmanship, in the poorer class of silver, and
in the richer of gold jewelled with diamonds and rubies.
The sarong of the men does not reach much below the
knee, and displays loose trousers. They wear above it a
short-sleeved jacket, the haju, beautifully made, and often
very tastefully decorated in fine needlework, and with
small buttons on each side, not for use, however. I have
seen one Malay who wore about twenty buttons, each
one a diamond solitaire ! The costume is completed by
turbans or red handkerchiefs tied round their heads.
In these forest ka.mpongs the children, who are very
pretty, are not encumbered by much clothing, specially
the boys. All the dwellings are pictui^esque, and those
of the richer Malays are beautiful. They rigidly exclude
all ornaments w^hich have " the likeness of anything in
heaven or earth," but their arabesques are delicately
carved, and the verses from the Koran, which occasion-
ally run under the eaves, being in the Arabic character,
are decidedly decorative. Their hampongs are small, and
they have little of the gregarious instinct ; they are said
to Kve happily, and to have a considerable amount of
domestic affection. Captain Shaw likes the Malays, and
the verdict on them here is that they are chaste, gentle,
honest, and hospitable, but that they tell lies, and that
their " honour " is so sensitive that blood alone can wipe
out some insults to it. They seclude their women to
a gi'eat extent, and under ordinary circumstances the
140 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter ix.
slightest courtesy shown by a European man to a Malay
woman would be a deadly insult, and at the sight of a
man in the distance the women hastily cover their faces.
There is a large mosque with a minaret just on the
outskirts of Malacca, and we passed several smaller ones
in the space of three miles. Scarcely any kampong is so
small as not to have a mosque. The Malays are
bigoted, and for the most part ignorant and fanatical
Mohammedans, and I firmly believe that the Englishman
whom they respect most is only a little removed from
being " a dog of an infidel." They are really ruled by
the law of the Koran, and except when the Imaum, who
interprets the law, decides (which is very rarely the case)
contrary to equity, the British magistrate confirms his
decision. In fact, Mohammedan law and custom rule
in civil cases, and the Imaum of the mosque assists the
judge with his advice. The Malays highly appreciate
the manner in which law is administered under English
rule, and the security they enjoy in their persons and
property, so that they can acquire property without risk,
and accumulate and wear the costliest jewels even in the
streets of Malacca without fear of robbery or s])oliation.
This is by no means to write that the Malays love us,
for I doubt whether the entente corcUale between any of
the dark-skinned Oriental races and ourselves is more
than skin deep. It is possible that they prefer being
equitably taxed by us, with the security whicli our rule
brings, to being plundered by native princes, but we do
not understand them, or they us, and where they happen
to be Mohammedans, there is a gulf of contempt and
dislike on their part wliich is rarely bridged by amenities
on ours. The jnlgrimage to Mecca is the great object
of ambition. Many Malays, in spite of its expense and
difficulties, make it twice, and even three times. We
passed three women clothed in white from head to foot,
LETTER IX. THE MALAY BUFFALO. 141
their drapery veiling tliem closely, leaving holes for their
eyes. These bad just returned from Mecca.
The picturesqueness of the drive home was much
heightened by the darkness, and the brilliancy of the
fires underneath the Malay houses. The great gray
buffalo which they use for various purposes — and which,
though I have written gray, is as often pink — has a very
thin and sensitive skin, and is almost maddened by
mosquitos ; and we frequently passed fires lighted in the
jungle, with these singular beasts standing or lying close
to them in the smoke on the leeward side, while Malays
in red sarongs and handkerchiefs, and pretty brown
children scarcely clothed at all, lounged in the firelight.
Then Chinese lamps and lanterns, and the sound of what
passes for music ; then the refinement and brightness of
the Government bungalow, and at ten o'clock my chair
with three bearers, and the solitude of the lonely
Stadthaus. I. L. B.
142 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter x.
LETTEPt X.
Stadthaus, Malacca, Jan. 23.
Malacca fascinates me more and more daily. There is,
among other things, a mediievalism about it. The noise
of the modern worhl reaches it only in the faintest
echoes ; its sleep is almost dreamless, its sensations seem
to come out of books read in childhood. Thus, the splendid
corpse of a royal tiger has been brought in in a bullock-
cart, the driver claiming the reward of fifteen dollars, and
its claws were given to me. It was trapped only six
miles off, and its beautiful feline body had not had time
to stiffen. Even when dead, with its fierce head and
cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not
an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered
for a rliinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator ?),
and five dollars for a Ijoa-constrictor or python. Lately,
at five in the morning, a black tiger (panther ?)
came down the principal street of Malacca, tore a China-
man in pieces, and then, scared by a posse of police in
pursuit, jumped through a window into a house. Every
door in tlie city was barred, as the rumour spread like
wildfire. The policemen very boldly entered the house,
but the animal pinned the ^falay corporal to the wall.
The second policeman, a white man, alas ! ran away.
The third, a Malay, at tlie risk of his life, went close up
to the tiger, shot him, and beat him over the head with
the butt of his rifle, which made the beast let go the
LETTER X. TIGER STORIES. 143
corporal and turn on him, but fortunately he had scarcely
got hold of him when he fell dead. The corporal is just
coming out of hospital, almost completely paralysed, to be
taken care of for the rest of his life, and the man who
rescued him has got promotion and a pension. A short
time ago a fine young tiger was brought alive to Captain
Shaw, and he ordered a proper cage to be made, in which
to send him to England, telling Babu, the " double Hadji,"
to put it into the " godown " in its bamboo cage ; but
the man put it into the kitchen, and in the morning
the cage was found broken into pieces, the kitchen
shutters torn down, and the tiger gone ! There was a
complete panic in Malacca; people kept their houses shut,
and did not dare to go out even on business, and not
only was the whole police force tiu'ned out in pursuit,
but the English garrison. It was some days before the
scare subsided and the people believed that the beast
had escaped to its natural home in the jungle.
A tropical thunderstorm of the most ^dolent kind
occurred yesterday, when I was quite alone in the Stadt-
haus. The rain fell in sheets, deluges, streams, and the
lightning flashed perfectly blue through a "darkness which
could be felt." There is a sort of gTandeur about this
old Dutch Stadthaus, with its tale of two centuries. Its
smooth lawns sloping steeply to the sea are now brilliant
with the gaudy parrot-like blossoms of the " flame of the
forest," the gorgeous Poindana Begia, with which they are
studded. Malacca is such a rest after the crowds of
Japan and the noisy hurry of China ! Its endless after-
noon remains unbroken except by the dreamy, coloured,
slow-moving Malay life which passes below the hill.
There is never any hurry or noise.
So had I written without prescience ! The night of
the awful silence which succeeded the thunderstorm was
also the eve of the Chinese new year, and Captain Shaw
144 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter x.
gave permission for " fireworks " from 7 p.m. till midnight.
The term "fireworks" received a most liberal construction.
The noise was something awful, and as it came into the
lonely Stadthaus, and red, blue, crimson, and greenish-
yellow glares at short intervals lighted up the picturesque
Malacca steam and its blue and yellow houses, with their
steep red-tiled roofs and balconies and quaint projections,
and the streets were traced in fire and smoke, while
crackers, squibs, and rockets went off in hundreds, and
cannon, petards, and gingaUs were fired incessantly, and
gongs, drums, and tom-toms were beaten, the sights, and
the ceaseless, tremendous, universal din made a rehearsal of
the final assault on a city in old days. At 1 A.M., every
house being decorated and illuminated, the Chinese men
began to make their New Year's calls, and at six the din
began again. After breakfast the Governor drove out in
state to visit the leading Chinese merchants, with whom
he is on terms of the most cordial amity, and at each
house was offered two dishes of cakes, twelve dishes of
candied and preserved fruits, mandarin tea (the price of
this luxury is from 25s. to 45s. a pound), and champagne
from the finest Ehenish vineyards ! At eleven all the
Cliinese children came forth in carriages shaped like boats,
turned up at both ends, painted red and yellow, and with
wliite-fringed canopies over them. These were drawn by
servants, and in the case of the wealthy, a train of
servants accompanied each carriage. It was a sight
worthy of a fabled age. The wealth of the East in all
its gorgeousness was poured out upon these dignified and
solemn infants, who wore coronals of gold and diamonds,
stuffs of cloth of gold brocade, and satin sewn with
pearls, and whose cloth -of- gold shoes flashed with
diamonds !
During the morning four children of a rich Chinese
merchant, attended by a train of Chinese and Malay
LETTER X. GOLD AND GEMS. 145
servants, came to see Mrs. Shaw. There were a hoy and
girl of five and six years old, and two younger children.
A literal description of their appearance reads like fiction.
The girl wore a yellow petticoat of treble satin (mandarin
yellow) with broad box pleats in front and behmd, ex-
quisitely embroidered with flowers in shades of blue silk,
with narrow box pleats between, with a trail of blue silk
flowers on each. Over this there was a short robe of
crimson brocaded, silk, with a broad border of cream-
white satin, with the same exquisite floral embroidery in
shades of blue silk. Above this Tvas a tippet of three
rows of embroidered lozenge -shaped "tabs" of satin.
The child wore a crown on her head, the basis of wliich
was black velvet. At the top was an aigrette of diamonds
of the purest water, the centre one as large as a six-
penny-piece. Solitaires flashing blue flames blazed all
over the cap, and the front was ornamented with a dragon
in fine filigree work in red Malay gold set with diamonds.
I fear to be thought guilty of exaggeration when I write
that this child wore seven necklaces, all of gorgeous beauty.
The stones were all cut in facets at the back, and highly
polished, and their beauty was enhanced by the good
taste and. skilful workmanship of the setting. The first
necklace was of diamonds set as roses and crescents,
some of them very large, and all of great brilliancy ; the
second of emeralds, a few of wliich were as large as acorns,
but spoilt by being pierced; the third of pearls set whole ;
the fourth of hollow filigTee beads in red, burned gold ;
the fifth of sapphires and diamonds ; the sixth a number
of finely worked chains of gold with a pendant of a gold
filigree fish set with diamonds ; the seventh, what they
all wear, a massive gold chain, which looked heavy enough
even by itself to weigh down the fi-agile little wearer,
from wliich depended a gold shield, on which the Cliinese
characters forming the child's name were raised in rubies,
L
146 THE GOLDEN CHERSOXESE. letter x.
with fishes and flowers in diamonds round it, and at the
back a god in rubies simihirly surrounded. Magnificent
diamond earrings and heavy gold bracelets completed the
display.
And all this weight of splendour, valued at the very
least at $40,000, was carried by a frail human mite
barely four feet high, with a powdered face, gentle,
pensive expression, and quiet grace of manner, who came
forward and most winsomely shook hands with us, as did
all the other grave gentle mites. They were also loaded
with gold and diamonds. Some sugar-plums fell on the
floor, and as the eldest girl stooped to pick them up,
diamond solitaires fell out of her hair, which were gathered
up by her attendants as if they were used to such occur-
rences. Whenever she moved her diamonds flashed,
scintillated, and gave forth their blue light. Then came
the children of the richest Chinaman in Malacca, but
the little gentle creatures were motherless, and mourn-
ing for a mother lasts three years, so they were dressed
in plain blue and wliite, and as ornaments wore only very
beautiful sapphires and diamonds set in silver.
Do not suppose that the Chinese New Year is a
fixed, annual holiday lasting a day, as in Scotland, and to
a minor extent in England. In Canton a month ago
active prejiarations were being made for it, and in Japan
nine weeks ago. It is a " movable feast," and is re-
gulated by the date on which the new moon falls nearest
to the day "when the sun reaches the 15° of Aquarius,"
and occurs this year on January 21st. Everything
becomes cheap before it, for shopkeepers are anxious to
realise ready money at any loss, for it is imperative that
all accounts be closed by the last day of the old year, on
pain of a man being disgraced, losing all hope of getting
credit, and of having his name written up on his door as
a defaulter. It appears also that debts which are not
LETTER X. NEW YEAE REJOICINGS. 147
settled by the Xew Year's Eve cannot thereafter be re-
covered, though it is lawful for a creditor who has vainly
hunted a debtor throughout that last night to pursue him
for the first hours after daybreak, provided he still carries
a lantern !
The festival lasts a fortnight, and is a succession of
feasts and theatrical entertainments, everybody's object
being to cast care and work to the winds. Even the
official seals of the mandarins are formally and with much
rejoicing sealed up and laid aside for one month. On the
20th day of the 12th month houses and temples are
thoroughly washed and cleaned, rich and poor decorate
with cloth-of-gold, silk embroideries, artificial and real
flowei's, banners, scrolls, lucky characters, illuminated
strips of paper, and bunches of gilt-paper flowers, and even
the poorest coolie contrives to greet the festival with
some natural blossom. There is no rest either by night
or day, joss-sticks burn incessantly, and lamps before the
ancestral tablets, gongs are beaten, gingalls fire inces-
santly, and great crackers like cartridges fastened together
in rows are let off at intervals before every door to
frighten away evil spirits : there are family banquets of
wearisome length, feasts to the household gods, offerings
in the temples, processions in the street by torch and
lantern light, presents are given to the living, and offer-
ings to the dead, the poor are feasted, and the general
din is heightened by messengers perambulating the
streets with gongs, calling them to the different banquets.
When the fortnight of rejoicing is over its signs are
removed, and after the outbreak of extravagant expendi-
ture the Chinese return to their quiet, industrious habits
and frugal ways.
Just as this brilliant display left the room, a figure
in richer colouring of skin appeared — Babu, the head
servant, in his beautiful Hadji dress. He wore white full
148 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter x.
trousers, drawn in tightly at the ankles over black shoes,
but very little of these trousers showed below a long, fine,
linen tunic of spotless white, with a girdle of orange
silk. Over this was a short jacket of rich green silk,
embroidered in front with green of the same colour, and
over all a pure white robe falling from the shoulders.
The turban was a Mecca turban made of many yards of
soft white silk, embroidered in white silk. It was difficult
to believe that this gorgeous Mussulman, in the odour
of double sanctity, with his scornful face and superb air,
could so far demean himself as to wait on " dogs of
infidels " at dinner, or appear in my room at the Stadt-
haus with matutinal tea and bananas !
This magnificence heralded the Datu Klana, Syed
Abdulrahman, the reigning prince of the native State of
Sungei Ujong, his principal wife, and his favourite daughter,
a girl of twelve. It has been decided that I am to go to
Sungei Ujong, and that I am to be escorted by Mr. Hay-
ward, the superintendent of police, but, unfortunately, I
am to go up in the Datu Klana's absence, and one object
of his visit was to express his regret. This prince has
been faithful to British interests, and is on most friendly
terms with the resident, Captain Murray, and the
Governor of Malacca. During his visit Babu inter-
preted, but Miss Shaw, who understands IMalay, said
that, instead of interpreting faithfuUy, he was making
enormous demands on my belialf ! At all events, Syed
Abdulrahman, with truly exaggerated Oriental politeness,
presented me with the key of his house in the interior.
This prince is regarded by Ikitish officials as an
enlightened ruler, though he is a rigid Mussulman.
His dress looked remarkably plain beside that of the
splendid Babu. He wore a Malay bandana handker-
chief round his head, knotted into a peak, a rich
brocade haju or short jacket, a dark Llanilla sarong.
LETTER X. A MOHAMMEDAN PRINCESS. 149
trousers of Mandarin satin striped with red, a girdle-
clasp set with large diamonds, and sandals with jewelled
cloth -of -gold straps. His wife, though elderly and
decidedly plain-looking, has a very pleasing expression.
She wore a black veil over her head, and her kccbaya, or
upper garment, was fastened with three diamond clasps.
The bright little daughter wore a green A'eil with gold
stars upon it over her head, and ornaments of rich, red
gold elaborately worked. Tlie Datu Klana apologised
for the extreme plainness of their dress by saying that
they had only just arrived, and that they had called
before changing their travelling clothes. When they
departed the two ladies threw soft silk shawls over
their heads, and held them so as to cover their faces
except their eyes.
There are now sixty-seven thousand Malays in the
British territory of Malacca, and the number is continually
increased by fugitives from the system of debt -slavery
which prevails in some of the adjacent states, and by
immigration from the same states of Malays who prefer
the security which British rule affords.
[The police-force is Malay, and it seems as if the
Malays had a special aptitude for this semi-military
service, for they not only form the well-drilled protective
forces of Malacca, Sungei Ujong, and Selangor, but that
fine body of police in Ceylon of which Mr. George
Campbell has so much reason to be proud. Otherwise
very few of them enter British employment, greatly pre-
ferring the easy, independent life of their forest kcnnjjonf/s.]
The commercial decay of Malacca is a very interest-
ing fact.^ Formerly fifty merchantmen were frequently
^ Linscholt, two hundred and seventy years ago, writes : — " TMs place
is the market of all India, of China, and the Moluccas, and of other islands
round about, from all which places, as well as from Banda, Java, Sumatra,
Siam, Pegu, Bengal, Coromandil, and India, arrive sliips which come and
go incessantly charged with an infinity of merchandises. "
150 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter x.
lying in its roads at one time. Here the Portuguese
fleet lay which escorted Xavier from Goa, and who can
say how many galleons freighted with the red gold of
Ophir floated on these quiet waters ! Now, Cliinese junks,
Malay prahus, a few Chinese steamers, steam-launches
from tlie native States, and two steamers which call in
passing, make up its trade. There is neither newspaper,
banker, hotel, nor resident English merchant. The half-
caste descendants of the Portuguese are, generally speak-
ing, indolent, degraded with the degradation that is boru
of indolence, and proud. The Malays dream away their
lives in the jungle, and the Chinese, who number twenty
thousand, are really the ruling population.
The former greatness of Malacca haunts one at all
times. The romantic exploits of Albuquerque, who
conquered it in 1511, apostrophised in the Lusiad —
" Not eastward far though fair Malacca lie,
Her groves embosomed in the morning sky,
Thoiigh with her amorous sons the valiant line
Of Java's isle in battle rank combine,
Though poisoned shafts their ponderous quivers store,
Malacca's spicy groves and golden ore,
Great Albuquerque, thy dauntless toils shall crown."
live again, though my sober judgment is that Albuquer-
que and most of his Portuguese successors were little
better than buccaneers.
I like better to think of Francis Xavier passing through
the tlioroughfares of wdiat M'as then the greatest com-
mercial city of the East, ringing liis bell, with the
solemn cry, " Pray for those who are in a state of mortal
sin." For among the " Jews, Turks, infidels, and here-
tics " wlio then thronged its busy streets, there were no
worse livers tlian tlie roystering soldiers who had fol-
lowed Albuquerque. Tradition among the present Por-
tuguese residents says that coarse words and deeds
LETTER X. FRANCIS XAVIEE. 151
disappeared from the thoroughfares under his holy influ-
ence, and that little altars were set up in public places,
round which the children sang hymns to Jesus Christ,
while the passers-by crossed themselves and bowed their
heads reverently. Now, the cathedral which crowns the
hill, roofless and ruinous, is only imposing from a dis-
tance, and a part of it is used for the storage of marine
or lighthouse stores under our prosaic and irreverent
rule. Xavier preached frequently in it and loved it
well, yet the walls are overgrown with parasites, and
the floor, under which many prelates and priests lie, is
liideous with matted weeds, which are the haunt of
snakes and lizards. Thus, in the city which was so
dear to Xavier that he desired to return to it to die
(and actually did die on his way tliither), the only
memento of him is the dishonoured ruin of the splendid
church in which his body was buried, with all the
population of Malacca following it from the yellow
strand up the grass-crowned hill, bearing tapers. This
wretched ruin is a contrast to the splendid mausoleum at
Goa, where his bones now lie, worthily guarded, in
coffins of silver and gold.
If the Portuguese were little better than buccaneers,
the Dutch who drove them out were little better than
hucksters, — mean, mercenary traders, without redeeming
qualities, content to suck the blood of their provinces
and give nothing in return, I should think that the
colony is glad to be finally rid of them. The English
took possession of it in 1795, but restored it to the
Dutch in 1818, regaining it again by treaty in 1824,
giving Bencoolen in Simiatra in exchange for it, stipulat-
ing at the same time that the Dutch were not to
meddle with Malayan affairs or have any settlement on
the Malay Peninsula. The ruined cathedral of Notre
Dame del Monte is a far more interesting object than
152 THE GOLDEX CHERSONESE. letter x.
tlie dull, bald, commonplace, flat-faced, prosaic, Dutch
meeting-liouse, albeit the latter is in excellent repair.
Even this Stadthaus, with its stately solitudes, smells of
trade, and suggests corpulent burgomasters and prim
burgomasters' wives in wooden hoops and stiff brocades.
The influence of Holland has altogether vanished, as is
fitting, for she cared only for nutmegs, sago, tapioca, tin,
and pepper.
The variety of races here produces a ludicrous effect
sometimes. In tlie Stadthaus one never knows who is
to appear — whether Malay, Portuguese, Chinaman, or
Madrassee. Yesterday morning, at six, the Chinaman
who usually " does " my room glided in murmuring some-
thing unintelligible, and on my not understanding him,
brought in a Portuguese interpreter. At seven came in
the Madrassee, Babu, with a cluster of bananas, and after
him two Malays in red sarongs, who brushed and dusted
all my clothes as slowly as they could — men of four
races in attendance before I was up in the morning !
This Chinese attendant, besides being a common coolie
in a brown cotton shirt over a brown cotton pair of
trousers, is not a good specimen of his class, and is a
great nuisance to me. My doors do not bolt properly,
and he appears in the morning while I am in my holokn,
writing, and sloM'ly makes the bed and kills mosquitos,
then takes one gown after another from the rail, and
stares at me till I point to the one I am going to wear,
which he holds out in his hands ; and though I point to
the door, and say " Go ! " with much emphasis, I never
get rid of him, and have to glide from my holokn into
my gown with a most unwilling dexterity.
Two days ago Captain Shaw declared that " pluck
should have its reward," and that I should have facilities
for going to Suugei Ujong. Yesterday he asked me to
take charge of his two treasured daughters. Then Babu
LETTER X. PROJECTS OF TRAVEL. 153
said, " If young ladies go, me go," and we are to travel
under the efficient protection' of Mr. Hayward, the
superintendent of police. This expedition excites great
interest in the little Malacca world. This native State
is regarded as " parts unknown ; " the Governor has
never visited it, and there are not wanting those who
shake their heads and wonder that he should trust liis
girls in a region of tigers, crocodiles, rogue elephants, and
savages ! The little steam-launch Moosmce (in reality
by far the greatest risk of all) has been brought into the
stream below the Stadthaus, ready for an early start
to-morrow, and a runner has been sent to the Eesident
to prepare him for such an unusual incursion into his
solitudes. I. L. B.
154 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. sungei
A CHAPTEE ON SUNGEI UJONG.
I HAD never heard of this little State until I reached
Singapore, and probably many people are as ignorant as
I was. The whole peninsula, from Johore in the south
to Kedah in the north, is a puzzle, what with British
colonies, Singapore, Malacca, and Province Wellesley,
and " Protected States," Sungei Ujong, Selangor, and
Perak, north, south, and east of which lie a legion of
unprotected Malay States, with then* independent rulers,
such as KC'dah, Patani, Tringganu, Kelantan, Paliang,
Johore, etc.^ In several of these States, more or less
anarchy prevails, owing to the ambitions and jealousies
of the Rajahs and their followers, and a similar state of
things in the three protected States formerly gave great
annoyance to the Straits Settlements Government, and
was regarded as a hindrance to the dominant interests of
British trade in the Straits.
In 1874, Sir A. Clark, the then Governor, acting in
lU'itish interests, placed British residents in Perak, Selan-
gor, and the small State of Sungei I^jong. These residents
were to advise the rulers in matters of revenue and general
administration, but, it may be believed, that as time has
passed, they have become more or less the actual rulers
' A numher of small states arc luiited iiito a sort of con federation
known as the Nef,'ri Sembilan, or Nine States. Their relative positions
and internal management, as well as their boundaries, remain unknown,
JUS from dread of British .inncxation they have refused to allow Europeans
to pass through their territory.
UJONG. SUXGEI UJONG. 155
of the States which they profess to advise merely. They
are the accredited agents of England, reporting annually
to the Straits Government, which, in its turn, reports to
the Colonial Office, and the amount of pressure which they
can bring to bear is overwhelming.
It is not easy to give the extent and boimdaries of
Simgei Ujong, the " boundary question " being scarcely
settled, and the territory to the eastward being only
partially explored. It is mainly an inland state, access to
its very limited seaboard being by the Linggi river. The
" protected" State of Selangor boimds it on the north, and
joining on to it and to each other on the east, are the
small " independent " states of Paimbow, Johol, Moar,
Sri Menanti, Jelabu, Jompol, and Jelai. The Linggi
river, which in its lower part forms the boundary
between Selangor and Malacca, forks in its upper part,
the right branch becoming for some distance the bound-
ary between Sungei Ujong and Eumbow. It is doubtful
whether the area of the State exceeds seven hundred
square miles.
The Malays of Sungei Ujong and several of the
adjacent states are supposed to be tolerably directly
descended from those of the parent empire Menang-
kabau in Sumatra, who conquered and have to a great
extent displaced the tribes known as Jakuns, Orang
Bukit, Eayet Utan, Samangs, Besisik, Eayet Laut, etc., the
remnants of which live mainly in the jungles of the
interior, are everywhere apart from the Malays, and are
of a much lower grade in the scale of ci^dlisation. The
story current among the best informed Malays of this
region is that a Sumatran chief with a large retinue
crossed to Malacca in the twelfth century, and went into
the interior, wliich he found inhabited only by the
Jakuns, or " tree people." There his followers married
Jakun women, and their descendants spread over Sungei
156 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. sdngei
Ujorig, Eumbow, and other parts, the llayet Laiit, or
" sea-people," the supposed Ichthyophagi of the ancients,
and the Eayet Utan, or " forest-people," betaking them-
selves to the woods and the seaboard hills.
Tliis mixed race rapidly increasing, divided into nine
petty states, under chiefs who rendered feudal service to
the Sultans of Malacca before its conquest by the Portu-
guese, and afterwards to the Sultan of Johore, at whose
court they presented themselves once a year. This con-
federation, called the Negri Sembilan, in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries made various commercial treaties
with the iHitch, but its domestic affairs were in a state
of chronic feud, and four of the states, late in the eighteenth
century, becoming disgusted with the arbitrary proceed-
ings of a ruler who, aided by Dutch influence, had
gained the ascendency over the whole nine, sent to Sum-
atra, the original source of government, for a prince of
the blood-royal of Menangkabau, and after a prolonged
conflict, this prince became sovereign of the little states
of Sungei Ujong, Eumbow, Johol, and Sri Menanti, the
chiefs of these states constituting his council of state.
This dynasty came to an end in 1832, and intrigues and
discord prevailed for many years, till the Datu Klana of
Sungei Ujong, troubled by a hostile neighbour in Eum-
bow and a hostile subject or rival at home, conceived
the bright idea of supporting his somewhat shaky throne
Ijy British protection.
After some curious negotiations, he succeeded in
obtaining both a Eesident and the English flag to
protect his little fortunes, but it is obvious that his
calling in foreign intervention was not likely to make
him popular with his independent neiglibours or dis-
affected subjects, and the troubles culminated in a " little
war," in which the attacking force was composed of a
few English soldiers, Malay military police, and a body
UJONG.
SYED ABDULEAHMAN. 157
of about eighty so-called Arabs, enlisted in Singapore and
taken to tlie scene of action by Mr. Fontaine. The
" enemy " was seldom obvious, but during the war it
inflicted a loss upon us of eight killed and twenty-three
woimded. We took various stockades, shot from sixty
to eighty Malays, burned a good deal of what was com-
bustible, and gave stability to the shaky rule of the
Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahmau. Of this prince, who
owed his firm seat on the throne to British intervention,
the Eesident wrote in 1880: — "Loyal to his engage-
ments, he had gained the good will of the British
Government. Straightforward, honest, and - truly charit-
able, he had gained the love and respect of almost every
one in Sungei Ujong, Chinese as well as Malay, and if
he had a fault he erred on the side of a weak belief
in the goodness of human nature, and often suffered in
consequence." This was Captain Murray's verdict after
nearly five years' experience.
The population of this tiny state, w-hich in 1832
consisted of three thousand two hundred Malays and
four hundred Chinese, at the time of my visit had risen
to twelve thousand, composed of three Europeans, a
few Klings, two thousand Malays, and ten thousand
Chinese. It exports tin in large quantities, gutta-percha
collected in the interior by the aborigines, coffee, which
promises to become an important production, buffalo
hides, gum dammar, and gharroo. In 1879 the exports
amounted to £81,976; £81,451 being the value of tin.
Its imports are little more than half this amount. Eice
heads the list with an import of £18,150 worth, and
opium comes next, valued at £1-4,448. The third
import in value is oil ; the next Chinese tobacco, the
next sugar, the next salt fish, and the next pigs ! The
Chinese of course consume most of what is imported,
being in a majority of five to one, and here as elsewhere
158 THE GOLDEN CHEKSONESE. sungei
they cany with them their rigid conservatism in dress,
mode of living, food, and amusements, and have a well-
organised and independent system of communication with
China. It is the Chinese merchant, not the British, who
benefits liy the rapidly augmenting Chinese population.
Thus in the import list the Chinese tobacco, pigs, lard,
onions, beans, vermicelli, salted vegetables, tea, crackers,
joss-sticks, matches, Chinese candles, Chinese clothing,
Chinese umbrellas, and several other small items, are all
imported from China.
Having been debited with a debt of £10,000 for
war expenses, to be paid off by instalments, the finances
were much hampered, and the execution of road-making
and other useful work has been delayed. This war debt,
heavy as it was, was exclusive of £6000 previously paid
off, and of heavy disbursements made to supjDly food and
forage for the British soldiers who were quartered in
Sungei Ujong for a considerable time. Apart from
this harassing debt, the expenses are pre-eminently
for " establishments," the construction of roads and
bridges, and pensions to Eajahs whose former sources of
revenue have been interfered with or abolished. The
sources of revenue are to some extent remarkable, and
it is possible that some of tliem might be altogether
abolished if public attention became focussed upon them.
Export duties are levied only on tin, the great product
of Sungei Ujong, and gutta-percha. The chief import-
duty is on opium, and in 1879 this produced £4182, or
about one -fourth of the whole revenue. Besides this
fruitful and growing source of income, £3074 was
raised in 1879 mider the head " Farms," a most innoc-
uous designation of a system which has nothing to do
with the " kindly fruits of the earth " at all, but witli
spirits, gambling, oil, salt, opium, and a lottery ! In
other words, the " farms " are so many monopolies, sold
UJONG. SCENERY AND PRODUCTIONS. 15»
at intervals to the highest bidder, the " gambling farm "
being the most lucrative of the lot to the Government,
and of course to the " farmer ! "
The prison expenses are happily small, and the
hospital expenses also, owing mainly in the former case
to the efforts of the " Capitans China," who are responsible
for their countrymen, and in the latter to the extreme
healthiness of the climate. The military police force
now consists of a European superintendent, ninety-four
constables, paid 45s. per month, and twelve officers, all
Malays ; but as it is Malay nature to desire a change,
and it is found impossible to retain the men for any
lengthened periods, it is proposed to employ Sikhs, as in
Perak.
Sungei Ujong, like the other States of the Peninsula,
is almost entirely covered with forests, now being cleared
to some extent by tapioca, gambir, and coffee-planters.
Its jungles are magnificent, its hill scenery very beautiful,
and its clunate singularly healthy. Pepper, coffee, tapioca,
cinchona, and ipecacuanha, are being tried successfully,
burnt earth, of which the natives have a great opinion,
and leaf mould being used in the absence of other
manure.
The rainfall is supposed to average 100 inches a
year, and since thermometrical observations have been
taken the mercury has varied from 68° to 92.° Prom
the mangrove swamps at the mouths of turbid, sluggish
rivers, where numberless alligators dwell in congenial
shme, the State gradully rises inland, passing tlnrough all
the unimaginable wealth of tropical vegetation and
produce till it becomes hilly, if not mountainous.
Sparkling streams dash through limestone fissures, the
air is clear, and the nights are fresh and cool. Its
mineral wealth lies in its tin mines, which have been
worked mainly by Chinamen for a great number of years.
160 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. sungei
The British Eesident, who was called in to act as
adviser, is practically the ruler of this little State, and
the arrangement seems to give tolerable satisfaction.
At all events, it has secured to Sungei Ujong since
the war an amount of internal tranquillity which is
not possessed by the adjacent States which are still
under native rule, though probably the dread of British
intervention and of being reduced to mere nominal
sovereignty, being " pensioned off " in fact, keeps the
Eajahs from indulging in the feuds and exactions of former
years. Since my visit the Datu Klana died of dysentery
near Jeddah in Arabia in returning from a pilgrimage to
Mecca, and three out of six of his followers perished of
the same disease. The succession was quietly arranged,
but the hope that the State to which its late ruler was
intensely, even patriotically attached might remain pros-
perous under the new Eajah, has not been altogether
fulfilled. Affairs are certainly not as satisfactory as they
were, judging from recent official statements. The import
of opium had largely increased. Rice planting had failed
owing to the mortality and sickness among the buffaloes
used in ploughing, the scanty crop was nearly destroyed
by rats, and the Malays had shown a " determmed oppo-
sition " to taking out titles to their lands.
The new Datu Klana is very unpopular, and so
remarkably weak in character as not to be able to bring
any influence to bear upon the settlement of any difficult
question. The Datu Bandar (alluded to in my letter) is
entirely opposed to progress of every kind, and, having a
great deal of influence, obstructs the present Resident in
every attempt to come to an understanding on the land
grant question. A virulent cattle disease had put an end
for the time being to cart traffic ; and the Linggi, the
great high-road to the tin-mines, liad become so shallow
that the means of water transport were very limited.
UJOSG. A "DUAL CONTROL." 161
Large numbers of jungle workers had returned to
Malacca. The Eesident's report shows very signifi-
cantly the formidable difliculties which attend on the
system of a " Dual Control," and on making any inter-
ference with " Malay custom " regarding land, etc. It is
scarcely likely, however, that Sungei Ujong and the
other feeble protected States which have felt the might
of British arms, and are paying dearly through long
years for their feeble efforts at independence, will ever
seek to shake off the present system, which, on the
whole, gives them security and justice.
M
162 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xi.
LETTEE XI.
Sempang Police Station,
(At the junction of the Loboli-Chena, ami Linggi rivers),
Territory of the Data Klana of Sungei Ujong, Malay Peninsula.
Jan. 24. 1 p.m. Mercury, 87°.
We left Malacca at seven this morning in the small,
unseaworthy, untrustworthy, unrigged steam - launch
Moosmee, and after crawling for some hours at a speed of
about five miles an hour along brown and yellow shores
with a broad, dark belt of palms above them, we left the
waveless, burning sea behind, and after a few miles of
tortuous steaming through the mangrove swamps of the
Linggi river, landed here to wait for sufficient water for
the rest of our journey.
This is a promontory covered with coco-palms,
bananas, and small jungle growths. On either side are
small rivers densely bordered by mangrove swamps.
The first sight of a real mangrove swamp is an event.
This mangi-mangi of the Malays (the Rhizoiohera mangil
of botanists) has no beauty. All along this coast within
access of tidal waters there is a belt of it many miles
in breadth, dense, impenetrable, from forty to fifty feet
high, as nearly level as may be, and of a dark, dull
green. At low water the mangroves are seen standing
close packed along the shallow and muddy shores on
cradles or erections of their own roots five or six feet
high, but when these are covered at high tide they
appear to be growing out of the water. They send down
LETTER XI. JUNGLE DWELLERS. 163
roots from their branches, and all too quickly cover a
large space. Crabs and other shellfish attach themselves
to them, and aquatic birds haunt their slimy shades.
They form huge breeding grounds for alligators and
mosquitos, and usually for malarial fevers, but from the
latter the Peninsula is very free. The seeds germinate
while still attached to the branch. A long root pierces
the covering and grows rapidly downwards from the
heavy end of the fruit, which arrangement secures that
when the fruit falls off the root shall at once become
embedded in the mud. Nature has taken abundant
trouble to ensure the propagation of this tree, nearly
worthless as timber. Strange to say, its fruit is sweet
and eatable, and from its fermented juice wine can be
made. The mangrove swamp is to me an evil mystery.
Behind, the jungle stretches out — who can say how
far, for no European has ever penetrated it? — and out of
it rise, jungle-covered, the Rumbow liills. The elephant,
the rhinoceros, the royal tiger, the black panther, the
boar, the leopard, and many other beasts, roam in its
tangled, twilight depths, but in this fierce heat they must
be all asleep in their lairs. The Argus-pheasant too, one
of the loveliest birds of a region whose islands are the
home of the Bird of Paradise, haunts the shade, and the
shade alone. In the jungle too is the beautiful bantam
fowl, the possible progenitor of all that useful race. The
cobra, the python (?), the boa-constrictor, the \aper, and
at least fourteen other ophidians, are winding their loath-
some and lissome forms through slimy jungle recessas;
and large and small apes and monkeys, flying foxes,
iguanas, lizards, peacocks, frogs, turtles, tortoises, alliga-
tors, besides tapirs, rarely seen, and the palandok or
chevrotin, the hog deer, the spotted deer, and the sambre,
may not be far off. I think that this part of the country,
intersected by small, shallow, muddy rivers, running up
164 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xi.
through slimy mangrove swamps into a vast and impene-
trable jungle, must be like many parts of Western Africa.
One cannot walk three hundred yards from this
station, for there are no tracks. "We are beyond the
little territory of Malacca, but this bit of land was ceded
to England after the "Malay disturbances " in 1875,
and on it has been placed the Sempang police station, a
four-roomed shelter, roofed with attap, a thatch made of
the fronds of the nipah palm, supported on high posts,
— an idea perhaps borrowed from the mangrove, — and
reached by a ladder. In this four Malay policemen and
a corporal have dwelt for three years to keep down
piracy. " Piracy," by which these rivers were said to be
infested, is a very ugly word, suggestive of ugly deeds,
bloody attacks, black flags, and no quarter ; but here it
meant, in our use of the word at least, a particular mode
of raising revenue, and no boat could go up or down the
Linggi ^vithout paying black mail to one or more river
rajahs.
Our wretched little launch, moored to a coco-pahn,
flies a blue ensign, and the Malay policemen wear an
imperial crown upon their caps, — both representing some-
what toucliingly in this equatorial jungle the might of
the small island lying far off amidst the fogs of the
northern seas, and in tliis instance at least not her
might only, but the security and justice of her rule.
Two or three canoes hollowed out of tree trunks have
gone up and down the river since we landed, each of the
inward bound being paddled by four men, who ply their
paddles facing forwards, which always has an aboriginal
look, those going down being propelled by single, square
sails made of very coarse matting. It is very hot and
silent. Tlie only sounds are the rustle of the palm
fronds and the sliarp din of the cicada, abruptly ceasing
at intervals.
LETTER XI. SHOOTING ALLIGATORS. 165
lu this primitive police station the notices are in both
Tamil and Arabic, but the reports are written in Ai'abic
only. Soon after we sat down to drink fresh coco-nut
milk, the great beverage of the country, a Malay bounded
up the ladder and passed through us w^th the most rapid
and feline movements I have ever seen in a man. His
large, prominent eyes were fixed, tiger-like, on a rifle
which hung on the wall, at which he darted, clutched it,
and, with a feline leap, sprang through us again. I have
heard much of amok running lately, and have even
seen the two-pronged fork which was used for pinning a
desperate amoh runner to the wall, so that for a second I
thought that this Malay was " running amuck;" but he
ran down towards Mr. Hayward, our escort, and I ran
after him, just in time to see a large alligator plunge
from the bank into the water. ]\Ir. Hayward took a
steady aim at the remaining one, and hit him, when
he sprang partly up as if badly wounded, and then
plunged into the river after his companion, staining the
muddy water with his blood for some distance.
Police Station, Permatang Pasir. Sunyci TJjowj, 5
P.M. — We are now in a native state, in the territory of
the friendly Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahman, and the
policemen wear on their caps not an imperial crown, but
a crescent, with a star between its horns.
This is a far more adventurous expedition than we
expected. Tilings are not going altogether as straight as
could be desired, considering that we have the Governor's
daughters with us, who, besides being very precious, are
utterly unseasoned and inexperienced travellers, quite
unfit for " roughing it." For one thing, it turns out to
be an absolute necessity for us to be out all night, whicli
I am very sorry for, as one of the girls is suffering from
the effects of exposure to the intense heat of the sun.
We left Sempang at two, the Misses Shaw reeling
166 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xi.
rather than walking to the launch. I cannot imagine
what the mercury was in the sun, but the copper sheath-
ing of the gunwale was too hot to be touched. Above
Sempang the river narrows and shoals rapidly, and we
had to crawl, taking soundings incessantly, and occasion-
ally dragging heavily over mud banks. We saw a large
alligator sleeping in the sun on the mud, with a mouth, I
should think, a third of the length of his body; and as he
did not wake as we panted past hun, a rifle was loaded
and we backed up close to him ; but Babu, wlio had the
weapon, and had looked quite swaggering and belligerent
so long as it was unloaded, was too frightened to fire, the
saurian awoke, and his hideous form and corrugated
hide plunged into the water so close under the stern as
to splash us. After this alligators were so common,
singly or in groups or in families, that they ceased to be
exciting. It is difficult for anything to produce continu-
ous excitement under this fierce sun, and conversation,
which had been flagging before noon, ceased altogetlier.
It was awfully liot in the launch, between fire and boiler
heat and solar fury. I tried to keep cool by thinking of
Mull, and powdery snow and frosty stars, but it would
not do. It was a solemn afternoon, as tlie white, unwink-
ing sun looked down upon our silent party, on the narrow
turljid river, silent too, except for the occasional plunge
of an alligator or otlier water monster, — on mangrove
swamps and nipah palms dense along tlie river side, on
tlie blue gleam of countless kingfishers, on slimy creeks
arched over to within a few feet of their surface by grand
trees with festoons of lianas, on an infinite variety of
foliage, on an aljundance of slender shafted palms, on
great fruits brilliantly coloured, on wonderful flowers on
the trees, on tlie hoya carnosa and otlier waxen-leaved
trailers matting the forest together and hanging down in
great festoons, the fiery tropic sunblaze stimulating all
LETTEE XL A SOMBEE-FACED THRONG. 167
this over production into perennial activity, and ■\-i\if}-ing
the very mnd itseli
Occasionally we passed a canoe with a "savage" crouch-
ing in it fishing, but saw no other trace of man, till an
hour ago we came upon large coco groves, a considerable
clearing in the jungle, and a very large ]!kIaIayan-Chinese
village with mosques, one on either side of the river,
houses built on platforms over the water, large and small
native boats covered and thatched with attajp, roofed plat-
forms on stilts answering the purpose of piers, bathing-
houses on stilts carefully secluded, all forming tlie (rela-
tively) important village of Permatang Pasir.
Up to this time we had expected to find perfectly
smooth sailing, as a runner was sent from Malacca to the
Besident yesterday. We supposed that we should be
carried in chairs six miles through the jungle to a point
where a gharrie could meet us, and that we should reach
the Eesidency by nine to-night at the latest. On arriv-
ing at Sempang Mr. Hayward had sent a canoe to this
place with instructions to send another runner to the
Eesident ; but
'*' The best laid sdiemes of men and mice gang a£k ^ee."
The messenger seemed to have served no other purpose
than to assemble the whole male population of Permatang
Pasir on the shore — a sombre-faced throng, with an
aloo&ess of manner and expression far from pleasing.
The thatched piers were crowded with turbaned Mussul-
men in their hajus or short jackets, full white trousers, and
red sarongs or pleatless kilts — tlie boys dressed in silver
fig-leaves and silver bangles L^nly. AU looked at our
unveiled faces silently, and, as I thought, disapprovingly.
After l»eing hauled up the pier with great difficulty,
owing to the lowness of the water, we were met by two
of the Datu Klana's policemen, who threw cold water on
168 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xi.
the idea of our getting on at all unless Captain Murray
sent for us. These men escorted us to this police
station, — a long walk through a lane of much decorated
shops, exclusively Chinese, succeeded by a lane of de-
tached Malay houses, each standing in its own fenced
and neatly- sanded compound under the shade of coco-
palms and bananas. The village paths are carefully
sanded and very clean. We emerged upon the neatly
sanded open space on which this barrack stands, glad to
obtain shelter, for the sun is still fierce. It is a genuine
Malay house on stilts ; but where there should be an
approach of eight steps there is only a steep ladder of
tliree round rungs, up which it is not easy to climb in
boots ! There is a deep veranda under an attap roof of
steep slope, and at either end a low bed for a constable,
with the usual very hard, circular Malay bolsters, %vith
red silk ends, ornamented with gold and silk embroidery.
Besides this verandah there is only a sort of inner
room, with just space enough for a table and four chairs.
The wall is hung with rifles, Jcrises, and handcuffs, with
which a " Sam Slick " clock, an engraving from the
Graphic, and some curious Turkish pictures of Stamboiil,
are oddly mixed up. Babu, the Hadji, having recovered
from a sulk into wliich he fell in consequence of Mr.
Hayward liaving quizzed him for cowardice about an
alligator, has made everything (our very limited every-
thing) quite comfortable, and, with as imposing an air as
if we were in Government House, asks us when we will
have dinner ! One policeman has brought us fresh coco-
nut milk, another sits outside pulling a small punkah,
and two more have mounted guard over us. This stilted
house is the barrack of eleven Malay constables. Under
it are four guns of light calibre, mounted on carriages,
and outside is a gong on which the policemen beat the
hours.
LETTER XI. FAIR IMPEDIMENTS. 169
At the river we were told that the natives would not
go up the shallow rapid stream by niglit, and now the
corporal says that no man will carry us through the
jungle ; that trees are lying across the track ; that there
are dangerous swamp holes ; that though the tigers which
infest the jungle never attack a party, we might chance
to see their glaring eyeballs ; that even if men could be
bribed to undertake to carry us, they would fall with us,
or put us down and run away, for no better reason than
that they caught sight of the " spectre bird " (the owl) ;
and he adds, with a gallantry remarkable in a Moham-
medan, that he should not care about Mr. Hayward, but
" it would not do for the ladies." So we are apparently
stuck fast, the chief cause for anxiety and embarrassment
being that the youngest Miss Shaw is lying huddled up
and shivering on one of the beds, completely prostrated
by a \4olent sick headache brought on by the heat of the
sun in the launch. She declares that she cannot move ;
but our experienced escort, who much fears bilious fever
for her, is resolved that she shall as soon as any means
of transit can be procured. Heretofore I have always
travelled "without encumbrance." Is it treasonable to feel
at this moment that these fair girls are one ?
I. L. B.
170 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xii.
LETTER XII.
British Residency, Serambang, Sungei Ujong,
January 26.
By the date of my letter you will see tliat our difficulties
have been surmounted. I continue my narrative in a
temperature which, in my room — shaded though it is —
lias reached 87°. After hearing many pros and cons, and
longing much for the freedom of a solitary traveller, I
went out and visited the tomb of a famous Hadji, " a
great prophet," the policeman said, who was slain in
ascending the Linggi. It is a raised mound, like our
churchyard graves, with a post at each end, and a jar of
oil upon it, and is suiTOunded by a lattice of reeds on
which curtains are hanging, the whole being covered with
a thatched roof supported on posts.
The village looks prosperous, and the Chinaman as
much at home as in China, — striving, thriving, and oblivi-
ous of everything but his own interests, the sole agent in
the development of the resources of the country, well
satisfied with our or any rule under which his gains are
quick and safe.
Ther6 are village officers or headmen, Pangulus, in all
\-illages, and every hamlet of more than forty houses has
its mosque and religious officials, though Mohammedanism
does not recognise the need of a priesthood. If one sees
a man, with the upper part of his body unclothed, paddling
a log canoe face forwards, one is apt to call him a savage,
LETTER XII. "DURANCE VILE." 171
specially if lie be dark-skiuned ; but the jMalays would be
much oftended if they were called savages, and, indeed,
they are not so. They have an elaborate civilisation,
etiquette, and laws of their own, are the most rigid of
monotheists, are decently clothed, build secluded and
tolerably comfortable houses, and lead domestic lives after
their fashion, especially where they are too poor to be
polygamists, though I am of opinion that the peculiar form
of domesticity which we still cultivate to some extent
in England, and which is largely connected with the fire-
side, cannot exist in a tropical country. After the obtru-
sive nudity and promiscuous bathing of the Japanese,
there is something specially pleasing in the little se-
cluded bathing sheds by the Malay rivers, used by one
person at a time, who throws a sarong on the thatch to
show that the shed is occupied.
Babu made some excellent soup, which, together
with curry made with fresh coco-nut, was a satisfactory
meal, and though only in a simple, white, Indian costume,
he waited as gi'andly as at Malacca. Mr. Hayward's
knowledge of the peculiarities of the Malay character at
last obtained our release from what was truly " durance
A'ile." He sent for a boatman apart from liis fellows,
and induced him to make a bargain for taking us up the
river at night ; but the man soon returned in a state of
great excitement, complaining that the villagers had set
on him, and were resolved that we should not go up, upon
which the police went down and interfered. Even after
everything was settled. Miss Shaw was feeling so ill that she
wanted to stay in the police station all night at least ; but
!Mr. Hajn^-ard and I, who consulted assiduously about her,
were of opinion that we must move her, even if we had to
carry her, for if she were going to have fever, I could nurse
her at Captain Murray's, but certainly not in the verandah
of a police station !
172 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xir.
This worthy man, wlio is very lirave and used to fac-
ing danger — who was the first European to come up here,
who acted as guide to the troops during the war, and
afterwards disarmed the population — positively quailed
at having the charge of these two fragile girls. " Oh," he
repeated several times, " if anything were to happen to the
Misses Shaw I should never get over it, and they don't
know wliat roughing it is ; they never should have been
allowed to come." So I thought too as I looked at one
of them lying limp and helpless on a Malay bed ; but my
share of the responsibility for them was comjiaratively
limited. Doubtless his thoughts strayed, as mine did, to
the days of travelling " without encumbrance." There
was anotlier encumbrance of a literal kind. They had a
trunk ! This indispensable impediment had been left at
Malacca in the morning, and arrived in a four-paddled
canoe just as we were about to start !
Mr. Hay ward prescribed two tablespoonfuls of whisky
for Miss Shaw, for it is somewhat of a risk to sleep out in
the jungle at the rainy season, for the miasma rises twenty
feet, and the day had been exceptionally hot. Our rather
dismal procession started at seven, Mr. Hayward leading
the way, carrying a torch made of strips of palm branches
bound tiglitly together and dipped in gum dannnar, a
most inflammable resin ; then a policeman ; the sick girl,
moaning and stumbling, leaning heavily on her sister
and me ; Labu, wlio liad grown very plucky ; a train of
policemen carrying our baggage ; and lastly, several torch-
bearers, the torches dripping fire as we slowly and speech-
lessly passed along. It looked like a funeral or some-
thing uncanny. We crawled dismally for fully three-
(piarters of a mile to cut off some considerable windings
of the river, crcjssed a stream on a plank bridge, and
foun<l our boat lying at a very high pier with a thatched
roof.
LETTER xii. OUR CRAFT. 173
The mystery of uight iii a strange place was wildly
picturesque ; the pale, greenish, undulating light of fireflies,
and the broad, red, waving glare of torches flashing fitfully
on the skeleton pier, the lofty jungle trees, the dark, fast-
flowing river, and the dark, lithe forms of our half -naked
boatmen. The _prahu was a flatfish bottomed boat about
twenty-two and a half feet long by six and a half feet
broad, with a bamboo gridiron flooring resting on the gun-
wale for the greater part of its length. This was covered
for seven feet in the middle by a low, circular roof,
thatched witli attap. It was steered by a broad paddle
loosely lashed, and poled by three men who, standing at
the bow, planted their poles firmly in the mud and then
walked half way down the boat and back again. All
craft must ascend the Linggi by this laborious process,
for its current is so strong that the Japanese would call
it one long " rapid." Descending loaded with tin, the
stream brings boats down with gi^eat rapidity, the poles
being used only to keep them off the banks and shallows.
Our boat was essentially " native."
The " Golden Chersonese " is very hot, and much
infested by things which bite and sting. Though the
mercury has not been lower than 80° at night since I
reached Singapore, I have never felt the heat overpower-
ing in a house ; but the night on the river was awful, and
after the intolerable blaze of the day the fighting with
the heat and mosquitos was most exhausting, crowded as
we were into very close and uneasy quarters, a bamboo
gTidiron being by no means a bed of down. Bad as it
was, I was often amused by the thought of the unusual
feast which the jungle mosquitos were having on the
blood of four white people. If it had not been for the
fire in the bow, which helped to keep them down by
smoking them (and us), I at least should now be laid up
with "mosquito fever."
174 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xii.
The jMisses Shaw and I were on a blanket on the grid-
iron under the roof, which just allowed of sitting up; Mr.
Hayward, who had never been up the river before, and
was anxious about the navigation, sat, vigilant and lynx-
eyed, at the edge of it ; Babu, who had wrapped himself
in Oriental inipassiveness and a bernouse, and Mr. Hay-
ward's police attendant sat in front, all keeping their posi-
tions throughout the night as dutifully as the figures in a
tableau vivant ; and so we silently left Permatang Pasir
for our jungle voyage of eighteen hours, in which time,
by unintermitting hard work, we were propelled about
as many miles, though some say twenty-nine.
No description could exaggerate the tortuosity of the
Linggi or the abruptness of its windings. The boatmen
measure the distance by turns. When they were asked
when we should reach the end they never said in so
many hours, but in so many turns.
Silently we glided away from the torchlight into the
apparently impenetrable darkness, but the heavens, of
which we saw a patch now and then, were ablaze witli
stars, and ere long the forms of trees above and around
us became tolerably distinct. Ten hours of darkness
followed as we poled our slow and tedious way through
the forest gloom, with trees to right of us, trees to left of
us, trees before us, trees behind us, trees above us, and, 1
may write, trees under us, so innumerable were the snags
and tree trunks in the river. The night was very still,
— not a leaf moved, and at times the silence was very
solemn. I expected indeed an unbroken silence, but
there were noises that I shall never forget. Several times
there was a long shrill cry, much like the Australian
" Coo-ee," answered from a distance in a tone almost
liuman. This was the note of the gi-and night bird, the
Argus pheasant, and is said to resemble the cry of the
"orang-utan," the Jakkuns, or the wild men of the
LETTER XII. XOCTURXAL RE\T:LATI0XS. 175
interior. A sound like the constant blowing of a steam-
whistle in the distance was said to be produced by a
large monkey. Yells hoarse or shrill, and roars more or
less guttural, were significant of any of the %vild beasts
with which the forest abounds, and recalled the verse in
Psalm civ., " Thou makest darkness that it may be riight,
wherein all the beasts of the forest do move." Then
there were cries as of fierce gambols, or of pursuit and
capture, of hunter and -sdctim ; and at times, in the midst
of profound stillness, came huge plungings, with accom-
panpng splashiugs, which I thought were made by alli-
gators, but which Captain Murray thinks were more
likely the riot of elephants disturbed while drinking.
There were hundreds of mysterious and unfamiliar sounds
great and small, significant of the unknown beast, reptile,
and insect world which the jungle hides, and then
silences.
Sheet lightning, very blue, revealed at intervals the
strong stream swii'ling past under a canopy of trees
falling and erect, with straight stems one hundred and
fifty feet high probably, surmounted by crowns of droop-
ing branches ; palms with their graceful plumage ; lianas
hanging, looping, twisting — their orange fruitage hanging
over our heads ; great black snags ; the lithe, wiry forms
of our boatmen always straining to their utmost ; and the
motionless white turban of the Hadji, — all for a second
relieved against the broad blue flame, to be again lost
in darkness.
The Linggi above Permatang Pasir, with its sharp
turns and muddy hurry, is, I should say, from thirty to
sixty feet wide, a mere pathway through the jungle.
Do not think of a jungle, as I used to think of it, as an
entanglement or thicket of profuse and matted scrub, for
it is in these regions at least a noble forest of majestic
trees, many of them supported at their roots by three
176 r-z. l^IS CHERSOXE&E. ^rii^ xn.
battre^es, beMod wHeh tMrtr men could find shelter.
On many of the top branches of these oILher trees have
taken lootL inmi seeds deposited bj Imds, and hare
attained oon^daable die; and all send down, as it
sypears, extnoidinaij crUndiical strands from two to six
indies in djamdcer, and often one bnndied and fiftf feet
in lengthy smooth and stiai^t nntil they root thransehres,
lookiiig like the gnys of a mast Under these giants
stand the lesser tzees grained in ^onons confus ::. —
coco, sago, aieca, and gomudi palms, nipak and
palms, tzee ferns fifteen and twenty fe^ hi^ the -
frmt, the ebony, l^e damar, the indiambber, the .
povjia, die c^epot, t^ banyan, the npas, the *:
or eott : n tr^e. and hosts of othras, many of whi
bnfni;-.' : d — ts. but haTe not ydt been botaniae
I car. _ ~- --T^-di barbarous names as cfa...i^'... -.
Kam .■■u''^^ dadap; and, loreliest of all, the
warii : ^'!nis, graceful as a birch; and
underT-r ... . . .^ ferns, ground orchids, and
flowermir si: ^vy, delioous odour, are inter-
lo^t Oh iSiat you could see it all '.
It is ~ liztui; no words could describe it, far less
mine. Mr. Darwin sars so trulr that a Tisit to the
tropics (and sodi tropics) is like a visit to a new planet.
Tlii=t new wonder-world, so enchanting, tantalising, intocsi-
catii^ makes me despair, for I cannot make yon see
what I am sedng I Amidst all this wealth of nature and
in tiiis perennial summer heat I quite fail to realise that it
is January, and that with yon the withered plants are
sfariTeDiiig in the frost-bound earth, and that leafless twigs
and ihe needles of half-starred pines are shirering nnder
the stars in the anrora'-li^ted winter nighta
But to the jun^ agam- ^Ehe great bamboo towers
jrp alooog the river sides in its featheiy grace, and behind
it the mnch-prized Malacca cane, the rattan, creeping along
LETTER XII.
GLORIES OF THE JUNGLE.
177
the ground or climbing trees and knotting tliem together,
with its tough strands, from a hundred to twelve hundred
feet in length, matted and matting together ; while ferns,
ELK HORN FERN.
selaginellas, and lycopodiums struggle for space in
which to show their fragile beauty, along wath har-
dier foliaceous plants, brown and crimson, green and
crimson, and crimson flecked with gold ; and the gi-eat
and lesser trees alike are loaded with trailers, ferns, and
orchids, among which huge masses of the elk horn fern
and the shining five-foot fronds of the AspUnium Nidus
N
178 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xii.
are everywhere conspicuous. Not only do orchids crowd
the branches, and the hoya carnosa, the yam, the bhie-
blossomed Thunbergia, the vanilla (?), and other beautiful
creepers, conceal the stems, while nearly every parasitic
growth carries another parasite, but one sees here a
filament carelessly dangling from a branch sustainmg
some bright-hued epiphyte of quaint mocking form ; then
a branch as thick as a clipper's mainmast reaches across
the river, supporting a festooned trailer, from whose stalks
hang, almost invisibly suspended, oval fruits almost Ver-
million coloured ; then again the beautiful vanilla and the
hoi/a carnosa vie ^vith each other in wTeathing the same
tree : or an audacious liana, with great clusters of orange
or scarlet-blossoms, takes possession of several trees at
once, lighting up the dark greenery with its flaming
splotches ; or an aspiring trailer, dexterously linking its
feebleness to the strength of other plants, leaps across the
river from tree to tree at a height of a hundred feet, and,
as though in mockery, sends down a profusion of crimson
festoons far out of reach. But it is as useless to attempt
to catalogue as to describe. To realise an equatorial
jungle one must see it in all its wonderment of activity
and stillness — the heated, steamy stillness tlirough which
one fancies that no breeze ever Avhispers, with its colossal
flowermg trees, its gi-een twilight, its inextricable involve-
ment, its butterflies and moths, its brilliant but harsh
voiced birds, its lizards and flying foxes, its infinite
variety of monkeys — sitting, hanging by hands or tails,
leaping, grimacing, jabbering, pelting each other with
fruits ; and its loathsome saurians, lying in wait on
slimy banks under the mangi'oves. All this and far more
the dawn revealed upon the Linggi river ; 1)ut strange
to say, through all the tropic splendour of the morning
I saw a vision of the Tricntalis EurojKm, as we saw it
first on a mossy hillside in fJlen Caunich !
TojciM fins.
GREATER MOTH ORCHID.
LETTER XII. AN UNEASY NIGHT. 179
But I am fonrettins: that the nicrht with its blackness
and mystery came before the sunrise, that the stars
sekloui looked throusjh the dense leafage, and that the
pale green lamps of a luminous fungus here and there,
and the cold blue sheet lightning, only served to intensify
the solemnity of the gloom. "Wliile the blackest part of
the night lasted the " view " was usually made up of the
black river under the foliage, with scarcely ten yards of
its course free from obstruction, — sreat snasjs all along it
sticking up menacingly, trees lying half or quite across
it, with barely room to pass under them, or sometimes
under water, when the boat " drave heavily " over them,
while great branches brushed and ripped the thatch
continually ; and as one obstacle was safely passed, the
rapidity of the current invariably canted us close on
another, but the vigilant skill of the boatmen averted the
slightest accident. "Jcujal JagaV — caution ! caution ! —
was the constant cry. The most unpleasant sensations
were produced by the constant ripping and tearing
sounds as we passed under the low tunnel of vegetation,
and by the perpetual bumping against timber.
The ]\Iisses Shaw passed an uneasy night. The
whisky had cured the younger one of her severe sick
headache, and she was the prey of many terrors. They
thought that the boat woidd be ripped up ; that the roof
would be taken off ; that a tree would fall and crush us ;
that the boatmen, when they fell overboard, as they often
did, would be eaten by alligators ; that they would see
glaring eyeballs whenever the cry "Eirnou!" — a tiger! —
was raised from the bow; and they continually awoke me
with news of sometliing that was happening or about to
happen, and were drolly indignant because they could
not sleep ; wliile I, a llasdc old campaigner, slept whenever
they would let me.
Day broke in a heavy mist, which disappeared
180 THE r.OLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xii.
inagically at sunrise. As the great sun wheeled rapidly-
above the horizon and blazed upon us with merciless
fierceness, all at once the jungle became vociferous.
Loudly clattered the busy cicada, its simultaneous din,
like a concentration of the noise of all the looms in the
world, suddenly breaking off into a simultaneous silence ;
the noisy insect world chirped, cheeped, buzzed, whistled ;
birds hallooed, hooted, wliooped, screeched ; apes in a
loud and not inliarmonious chorus greeted the sun ; and
monkeys chattered, yelled, hooted, quarrelled, and splut-
tered. The noise was tremendous. But the forest was
absolutely still, except when some heavy fruit, over ripe,
fell into the river with a splash. The trees above us
were literally alive with monkeys, and the curiosity of
some of them about us was so great that they came down
on " monkey ropes " and branches for the fun of touching
the roof of the boat with their hands while they hung by
their tails. They were all full of frolic and mischief.
Then we had a slim repast of soda water and
bananas, the Hadji worshipped with his face towards
Mecca, and the boatmen prepared an elaborate curry for
themselves, witli salt fish for its basis, and for its tastiest
condiment Uachanrj — a ]\Ialay preparation much relished
by European lovers of durian and decomposed cheese.
It is made by trampling a mass of putrefying prawns
and shrimps into a paste with bare feet. This is seasoned
with salt. The smell is penetrating and lingering. Our
men made the boat fast, rinsed their moutlis, washed
their hands, and ate, using their fingers instead of chop-
sticks. Poor fellows ! they had done twelve hours of
splendid work.
Then one of tliem prepared tlie betel nut for the
rest. I think I have not yet alluded to this abominable
practice of betel nut chewing, wliich is universal among
the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, the betel nut
^■' ^ W/^^: ''«lt.
f
-i-ffj.
'*^^^^9**3I!**<<R
To faff p. IHl.
ARECA PALM (Areca catechu).
LETTER XII. BETEL CHEWING. 181
being as essential to a Malay as tobacco is to a Japanese,
or opium to the confirmed Chinese opium-smoker. It is
a revolting habit, and if a person speaks to you wliile
he is chewing his " quid " of betel, his mouth looks as
if it were full of blood. People say that the craving for
stimulants is created by our raw, damp climate ; but it
is as strong here at the equator, in this sunny, balmy
air. I have not yet come across a region in which men,
weary in body or spirit, are not seeking to stimulate or
stupefy themselves. The Malay men and women being
proliibited by the Koran from using alcohol, find the
needed fillip in this nut, but it needs preparation before it
suits their palates.
The betel nut is the fruit of the lovely, graceful, slender-
shafted areca palm. This tree at six years old begins to
bear about one hundred nuts a year, which grow in
clusters, each nut being about the size of a nutmeg and
covered with a yellow, fibrous husk. The requisites for
chewing are — a small piece of areca nut, a leaf of the
Sirih or betel pepper, a little moistened lime, and, if
people wish to be very luxurious, a paste made of spices.
The Sirih leaf was smeared with a little fine Hme taken
from a brass box ; on this was laid a little brownish
paste, on this a bit of the nut ; the leaf was then folded
neatly round its contents, and the men began to chew,
and to spit, the inevitable consequence. The practice
stains the teeth black. I tasted the nut, and found it
pungent and astringent, not tempting. The Malays
think that you look like a beast if you have white teeth !
The heat was exhausting, the mercury 87° in the
shade as early as 8.30, and we all suffered more or less
from it in our cramped position and enforced inactivity.
At nine, having been fourteen hours on the river, we
came on a small cleared space, from which a bronzed,
frank-faced man, dressed in white linen, hallooed to us
182 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xii.
jovially, and we were soon warmly greeted by Captain
Murray, the British Kesident in the State of Sungei
Ujong. On seeing him we hoped to find a gharrie and
to get some breakfast, and he helped us on shore as if
our hopes were to be realised, and dragged us under the
broiling sun to a long shed, the quarters of a hundred
Chinese coolies, who are making a road through the
jungle. We sat down on one of the long matted plat-
forms which serve them for beds and talked, but there
was no hint of breakfast, and we soon learned that the
Malacca runner had not reached the Eesidency at all, and
that the note sent from Permatang Pasir which should
have been delivered at 1 A.M., had not been received till
8 A.M., so that Captain jVlurray had not been able to arrange
for our transport, and had had barely time to ride down to
meet us at such " full speed " as a swampy and partially
made road would allow. So our dreams of breakfast
ended in cups of stewed tea given to us by a half-naked
Chinaman, and to our chagrin we had to go back to the
boat and be poled up the shallowing and narrowing
river for four hours more, getting on with difficulty, the
boatmen constantly jumping into the water to heave the
boat off mud banks.
When we eventually landed at Kioto, a small village,
Captain Muri-ay again met us, and we found a road and
two antiquated buggies, sent by a Chinaman, with their
component parts much lashed together with rope. I
charioteered one of these with reins so short that I could
only reach them hj sitting on the edge of tlie seat, and
a whip so short that I could not reach the pony with it.
At a Chinese village some policemen brought us coco-
nut milk. After that the pony could not or would not
go, and the Malay syce with difficulty got it along by
dragging it, and we had to walk up every hill in the
fierce heat of a tropic noon. At the large Chinese
in
■SI
<
O
W
o
o
Pi
LETTKR XII. THE JOURNEY'S END. 183
village of Eassa a clever little Sumatra pony met us, and
after passing through some roughish clearings, on which
tapioca is being planted, we arrived here at 4 P.M.,
having travelled sixty miles in thirty-three hours.
The Residency is on a steepish hill in the middle of
an open valley, partially cleared and much defaced by tin
dirrorino-s. The Chinese town of Serambang lies at the
foot of the hill. The valley is nearly surrounded by
richly- wooded hills, some of them fully three thousand feet
high. These, which stretch away to the northern State
of Selangor, are bathed in indigo and cobalt, slashed
with white here and there, where cool streams dash over
forest-shaded ledges. The house consists of two attap
roofed bungalows, united by their upper verandahs.
Below there are a garden of acclimatisation and a lawn,
on which the Resident instructs the bright little daughter
of the Datu Klana in lawn tennis. It was very hot, but
the afternoon airs were strong enough to lift the British
ensign out of its hea\7- folds and to rustle the graceful
fronds of the areca palms.
Food was the first necessity, then baths, then sleep,
then dinner at 7.30, and then ten hours more sleep.
I. L. B.
184 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
LETTEE XIII.
Residency, Sdngei Ujong,
Jamiary 'iOth.
"We have been here for four days. The heat is so great
that it is wonderful that one can walk about in the sun-
shine ; but the nights, though the mercury does not fall
below 80°, are cool and refreshing, and the air and soil
are both dry, though a hundred inches of rain fall in the
year. These wooden bungalows are hot, for the attap
roofs have no lining, but they are also airy. There is no
one but myself at night in the one in which my room is,
but this is nothing after the solitude of the great, ramb-
ling Stadthaus. Since we came a sentry has been on
duty always, and a bull-dog is chained at the foot of the
ladder wliich leads to both bungalows. But there is
really nothing to fear from these " treacherous Malays."
It is most curious to see the appurtenances of civilisation
in the heart of a IMalay jungle, and all the more so
because our long night journey up the Linggi makes it
seem more remote than it is. We are really only sixty
miles from ^Malacca.
The drawing-room has a good piano, and many
tasteful ornaments, books, and china, — gifts from loving
friends and relations in the far off home, — and is as livable
as a bachelor would be likely to make it. There is a
billiard table in the corridor. The dining-room, which is
reached by going out of doors, with its red-tiled floor and
LETTER XIII. BABU. 185
walls of dark, impolished wood, is very pretty. In the
middle of the dinner table there is a reflecting lake for
" hothouse flowers"; and exquisite crystal, menu cards witli
holders of Dresden china, four classical statuettes in Parian,
with pine -apples, granadillas, bananas, pomegranates,
and a diirian blanda, are the " table decorations." The
cuisine is almost too elaborate for a traveller's palate,
but plain meat is rarely to be got, and even when pro-
curable is unpalatable unless disguised. Curry is at
each meal, but it is not made with curry powder. Its
basis is grated coco-nut made into a paste with coco-nut
milk, and the spices are added fresh. Turtles when
caught are kept in a pond until they are needed, and we
have turtle soup, stewed turtle, curried turtle, and turtle
cutlets ad nauseam. Fowls are at every meal, but
never plain roasted or plain boiled. The first day there
was broiled and stewed elephant trunk, which tastes much
like beef.
Babu, who is always en grand tcnuc, has taken com-
mand of everything and saves our host all trouble. He
carves at the sideboard, scolds the servants in a stage
whisper, and pushes them indignantly aside when they
attempt to offer anything to " his young ladies," reduces
Captain Murray's butler to a nonentity, and as far as he
can turns the Eesidency into Government House, waiting
on us assiduously in our rooms, and taking care of our
clothes. The dinner bell is a buG;le.
In houses in these regions there is always a brick-floored
bathroom, usually of large size, under your bedroom, to
which you descend by a ladder. This is often covered
by a trap-door, which is sometimes concealed by a couch,
and in order to descend the sofa cushion is lifted. Here
it is an open trap in the middle of the room. A bath is
a necessity — not a luxury — so near the equator, and it is
usual to take one three, four, or even five times a day.
18G THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
with much refreshment. One part of Babu's self-im-
posed duty is to look uuder our pillows for snakes and
centipedes, and the latter have been found in all our
rooms.
I must now make you acquainted with our host,
Captain ^Murray. He was appointed ^^•hen the Datu
Klana asked for a Eesident four years ago. He devotes
himself to Sungei Ujong as if it were his own pro-
perty, though he has never been able to acquire the
language. He is a man about thirty-eight, a naval otiicer,
and an enterprising African traveller ; under the middle
height, bronzed, sun-browned, disconnected in his conversa-
tion from tlie habit of living without any one in or out of
the house to speak to ; professing a misanthropy which he
is very far from feeling, for he is quite unsuspicious, and
disposed to think the best of everyone ; hasty when vexed,
but thoroughly kindhearted ; very blunt, very undignified,
never happy (he says) out of the wilds ; thoroughly well
disposed to the Chinese and Malays, but very impatient
of their courtesies, thoroughly well meaning, thoroughly a
gentleman, but about the last person that I should have
expected to see in a position which is said to require much
tact if not finesse. His success leads me to think, as I
have often thought before, that if we attempt to deal with
Orientals by their own methods, we are apt to find them
more than a match for us, and that thorough honesty is
the best policy.
He lives alone, ungniarded ; trusts himself by night and
day without any escort among the people ; keeps up no
ceremony at all, and is approachable at all hours. Like
most travellers, he has some practical knowledge of medi-
cine, and lie gives advice and medicines most generously,
allowing liimself to be interrupted by patients at all hours.
There is no doctor nearer than Malacca. He has been
so successful that people come from the neighbouring
LETTER xiii. AN EMBODIED GOVERNMENT. 187
States for his advice. There is very little serious disease,
but children are subject to a loathsome malady called
puru. Two were brought with it to-day. The body and
head are covered with pustules containing matter, looking
very much like smallpox, and the natives believe that it
must run its course for a year. Captain Murray cures it
in a few days with iodide of potassium and iodine, and he
says that it is fast disappearing.
Captain Murray is judge, " sitting in Equity," Super-
intendent of Police, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sur-
veyor of Taxes, besides being Board of Trade, Board of
Works, and I know^ not what besides. In fact he is the
Government, although the Datu Klana's signature or seal
is required to confirm a sentence of capital punishment,
and possibly in one or two other cases ; and his Eesi-
dential authority is subject only to the limitations of his
own honour and good sense, sharpened somewhat, were
he other than what he is, by possible snubs from the
Governor of the Straits Settlements or the Colonial
Secretarv. He is a thoroughlv honourable man, means
well by all the interests of his little kingdom, and seems
both beloved and trusted.
On Sunday morning we had English ser\dce and a
sermon, the congregation being augmented by the only
other English people, a man from Australia who is here
road-making, and his wife ; and in the afternoon, dis-
regarding a temperature of 85°, we went through the
Chinese village of Serambang.
Tin is the staple product of Sungei Ujong, and until
lately the Malay peninsula and the adjacent regions were
supposed to be the richest tin producing countries in the
world. There is not a single tin mine, however, properly
so called. The whole of the tin exported from Sungei
Ujong, which last year (1879), even at its present reduced
price, was valued at £81,400, and contributed as export
188 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
duty to the Government £5800, is found in the detritus
of ancient mountains, and is got, in mining parlance, in
" stream works," — that is, by washing the soil, just as gold
is washed out of the soil in Australia and California. It
is supposed tliat there is a sufficient supply to last for
ages, even though the demand for tin for new purposes
is always on the increase. It is tin mining which has
brought the Chinese in such numbers to these States,
and as miners and smelters they are equally efficient and
persevering. In 1828 the number of Chinese working
the mines here was one thousand, and in the same year
they were massacred by the IMalays. They now number
ten thousand, and under British protection have nothing
to fear.
It is stiU the new-year holidays, and hundreds of
Chinamen were lounging about, and every house was gaily
decorated. The Malays never join house to house, the Chi-
nese always do so, and this \illage has its streets and plaza.
The houses are all to a certain extent fireproof — that is,
when a fire occurs, and the atta}) thatched roofs are burned,
the houses below, wliich are mostly shops, are safe. These
shops, some of which are very large, are nearly dark.
They deal mainly in Cliinese goods and favourite Chinese
articles of food, fireworks, mining tools, and kerosene oil.
In one sliop twenty " assistants," with only tlieir loose
cotton trousers on, were sitting at round tables having a
meal — not their ordinary diet, I sliould tliink, for they
had seventeen different sorts of soups and stews, some of
them abominations to our thinking.
We visited the little joss-house, very gaudily decorated,
the main feature of the decorations lieing two enormous
red silk umbrellas, exquisitely embroidered in gold and
silks. The crowds in this village remind me of Canton, but
the Chinese look anything but picturesque here, for none
of them — or at all events, only their " Capitans " — wear
LETTER XIII. A CHINESE GAMING HOUSE. 189
the black satin skull cap ; and their shaven heads, with the
small patch of hair which goes into the composition of the
pijj^ad, look very ugly. The pigtail certainly begins
with this lock of hair, but the greater part of it is made
up of silk or cotton tliread plaited in wdth the hair, and
blue or red strands of silk in a pigtail indicate mourning
or rejoicing. None of the Chinese here wear the beautiful
long robes used by their compatriots in China and Japan.
The rich wear a white, shirt-like garment of embroidered
silk crepe over their trousers and petticoat, and the poorer
only loose blue or brown cotton trousers, so that one is
always being reminded of the excessive leanness of their
forms. Some of the rich merchants imdted us to go in
and drink champagne, but we declined everything but tea,
which is ready all day long in teapots kept hot in covered
baskets very tliickly padded, such as are known with us
as " Norwegian Kitchens."
In the middle of the village there is a large, covered,
but open-sided building like a market, which is crowded
all day — and all night too — by hundreds of these poor,
half-naked creatures standing round the gaming tables,
silent, eager, excited, staking every cent they earn on the
turn of the dice, livang on the excitement of their gains, —
a truly sad spectacle. Probably w^e were the first Euro-
pean ladies who had ever walked through the gambling-
house, but the gamblers were too intent even to turn
their heads. There also they are always drinking tea.
Some idea of the profits made by the men who " farm "
the gambling licenses may be gained from the fact that
the revenue derived by the Government from the gamb-
ling " farms " is over £900 a year.
Spirits are sold in three or four places, and the
license to sell them brings in nearly £7 00 a year, but
a drunken Chinaman is never seen. There are a few
opium inebriates, lean like skeletons, and very vacant in
190 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. r.EXTER xiii.
expression; and every coolie smokes his three whifis of
opium every night. Only a few of the richer Cliinamen
have wives, and there are very few women, as is usual in
a mining population.
A good many roads have been made in the State,
and the Chinese are building buggies, gharries, and
waggons, and many of the richer ones own them and
import Sumatra ponies to draw them. To say that the
Chinese make as good emigrants as the British is barely
to give them their due. They have equal stamina and
are more industrious and thrifty, and besides that they
are always sober, can bear with impunity the fiercest
tropical heat, and can thrive and save where Englishmen
would starve. The immense immigration of Chinese, all
affiliated to clubs or secret societies, might be a great risk
to the peace of the State were it not that they recognise
certain leaders known as " Capitaus China," who contrive
to preserve order so far as is known by a wholesome
influence merely, and who in all cases, in return for the
security which property enjoys under our flag, work
cordially witli the Resident in all that concerns the good
of the State. How these " Capitans " are elected, and
how they exercise their authority, is as inscrutable as
most else belonging to the Chinese. The Chinese seem
not so much broadly patriotic as pro\dncial or clannisli,
and the " Hoeys " or secret societies belong to the difter-
ent southern provinces. The fights between the factions,
and the way in which the secret societies screen criminals
by false swearing and other means, are among the woes
of the Governor and Lieut.-Governors of these Settle-
ments. Thougli they get on very well up here, thanks
to the " Capitan China," the clans live in separate parts
of the village, have separate markets and gaming houses,
and a wooden arch across the street divides tlie two
" Nations."
LETTER XIII. NEW YEAR VISITS. 191
We went to pay complimentary visits for the Xew
Year to these " Capitans " with the Malay interpreter, and
were received with a curious mixture of goodwill and
solemnity. Wine, tea, and sweetmeats were produced at
each house. Their houses are very rude considering
their ample means, and have earthen floors. They have
comfortable carriages, and their gentle sweet-mannered
children were loaded with gold and diamonds. In one
house a sweet little girl handed round the tea and cake,
and all, even to babies who can scarcely toddle across
the floor, came up and shook hands. A Chinese family
impresses one by its extreme orderliness, fllial reverence
being regarded as the basis of all the virtues. The
manners of these children are equally removed from
shyness and forwardness. They all wore crowns of dark
red gold of very beautiful workmanshij), set with dia-
monds. \Vlien these girl-children are twelve years old,
they will, according to custom, be strictly secluded, and
will not be seen by any man but their father till the
bridegroom lifts the veil at the marriage ceremony.
After these visits, in which the " Capitans China,"
through the interpreter, assured us of their j)erpetual and
renewed satisfaction with British rule, Mr. Hayward, the
interpreter, and I, paid another visit of a more leisurely
kind to one of the Chinese gambling houses, which, as
usual, was crowded. At one end several barbers were
at work. A Chinaman is always being shaved, for he
keeps his head and face quite smooth, and never shaves
himself. The shaving the head was originally a sign of
subjection imposed by the Tartar conquerors, but it is now
so completely the national custom that prisoners feel it a
deep disgrace when their hair is allowed to grow. Coolies
twist their five feet of pigtail round their heads while
they are at work, but a servant or other inferior only
insults his superior if he enter his presence with his pig-
192 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
tail otherwise than pendant. The gaming house, whose
open sides allow it to present a perpetual temptation, is
full of tables, and at each sits a croupier, well clothed,
and as many half-naked Chinamen as can see over each
others' shoulders crowd round him. Their silent, concen-
trated eagerness is a piteous sight, as the cover is slowly
lifted from the heavy brass box in which the dice are kept,
on the cast of which many of them have staked all they
possess. They accept their losses, as they do their gains,
with apparent composure. They work very hard and live
on very little, but they are poor just now, for the price of
tin has fallen nearly one half in consequence of the great
tin discoveries in Australia.
Along with ]\Ir. Hayward I paid a visit to the Court
House, a large, white -w^ashed room, with a clean floor
of red tiles, a tiled dais with a desk for the judge, a
table with a charge sheet and some books upon it, and
three long benches at the end for witnesses and their
friends. A punkah is kept constantly going. There are
a clerk, a Chinese interpreter who speaks six Chinese dia-
lects, and a j\Ialay interpreter who puts the Chinese inter-
preter's words into English. As the judge does not
understand IMalay, it will be observed that justice depends
(in the fidelity of this latter official. Though I cannot
say that the dignity of justice is sustained in this court,
there is not a doubt that the intentions of the judge are
excellent, and if some of the guilty escape, it is not likely
that any of the innocent suffer. The IJatu Bandar some-
times sits on the bench with the Resident.
The benches were crowded almost entirely with
( 'liiuamen, and a number of policemen stood about. I
noticed that these were as anxious as our own are to sus-
tain a case. The case which I heard, and which occupied
more than an hour, was an accusation against a wretched
Chinaman for stealing a pig. I sat on the bench and
LETTER XIII. A COURT OF JUSTICE. 193
heard every word that was said, and arrived at no judicial
conclusion, nor did the Resident, so the accused was dis-
missed. He did steal that pig though ! I don't see how
truth can be arrived at in an Oriental court, especially
where the witnesses are members of Chinese secret
societies. Another case, of alleged nocturnal assault, was
tried, in which the judge took immense pains to get at
the truth, and the prisoner had every advantage ; and
when he was found guilty, was put into a good jail,
from which he will be taken out daily to work on the
roads.
Malays being Mussulmeu, are mostly tried by the
" Divine Law " of the Koran, and Chinamen are dealt
with " in equity." The question to be arrived at simply
is, " Did the prisoner commit this crime or did he not ? "
If he did he is punished, and if he did not he is acquitted.
There are no legal technicalities by which trial can be
delayed or the ends of justice frustrated. Theft is the
most common crime. One hundred and fourteen persons
were con^dcted last year, which does not seem a large
proportion (being less than one per cent) out of an un-
settled mining population of twelve thousand. Mr.
Hayward, through whose hands the crime of Singapore
and Malacca has filtered for twenty years, was very criti-
cal on the rough and ready method of proceeding here,
and constantly interjected suggestions, such as " You don't
ask them questions before you swear them," etc. Informal
as its administration is, I have no doubt that justice is
substantially done, for the Eesident is conscientious and
truly honourable. He is very lovable, and is evidently
much beloved, and is able to go about in unguarded
security.
It is not far from the Court House to the prison, a
wholesomely situated building on a hill, made of con-
crete, with an attap roof. The whole building is one
194 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xin.
hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are six
cells for solitary confinement. A jailer, turnkey, and
eight warders constitute the prison staff. The able-
bodied prisoners are employed on the roads and other
public works, and attend upon the scavengers' cart, which
outcome of civilisation goes round every morning ! The
diet, which costs fourpence a day for each prisoner, con-
sists of rice and salt fish, but those who work get two-
pence halfpenny a day in addition, with which they can
either buy luximes or accumulate a small sum against
the time when their sentences expire. Old and weakly
people do light work about the prison. One man was
executed for murder last year under a sentence signed
by the Datu Klana. I have not been in a ]3rison since
I was in that den of horrors, the prison of the ISTaam-Hoi
magistrate at Canton, and I felt a little satisfaction in
the contrast.
The same afternoon we all made a very pleasant
expedition to the Sanitarium, a cabin which the Resident
has built on a hill three miles from here. A chair with
four Chinese bearers carried Miss Shaw up, her sister and
the two gentlemen walked, and I rode a Sumatra pony,
on an Australian stockman's saddle, not only up the steep
jungle path, but up a staircase of two himdred steps in
which it terminates, the sagacious animal going up quite
cunningly. One charm of a tropical jungle is that every
few yards you come upon something new, and every
himdred feet of ascent makes a decided difference in the
vegetation. This is a very grand forest, with its straight,
smooth stems running up over one hundred feet before
branching, and the branches are loaded with orchids and
trailers. One cannot see what the foliage is like which
is borne far aloft into the summer sunshine, but on the
ground I found great red trumpet flowers and crimson
corollas, like those of a Brobdhignagian honeysuckle, and
LETTER XIII. "PLANTATION HILL." 195
flowers like red dragon-flies enormously magnified, and
others like large, single roses in yellow wax, falling slowly
down now and then, messengers from the floral glories
above, " wasting (?) their sweetness on the desert air."
A traveller tlirough a tropical jungle may see very few
flowers and be inclined to disparage it. It is necessary
to go on adjacent rising ground and look down where
trees and trailers are exhibiting their gorgeousness. Un-
like the coarse weeds which form so much of the under-
growth in Japan, everythmg which grows in these forests
rejoices the eye by its form or colour ; but things which
hurt and sting and may kill lurk amidst all the beauties.
A creeping plant with very beautiful waxy leaves, said
by Captain ]\Iurray to be vanilla, grows up many of the
trees.
When we got up to the top of this, which the
Resident calls " Plantation Hill," I was well pleased to
find that only the undergrowth had been cleared away,
and that " The Sanitarium " consists only of a cabin with
a single room divided into two, and elevated on posts like
a Malay house. The deep verandah which surrounds it
is reached by a step-ladder. A smaller house could
hardly be, or a more picturesque one, from the steepness
and irregularity of its roof. The cook-house is a small
attap shed in a place cut into the hill, and an enclosure
of attap screens with a barrel in it under the house is
the bath-room. The edge of the hill, from which a few
trees have been cleared, is so steep that but for a bamboo
rail one might slip over upon the tree-tops below. Some
Liberian coffee shrubs, some tea, cinchona, and ipecacu-
anha, and some heartless English cabbages, are being grown
on the hillside, and the Resident hoj)es that the State
will liave a great future of coffee.
The view in all directions was beautiful — to the
north a sea of densely wooded mountains with indigo
196 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
shadows in their hollows ; to the south the country we
had threaded on the Linggi river, forests, and small
tapioca clearings, little valleys where rice is growing, and
scars where tin-mining is going on ; the capital, the little
town of Serambaug with its larger clearings, and to the
west the gleam of the shining sea. In the absence of
mosquitos we were able to sit out till after dark, a rare
luxury. There was a gorgeous sunset of the gory,
furnace kind, which one only sees in the tropics — waves
of violet light rolling up over the mainland, and the
low Sumatran coast looking like a purple cloud amidst
the fiery haze.
Dinner was well cooked, and served with coffee after
it, just as at home. The primitive bath-room was made
usable by our eleven servants and chair-bearers being
sent to the hill, where the two gentlemen mounted guard
over them. After dark the Chinamen made the largest
bonfire I ever saw, or at all events the most brilliant, with
trunks of trees and j)ieces of gum dammar several pounds
in weight which they obtained by digging, and this was
kept up till daylight, throwing its splendid glare over the
whole hill-top, lighting up the forest, and bringing the
cabin out in all its picturesqueness.
I should have liked to be there some time to study
the ways of a tribe of ants. Near the cabin, under a
large tree, there was an ant -dwelling, not exactly to be
called an ant-hill, but a subterranean ant-town, with two
entrances. Into this an army of many thousand largish
ants, in an even column three and a half inclies wide,
marched continually, in well " dressed " ranks, about
twenty-seven in each, with the regularity of a crack
regiment on the "marcli past," over all sorts of inequali-
ties, rough ground, and imbedded trunks of small trees,
larger ants looking like officers marching on both sides of
tlie column, and sometimes turning back as if to give
LETTER XIII. AX ANT WOELD. 197
orders. Would that Sir John Lubbock had been there
to interpret their speech !
Each ant of the column bore a yellowish burden, not
too large to interfere with his activity. A column
marshalled in the same fashion, but only half the width
of the other, emerged equally continuously from the
lower entrance. From the smaller size of this column I
suppose that a number of the carrier ants remain within
stowing away their burdens in store-houses. Attending
this latter column for eighteen paces, I came upon a
marvellous scene of orderly activity. A stump of a tree,
from which the outer bark had been removed, leaving an
under layer apparently permeated with a rich, sweet
secretion, was completely covered with ants which were
removing the latter in minute portions. Strange to say,
however, a quantity of reddish ants of much larger size
and with large mandibles seemed to do the whole
work of stripping off this layer. They were working
from above, and had already bared some inches of the
stump, which was four feet six inches in diameter. As
the small morsels fell among the myriads of ants which
swarmed round the base they were broken up, three or
four ants sometimes working at one bit till they had
reduced it into manageable portions. It was a splendid
sight to see this vast and busy crowd inspired by a
common purpose, and with the true instinct of discipline,
for ever forming into column at the foot of the stump.
Towards dusk the reddish ants, which may be termed
quarriers, gave up work, and this was the signal for the
workers below to return home. The quarriers came
down the stump pushing the labourers rather rudely as
I thought, out of their way, and then forming in what
might be called " light skirmishing order," they marched
to the lower entrance of the town, meeting as they went
the column of workers going up to the stump. They
198 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
met it of course at once, and a minute of great helter-
skelter followed, this column falling back on itself as if
assailed, in great confusion. If this be the ordinary day's
routine why does that colunni fall into confusion, and
whv, after throwing it into disorder, do the reddish ants
close their ranks and march into the town in compact
order, parallel with the working column going the other
way, and which they seemed to terrorise ? Is it possible
that the smaller ants are only slaves of the larger ?
Inscrutable are the ways of ants ! However, when the
advancing column had recovered from its confusion it
formed up, and, wheeling round in most regidar order, fell
beliind the rear-guard of the working column, and before
dark not an ant remained outside except a dead body.
Soon after the last of its living comrades had dis-
appeared, six ants, with a red one (dare I say ?) " in com-
mand," came out and seemed to hold a somewhat fussy
consultation round the corpse which liad fallen on the
line of march to the stump. After a minute or two
three of them got hold of it, and with the other four as
spectators or mourners, they dragged it for about six feet
and concealed it under a leaf, after which they returned
home ; all this was most fascinating. A little later
Captain Murray destroyed both entrances to the town,
but before dayliglit, l)y dint of extraordinary labour, they
were reconstructed lower down the slope, and tlie work at
the stump was going on as if nothing so unprecedented
had happened.
I should have liked also to study the ways of the
wliite ant, the great timber-destroying pest of this country,
wliich abounds on tliis hill. He is a large ant of a pale
buff colour. Up the trunk of a tree he builds a tunnel
of sand, held together by a viscid secretion, and under
this he works, cutting a deep groove in the wood, and
always extending the tunnel upwards. I broke away two
LETTER XIII. NIGHT OX PLANTATION HILL. 199
inches of such a timiiel in the afternoon, and by the next
morning it was restored. Among many other varieties of
ants, there is one found by the natives, which people call
the " soldier ant." I saw many of these big fellows, more
than an inch long, with great mandibles. Tlieir works
must be on a gigantic scale, and their bite or grip very
painful ; but being with a party, I was not able to make
their acquaintance.
Wlien it grew dark, tiny lamps began to move in all
directions. Some came from on hio-h, like fallino- stars,
but most moved among the trees a few feet from the
ground with a slow undulatory motion, the fire having a
pale blue tinge, as one imagines an incandescent sapphire
might have. The great tree-crickets kept up for a time
the most ludicrous sound I ever heard — one sitting in a
tree and calling to another. From the deafening noise
which at times drowned our voices, one would suppose
the creature making it to be at least as laroe as an eagle.
The accommodation of the "Sanitarium" is most
limited. The two gentlemen, well armed, slept in the
verandah, the Misses Shaw in camp beds in the inner
cabin, and I in a swinging cot in the outer, the table
being removed to make room for it. The bidl-dog
mounted guard over all, and showed his vigilance by an
occasional gTOwl. The eleven attendants stowed them-
selves away under the cabin, except a garrulous couple,
who kept the fire blazing till daylight. My cot was
most comfortable, but I failed to sleep. The forest was
full of quamt, busy noises, broken in upon occasionally by
the hoot of the " spectre bird," and the long, low, plaintive
cry of some animal.
All the white residents in the Malacca Settlements
have been greatly excited about a tragedy which has just
occurred at the Bindings, off this coast, in which Mr.
Lloyd, the British superintendent, was horribly murdered
200 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
by the Chinese ; his wife, and Mrs. Innes who was on a visit
to her, narrowly escaping the same fate. Lying awake 1
could not help thinking of this, and of the ease with
which the Resident could be overpoM^ered and murdered
by any of our followers who might have a grudge against
him, when, as I thought, the door behind my head from
the back ladder was bm-st open, and my cot and I came
down on the floor at the head, the simple fact being, that
the head-rope, not having been properly secured, gave way
with a run. An hour afterwards the foot-ropes gave way,
and I was deposited on the floor altogether, and was soon
covered vrith. small ants.
Early in the morning the apes began to call to each
other with a plaintive " Hoo-houey," and in the gray dawn
I saw an iguana fully four feet long glide silently down
the trunk of a tree, the branches of which were loaded
with epiphytes. Captain Shaw asked the Imaum of one
of the mosques of Malacca about alligator's eggs a few
days ago, and his reply was, that the young that went
down to the sea became alligators, and those which camu
up the rivers became iguanas. At daylight, after coffee
and bananas, we left the hill, and after an accident,
promptly remedied by Mr. Hayward, reached Serambang
when the sun was high in the lieavens. I should tliink
that there are very few circumstances which Mr. Hayward
is npt prepared to meet. He has a reserve of quiet
strength which I should like to see fully drawn upon.
He has the scar of a spear wound on liis brow, which
Captain Murray says was received in holding sixty armed
men at bay, while he secured the retreat of some help-
less persons. Yet he continues to be much burdened by
his responsibility for these fair girls, who, however, are
enjoying themselves thoroughly, and will be none the
worse.
We had scarcely returned when a large company of
LETTER xiii. A CHINESE DRAGON PLAY. 201
Chinamen, carrying bannerets and joss-sticks, came to the
Eesidency to give a spectacle or mii-acle-play, the first part
consisting of a representation of a huge dragon, which
kicked, and jumped, and crawled, and bellowed in a
manner totally unworthy of that ancient and splendid
myth ; and the second, of a fierce meUe, or succession of
combats with spears, shields, and battle-axes. The per-
formances were accompanied by much drumming, and by
the beating of tom-toms, an essentially infernal noise,
wliich I cannot help associating with the orgies of de"vdl-
worship. The "Capitan China," in a beautiful costimie,
sat with us in the verandah to see the performance.
I have written a great deal about the Chinese and
very little about the Malays, the nominal possessors of
the country, but the Chinese may be said to be every-
where, and the Malays nowhere. You have to look for
them if you want to see them. Besides, the Chinese are
as ten to two of the whole population. Still the laws
are administered in the name of the Datu Klana, the
Malay ruler. The land owned by Malays is being
measured, and printed title-deeds are being given, a
payment of 2s. an acre per annum being levied instead
of any taxes on produce. Export duties are levied on
certain articles, but the navigation of the rivers is free.
Debt-slavery, one curse of the Malay States, has been
abolished by the energy of Captain Murray with the
cordial co-operation of the Datu Klana, and now the
whole population have the status and rights of free men.
It is a great pity that this Prince is in Malacca, for he is
said to be a very enlightened ruler. The photograph,
which I enclose (from which the engraving is taken) is
of the marriage of his daughter, a very splendid affair.
The buffalo in front was a marriage present from the
Straits Government, and its covering was of cloth of gold
thick with pearls and precious stones.
202 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
We visited yesterday a Malay Tcampong called
Mambu, in order to pay an unceremonious visit to the
Datu Bandar, the Eajah second in rank to the reigning
prince. His house, with three others, a godown on very
liigh stilts, and a mound of graves whitened by the
petals of tlie Frangipani, with a great many coco-nut and
other trees, was surrounded, as Malay dwellings often are,
by a high fence, M'ithiu which was another enclosing
a neat, sanded level, under coco-palms, on which his
" private residence " and those of his wives stand. His
secretary, a nice-looking lad in red turban, haju, and
sarong, came out to meet us, followed by the Datu
Bandar, a pleasant, able-looking man, with a cordial
manner, who shook hands and welcomed us. No notice
had been given of our visit, and the rajah, who is re-
claiminff and brinoino- into good cultivation much of his
land, and who sets the example of working with his own
hands, was in a checked shirt, and a common, checked, red
sarong. Vulgarity is surely a disease of the West alone,
though, as in Japan, one sees that it can be contagious,
and this Oriental, far from apologising for his dishabille,
led us up the steep and difficidt ladder by which his
house is entered with as much courteous ease as if he
liad been in his splendours.
I thoroughly like his house. It is both fitting and
tasteful. We stepped from the ladder into a long
coiTidor, well-matted, which led to a doorway with a
gold-embroidered silk vallance, and a looped-up portiere
of wliite-flowered silk or crepe. This was the entrance
to a small room very well proportioned, with two similar
doorways, curtained with flowered silk, one leading to a
room which we did not see, and the other to a liamboo
gi-idiron platform, which in the better class of Malay
houses always leads to a smaller house at the back,
where cooking and other domestic operations are carried
LETTER XIII, THE DATU BANDAR'S HOUSE. 203
on, and which seems given up to the women. There
was a rich, dim light in the room, which was cool and
wainscoted entirely with dark red wood, and there was
only one long, low window, with turned bars of the same
wood. There were three handsome cabinets %vith hang-
ings of gold and crunson embroidery, and an ebony frame
containing a verse of the Koran in Arabic characters
hung over one doorway. In accordance with IMoham-
medan prohibitions, there was no decoration which bore
the likeness of any created thing, but there were some
artistic arabesques under the roof. The furniture,
besides the cabinets, consisted of a divan, several ebony
chairs, a round table covered with a cool yellow cloth,
and a table against the wall draped with crimson silk
flowered with gold. The floor was covered with fine
matting, over which were Oudh rugs in those mixtures
of toned down rich colours which are so very beautiful.
Eichness and harmony characterised the room, and it was
distinctively Malay ; one could not say that it reminded
one of anything except of the flecked and coloured light
which streams through dark, old, stained glass.
The Datu Bandar's brother and imcle came in, the
first a very handsome Hadji, with a bright, intelligent
countenance. He has lived in Mecca for eight years
studying the Koran imder a renowned teacher, and in
this quest of Mussulman learning has spent several
thousand dollars. " We never go to Mecca to trade," he
said, " we go for religious purposes only." These men
looked superb in their red dresses and turbans, although
the ^Malays are anything but a handsome race. Their
hospitality was very graceful. Many of the wealthier
Mohammedans, though they don't drink wine, keep it for
their Christian guests, and they offered us champagne,
which is supposed to be an iiTesistible temptation to
the Christian palate. On our refusing it they brought us
204 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
cow's milk and most delicious coffee with a very fragrant
aroma, and not darker in colour than tea of an average
strength. This was made from roasted coffee leaves.
The berries are exported. A good many pretty, quiet
children stood about, but though the Eajah gave us to
understand that they were the offspring of three mothers,
we were not supposed to see any of " the mean ones
within the gates."
Our hosts had a good deal to say, and did not leave
us to entertain them, though we are but " infidel dogs."
That we are regarded as such along with all other
unbelievers always makes me feel shy with INioham-
medans. Some time ago, when Captain Shaw pressed on
the Malays the impropriety of shooting Chinamen, as they
were then in the habit of doing, the reply of one of them
was, " Why not shoot Chinamen ; they've no religion ; "
and though it would be highly discourteous in members
of a ruled race to utter this sentiment regarding their
rulers, I have not the least doubt that it is their pro-
found conviction concerning ourselves.
Nothing shows more the honesty and excellence of
Captain Murray's purposes than that he should be as
much respected and loved as he is in spite of a manner
utterly opposed to all Oriental notions of dignity, whether
Malay or Chinese. I have mentioned his abruptness,
as well as his sailor-like heartiness, but they never came
into such strong relief as at the Datu Bandar's, against
the solemn and dignified courtesy of our hosts.
We returned after dark, had turtle-soup and turtle-
steak, not near so good as veal, which it much resembles,
for dinner, sang " Auld Lang Syne," which brought tears
into the Eesident's kindly eyes, and are now ready for
an early start to-morrow.
Stadthaus, Malacca. — We left Serambang before day-
light on Thursday in buggies, .escorted by Captain Murray ;
LETTER xiir. THE RETUEN JOURNEY. 205
the buggies, as usual, being lent by the Chinese '•' Capitans."
Horses had been sent on before, and after changing them
we drove the second stage through most magnificent forest,
until thev could no longer drag the buggies through the
mud, at which point of discomfiture three saddled ponies
and two chairs were waiting to take us through the
jungle to the river. "We rode along an infamous track,
much of it knee deep in mud, through a green and silent
twilight, till we emerged upon something like English
park and fox-cover scenery, varied by Malay hampongs
under groves of palms. In the full blaze of noon we
reached the Linggi police station, from which we had
started in the sampan, and were received by a company
of police with fixed bayonets. We dined in the police
station verandah, and as the launch had been obliged to
drop down the river because the water was falling, we
went to Sempang in a native boat, paddled by four
Malays with paddles like oval-ended spades with spade
handles, a guard of honour of policemen going down with
us. There we took leave of our most kind and worthy
host, who, with tears in his kind eyes, immediately turned
up the river to dwell alone in his bungalow with his
bull-dog, his revolver, and his rifle, a self-exiled man.^
1 In 1881, Captaiu Murray, feeling ill after prolonged exposui-e to the
sun, went to Malacca, where he died a few days afterwards at the house of
his friend Mr. Hayward, Sir F. A. Weld -n-rites of him in a despatch to
Lord Kimberley : — "I cannot close this notice of the State of Sungei
Ujong without recalling the memory of Captain Murray, so lately its
Resident, to whom it owes much, and who was devoted to its people
and interests. A man of great honesty of purpose and kindliness of
heart, Captain Murray possessed many of those qualities which are
required for the successful administration of a Malay State, and though
he laboured under the disadvantage of want of knowledge of the native
tongue, he yet was able to attach to himself, in a singular manner, the
affections of all around him. For the last six years. Captain Murray
has successfully advised in the administration of the Government of
Sungei Ujong, consolidating order and good government, and doing
206 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiii.
After it grew dark we had the splendid sight of a
great tract of forest ou fire close to the sea. We landed
here at a pier eight hundred feet long, accessible to
launches at high water, where several peons and two
inspectors of police met us. Our expedition has been the
talk of the little foreign world of Malacca. We had an
enthusiastic welcome at Government House, but Captain
Shaw says he will never forgive himself for not writing
to Captain Murray in time to arrange our transport, and
for sending us off so humedly with so little food, but I
hope by reiteration to convince him that thereby we
gained the night on the Linggi river, which, as a
travelling experience, is worth all the rest.
I. L. B.
much to open out the country and develop its resources. His name will
ever be associated with its prosperity, and his memory be long fresh in
the hearts of its inhabitants."
SELANGOR.
SELlNGOR. 20?
A CHAPTER OX SELlXGOE
Selaxgor is a small state lying between 2° 34' and
3° 42' N". Its coast-line is about one hundred and twenty
miles in length. Perak is its northern boundary, Sungei
Ujong its southern, and some of the small States of the
Negri Sembilan and unexplored jungle and mountains sepa-
rate it from Pahang on the east. It is watered by the Selim-
gor, Klaug, and Langat rivers, which rise in the hills of
its eastern frontier. Its population is not accurately
known, but the result of an attempt to estimate it, made
by the Resident in 1876, is fifteen thousand Chinese and
from two thousand to three thousand Malays. Mr. Douglas,
the late Resident, puts the Malay population at a higher
figure, and estimates the aboriginal population at one
thousand, but this is probably largely in excess of their
actual numbers.
The wealth of Selangor lies in its apparently inex-
haustible tin mines. The range of hills which forms the
^o^
^ In offering this very slight sketch of Selangor to my readers as
prefatory to the letters which follow, I desire to express my acknowledge-
ments specially to a valuable paper on " Sun'eys and Explorations of the
Native States of the Malay Peninsula," by Mr. Daly, Superintendent of
Public Works and Surveys, Selangor, read before the Royal Geographical
Society on May 8, 18S2. I have also made use of a brief account of the
Native Malay States by Mr. Swettenham, Assistant Colonial Secretary to the
Straits Settlements Government, published in the Journal of the Straits
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and of "Our Malay Conquests" by
Sir P. Benson Maxwell, late Chief-Justice of the Sti-aits Settlements.
208 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. sElangou.
backbone of the Malay Peninsula rises in places to a
height of seven thousand feet, and it is from this range
that the alluvial detritus is washed down, beneath which
is deposited the layer of ore or wash, which varies from
four inches to ten feet in thickness. The supply of this
ore is apparently inexhaustible, but no veins have as yet
been found. The mine of Ampagnan only, near Kwala
Lumpor, the capital, gives employment to over one
thousand Chinamen, and each can extract in a year one
thousand pounds weight of wliite smelted tin, valued at
£35 sterling. This mineral wealth is the magnet whicli,
according as the price of tin is higher or lower, attracts
into Selangor more or fewer Chinamen. The chief source
of the revenue of the State has been the export-duty
on tin.
The low lands on the coast are fringed with man-
groves which thrive in blue mud and heavy clays, and
these lands, w^hen drained, are well adapted for sugar.
Wet rice grows well in the swampy valleys which
separate the minor ranges, and dry rice on the rises ;
while tapioca, tobacco, pepper, and gambir, thrive on the
medium heights. The sago palm flourishes on wet lands.
The high hills are covered with primeval forests, and the
Malays have neither settlements nor plantations upon
them. It is believed that these hills, at a height of from
two thousand iive hundred to three thousand five hundred
feet, are admirably adapted for the growth of Arabian
coffee, chinchona, and tea, and some Ceylon coffee-planters
are expecting an era of success in Selangor. At present,
however, the necessary labour is not available. The soil
in the interior on the mountain slopes consists of a light
red and yellow clay, the product of a comparatively
recent rock-decomposition, covered with vegetable mould
from eight to twelve inches thick. There are no droughts,
and the rainfall, distributed pretty fairly over the year,
sElaugor. natural CAPABILITIES. 209
averages about one hundred and thirty inches annually.
Tlie climate is remarkably healthy, and diseases of locality
are unknown. Land can be purchased for eight shillings
per acre on terms of deferred payments.
One ciu-ious feature of Selangor, as of Perak, is the
occurrence of isolated hills of limestone varying from
eighty to one thousand feet in height. At Batu there are
magnificent limestone caves, riclily adorned with stalac-
tites and stalagmites. The dome of one cavern is three
luindred and fifty -five feet from floor to roof. An
important fact connected with these caverns is that they
contain thousands of tons of bats' manure, which may be
as valuable as guano to future planters. Between the
heavy clays and blue mud of the mangrove swamps and
the granite and sandstone of the mountain ranges, the
imdulating rises are mainly composed of red clay, sand-
stones, shales, and granitic and felspathic rocks, with
extensive deposits of laterite in red clays on the surface.
In the valleys along the rivers the soil consists of rich
alluvial deposits.
Undoubtedly Selangor has gTeat capabilities, and if
the difficulties of the labour question can be satisfactorily
disposed of, it is likely that the new offer of leases for
nine hundred and ninty-nine years, subject to improve-
ment clauses, will attract a number of planters to its
fertile soil and wholesome climate. Selangor includes
three large districts, each on a considerable river of its
own — Selangor, Klang, and Langat.
The Sultan was actually, as he is now nominally, su-
preme, but the story of disturbances under his government
is a very old one, internal strife having been the normal
condition of the State ever since Europeans have been
acquainted with it. It seems to have been an undoubted
fact that its rivers and island channels w^ere the resort of
pirates, and that its rajahs devoted themselves with much
P
210 THE GOLDEN CHERSOXESE. selangou.
success to harrying small vessels trading in the Straits ol'
Malacca.
The name of this State is not found in tlie earlier
Malayan records. Negri Calang, or the land of tin,
was the designation of this part of the peninsula,
and this depopulated region was formerly a flourishing
dependency under the Malay sovereigns of Malacca.
The population, such as it is, is chiefly composed of the
descendants of a colony of Bugis from Goa in the Celebes,
who settled in Selangor at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century under a Goa chief, who was succeeded by
Sultan Ibrahim, an intense hater and sturdy opponent of
the Dutch. He attacked Malacca, looted and burned its
suburbs, and W(juld have captured it but for the oppor-
tune arrival of a 1 )utch fleet. He surprised the Dutch
garrison of Selangor by night, routed it, and captured all
its heavy artillery and anniumition, but was afterwards
compelled to restore his ])lunder, and acknowledge him-
self a vassal of the Dutch East India Company. After
this he attacked the Siamese, and was mainly instru-
mental in driving them out of Perak.
He was succeeded in 1826 by an ignoble prince,
and under his weak and oppressive rule, and under the
extortions and cruelties of his illegitimate brothers, the
State lapsed into decay. Mr. Xewbold, who had charge
of a military post on the Selangor frontier in 1833, wit-
nessed many of the atrocities perpetrated by these Bugis
]irinces, who committed piracies, robl^ed, ]ilundered, and
levied contributions on the wretched jMakiys without
hindrance. In Mr. Newbold's day the whole population
of Kwala Linggi, where he was stationed, fled by night
into tlie Malacca territory, where tliey afterwards settled
to escape from the merciless exactions to wliich they were
subjected. Slavery and debt slavery added to the miseries
of tlie country, and it is believed tliat by emigration
SELAXGOR. LAWLESSNESS IN SELANGOR. 211
and other causes the Malay population was reduced to
hetween two thousand and three thousand souls.
Only one event in the recent liistory of Selangor
deserves notice. This miserable ruler, Sultan Mohammed,
had no legitimate offspring, but it was likely that at his
death his near relation, Tuanku Bongsu, a rajah univers-
ally liked and respected by liis countrjTuen, would have
been elected to succeed him. Unfortunately for the good
of the State this rajah took upon himself the direction of
the tin mines at Lukut, formerly worked by about four
hundred Chinese miners on their own account, paying a
tenth of their produce to the Sultan. One dark, rainy
night in September 1834 these miners rose upon theii-
employers, burned their houses, and massacred them in-
discriminately, including this enlightened rajah ; and his
wife and children, in attempting to escape, were thrown
into the flames of their house. The plunder obtained l)y
the Chinese, exclusive of the jewels and gold ornaments
of the women, was estimated at £3500. This very atro-
cious business was believed to have been aided and abetted,
if not absolutely concocted, by Chinese merchants living
under the shelter of the British flag at Malacca. With
the death of Tuanku Bongsu all hope of prosperity for
Selangor under native rule was extingniished.
]\Iatters became very bad in the years between 1867
and 1873, the fio-htinfr among the rival factions leading to
a more complete depopulation of the country, not only by
the loss in party fights, but by the exodus of peaceable
cultivators. Lawlessness increased to such an extent
that murders and robberies were of continual occurrence.
Mr. Swettenham, the Assistant Colonial Secretary, affirms
that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that every man
above twenty years old had killed at least one man, and
that even the women were not unaccustomed to use
deadly weapons against each other.
212 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. selangor.
The liistory of the way in wliicli we gained a footing
in Selangor is a tangled one, as the story is told quite
differently by men holding liigh positions in the Colonial
Government, who unquestionably are " all honourable
men." Our first appearance on the scene was in 1871,
when the Rinaldo destroyed Selangor, for reasons which
will be found in the succeeding letter. In November
1873 an act of piracy was committed on the Jugra
river near the Sultan's residence. On this Sir A. Clarke,
the Governor of the Straits Settlements, with a portion of
H.B.M.'s China fleet, went to Langat and induced the
Sultan to appoint a court to try the pirates, three of the
ships and two Government Commissioners remaining to
watch the trial. The prisoners were executed, the war-
ships patrolled the coast for a time, and everything
became quiet.
In 1874, however, there were new disturbances and
alleged piracies, and Tunku Dia Udin, the Sultan's son-
in-law and viceroy, over-matched by powerful rajahs,
gladly welcomed an official, who was sent by Sir A.
Clarke, " to remain with the Sultan should he desire it, and,
by his presence and advice give him confidence, and assist-
ance to carry out the promises whicli lie had made," which
were, in brief, to suppress piracy and keep good order in
his dominions, not a difficult task, it miglit be supposed,
for it is estimated that he had only about two thousand
Malay subjects left, and the Chinese miners were under
the efficient rule of their " Capitan," Ah Loi.
In January 1875, at Tunku Dia Udin's request, a
British Resident was sent to Selangor. Some time after-
wards the viceroy retired to Kedah, and the Sultan has
been " advised " into a sort of pensioned retirement, tlie
Kesident levying, collecting, and expending the taxes.
Sir Andrew Clarke was very fortunate in his selection of
tlie Sultan's first adviser, for Mr. Davidson, according to
SELANGOR. A HOPEFUL OUTLOOK. 213
all accounts, had an intimate knowledge of the Malays, as
well as a wise consideration for them ; he liad a calm
temper and much good sense, and is held in honourable
remembrance, not only for official efficiency but for having
gained the sincere regard of the people of Selangor. His
legal training and high reputation in the colonial courts
were of great value in the settlement of the many diffi-
cult questions which arose during his brief administration.
He was succeeded in 1876 by Mr. Bloomiield Douglas,
who has held the office of Eesident for six years.
The revenue of Selangor amounted in 1881 to
£47,045, derived mainly from the export-duty on tin,
the import-duty on opium, and the letting of opium and
other licenses and farms. The expenditure was £46,870,
the heaviest items being for " establishments," " pensions,"
and " works and buildings."
The outlook for Selangor appears to be a peaceful
one, and it is to be hoped that, under the energetic
administration of Sir F. A. Weld, its capabilities will be
developed and its anomalies of law and taxation reformed,
and that both Malays and foreigners may experience
those advantages of good order and security which result
from a just rule.
214 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv
LETTEK XIV.
SS. " Rainbow," Malacca Roads,
February 1st, 5 P.M.
I AM ouce again on board this quaint little (Jhinese steamer,
wliich is rolling on a lazy ground-swell on the heateJ,
shallow sea. We were to have sailed at four r.M., but mat-
sailed boats, with cargoes of Chinese, Malays, fowls, pine-
apples, and sugar cane, keep coming off and delaying us.
The little steamer has long ago submerged her load line,
and is only about ten inches above the water, and still
they load, and still the mat-sailed boats and eight-paddled
boats, with two red-clothed men facing forwards on each
thwart, are disgorging men and goods into the overladen
craft. A hundred and thirty men, mostly Chinese, with
a sprinkling of Javanese and Malays, are huddled on the
little deck, with goats and Inifi aloes, and forty coops of
fowls and ducks ; the fowls and ducks cackling and quack-
ing, and the Chinese clattering at the top of their voices
• — such a Babel !
An hour later, " Easy ahead," shouts the rortugese-
iMalay captain, for the Jiainhovj is only licensed for one
hundred jjassengers, and the water runs in at the scuppers
as she rolls, but five of the mat-sailed boats have hooked on.
" Eun ahead ! full speed ! " the captain shouts in English ;
he dances with excitement, and screams in Malay ; the
Chinamen are climbing up the stern, over the liulwarks,
everywhere, fairly boarding us ; and with about a hundred
LETTER XR'. SUNSET AT MALACCA. 215
and fifty souls on board, and not a white man or a Chris-
tian among them, we steam away over the gaudy water into
the gaudy sunset, and beautiful, dreamy, tropical jMalacca,
with its palm-fringed shores, and its coloured streets, and
Mount Opliir with its golden history, and the stately Stadt-
haus, whose ancient rooms have come to seem almost like
my property, are passing into memories. A gory ball drops
suddenly from a gory sky into a flaming sea, and
"With one stride comes the dark."
There is no place for me except on this little bridge, on
which the captain and I have just had an excellent dinner,
with hen-coops for seats. These noisy fowls are now quiet
in the darkness, but the noisier Chinese are still bawling
at the top of their voices. It is too dark for another line.
British Residency, Klang, Seldngor. — You will not
know where Klang is, and I think you won't find it in
any atlas or encyclopaedia. Indeed, I almost doubt
whether you will find Selangor, the Malay State of
which Klang is, after a fashion, the capital. At present
I can tell you very little.
Selangor is bounded on the north by the " protected "
State of Perak, which became notorious in England a few
years ago for a " little war," in which we inflicted a very
heavy chastisement on the Malays for the assassination of
Mr. Birch, the British Eesident. It has on its south and
south-east Sungei Ujong, Jelabu, and Pahang; but its
boundaries in these directions are ill defined. The Strait
of Malacca bounds it on the west, and its coast-line is about
a hundred and twenty miles long. From its slightly vague
interior boundary to the coast, it is supposed to preserve a
tolerably uniform depth of from fifty to sixty miles. Klang
is on the Klang river, in lat. 3° 3' X., and long. 101° 29'
30 E. I call it "the capital after a fashion," because the
Eesident and his mvrmidons live here, and because vessels
216 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv.
which draw thirteen feet of water can go no higher ; but
the true capital, created by the enterprise of Chinamen, is
thirty-six miles farther inland, the tin-mining settlement
of Kwala Lumper. Solangor thrives, if it does thrive,
which I greatly doubt, on tin and gutta ; but Klang is a
most mis-thriven, decayed, dejected, miserable looking
place.^ The nominal ruler of Solangor is Sultan Abdul
Samat, but lie hybernates on a pension at Langat, a long
way off, and must be nearly obliterated, I think.
It is a great change from ]\Ialacca in every respect.
I left it with intense regret. Hospitality, kindness, most
genial intercourse, and its own semi-mediseval and tropical
fascinations, made it one of the brightest among the many
bright spots of my wanderings. Mr. Hayward took me
to the Rcmiboio in a six-oared boat, manned by six police-
men, completing the list of " Government facilities " as far
as Malacca is concerned. The mercury was 90° in my
little cabin or den, and it swarmed not only with mos-
quitos, but with cockroaches, which in the dim liglit looked
as large as mice. Of course no one sleeps below in the
tropics who can avoid it, so as the deck was thick with
Chinamen, I had my mattress laid on a bench on the bridge,
which was only occupied by two Malay look-out men.
There is not very much comfort when one leaves the beaten
tracks of travel, but any loss is far more than made up for
by the intense enjoyment.
It was a delightful night. The moon was only a hemi-
sphere, yet T think she gave more light than ours at the
full. The niglit was so exquisite that I was content to
rest without sleeping ; the Isabel noises of fowls and men
had ceased, and there were only quiet sounds of rippling
water, and the occasional cry of a sea-bird as we slipped
through the waveless sea. When the moon set the sky
*o'
1 Kwala Luiniioris nowtlic most important mining entrepot iu Selungor,
and in 1880 the British Resident and his staff were removed thither.
LETTER XIV. THE EESIDEXCY AT KLAXG. 217
was wonderful with its tropic purple and its pavement and
dust of stars. I have become quite fond of the Southern
Cross, and don't wonder that the early navigators prostrated
themselves on deck w^hen they first saw it. It is not an
imposing constellation, but it is on a part of the sky which
is not crowded with stars, and it always lies aslant and
obvious. It has become to me as much a friend as is the
Plough of the northern regions.
At daybreak the next morning we were steaming up
the Ivlang river, w^hose low shores are entirely mangrove
swamps, and when the sun was high and hot we anchored
in front of the village of Klang, where a large fort on an
eminence, with grass embankments in which guns are
moimted, is the first prominent object. Above this is a
large wooden bungalow with an attap roof, which is the
British Eesidency. There was no air, and the British
ensign in front of the house hung limp on the flagstaff.
Below there is a village, with clusters of Chinese houses
on the ground, and Malay houses on stilts, standing
singly, with one or two Government offices, bulking largely
among them. A substantial flight of stone steps leads
from the river to a skeleton jetty wdth an attaiJ roof, and
near it a number of a^^a^-roofed boats were lying, loaded
with slabs of tin from the diwintjs in the interior, to
1)6 transhipped to Pinang. A dainty steam-launch, the
Abdidsamat, nominally the Sultan's yacht, flpng a large
red and yellow flag, was also lying in the river.
Mr. Bloomfield Douglas, the Eesident, a tall, vigorous,
elderly man, with white hair, a fiorid complexion, and a
strong voice heard everywhere in authoritative tones, met me
with a four-oared boat, and a buggy with a good Australian
horse brought me here. From this house there is a large
but not a beautiful view of river windings, rolling jungle,
and blue hills. The lower part of the house, which is
supported on pillars, is mainly open, and is used for bil-
218 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv."
liard-room, church, lounging-room, afternoon tea-room, and
audience-room ; but I see nothing of the friendly, easy
going to and fro of Chinese and Malays, which was a
pleasant feature of the Eesidency in Sungei Ujong. In
fact there is here much of the appearance of an armed
post amidst a hostile population. In front of the Eesi-
dency there is a six-pounder flanked by two piles of shot.
Behind it there is a guard -room, with racks of rifles
and bayonets for the Eesident's body-guard of twelve
men, and quarters for the married soldiers, for soldiers
they are, though they are called policemen. A gong
hangs in front of the porch on which to sound the alarm,
and a hundred men fully armed can turn out at five
minutes' notice.
The family consists of the Eesident, his wife, a dignified
and gTacious woman, with a sweet but plaintive expression
of countenance, and an afliicted daughter, on whom her
mother attends with a loving, vigilant, and ceaseless devo-
tion of a most pathetic kind. The circle is completed by
a handsome black monkey tied to a post, and an ape which
they call an ov.f, from the solitary monosyllable which it
utters, but whicli I believe to be the " agile gibbon," a
creature so delicate that it has never yet survived a voyage
to England.
It is a beautiful creature. I could " put off " hours
of time witli it. It walks on its hind legs with a curious
human walk, hanging its long arms down by its sides like
B ■. It will walk quietly by your side like another
person. It has nice dark eyes, with well-formed lids like
ours, a good nose, a human mouth with very nice wliite
teeth, and a very pleasant cheery look wlien it smiles, but
when its face is at rest the expression is sad and wistful.
It spends a good deal of its time in swinging itself most
energetically. It has very pretty fingers and finger-nails.
It looks fearfully near of kin to us, and yet the gulf is
LETTER XIV. THE DECAY OF KLAXG. 219
measureless. It can climb anywhere, and take long-
leaps. This morning it went into a house in which a
cluster of bananas is hanging, leapt up to the roof, and
in no time had peeled two, which it ate very neatly. It
lias not even a rudimentary tail. When it sits with its
arms folded it looks like a gentlemanly person in a close
tittinfj fur suit.
The %allage of Klang is not interesting. It looks
like a place which has " seen better days," and does not
impress one favourably as regards the prosperity of the
State. Above it the river passes through rich alluvial
deposits, well adapted for sugar, rice, and other products
of low-lying tropical lands ; but though land can be
purchased on a system of deferred payments for two
dollars an acre, these lands are still covered with primeval
jungle. Steam-launches and flattish bottomed native
boats go up the river eighteen miles farther to a ^dllage
called Damarsara, from which a good country road has
been made to the great Chinese villao'e and tin-mines of
Kwala Lumpor. The man-eating tigers, which almost
until now infested the old jungle track, have been driven
back, and plantations of tobacco, tapioca, and rice have
been started along the road. On a single Chinese plan-
tation, near Kwala Lumpor, there are over two thousand
acres of tapioca under cultivation, and the enterprising
Chinaman who owns it has imported European steam
machinery for converting the tapioca roots into the
marketable article. Whatever enterprise I hear of in the
interior is always in the hands of Chinamen. Klang
looks as if an incubus oppressed it, and possibly the
Chinese are glad to be as far as possible from the seat of
what impresses me as a fussy Government. At all events,
Klang, from whatever cause, has a blighted look, and
deserted houses rapidly falling into decay, overgrown
roads, fields choked with weeds, and an absence of life
220 THE GOLDEN, CHERSONESE. letter xi v.
and traffic in the melancholy streets, have a depressmg
influence. The people are harassed by a vexatious and
uncertain system of fees and taxes, calculated to engender
ill feeling, and things connected with the administration
seem somewhat " mixed."
You will be almost tired of the Chinese, but the
more I see of them the more I am impressed by them.
These States, as well as Malacca, would be jungles with
a few rice clearings among them were it not for their
energy and industry. Actually the leading man, not
only at Kwala Lumpor (now the seat of government),
but in Selangor, is Ah Loi, a Chmaman ! During the
disturbances before we " advised " the State, the Malays
burned the town of Kwala Lumpor three times, and he
rebuilt it, and, in spite of many disasters stuck to it at
the earnest request of the native government. He has
made long roads for the purpose of connecting the
most important of the tin mines with the town. His
countrymen place implicit confidence in him, and Mr.
Syers, the admirable superintendent of police, tells me
that by his influence and exertions he has so successfully
secured peace and order in his town and district that
during many years not a single serious crime has been
committed. He employs on his estate — in mines, brick-
fields, and plantations — over four thousand men. He has
the largest tapioca estate in the country and the best
machinery. He has introduced the manufacture of
bricks, has provided the sick with an asylum, has been
loyal to I>ritish interests, has been a most successful
administrator in the populous district entrusted to him,
and has dispensed justice to the complete satisfaction of
his countrymen. While he is the creator of the com-
mercial interests of Selangor, he is a man of large aims
and of an enlightened public spirit. Is there no decora-
tion of St. Michael or St. George in reserve for Ah
LETTER XIV. THEATRICAL MAGNIFICENCE. 221
Loi ? ^ So far, however, from receiving auy suitable re-
cognition of liis services, it is certain that Ah Loi's
claims for compensation for losses, etc., have not yet
been settled.
Klang does not improve on further acquaintance. It
looks as if half the houses were empty, and certainly half
the population is composed of Government employes, chiefly
police constables. There is no air of business energy, and
the queerly mixed population saunters with limp move-
ments ; even the few Chinese look depressed, as if life
were too much for them. It looks too as if there were a
need for holding down the population (which I am sure
there isn't), for in addition to the fort and its barracks,
military police stations are dotted about. A jail, with a
very high wall, is in the middle of the village.
1 Three months after my visit, Ah Loi received the Sultan of Sehuigor
for several days -with, gi-eat magnificence, and in July 1880 he entertained
the Governor of the Straits Settlements and his suite with yet greater
splendour, erecting for the occasion a fine banqueting-hall with open sides.
Sir F. A. Weld writes of this visit — -"At Kwala Lumpor, besides the
reception and a dinner at the Capitan China's, a Chinese theatrical per-
formance was given representing a sultan and gi-eat rajahs quarrelling,
hut laying aside their quarrels on the appearance of a 'governor,' who
pacifies the country. Addresses and odes were also sung and recited to
me from the stage, and the performers representing the great personages
prostrated themselves and made obeisances. The dresses were all real
hand-worked gold and silver embroidery on thick silks of the richest
colours. The princes were attended by their warriors, some of whose
helmets and arms were magnificent, with banners and feather standards,
and coats of arms, or their equivalents, borne aloft bj-^ heralds ; ladies
also appeared, one a prima-donna, other actresses rode hobby-horses, onlj'
the head of the woman and hobby-horse being visible in the clouds of silk
and gold. Jesters jested ; and tumblers, in blue, loose tunics and wide
scarlet trousers, shot across the stage when there was any room in front
of the crowd of actors with the rapidity of meteors. The pace was too
great to be even sure that they were human beings. 1 have seen Kean's
Shakespearian revival pageants formerly in London, but I never realised
what a raediffival court pageant might have been till in the heart of the
Malay Peninsula 1 saw the most gorgeous combination of colour and pic-
turesque effect that I have ever set eyes upon."
222 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. lettkr xiv.
The jungle comes so near to Klang that tigers and
herds of elephants, sometimes forty strong, have been seen
within half a mile of it. In Siingei Ujong there was some
excitement about a " rogue elephant " (i.e., an elephant
which, for reasons wliich appear good to other elephants,
has been expelled from the herd, and has been made mad
and savage by solitude), which, after killing two men, has
crossed the river into Selangor, and is man-killing here.
A few days ago a man catching sight of him in the jungle
took refuge in a tree, and the brute tore the tree down
\vith its trunk, and tramj)led the poor fellow to death, his
companion escaping during the process.
Yesterday evening we had service in the hall, tlie
whole white population being " rounded up " for it ; seven
men and two women, three of whom are Eoman Catholics.
The congregation sat under one punkah and the Eesident
under another, both being worked by bigoted Mohammedans !
Everything was " ship-shape," as becomes Mr. Douglas's
antecedents ; a union jack over the desk, from wliich the
liturgy was read, and a tiger-skin over the tiles in front,
the harmonium well played, the singing and chanting
excellent. We had one of the most beautiful of the
Ambrosian hymns, and possibly Dr. Bonar may like to
hear that his hymn, " I heard the voice of Jesus say," was
sung with equal enjoyment by Catholics and Protestants
in the wilds of the Golden Chersonese.
There is an almost daily shower here, and it is lovely
now, with a balmy freshness in the air. No one could
imagine that we are in the torrid zone, and only 3° from
the equator. The mercury has not been above 83° since
I came, and the sea and land breezes are exquisitely deli-
cious. I wish you could see a late afternoon here in its
full beauty, with palms against a golden sky, pink clouds,
a pink river, and a balm-breathing air, just strong enough
to lift the heavy scented flowers which make the evenings
LETTER XIV. "A cobra: a COBRA!" 223
delicious. There has been a respite from mosqiiitos, and
I am having a " real good time."
But I had a great fright yesterday (part of the " good
time " though). I was going into the garden when six
armed policemen leapt past me as if they had been shot,
followed by Mr. Daly, the land-surveyor, who has the
V.C. for some brave deed, shouting " a cobra ! a cobra ! "
and I saw a hooded head above the plants, and then the
form I most fear and loathe twisting itself towards the
house with frightful rapidity, every one flying. I was
up a ladder in no time, and the next moment one of the
policemen plucking up courage broke the reptile's back
with the butt of his rifle, and soon it was borne away dead
by its tail. It was over four feet long. They get about
thi-ee a day at the fort. There is a reward of 20 cents
per foot for every venomous snake brought in, 5 cents per
foot for an alligator, and 2 5 dollars for every tiger. Lately
the police have got two specimens of an opliiophagus, a
snake-eating snake over eighteen feet long, whose bite
they say is certain death. They have a horrible collection
of snakes alive, half-dead, dead, and preserved. There
was a fright of a different kind late at night, and the two
made me so nervous that when the moonliQ;ht oiinted two
or three times on the bayonet of the sentry, which I
could see from my bed, I thought it was a Malay going
to murder the Eesident, against whom I fear there may
be manv a vendetta.
224 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xtv.
LETTER X\\ .—{Continued)
SS. " Abduls AMAT,"
Langat River, Selangou.
I WAS glad to get up at sunrise, when the whole heaven
was flooded with colour and glory, and the lingering mists
wliich lay here and there over the jungle gleamed like
silver. Before we left Mrs. Douglas gave me tea, scones,
and fresh butter, the first fresh butter that I have tasted
for ten months. We left Klang in this beautiful steam-
launch, the (so-called) yacht of the Sultan, at eight, with
forty souls on board.
I am somewhat hazy as to wliere I am. " The Langat
river" is at present to me only a " geographical expression."
It is now past three o'clock, and we have been going about
since eight, sometimes up rivers, but mostly on lovely
tropic seas among islands. This is one of the usual busi-
ness tours of the Eesident, with the additional object of
presenting a uniform to the Sultan. Besides ]\Ir. Douglas
tliere are his son-in-law Mr. Daly ; ]\Ir. Hawley, who has
lately been appointed to a collectorship, and who goes up
to be presented to the Sultan ; Mr. Syers, formerly a private
in the 10th Begiment, now superintendent of the Selangor
police force ; and thirty policemen, who go up to form the
Sultan's escort to-morrow. Precautions, for some occult
reason, seem to be considered indispensable here, and have
been increased since the murder of Mr. Lloyd at the Dind-
ings. The yacht has a complete permanent roof of painted
LETTER XIV. A TROPIC DREAM. 225
canvas, and under this is an armament of boarding pikes.
Eound the little foremast four cutlasses and a quantity of
ball cartridges are displayed. Six rifles are in a rack below,
and the policemen and body-guard are armed with rifles
and bayonets.
The yacht is perfection. The cabin, in which ten can
dine, is high and airy, and, being forward, there is no
^•ibration. Space is exquisitely utilised by all manner of
contrivances. She is only 50 tons, and very low in the
water, but we are going all the way to Prince of "Wales
Island in her — 2 miles. Everything is perfect on board,
even to the cuisine, and I appreciate the low rattan chairs
at the bow, in which one can sit in the shade and enjoy
the zephyrs.
This day has been a tropic dream. I have enjoyed it
and am enjoying it intensely. We steamed down the
Klang river, and then down a narrow river-like channel
among small palm-fringed islands which suddenly opened
upon the sea, wliicli was slightly green towards the coral-
sanded, densely wooded, unpeopled shores, but westwards
the green tint merged into a blue tint, which ever deepened
till a line of pure, deep, indescribable blue cut the blue
sky on the far off clear horizon. But, ah ! that " many
twinkling smile of ocean ! " Words cannot convey an
idea of what it is under this tropic sun and sky, with the
" silver flashing " wavelets rippling the surface of the
sapphire sea, beneath whose clear warm waters brilliant
fishes are darting through the coral groves. These are
enchanted seas —
"Wliere falls not rain, or hail, or any snow,
Or ever wind blows loudly."
It is unseemly that the Ahdulsamat should smoke and
puff and leave a foamy wake behind her. " Sails of silk
and ropes of sendal," and poetic noiseless movements only
would suit these lovely Malacca Straits. This is one of
Q
226 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv.
the very few days in my life in which I have felt mere
living to be a luxury, and what it is to be akin to seas and
breezes, and birds and insects, and to know why nature
sings and smiles.
We had been towing a revenue cutter with stores for
a new lighthouse, and cast her adrift at the point where
we anchored, and the Resident and Mr. Daly went ashore
with thirteen policemen, and I had a most interesting and
instructive conversation with IMr. Syers. Afterwards we
steamed along the low wooded coast, and then up the
Langat river till we came to Bukit Jugra, an isolated hill
covered with jungle. The landing is up a great face of
smooth rock, near the top of which is a pretty police sta-
tion, and higher still, nearly concealed by bananas and
coco-palms, is the large bungalow of the revenue officer
and police magistrate of Langat. "We saw ]\Ir. Ferney, the
magistrate, landed the police guard, and then steamed up
here for a council.
Mr. Syers went ashore, and returned with the Sultan's
heir, the Kajah Moussa, a very peculiar-looking Malay, a
rigid Mohammedan, who is known, the Resident says, to
have said that wlien he becomes Sultan he " will drive the
white men into the sea." He works hard, as an example
to his people, and when working dresses like a coolie. He
sets his face against cock-fighting and other Malay sports,
is a reformer, and a dour, strong-willed man, and his acces-
sion seems to be rather dreaded by the Resident, as it is
supposed that he will be something more than a mere
figmre-head prince. He is a Hadji, and was dressed in a
tur1)an made of many yards of priceless silk muslin, em-
broidered in silk, a white hajit, a long white saronr/, and
full white trousers — a beautiful dress for an Oriental. He
shook hands with me. I wish that these people would
not adopt our salutations, their own are so much more
appropriate to tlieir character.
i
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LETTER XIV. TIGER STORIES. 227
The yacht is now lying at anchor in a deep, coffee-
coloured stream, near a picturesque Malay village on stilts,
surrounded by very extensive groves of palms. Several
rivers intersect each other in this neighbourhood, flowinfj
through dense jungles and mangrove swamps. The sun is
still high. The four white men and the Eajah Moussa
have gone ashore snipe-shooting, the Malays on board are
sleeping, and I am enjoying a delicious solitude.
February 4, 4 P.M. — We are steaming over the in-
candescent sapphire sea, among the mangrove-bordered
islands which fringe the Selangor coast, under a blazing
sun, with the mercury 88° in the shade, but the heat,
though fierce, is not oppressive, and I have had a delight-
ful day. The men returned when they could no longer
see to shoot snipes, with a well filled bag, and after sun-
set we dropped down to Bukit JugTa or Langat. Most
of the river was as black as night with the heavy-
shadows of the forest, but along the middle there was a
lane of lemon-coloured water, the exquisite reflection of a
lemon-coloured sky. The Resident and Mr. Daly went
down to the coast in the yacht to avoid the mosquitos of
the interior, but I with Omar, one of the " body-guard,"
half Malay half Kling, as my attendant, and Mr. Syers,
landed, to remain at the magistrate's bungalow. It was
a lovely walk up the hill through the palms and bananas,
and the bayonets of our escort gleamed in the intense
moonlight, not with anj-thing alarming about them either,
for an escort is only necessary because the place is so
infested by tigers. The bungalow is large but rambling,
and my room was one built out at the end, with six
windows with solid shutters, of which Mr. Ferney closed
all but two, and half-closed those, because of a tiger
which is infesting the immediate neighbourhood of the
house, and whose growling they say is most annoying.
He killed a heifer belonging to the Sultan two nights ago,
228 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv.
aud last night the sentry got a shot at him from the
verandah outside my room, as he was engaged in most
undignified depredations upon the hen-house.
There was a grand excitement yesterday morning.
A tigress was snared in a pitfall and was shot. Her
corpse was brought to the bungalow warm and limp.
She measured eight feet two inches from her nose
to her tail, and her tail was two feet six inches
long. She had whelps, and they must be starving
in the jungle to-night. Her beautiful skin is hanging
up. All the neighbourhood, Chinese and Malay,
turned out. Some danced ; and the Sultan beat gongs.
Everybody seized upon a bit of the beast. The Sultan
claimed the liver, which, when dried and powdered,
is worth twice its weight in gold as a medicine. The
blood was taken, and I saw the Chinamen drying it in
the sun on small slabs : it is an invaluable tonic ! The
eyes, which were of immense size, were eagerly scrambled
for, that the hard parts in the centre, which are valuable
charms, might be set in gold as rings. It was sad to see
the terrible, " glaring eyeballs " of the jungle so dim and
stiff. The bones were taken to be boiled down to a jelly,
which, when some mysterious drug has been added, is a
grand tonic. The gall is most precious, and the flesh
was all taken, but for what purpose I don't know. A
steak of it was stewed, and I tasted it, and found it in
flavour much like the meat of an ancient and over-
worked draught ox, but Mr. Ferney thought it like good
veal. At dinner the whole talk was of the wild beasts
of the jungle, and, as we were all but among them, it
was very fascinating. I wanted to go out by moonlight,
but Mr. Ferney said that it was not safe, because of tigers,
and even the Malays there don't go out after nightfall.
Mr. Ferney has given me a stick with a snake-mark
on it, which was given to him as a thing of great value.
LETTER XIV. A " MAN-EATING KRIS." 229
The Malay donor said that anyone carrying it would become
invulnerable and invisible, and that if you were to beat
anyone with it, the beaten man would manifest all the
symptoms of snake poisoning ! Mr. Ferney has also given
me a kris. When I showed it to Omar this morning, he
passed it across his face and smelt it, and then said, " This
Jcris good — has ate a man."
I could not sleep much, there were such strange noises,
and the sentry made the verandah creak all night outside
my room ; but this is a splendid climate, and one is re-
freshed and ready to rise with the sun after very little
sleep. The tropic mornings are glorious. There is such
an abrupt and vociferous awakening of nature, all dew-
bathed and vigorous. The rose-fiushed sky looks cool, the
air feels cool, one longs to protract the delicious time.
Then with a suddenness akin to that of liis setting, the
sun wheels above the horizon, and is high in the heavens
in no time, truly " coming forth as a bridegroom out of his
chamber, and rejoicing as a giant to run his course," and
as truly " There is nothing hid from the heat thereof,"
for hardly is he visible than the heat becomes tremendous.
But tropical trees and flowers, instead of drooping and
withering under the solar fury, rejoice in it.
This morning was splendid. The great banana fronds
under the still, blue sky looked truly tropical. The mer-
cury was 82° at 7 a.m. The "tiger mosquitos," day tor-
ments, large mosquitos with striped legs, a loud metaUic
hum, and a plethora of venom, were in full fury from
daylight. Ammonia does not relieve their bites as it does
those of the night mosquitos, and I am covered with
inflamed and confluent lumps as large as the half of a
bantam's egg. But these and other drawbacks, I know
from experience, will soon be forgotten, and I shall remem-
ber only the beauty, the glory, and the intense enjoyment
of this day.
230 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv.
Quite early the Rajah Moussa arrived in a hajii of
rich, gold-coloured silk, which suited his swarthy com-
plexion. He sat in the room pretending to look over the
Grajphic, but in reality watching me, as I wrote to you,
just as I should watch an (mf. At last he asked how many
Japanese I had killed ! ! ! !
The succession is here hereditary in the male line, and
this Eajah Moussa is the Sultan's eldest son. The Sultan
receives £2000 a year out of the revenue, and this Eajah
£960.
The Resident arrived at nine, wearing a very fine dress
sword, and gold epaulets on his linen coat ; and under a
broiling sun we all walked through a cleared j^art of the
jungle, through palms and bananas, to the reception at the
Sultan's, which was the " motive " of our visit. The Sultan,
Abdulsamat, has three houses in a beautiful situation, at
the end of a beautiful valley. They are in the purest
style of Malay architecture, and not a Western idea appears
anywhere. The wood of which they are built is a rich
brown red. The roofs are very high and steep, but some-
what curved. The architecture is simple, appropriate, and
beautiful. The dwelling consists of the Sultan's house, a
broad open passage, and then the women's house or harem.
At the end of the above passage is the audience-hall, and
the front entrance to the Sultan's house is through a large
porch which forms a convenient reception room on occa-
sions like that of yesterday.
From this back passage or court a ladder, with rungs
about two feet apart, leads into tlie Sultan's house, and
a step-ladder into the women's house. Two small boys,
entirely naked, were incongruous objects sitting at the
foot of the ladder. Here we waited for him, two files of
policemen being drawn up as a guard of honour. He
came out of the women's house very actively, shook
hands with each of us (obnoxious custom !), and passed
LETTER XIV. A COUNCIL OF STATE. 231
through the lines of police round to the other side of his
house into the porch, the floor of which was covered with
fine matting nearly concealed by handsome Persian ruf^s.
The Sultan sat on a high -backed, carved chair or
throne. All the other chairs were plain. The Eesident
sat on his right, I on his left, and on my left the Eajah
Moussa, with other sons of the Sultan, and some native
princes. Mr. Syers acted as interpreter. Outside there
were double lines of military police, and the bright
adjacent slopes were covered with the Sultan's followers
and other Malays. The balcony of the audience-hall,
which has a handsome balustrade, was full of Malay
followers in bright reds and cool white. It was all beauti-
ful, and the palms rustled in the soft air, and bright
birds and butterflies flew overhead, rejoicing in mere
existence.
If Abdulsamat were not sultan, I should pick him
out as the most prepossessing Malay that I have seen.
He is an elderly man, with iron-gray hair, a high and
prominent brow, large, prominent, dark eyes, a well-
formed nose, and a good mouth. The face is bright,
kindly, and fairly intelligent. He is about the middle
height. His dress became him weU, and he looked com-
fortable in it though he had not worn it before. It was a
rich, black velvet haju or jacket, something like a loose
hussar jacket, braided, frogged, and slashed with gold,
trousers with a broad gold strip on the outside, a rich
silk sarong in checks and shades of red, and a Malay
printed silk handkerchief knotted round his head, forming
a sort of peak. No Mohammedan can wear a hat with
a rim or stiff crown, or of any kind which would prevent
him from bowing his forehead to the earth in worship.
The Eesident read the proceedings of the council of
the day before, and the Sultan confirmed them. The
nominal approval of measures initiated by the Eesident
232 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv.
and agreed to iu council, and the signing of death-war-
rants, are among the few prerogatives which " his High-
ness " retains. Then a petition for a pension from Eajah
Brean was read, the rajah, a slovenly-looking man, being
present. The petition was refused, and the Sultan, in
refusing it, spoke some very strong words about idleness,
which seems a great failing of Rajah Brean's, but it has
my strong sympathy, for —
-Why
Should life all labour be ?-
Tliere is no joy but calm ;
Why should we only toil, tlie roof and crown of things 1 "
During the reception a richly-dressed attendant sat
on the floor with an iron tube like an Italian iron in his
hand, in which he slowly worked an arrangement which
might be supposed to be a heater up and down. I
thought that he might be preparing betel-nut, but Mr.
Douglas said that he was working a charm for the
Sultan's safety, and it was believed that if he paused
some harm would happen. Another attendant, yet more
richly dressed, carried a white scarf fringed and embroi-
dered with gold over one shoulder, and two vases of solid
gold, with their surfaces wrought by exquisite workman-
ship into flowers nearly as delicate as filigree work. One
of these contained betel-nut, and the other sirih leaves.
Meanwhile the police, with their bayonets flashing in the
sun, and the swarthy, richly-costumed throng on the
palm-shaded slopes, were a beautiful sight. The most
interesting figure to me was that of the reforming heir,
the bigoted IMoslem in his gold-coloured haju, with his
swarthy face, singular and almost sinister expression, and
his total lack of all "Western fripperies of dress. I think
that there may be trouble when he comes to the throne,
at least if the present arrangements continue. He does
LETTER XIV. THE " LIGHT OF THE HAREM." 233
not look like a man who would be content to be a mere
registrar of the edicts of " a dog of an infidel."
The Sultan has a " godo^vn " containing great trea-
sures, concerning which he leads an anxious life, hoards
of diamonds and rubies, and priceless damascened hrises,
with scabbards of pure gold wrought into marvellous
devices and incrusted with precious stones. On Mr.
Douglas's suggestion (as I understood) he sent a hris
with an elaborate gold scabbard to the Governor, saying :
" It is not from the Sultan to the Governor, lut from
a friend to a friend." He seems anxious for Selangor
to "get on." He is making a road at Langat at his
own expense ; and acting, doubtless, under British advice,
has very cordially agreed that the odious system of
debt-slavery shall be quietly dropped from among the
institutions of Selangor.
"Wlien this audience was over I asked to be allowed
to visit the Sultana, and, with Mrs. Ferney as interpreter,
went to the harem, accompanied by the Eajah Moussa.
It is a beautiful house, of one very large lofty room, part
of which is divided into apartments by heavy silk cur-
tains. One end of it is occupied by a high dais covered
with fine mats, below which is another dais covered with
Persian carpets. On this the Sultana received us, the
Eajah Moussa, who is not her son, and ourselves sitting
on chairs. If I understood rightly that this prince is not
her son I do not see how it is that he can go into
the women's apartments. Two guards sat on the floor
just within the door, and numbers of women, some of
them in wliite veils, followers of the Sultana, sat in rows
also on the floor.
It must be confessed that the " light of the harem "
is not beautiful. She looks nearly middle-aged. She
is short and fat, with a flat nose, open wide nostrils, thick
lips, and filed teeth, much blackened by betel-nut chewing.
234 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xiv.
Her expression is pleasant, and lier manner is prepossess-
ing. She wore a rich, striped, red silk sarong, and a very
short, green silk kcibaya with diamond clasps ; but I saw
very little of her dress or herself, because she was almost
enveloped in a pure white veil of a fine woollen material
spangled with gold stars, and she concealed so much of
her face with it, in consequence of the presence of the
Eajah Moussa, that I only rarely got a glimpse of the
magnificent diamond solitaires in her ears. Our conver-
sation was not brilliant, and the Sultana looked to me as
if she had attained 7iirvana, and had " neither ideas nor
the consciousness of the absence of ideas." We returned
and took leave of the Sultan, and after we left I caught
a glimpse of him lounging at ease in a white shirt and
red sarong, all his gorgeousness having disappeared.
After we returned to the bungalow the Sultan sent
me a gift. Eight attendants dressed in pure white came
into the room in single file, and each bowing to the earth,
set down a brass salver, with its contents covered with a
pure white cloth. Again bowing, they uncovered them,
and displayed the fruitage of the tropics. There were
young coco-nuts, gold-coloured bananas of the kind which
the Sultan eats, papayas, and clusters of a species of
jambu, a pear-shaped fruit, beautiful to look at, each
fruit looking as if made of some transparent, polished
white wax with a pink flush on one side. The Eajah
Moussa also arrived and took coffee, and the verandahs
were filled with his followers. Every rajah goes about
attended, and seems to be esteemed according to the size
of his following.
We left this remote and beautiful place at noon, and
after a delightful cruise of five hours down the Jugra,
and among islands floating on a waveless sea, we reached
dreary, decayed Klang in the evening. I. L. B.
LETTER XV. TIGER MOSQUITOS. 235
LETTEE XV.
The Residenct, Klang,
February 7.
I HAVE had two days of supposed quiet here after
the charming expedition to Langat. The climate seems
very healthy. The mercury has been 87° daily, but then
it falls to 74° at night. The barometer, as is usual so
near the equator, varies only a few tenths of an inch
during the year. The rainfall is about 130 inches
annually. It is most abundant in January, February,
and March, and at the change of the monsoon, and
there is enough all the year round to keep vegetation in
beauty. Here, on uninteresting cleared land with a
featureless foregTound and level mangrove swamps for
the middle distance, it must be terribly monotonous
to have no change of seasons, no hope of the mercury
falling below 80° in the daytime, or of a bracing wind,
or of any marked climatic changes for better or worse
all Hfe throuirh.
The mosquitos are awful, but after a few months of
more or less suffering the people who live here become
inoculated by the poison, and are more bothered than
hurt by the bites. I am almost succumbing to them.
The ordinary pests .are bad enough, for just when the
evenings become cool, and sitting on the verandah would
be enjoyable, they begin their foray, and specially attack
the feet and ankles, but the tiger mosquitos of this
236 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xv.
region bite all day, and they do embitter life. In the
evening all the gentlemen put on sarongs over their
trousers to protect themselves, and ladies are provided
with sarongs which we draw over our feet and dresses,
but these wretches bite through two " ply " of silk or
cotton ; and, in spite of all precautions, I) am dreadfully
bitten on my ankles, feet, and arms, which are so
swollen that I can hardly draw on my sleeves, and for
two days stockings have been an impossibility, and I
have had to sew up my feet daily in linen ! The swell-
ings from the bites have become confluent, and are scarlet
with inflammation. It is truly humiliating that " the
crown of things " cannot defend himself against these
minute enemies, and should be made as miserable as I am
just now.
But it is a most healthy climate, and when I write
of mosquitos, land leeches, centipedes, and snakes, I
have said my say as to its evils. I will now confess
that I was bitten by a centipede in my bath-house in
Sungei Ujong, Init I at once cut the bite deeply with a
penknife, squeezed it, and poured ammonia recklessly
over it, and in a few hours the pain and swelling
went off.
I have been to the fort, the large barrack of the
military police, and Mr. Syers showed me many tilings.
In the first place, a snake about eight feet long was let
out and killed. The Malays call this a " two-headed "
snake, and there is enough to give rise to the ignorant
statement, for after the i)roper liead was dead the tail
stood up and moved forwards. Tlie skin of this re]itile
was marked tliroughout with broad bands of black
and white alternately. There was an ill-favoured skull
of a crocodile hanging up to dry, with teeth three inches
long. One day lately a poor Hadji was carried off by
one, and shortly afterwards this monster was caught, and
LETTER XV. A HADJI'S FATE. 237
on opeiiiug it they found the skull of the Hadji, part of
liis body, a bit of his clothing, and part of a goat. I
brought away as spoils tiger's teeth and claws, crocodile's
teeth, bear's teeth, etc.
I went also to the Government offices. The skin of
a superb tiger, which was killed close to Klang after it
had devoured six men, decorated the entrance. I heard
two cases tried before the Eesident. The first criminal
was a Malay, who was "in trouble" for the very British
crime of nearly beating his wife to death. She said she
did not want to prosecute him, but to get a divorce. She
was told to apply to the Imaum, and the man was bound
over to keep the peace for six months. The next case
was a verv common one here, and the court was crowded
with Chinese onlookers. A Chinaman had bought a "irl
(very nice looking she was), and now a man wants to
marry her, upon which her owner produces a promissory-
note from her, and demands $165 as her price! It
was impossible to make him understand that the trans-
action is utterly illegal and immoral. The Eesident
addressed some very strong and just words to this man
in reprobation of his conduct, which were translated for
the benefit of the crowd.
I cannot elicit anything very definite, here or else-
where, about the legal system under which criminals are
tried in these States. Apparently murder, robbery,
forgery, and violent assault, come under English criminal
law, and must be equally punishable whether committed
by a Briton, a Chinaman, or a Malay. But then nobody
except a Christian can be punished for bigamy. So
criminal law even undergoes modification by local custom ;
and the four wives of the Mussulman, and the subordi-
nate wives of the Chinaman, have an equal claim to
recognition with the one wife of the Englishman. Even
Mohammedan law, by which the Malays profess to be
238 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xv.
ruled, is modified by Malay custom, which asserts itself
specially in connection with marriage, its frequent atten-
dant repudiation, and inheritance.
The " Malay custom " {adat Malayu) seems to have
been originally a just and equitable code, though oft-
times severe in its punishments, as you will see if you
can get Newbold's Malacca, and was probably suited to
the people, but it has undergone such clippings and emen-
dations by the successive rajahs or sultans of these native
states, that the " custom " now in force bears a very faint
resemblance to the original adat. It is said, indeed, that
each alteration has been for the worse, and that now any
chief who introduces anything of his own will, justifies it
as " adat Malayu." Mr. Swettenham, the assistant colonial
secretary, says that the few upright rajahs who exist say
that there is no longer any " adat Malayii" but that
everything is done by "adat SiiJca hate" i.e. the custom by
which a man can best suit his own inclination.
So it seems that a most queerly muddled system
of law prevails under our flag, Mohammedan law,
modified by degenerate and evil custom, and to some
extent by the discretion of the residents, existing along-
side of fragments of English criminal law, or perhaps
more correctly of " justice's justice," the Resident's notions
of " equity," oven-iding all else.^ Surely, as we have
practically acquired those States, and are responsible for
their good government, we ought to give them the blessing
of a simple code of law, of which the residents shall be
only the responsible interpreters, modified by the true
" Malay custom " of course, but under the same conditions
whicli are giving such growing satisfaction to the peoples
of India and Ceylon.
' A colonial friend tells nic tliat he a.skc(l an En^lisli magistrate in one
of the native States, by what law — Englisli, Colonial, or Malay — he had
sentenced some culjirits to three years' imprisonment, and that the reply
was a shnig, and "The rascals were served right."
LETTER XV. OATHS AND LIES. 239
The oaths are equally inscrutable, and probably no
oath, however terrible in formula, Tvould restrain a
Chinese coolie witness from telling a lie, if he thought
it would be to his advantage.^
I went to see the jail, a tolerable building, — a barred
cage below, and a long room above, — standing in a
gi-avelled courtyard, surrounded by a high wall. Formerly
there were no prisons, and criminals were punished on
the spot, either by being krissed, shot, or flogged. Here
they have a liberal diet of rice and salt-fish, and " hard
labour " is only mild work on the roads. The prisoners,
forty-two adult men, were drawn up in a row, and Mr.
Syers called the roll, telling the crime of each man, and
his conduct in prison ; and most of those who had con-
ducted themselves well were to be recommended to the
Sultan for remission of part of their sentences. "Flog
them if they are lazy," the Eesident often said ; but Mr.
Syers says that he never punishes them except under
aggravated circimistances. The prisoners are nearly all
Chinamen, and their crimes are mostly murder, gang-
robbery, assault, and theft. About half of them were in
chains. There is an unusual mortality in the prison,
attributed, though possibly not attribiitahle, to the en-
forced disuse of opium. We went also to the hospital,
mainly used by the police, a long airy shed, with a
broad shelf on each side. Mr. Klyne, the apothecary, a
half-caste, has a good many Malay dispensary patients.
On our return, four i\Ialay women, including the
1 Sir Benson Maxwell, late Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements, to
whose kindness I am much indebted, wrote to me lately thus : "In China
I believe an oath is rarely taken ; when it is, it is in the form of an impre-
cation. The Avitness cuts off a cock's head, and prays that he may be so
treated if he speaks falsely." "Would you cut off a cock's head to that?"
I once asked a Chinese ■\\-itness who had made a statement which I did not
believe. " I would cut off an elephant's head to it," he replied. In the
Colonial Courts, Chinamen are sworn by burning a piece of paper on which
is written some imprecation on themselves if they do not speak the truth.
240 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xv.
Iiiuium's wife, came to see me. Each one would have
made a picturesque picture, but they had no mamiers, and
seized on my hands, whicli are coarsened, reddened, and
swelled from heat and mosquito bites, all exclaiming,
" chanti! chanti!" — pretty! pretty! I wondered at their
bad taste, specially as they had very small and pretty
hands themselves, with almond-shaped nails.
In the evening the " establisliment " dined at the
Eesidency. After dinner, as we sat in the darkness in the
verandah, maddened by mosquito bites, about 9,30, the
bugle at the fort sounded the " alarm," which was fol-
lowed in a few seconds by tlie drum beating "to quarters,"
and in less than five minutes every approach to the
Residency was held by men with fixed bayonets, and
fourteen rounds of ball-cartridges each in their belts, and
every road round Klang was being patrolled by picquets.
1 knew instinctively that it was " humbug," arranged to
show the celerity wdth which the little army coidd be
turned out ; and shortly an orderly arrived with a note —
" Ealse alarm ;" but Klang never subsided all night, and
the Klings beat their tom-toms till dayliglit. I am writ-
ing at dawn now, in order that my letter may " catch the
mail." I. L. B.
LETTER XVI. A YACHTING VOYAGE. 241
LETTEE XVI.
Steam-Launch " Abdulsamat,"
February 7.
You will certainly tliink, from the dates of my letters,
that I am usually at sea. The Eesident, his daughter,
Mrs. Daly, Mr. Hawley a revenue officer, and I, left
Klang this morning at eight for a two days' voyage in
this bit of a thing. Blessed be " the belt of calms ! "
There was the usual pomp of a body-guard, some of
whom are in attendance, and a military display on the
pier, well drilled, and well officered in quiet, capable,
admirable, unobtrusive Mr. Syers ; but gentle Mrs.
Douglas devoted to her helpless daughter, standing above
the jetty, a lone woman in forlorn, decayed Klang, haunts
me as a vision of sadness, as I think of her sorrow and
her dignified hospitality in the midst of it.
Now at half-past eleven we are aground with an ebb-
tide on the bar of the Selangor river, so I may write a
little, though I should like to be asleep.
Bernam River, Seldngor, February Stk. — " ChildJca ! "
(worthless good-for-nothing wretch), " Bodo ! " (fool). I
hear these words repeated incessantly in tones of thunder
and fury, with accompaniments which need not be dwelt
upon. The Malays are a revengeful people. If any official
in British service were to knock them about and insult
them, one can only say what has been said to me since I
came to the native States : " Well, some day — all I can
242 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvi.
say is, God help him !" But then if an official were to be
krissed, no matter how deservedly in Malay estimation, a
gunboat would be sent up the river to "punish," and
would kill, burn, and destroy ; there would be a " little
war," and a heavy war indemnity, and the true bearings
of the case would be lost for ever.
Yesterday, after a detention on the bar, we steamed
up the broad, muddy Solangor river, margined by bubbling
slime, on whicli alligators were basking in the torrid sun,
to Selangor. Here the Dutch had a fort on the top of the
hill. We destroyed it in August 1871. Some Chinese
whose connection with Selangor is not traceable, after
murdering nearly everybody on board a Pinang owned
junk, took the vessel to Selangor. We demanded that the
native chiefs should give up the pirates, and they gave up
nine readily, but refused the tenth, against whom "it does
not appear that there was any proof," and drew their
krises on our police when they tried to arrest the man in
defiance of them. The (acting) Governor of the Straits
Settlements, instead of representing to tlie Sultan the mis-
conduct, actual or supposed, of his officers, sent a war-ship
to seize and punish them. This attempt was resented by
the Selangor chiefs, and they fired on those who made it.
The Binaldo destroyed the town in consequence, and
killed many of its inhabitants.
Wlien the viceroy, a brother of the Sultan of Kcdah,
retook Selfingor two years afterwards, he found that what
had been a populous and thriving place was almost
deserted, the few hovels which remained were in ruins,
the plantations were overgrown with rank jungle growths,
and their owners had fled ; the mines in the interior were
deserted, and the roads and jungle paths were infested by
bands of half-starved robbers.^
' This account of Selangor does not rest on local hearsay, hut on the
authority of two of the leading officials of the Colonial Goverunient.
LETTER XVI. VARIETIES OF SLIME. 243
Selilngor is a most wretched place — worse than Klang.
On one side of the river there is a fishino- villafje of mat
and attap hovels on stilts raised a few feet above the
slime of a mangrove swamp ; and on the other an expanse
of slime, with larger houses on stilts, and an attempt at a
street of Chinese shops, and a gambling-den, which I
entered, and found full of gamblers at noon-day. The
same place serves for a spirit and champagne shop.
Slime was everj^vhere oozing, bubbling, smelling putrid
in the sun, all glimmering, shining, and iridescent, breed-
ing fever and horrible life ; while land-crabs boring
holes, crabs of a brilhant turquoise -blue colour, wliich
fades at death, and reptiles like fish, with great bags
below their mouths, and innumerable armour-plated
insects, were rioting in it under the broiling sun.
We landed by a steep ladder upon a jetty with a
gridiron top, only safe for shoeless feet, and Mr. Hawley
and I went up to the fort by steps cut in the earth.
Tliere are fine mango-trees on the slopes, said to have
been planted by the Dutch two centuries ago. The fort
is nearly oblong, and has a wall of stones and earth round
it, in which, near the entrance, some of the Dutch brick-
work is still \dsible. The trees round it are much tattered
and torn by English shell. In front of the entrance there
is a large flat stone on a rude support. On this a young
girl was sacrificed some years ago, and the Malay guns
were smeared with her blood, in the idea that it would
make them successful. I was told this story, but have
no means of testincj its accuracv.
Within the fort the collector and magistrate — a very
inert-looking Dutch half-caste — has a wretched habitation,
mostly made of attap. We sat there for some time. It
looked most miserable, the few things about being empty
bottles and meat-tins. A man would need many re-
sources, great energy, and an earnest desire to do his
244 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvr.
duty, in order to save him from complete degeneracy.
He has no better prospect from his elevation than a
nearly level plateau of mangrove swamps and jungle,
with low hills in the distance, in which the rivers rise.
It was hot — rather.
In the meantime the Eesident was trying a case, and
when it was concluded we steamed out to sea and hugged
all day the most monotonous coast I ever saw, only just,
if just, above high water-mark, with a great level of
mangrove swamps and dense jungle behind, with high,
jungle-covered hills in the very far distance, a vast area
of beast-haunted country, of which nothing is known by
Europeans, and almost nothing by the Malays themselves.
So very small a vessel tumbles about a good deal even
with a very light breeze, and instead of going to dinner I
lay on the roof of the cabin studying blue books. At
nishtfall we ancliored at the mouth of the Bernam river
to avoid the inland mosquitos, but we must have brought
some with ^ us, for I was malignantly bitten. Mrs. Daly
and I shared the lack of privacy and comfort of the cabin.
Perfect though the Abdulsamat is, there is very little rest
to be got in a small and overcrowded vessel, and besides,
the heat was awful. I think we were not far enough
from the swampy shore, for Mrs. Daly was seized with
fever during the night, and a Malay servant also. In
the morning Mrs. Daly, who is comely and has a
very nice complexion, looked haggard, yellow, and much
shaken.
At daylight we weighed anchor and steamed for
many miles up the muddy, mangrove-fringed river Bernam,
the mangi-oves occasionally varied by the nipah palm.
We met several palm-trees floating with their roots and
some of their fruits above the water, like those we saw
yesterday evening out on tlie Malacca Straits, looking
like crowded Malay prahus with tattered mat-sails.
LETTER XVI. AN UNPROSPEROUS REGION. 245
Before nine we anchored at this place, whose
wretchedness makes a great impression on me, because
we are to deposit Mr. Hawley here as revenue collector.
I have seen hun every day for a week; he is amiable
and courteous, as well as intelligent and energetic, and it
is shocking to leave him alone in a malarious swamp.
This dismal revenue station consists of a few exception-
ally poor-looking Malay houses on the river bank, a few
equally unprosperous looking Chinese dwellings, a police
station of dilapidated thatch among the trees, close to it
a cage in which there is a half-human looking criminal
lying on a mat, a new house or big room raised for Mr.
Hawley, with the swamp all round it and underneath it,
and close to it some pestiferous ditches which have been
cut to drain it, but in which a putrid-looking brown ooze
has stagnated. There is a causeway about two hundred
yards long on the river bank, but no road anywhere.
The river is broad, deep, swift, and muddy ; on its
opposite side is Perak, the finest State in the peninsula,
and the cluster of mat houses on th6 farther shore is
under the Perak Government.^ Sampans are lying on
the heated slime. Coco-nut trees fringe the river bank
for some distance, and there are some large, spreading
trees loaded with the largest and showiest crimson blos-
soms I ever saw, throwing even the gaudy Poinciana
regia into the shade ; but nothing can look very attractive
here with the swamp in front and the jungle behind,
where the rhinoceros is said to roam undisturbed.
We landed in the police boat at a stilted jetty
approached by a ladder with few and slippery rungs.
At the top there was a primitive gridiron of loose nihong
bars, and the river swirled so rapidly and dizzily below
that I was obliged ignominiously to hold on to a China-
^ The Bemam district has recently been handed over to Perak, and is
now under Mr. Low's very capable administration.
246 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvr.
man in order to reach the causeway safely. To add to
the natural insecurity of the foothold, some men were
killing a goat at the top of the ladder, and its blood
made the whole gridiron slippery. The banks of the
river are shining slime, giving off fetid exhalations under
the burning sun, there is a general smell of vegetable
decomposition, and miasma fever (one would suppose) is
exhaling from every bubble of the teeming slime and
swamp.
In the verandah of Mr. Hawley's house a number of
forlorn-looking rajahs are sitting, each with his forlorn-
looking train of followers, and in front of the police
station a number of forlorn-looking Malays are sitting
motionless hour after hour. The Chinese have a row of
shops above the river bank, and even on this deadly-
looking shore they display some purpose and energy.
Mrs. Daly and I are sitting in Mr. Hawley's side ver-
andah with the bubbling swamp below us. She reads a
dull novel, I watch the dead life, pen in hand, and think
how I can convey any impression of it to you. The
Eesident has gone snipe-shooting to replenish our larder.
A boat now and then crosses from the Perak side, a
sauntering Malay occasionally joins the squatting group,
a fishing hawk now and then swoops down upon a fish,
a policeman occasionally rouses up the wretch in the
cage, and so the torrid hours pass.
I take this up again as the dew falls, and the sea
takes on the colouring of a dying dolphin. The Eesident
returned with a good bag of snipe, and with Eajali Odoot,
a gentle, timid-looking man, and another rajah with an
uncomfortable puzzled face, took iiis place at a table,
a policeman with a brace of loaded revolvers standing
behind him. Policemen filed in ; one or two cases were
tried and dismissed, the Malay witnesses trembling from
head to foot, and then the wretch from the cage was
LETTER XVI. A WAIF AND STRAY. 247
brought ill looking hardly luuiian, as, from under his
shaggy, unshaven hair and unplaited pigtail which hung
over his chest, he cast furtive, frightened glances at the
array before him. He was charged with being a waif.
A Malay had picked him up at sea in a boat, of which
he could give no account, neither of himself. So he is
supposed to have been implicated in the murder of Mr.
Lloyd, and we are bringing him heavily ironed and his
boat up to Pinang. I wonder how many of the feelings
which we call human exist in the lowest order of
Orientals 1 It is certain that many of them only regard
kindness as a confession of weakness. The Chinese
seem specially inscrutable, no one seems really to under-
stand them. Even the Canton missionaries said that they
knew nearly nothing of them and their feelings. This
%vretched criminal with his possible association with a
brutal murder is a most piteous object on deck, and
comes between me and the enjoyment of this entrancing
evening.
We re -embarked late in the afternoon, and with
the flood-tide in our favour have left Selangor behind.
It has impressed me unfavourably as compared with
Sungei Ujong. Of Kwalor Lumpor I cannot give any
opinion, but I have seen no signs of progress or life any-
where else. The people of the State are harassed by
vexatious imposts which yield very Little, cost a great
deal to collect, repress industry, and drive away popula-
tion. Among such are taxes on individuals moving
about the country, up or down the rivers, cutting wood
or in boats, oppressively heavy export duties on certain
kinds of produce, and ad valorem duties on all articles of
import and export not otherwise specially taxed. The
costs of litigation are enormous, and the legal expenses
to litigants are as great as in settlements where with the
same money every advantage can be obtained. The
248 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvi.
stamps on all legal documents are also oppressive. The
various departments are said to be in a state of " hugger-
mugger."
With all this there is a good deal of display of
military power on a small scale, and of such overawing
implements as bayonets and revolvers, together with
marching and counter-marching, body-guards and guards
of honour. There must surely be a want of the right
kind of vigour in the administration, and a laisser aller
on the part of some of the minor officials, the result of
which is that the great capabilities of the State are not
developed, and its resources seem very little known.
There has not been any disturbance in Selangor since
1874; and as neither the Sultan, the Malays, nor the
Chinese have ever raised objections of any serious kind
to the proposals of the British advisers, the " far back "
state of things is very singular.
Mr. Syers, the superintendent of military police,
appears a thoroughly efficient man, as sensible in his
views of what would conduce to the advancement of the
State as he is conscientious and careful in all matters of
detail which concern his rather complicated position.
He is a student of the people and of the country, speaks
Malay fluently, and for a European seems to have a sym-
pathetic understanding of the Malays, is studying the
Chinese and their language, as well as the flora, fauna, and
geology of the country, and is altogether unpretending.
I have formed a very high opinion of him, and should
rely implicitly on anything which lie told me as a fact.
This is a great blessing, for conflicting statements on
every subject, and the difficulty of estimating which one
comes probably nearest the truth, are among the great
woes of travelling ! I. L. B.
LETTER XVII. THE DINDINGS. 249
LETTER XVII.
Hotel de L'Europe, Pinang,
February 9.
In the evening we reached the Bindings, a lovely group
of small islands ceded to England by the Pangkor Treaty,
and just now in the height of an unenviable notoriety.
The sun was low and the great heat past, the breeze
had died away, and in the dewy stillness the largest of
the islands looked unspeakably lovely as it lay in the
golden light between us and the sun, forest-covered to its
steep summit, its rocky promontories running out into
calm, deep, green water, and forming almost landlocked
bays, margined by shores of white coral sand backed by
dense groves of coco-palms whose curving shadows lay
dark upon the glassy sea. Here and there a Malay
house" in the shade indicated man and his doings, but it
was all silent.
On a high, steep point there is a small clearing on
which stands a mat bungalow with an attap roof, and
below this there is a mat police station, but it was all
desolate, nothing stirred, and though we had intended to
spend the early hours of the night at the Bindings, we
only lay a short time in the deep shadow upon the clear
green water, watchiag scarlet fish playing in the coral
forests, and the exquisite beauty of the island with its
dense foliage ia dark relief against the cool lemon sky.
Peace brooded over the quiet shores, heavy aromatic
250 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvii.
odours of night-Llooming plants wrapped us round, the
sun sank suddenly, the air became cool, it was a dream
of tropic Leauty.
" Chalakar ! Bondo ! " Those jarring sounds seemed
to have something linking them with the tragedy of
which the peaceful -looking bungalow was lately the
scene, and of wliich you have doubtless read. A Chinese
gang swooped down upon the house from behind, beating
gongs and shouting. Captain Lloyd got up to see what
was the matter, and was felled by a hatchet, calling out
to his wife for his revolver. This had been abstracted,
and the locks had been taken off his fowling-pieces.
The ayah fled to the jungle in the confusion, taking with
her the three children, the youngest only four weeks old.
The wretches then fractured Mrs. Lloyd's skull with the
hatchet, and having stunned Mrs. Innes, who was visiting
her, they pushed the senseless bodies under the bed, and
were preparing to set fire to it when something made
them depart.
No more is likely to be known. The police must
either have been cowardly or treacherous. The Pijah
Pekhct called the next day and brought tlie frightfully
mangled corpse, Mrs. Lloyd, whose reason was over-
turned, and Mrs. Innes, on here. It is supposed that the
Chinese secret societies have frustrated justice. A wretch
is to be hanged here for the crime this morning on his
own confession, but it is believed that he was doomed to
sacrifice himself by one of these societies, in order to
screen the real murderers. Tlie contrast was awful
between the island looking so lovely in the evening light,
and this horrid deed which has desolated it.
The mainland approaches close to the Dindings, but
the mangrove swamps of Selangor had given place to
lofty ranges, forest covered, and a white coral strand
fringed with palms. It was a lovely night. The north-
LETTER XVII. A TROPIC SUNRISE. 251
east monsoon was fresh and steady, and the stars were
glorious. It was very hot below, but when I went up
on deck it was cool, and in the coloured dawn we were
just running up to the island-gToup of which Pinang is
the cliief, and reached the channel which divides it from
Leper Island just at sunrise. All these islands are
densely wooded, and have rocky shores. The high
mountains of the native State of Kedah close the view to
the north, and on the other side of a very narrow channel
are the palm groves and sugar plantations of Province
Wellesley. The Leper Island looked beautiful in the
dewy morning with its stilted houses under the coco-
palms ; and the island of Pinang, with its lofty peak, dense
woods, and shores fringed with palms sheltering Malay
TcaTovpongs, each with its 'prahiis drawn up on the beach,
looked impressive enough.
The fierce glory of a tropic sunrise is ever a new
delight. It is always the sun of the Mneteenth Psahn,
with the prevailing yellow colour of the eastern sky
intensifying in one spot, a cool, lingering freshness, a
deepening of the yellow east into a brilliant rose colour,
till suddenly, " like a glory, the broad sun " wheels above
the horizon, the dew-bathed earth rejoices, the air is
flooded with vitality, all things which rejoice in light and
heat come forth, night-birds and night prowlers retire,
and we pale people hastily put up our umbrellas to avoid
being shrivelled in less than ten minutes from the first
appearance of the sun.
Pinang, from the pinang or areca-palm, is the proper
name of the island, but out of compliment to George IV.
it was called Prince of Wales Island. Georgetown is
the name of the capital, but by an odd freak we call the
town Penang, and spell it with an e instead of an i.
There were a great many ships and junks at anchor,
and the huge " P. and 0." steamer Peking, and there was
252 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvii.
a state of universal hurry and excitement, for a large
number of tlie officials of the Colonial Government and
of the " protected " States are here to meet Sir W. Kobin-
son, the Governor, who is on his way home on leave.
There are little studies of human nature going on all
round. Most people have " axes to grind." There are
people pushing rival claims, some wanting promotion,
others leave, some frank and above-board in their ways,
others descending to mean acts to gain favour, or under-
raining the good reputation of their neighbours ; every-
body wanting something, and usually, as it seems, at the
expense of somebody else !
Mr. Douglas, who had got up his men in most imposing
costume, anchored the Ahdulsamat close to the Peking,
and at once went on board, with the hris with the gold
hilt and scabbard presented by the Sultan of Selangor.
In the meantime the Governor sent for me to breakfast
on board, and I was obliged to go among clean, trim
people without having time to change my travelling
dress. On deck I was introduced by the Governor to
Mr. Low, the Kesident in Pcrak, who has arranged for
my transit thither, and to Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant
Resident. I was so glad that I had no claims of my
own to push when I saw the many perturbed and anxious
faces. I sat next Sir William Robinson at breakfast, and
found him most kind and courteous, and he interested
himself in my impressions of the native States. No one
could make out the flags on the Selangor yacht, four
squares placed diagonally, two yellow and two red, in
one of the red ones a star and crescent in yellow, and on
the mizenmast the same flag with a blue ensign as one
of tlie squares ! I wonder if the faineant Sultan who
luxuriates at Langat knows anything of the sensationalism
of his " yacht."
Mr. Douglas took me back to the launch in fierce
LETTER XVII. "A TOUCH OF THE SUN." 253
blazing beat, wbicb smote me just as I put down my
umbrella in order to climb up her side, and caused me
to fall forwards with a sort of vertigo and an icy chill,
. but as soon as I arrived here I poured deluges of cold
water on my head, and lay down with an iced bandage
on, and am now much better. In nine months of
tropical travelling, and exposure on horseback without an
umbrella to the fuU force of the sun, I have never been
affected before. I wear a white straw hat with the sides
and low crown thickly wadded. I also have a strip four
inches broad of three thicknesses of wadding, sewn into
the middle of the back of my jacket, and usually wear in
addition a coarse towel WTung out in water, folded on the
top of my head, and hanging down the back of my neck.
Soon after I came in to the salon Mr. Wood, the
Puisne Judge, a very genial, elderly man, called and took
me to his house, where I found a very pleasant party. Sir
Thomas Sidgreaves, the Chief Justice, Mr. Maxwell, the
Assistant Eesident in Perak, Mr. Walker, appointed to the
(acting) command of the Sikh force in Perak, and Mr.
Kinnersley, a Pinang magistrate, with Mr. Isemonger, the
police magistrate of the adjacent Province Wellesley.
With an alteration in the names of places and people, the
conversation was just what I have heard in all British
official circles from Prince Edward Island to- Singapore,
who was likely to go home on leave, who might get a
step, whether the Governor would return, what new
appointments were likely to be created, etc., the interest
in all these matters being intensified by the recent visit
of Sir W. Eobinson. It was all pleasant and interesting
to me.
This evening the moonlight from the window was
entrancingly beautiful, the shadows of promontory behind
promontory lying blackly on the silver water amidst the
scents and silences of the purple night.
254
THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvii.
As one lands on Pinang one is impressed even before
reaching the shore by the blaze of colour in the cos-
tumes of the crowds which throng the jetty. There are
over fifteen thousand Klings, Chuliahs, and other natives
^'1 '■ ■'i''/ifc'iai| Yi \ ^-^
of India on the island, and with their handsome but not
very intellectual faces, their Turkey-red turbans and loin-
cloths, or the soft, white muslins in which both men and
women drape themselves, each one might be an artist's
model. The Kling women here are beautiful and exqui-
sitely draped, but the form of the cartilage of the nose
LETTER XVII. A QUESTION AND ANSWER. 255
and ears is destroyed by heavy rings. There are many
Arabs too who are wealthy merchants and bankers. One
of them, Noureddin, is the millionaire of Pinang, and is
said to own landed property here to the extent of £400,000.
There are more than twenty-one thousand Malays on the
island, and though their kampongs are mostly scattered
among the pahn-groves, their red sarongs and white hajus
are seen in numbers in the streets, but I have not seen
one Malay woman. There are about six hundred and
twelve Europeans in the town and on Pinang, but they
make little show, though their large massive bungalows,
under the shade of great bread-fruit and tamarind-trees,
give one the idea of wealth and solidity.
The sight of the Asiatics who have crowded into
Georgetown is a wonderful one, Chinese, Burmese, Java-
nese, Arabs, Malays, Sikhs, Madrassees, Klings, Chuliahs,
and Parsees, and still they come in jimks and steamers
and strange Arabian craft, and all get a living, depend
slavishly on no one, never lapse into pauperism, retain
their own dress, customs, and religion, and are orderly.
One asks what is bringing this swarthy, motley crowd from
all Asian lands, from the Eed to the Yellow Sea, from
Mecca to Canton, and one of my Kling boatmen answers
the question, "Empress good — coolie get money; keep it."
This being interpreted is, that all these people enjoy
absolute security of life and property under our fag, that
they are certain of even-handed justice in our colonial
courts, and that " the roll of the British drum " and the
presence of a British ironclad mean to them simply that
security which is represented to us by an efficient police
force. It is so strange to see that other European countries
are almost nowhere in this strange Far East. Possibly
many of the Chinese have heard of Paissia, but Paissia,
France, Germany, and America, the whole lot of the " Great
Powers " are represented chiefly by a few second-rate war-
256 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvii.
ships, or shabby consulates in back streets, while England
is " a name to conjure with," and is represented by pros-
perous colonies, powerful protective forces, law, liberty, and
security. These ideas are forced so strongly upon me as
I travel westward, that I almost fear that I am writing in
a " hifalutin " style, so I will only add that I think that
our Oriental Grand Vizier knew Oriental character and the
way of influencing Oriental modes of thinking better than
his detractors when he added et Imferatrix to the much
loved V. E.
This is truly a brilliant place under a brilliant sky, but
oh I weary for the wilds ! There is one street, Chulia
Street, entirely composed of Chulia and Ivling bazaars.
Each side-walk is a rude arcade, entered by passing through
heavy curtains, when you find yourself in a narrow, crowded
passage, with deep or shallow recesses on one side, in which
the handsome, brightly-dressed Klings sit on the floor, sur-
rounded by their bright-hued goods ; and over one's head
and all down the narrow, thronged passage, noisy with
business, are hung Malay bandanas, red turban cloths, red,
sarongs in silk and cotton, and white and gold sprinkled
muslins, the whole length of the very long bazaar, blazing
with colour, and picturesque beyond description with beau-
tiful costume. The Klings are much pleasanter to buy
from than the Chinese. In addition to all the brilliant
things wliich are sold for native wear, they keep large
stocks of English and German prints, which they sell for
rather less than the price asked for them at home, and for
less than half what the same goods are sold for at the
English shops.
I am writing as if tlie Klings were predominant, but
they are so only in good looks and bright colours. Here
again the Chinese, who number forty-five thousand souls,
are becoming commercially the most important of the
immigrant races, as they have long been numerically and
LETTER XVII. THE CHINAMAN GOES AHEAD. 257
industrially. In Georgetown, besides selling their own
and all sorts of foreign goods at reasonable rates in small
shops, they have large mercantile houses, and, as elsewhere,
are gradually gaining a considerable control over the trade
of the place. They also occupy positions of trust in
foreign houses, and if there were a strike among them all
business, not excepting that of the Post Office, would come
to a standstill. I went into the Mercantile Bank and
found only Chinese clerks, into the Post Office and only
saw the same, and when I went to the " P. and 0." office
to take my berth for Ceylon, it was still a Cliinaman,
imperturbable, taciturn, independent, and irreproachably
clean, with whom I had to deal in " pidjun English."
They are everywhere the same, keen, quick-witted for
chances, markedly self-interested, purpose -like, thrifty,
frugal, on the whole regarding honesty as the best policy,
independent in manner as in character, and without a
trace of " Oriental servility."
Georgetoicn, February 11th. — I have not seen very
much in my two days ; indeed, I doubt whether there is
much to see, in my line at least ; nor has the island any
interesting associations as Malacca has, or any mystery of
unexplored jungle as in Sungei XJjong and Selangor.
Pinang came into our possession in 1786, through the
enterprise of Mr. Light, a merchant captain, who had ac-
quired much useful local knowledge by trading to Kedah
and other Malay States. The Indian Government desired
a commercial " emporium " and a naval station in the far
ea.st, and Mr. Light recommended this island, then com-
pletely covered with forest, and only inhabited by two
migratory families of Malay fishermen, whose huts were
on the beach where this town now stands. In spite of
romantic stories of another kind, to which even a recent en-
cyclopaedia gives currency, it seems that the Eajali of Kedah,
to wliom the island belonged, did not bestow it on Mr.
s
258 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xvii.
Light, but sold it to the British Governnieiit for a stipu-
lated payment of £2000 a year, which his successor receives
at this day.
It is a little over thirteen miles long, and from five
to ten broad. It is a little smaller than the Isle of Wight,
its area being one hundred and seven square miles.
The roads are excellent. After one has trot inside of
the broad belt of coco and areca palms which runs along
the coast, one comes upon beautiful and fertile country,
partly level, and partly rolling, with rocks of granite
and mica-schist, and soil of a shallow but rich vegetable
mould, with abundance of streams and little cascades,
dotted all over witli villas (very many of them Cliinese)
and gardens, and planted with rice, pepper, and fruits,
while cloves and nutmegs, which last have been long a
failure, grow on the higher lands. The centre of Pinang
is wooded and not much cultivated, but on the south and
south-west coasts there are fine sugar, coffee, and pepper
plantations. The coffee looks very healthy. From the
ridges in the centre of the island the ground rises to-
wards the nortli, till, at the Peak, it reaches the height of
two, thousand nine hundred and twenty-two feet. There
is a sanitarium there with a glorious view, and a delicious
temperature ranging from 60° to 75°, while in the town
and on the low lands it ranges from 80° to 90°. A sea
breeze blows every day, and rain falls throughout the
year, except in January and February. The vegetation is
profuse, but less beautiful and tropical than on the main-
land, and I have seen very few fiowers except in gardens.
The products are manifold — guavas, mangoes, lemons,
oranges, bananas, plantains, shaddocks, bread-fruit, etc. ;
and sugar, rice, sweet potatoes, ginger, areca and coco
nuts, coffee, cloves, some nutmegs, and black and white
pepper. ]\Iy gharrie driver took me to see a Chinese
pepper ])lantation, to me tlie most interesting tiling that
LETTER XVII. PEPPER PLANTING. 259
I saw on a very long and hot drive. Pepper is a very
profitable crop. The vine begins to bear in three or four
years after the cnttings have been planted, and yields
two crops annually for about thirteen years. It is an
East Indian plant, rather pretty, but of rambling and
untidy growth, a climber, with smooth soft stems, ten or
twelve feet long, and tough, broadly ovate leaves. It
is supported much as hops are. When the berries on
a spike begin to turn red they are gathered, as they
lose pungency if they are allowed to ripen. They are
placed on mats, and are either trodden with the feet or
rubbed by the hands to separate them from the spike,
after which they are cleaned by winnowing. Black
pepper consists of such berries wrinkled and blackened
in the process of drying, and white pepper of similar
berries freed from the skin and the fleshy part of the
fruit by being soaked in water and then rubbed. Some
planters bleach with chlorine to improve the appearance ;
but this process, as may be supposed, does not improve
the flavour.
In these climates the natives use enormous quantities
of pepper, as they do of all hot condiments, and the
Europeans imitate them.
Although there are so many plantations, a great part
of Pinang is uncleared, and from the Peak most of it
looks like a forest. It contains ninety thousand inhabit-
ants, the Chinese more than equalling all the other
nationalities put together. Its trade, which in 1860
was valued at £3,500,000, is now (1880) close upon
£8,000,000, Pinang being, like Singapore, a great entre-
pot and " distributing point."
Now for the wilds once more ! I. L. B.
260 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. p^rak.
A CHAPTER ON PERAK.
The " protected " State of Perak (pronounced Payrah)
is the richest and most important of the States of the
Peninsula, as well as one of the largest. Its coast-line,
broken into, however, by a bit of British territory, is about
one hundred and twenty-five miles in length. Its sole
southern boundary is the State of Selangor. On the north
it has the British colony of Province Wellesley, and the
native States of Kedah and Patani, tributary to Siam.
Its eastern boundary is only an approximate one, Kelantan
joining it in the midst of a vast tract of unexplored country
inhabited solely by the Sakei and Semang aborigines.
The State is about eighty miles wide at its widest part,
and thirty at its narrowest, and is estimated to contain
between four and five thousand square miles. The
great artery of the country is tlie Perak river, a most
serpentine stream. Ships drawing thirteen feet of water
can ascend it as far as Durian Sabatang, fifty miles from
its mouth, and boats can navigate it for one hundred and
thirty miles farther. This river, even one hundred and
fifty miles from its mouth at Kwala Kangsa, is two
luindred yards wide, and might easily be asceuded by
" stern-wheel " boats drawing a foot of water, such as
those which ply on tlie upper Mississi])pi. Next in size
to the Perak is the Kinta, which falls into the Perak,
besides which there are the Bernani and Batang Padang
rivers, both navigable for vessels of light draught. Along
PERAK. TIN MINING. 261
the shores of these streams most of the Malay kampongs
are built.
The interior of Perak is almost altogether covered
with magnificent forests, out of which rise isolated lime-
stone hills, and mountain ranges from five thousand to
eight thousand feet in height. The scenery is beautiful.
The neighbourhood of the mangrove swamps of the coast
is low and swampy, but as the ground rises, the earth
which has been washed down from the hills becomes fertile,
and farther inland the plains are so broken up by natural
sand ridges which lighten the soil, that it is very suitable
for rice culture.
Tin is the most abundant of the mineral products of
Perak, and, as in the other States, the supply is apparently
inexhaustible. ' So far it is obtained in " stream works "
only. The export of this metal has risen from £144,000
in 1876 to £436,000 in 1881. Tin-mining continues
to attract a steady stream of Chinese immigration, and
the Resident believes that the number of Chinamen has
increased from twenty thousand in 1879 to forty thou-
sand in 1881. Wealth is reckoned in slabs of tin, and
lately for an act of piracy a rajah was fined so many
slabs of tin, instead of so many hogsheads of oil, as he
would have been on the West African coast.
Gold is found in tolerable quantities, even by the
Malay easy-going manner of searching for it, and diamonds
and garnets are tolerably abundant. Gold can be washed
with little difficid-ty from most of the river beds, and from
various alluvial deposits. The metal thus found is pure,
but " rough and shotty." The nearer the mountains the
larger the find. It is of a rich, red colour. Iron ore is
abundant, but though coal has been found it is not of any
commercial value. The methods of mining both for tin
and gold are of the most elementary kind, and it is
probable that Perak has still vast metallic treasures to
262 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. perak.
yield up to scientific exploration and Anglo -Saxon
energy.
Kice is the staple food of the inhabitants. Dry rice
on the hillsides was the kind which was formerly ex-
clusively cultivated, but from some Indians who came
from Sumatra to Perak the Malays have learned the
mode of growing the wet variety, and it is now largely
practised. Partly in consequence of a great lack of
agricultural energy, and partly from the immense quan-
tity of rice required by the non-producing Chinese miners,
Perak imported in 1881 rice to the value of £70,000.
There is scarcely a tropical product which tliis mag-
nificent region does not or may not produce, gutta, india-
rubber, sago, tapioca, palm-oil and fibre, yams, sweet
potatoes, cloves, nutmegs, coffee, tobacco, pepper, gambir,
with splendid fruits in perfection — the banana, bread-
fruit, anona, coco-nut, mangosteen, durian, JdJc-irait,
cashew -nut, guava, bullock's heart, pomegranate, shad-
dock, custard -apple, papaya, pine -apple, with countless
others. The indigenous fruits alone are so innumerable
that a description of the most valuable of them would
fill a chapter.
Our homely vegetables do not flourish, but water-
melons, cucumbers, gourds, capsicums, chilies, coco-nut
cabbage, edible arums, and, where the Chinese have settled,
coarse lettuces, radishes, and pulse, grow abundantly, with
various other not altogether to be despised vegetables
with Malay names.
The timber is magnificent, and under the unworthy
name of "Jungle produce" a large trade is done in it.
Perak is the land of palms, and produces the invaluable
coco-palm, most parts of which have their commercial
value, the areca palm which produces the betel-nut, the
fjomuti palm from whose strong black fibres they make
ropes, cordage, and strands for capturing the alligator;
PERAK.
THE GOMUTI PALM.
263
the jaggary-palm, from which sugar is made, as well as a
fermeuted beverage ; the nihong palm, which grows rouud
GOMVTI PAI-M.
the Malay kanipongs, and is used for their gridiron floors,
and for the posts of their houses ; the dwarf-palms which
serve no other purpose than to gladden the eyes by their
264 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. perak.
beauty ; and the nipcih palm, wliicli fringes the rivers, and,
under the name of attap, forms the tliatch of both native
and foreign houses.
Eoad-making has not made great strides in Perak,
but railroads are being planned, and a good road extends
from the port of Larut to the great Chinese mining town
of Taipeng, and thence to the British residency at Kwala
Kangsa, a distance of over thirty-three miles, the electric
telegraph accompanying the road. Others are in course
of construction, and there are numerous elephant and
jungle tracks through the western parts of the State.
Still, the rivers form the natural highways. Perak
has two ports, Teluk Anson on the Perak river, thirty-
four miles from its mouth, and Teluk Kertang, a few
miles up the Larut river, and eight miles from the
great tin -mines of Taipeng. The import and export
trade is carried on mainly with Pinang, and at this time
one of several small steamers leaves Larut for that port
daily. A steamer calls at Teluk Anson once a fortnight
on her voyage from and to Singapore and Pinang, and
another calls at the same port every foui'th day, as well
as at the Bindings and the Bernam river.
Trade is rapidly advancing. The exports of the State,
which were valued at £147,993 in 1876, amounted to
£513,317 in 1881; and the imports, which amounted to
£166,275 in 1876, had reached £488,706 in 1881, the
whole import and export trade of that year amounting to
£1,002,023. The free population of Perak is now
estimated at
Malays
. 56,000
Chinese
. 40,000
Other Asiatics .
850
Europeans
90
Aborigines
1,000
97,940
PERAK. A FUTURE OF COFFEE. 265
To which may be added a slave and bond debtor popula-
tion of nearly four thousand souls.
The revenue of Perak has risen from £42,683 in
1876 to £138,572 in 1881, and the expenditure,
keeping pace with it, has risen from £45,277 in
1876 to £130,587 in 1881. The chief sources of the
Perak revenue are customs duties, opium, and other
farms and licences, and land revenue, and the chief items
of expenditure are for civil and police establishments,
roads and bridges, and allowances and pensions to chiefs.
It is worthy of remark that the military establishment,
for so the magnificent Sikh armed police force may be
called, costs more than the civil establishment. It may
also be remarked that the revenue of Perak, thanks to
the financial sagacity and wise discrimination of the
Eesident, is collected with little difficulty, and without
inflicting any real vexations or hardships on the tax-
payer.
Public works, such as the construction of good cart
roads and bridcjes, the making of canals, the clearing
rivers from impediments to navigation, the enlargement
of experimental gardens, the introduction and breeding of
sheep, cattle, and improved breeds of poultry, surveying
wild land, and rebuilding and draining mining towns, are
being carried on energetically. It has been found, after
long and carefully-conducted experiments, that the lower
mountains of Perak are admirably suited for the growth
of tea, chinchona, and Arabian coffee, w^hile Liberian coffee
grows equally well on the lower lands. Coffee appears
to be so nearly " played out " in Ceylon, that many coffee-
planters have been " prospecting " in Perak, and now
that the Government of India has consented to the
importation of Indian coolie labour into the State, under
certain restrictions, as an experimental measure, a future
of coffee may be predicted with tolerable certainty. One
266 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. perak.
of the causes for satisfaction in connection with this
State is tliat the Malays themselves are undoubtedly con-
tented with British rule, and are prospering under it.
Crime of any kind in the Malay districts is very rare.
The " ^dllage system " works well, and the courts of
law conduct their business with an efficiency and
economy which compare favourably with the transac-
tions of our colonial courts ; English law is being gradu-
ally introduced and gives general satisfaction, and the
native rajahs are being trained to administer even-handed
justice according to its provisions, and at the same time
without trenching upon Malay religion and custom.
Slavery and debt bondage, which, as hitherto practised in
Perak, have involved evils and cruelties which are un-
known to any but those who have actually lived in the
State, will (it is hoped) be abohshed by equitable arrange-
ment in 1883. Various difficulties remain to be settled ;
the large Chinese element, with its criminal tendencies,
requires great firmness of dealing, and the introduction
of foreign capital and an additional form of alien labour
may lead to new perplexities ; but on the whole the out-
look for l*erak and its people is a favourable one,
especially if the present liesident, Mr. Hugh Low, is
able to remain to continue his task of developing the
resources, settling the difficulties, and consolidating the
wellbeing of the State.
Nothing is known of the early settlement of Perak.
It was formerly tributary to the Malay sovereigns of
Malacca, and afterwards to those of Acheen, to whom the
Perak sultans sent gold and silver flowers as tribute. Siam
has also at diffi^rent times asserted sovereign rights and
demanded tribute, but the Siamese were expelled in 1822
with the help of liajah Ibrahim, the Avarlike chief of the
neighbouring State of Selangor. The Government w\as a
despotism, administered during the last three centuries by
p^RAK. CHINESE DIFFICULTIES. 267
sultans who were connected with the ruling dynasties of
Johore and Acheen.
Our connection with Perak began in 1818 by a com-
mercial treaty between the East India Company and the
Sultan, the chief object of which was to circumvent the
Dutch on the subject of tin. By another treaty, in 1826,
it was agreed that the Sultan should govern his country
according to his own will ; that no force should be sent
either by Siam to " molest, attack, or disturb " Perak, and
while it was stipulated that the Siamese should not attack
or disturb Selangor, the Encrlish ensfacjed not to allow
Selanc^or to attack or disturb Perak.
a
So tilings jogged along till 1871, when the Sultan
died, and the rajahs, passing over two men who by blood
were nearest to the throne, elected Ismail, an old and
somewhat inoffensive man. Three years of intrigue
followed, and many singular complications, which would
be quite uninteresting to the general reader, and they
furnished no excuse for English interference.
It is singular that the fall of Perak as an independent
State was brought about by what may be called a civil war
among the Chinese, who in 1871 were estimated at thirty
thousand, and were principally engaged in tin -mining in
Larut. These Chinamen were divided into two sections,
the Go Kwans and the Si Kwans ; and a few months after
Sultan Ismail was elected, a dispute arose between the fac-
tions. Both parties flew to arms, and were aided with guns,
ammunition, military stores, and food from Pinang, Pinang
Chinese having previously supplied the capital needed for
working the mines. The settlement was kept in perpetual
hot water, its trade languished, and in return for military
equipments the Chinese of Larut sent over two thousand
wounded and starving men. The Mentri, the Malay
" Governor of " Larut, although aided by Captain Speedy
and a force of well-drilled troops recruited by him in India,
268 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. perak.
and possessing four Krupp guns, was powerless to restore
order, and Larut was destroyed, being absolutely turned
into a wilderness, in which all but three houses had been
burned, and, while the Malays had fled, the surviving Si
Kwans were living behind stockades, while those of the
faction opposed to that with which the Mentri and his
commander-in-chief. Captain Speedy,had allied themselves,
were living on the produce of orchards from which their
owners had been driven, and on booty, won by a whole-
sale system of piracy and murder, practised not only on
the Perak waters but on the high seas.
The war waged between the two parties threatened to
become a war of extermination, horrible atrocities were per-
petrated on both sides, and it is said and believed that as
many as three thousand belligerents were slain on one day
early in the disturbances. If the course of prohibiting the
export of the munitions of war had been persevered in the
strife would have died a natural death, but the Mentri made
representations which induced the authorities of the Straits
to accord a certain degree of support to himself and the
Si Kwans, by limiting the prohibition to his enemies the
Go Kwans. Things at last became so intolerable in Larut,
and as a consequence in Pinang, that the Governor of the
Straits Settlements, Sir A. Clarke, thought it was time to
interfere.
During these disturbances in Larut, Lower Perak and
the Malays generally were living peaceably under Ismail,
their elected sultan. Abdullah, who was regarded as his
rival, was a fugitive, with neither followers, money, nor
credit. He had, however, friends in Singapore, to one of
whom, Kim Clieng, a well-known Cliinaman, he had pro-
mised a lucrative appointment if he would prevail on the
Straits authorities to recognise him as Sultan. Lord Kim-
berley had previously instructed the Governor to consider
the expediency of introducing tlie " Pesidential system "
pHrak. the PANGKOR TREATY. 269
into " any of the Malay States," and the occasion soon
presented itself.
An English merchant in Singapore and Kim Cheng
drafted a letter to the Governor, which Abdidlah signed,
in which this chief expressed his desire to place Perak
under British protection,^ and " to have a man of sufficient
abilities to show him a good system of government." Sir
A. Clarke, thus appealed to, went to Pulo Pangkor, off the
Perak coast, summoned the Chinese headmen and the
]\Ialay chiefs to meet him there, and so effectively recon-
ciled the former, who were bound over to keep the peace,
that they are not again heard of. The Governor stated
to the Malay chiefs and Abdullah that it was the duty of
England to take care that the proper person in the line of
succession was chosen for the throne. He inquu-ed if
there were any objection to Abdullah, and on none being
made, the chiefs signed a paper dictated by Sir A. Clarke,
since known as the " Pangkor Treaty." Its articles de-
posed Ismail, created Abdullah sultan, ceded two tracts of
territory to England, and provided that the new ruler
should receive an English Eesident and Assistant-Eesident,
whose salaries and expenses should be the first charge on
the revenue of the country, whose counsel must be asked and
" acted upon " on all questions other than those of religion
and custom, and under whose advice the collection and
^ Abdullah informs " our friend " Sir W. Jervois, that his position
and that of Perak are "in a most deplorable state," that there are two
sultans between whom no arrangement can be made, that the revenues
are badly raised, and the laws are not executed with justice. " For these
reasons," he says, "we see that Perak is in very great distress, and, in our
opinion, the affairs of Perak cannot be settled except with strong, active
assurance from our friend the representative of Queen Victoria, the greatest
and most noble. . . . We earnestly beg our friend to give complete assist-
ance to Perak, and govern it, in order that this coimtry may obtain safety
and happiness, and that proper revenues may be raised, and the laws
administered with justice, and all the inhabitants of the countiy may
live in comfort,"
270 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. p£rak.
control of all revenues and the general administration
should be regulated. After the signing of this treaty
piracy ceased in the Perak waters, and Larut was repeopled
and became settled and prosperous.
So far, as regards the sultanate, I have followed the
account given by Su- Benson Maxwell. Mr. Swettenham,
however, writes that Abdullah failed to obtain complete
recognition of himself as Sultan, and instead of fulfilling
the duties of his position devoted himself to opium smok-
ing, cock-fighting, and other vices, estranging, by his over-
bearing manner and pride of position, those who only needed
forbearance to make them his supporters. It may be
remarked that Abdullah was not as yielding as had been
expected to his English advisers.
The Pangkor Treaty was signed in January 1874. On
November 2d, 1875, Mr. Birch, the Jjritish Pesident, who
had arrived the evening before at the village of Passir
Salah to post up orders and proclamations announcing
that the whole kingdom of Perak was henceforth to be
governed by English officers, was murdered as he was pre-
paring for the bath.
On this provocation we entered upon a " little war,"
Perak became known in England, and the London press be-
tran to ask how it was that colonial officers were suffered to
make conquests and increase Imperial responsibilities with-
out the sanction of Parliament. Lord Carnarvon tele-
graphed to Singapore that he could not sanction the use
of troops " for annexation or any other large political aims,"
supplementing his telegram by a despatch stating that the
residential system had been only sanctioned provisionally,
as an experiment, and declaring that the Government
would not keep troops in a country " continuing to possess
an independent jurisdiction, for the purpose of enforcing
measures which the natives did not cheerfully accept."
As the sequel to the war and Mr. Birch's nmrder,
riRAK. THE SETTLEMENT OF PERAK. 271
Ismail, who had retaiued authority over a part of Perak,
was banished to Johore ; Abdullah, the Sultan, and the
Mentri of Larut, who was designated as an "intriguing
character," were exiled to the Seychelles, and the Eajali
iVIuda Yusuf, a prince who by all accoimts was regarded
as exceeding!}' obnoxious, was elevated to the regency,
Perak at the same time passing virtually under our rule.
A great mist of passion and prejudice envelopes our
deahugs with the chiefs and people of this State, both
before and after the war. Sir Benson Maxwell in " Our
Malay Conquests," presents a formidable arraignment
against the Colonial authorities, and Major M'Xair in his
book on Perak justifies all their proceedings. If I may
venture to give an opinion upon so controverted a sub-
ject, it is, that all Colonial authorities in their dealings with
native races, all Piesidents and their subordinates, and all
transactions between ourselves and the weak peoples of
tlie Far East, would be better for ha\dng something of "the
fierce light which beats upon a throne" turned upon them.
The good have nothing to fear, the bad would be revealed
in their badness, and hasty counsels and ambitious designs
would be held in check. Public opinion never reaches
these equatorial jungles ; we are grossly ignorant of their
inhabitants and their rights, of the manner in which our
interference originated, and how it has been exercised ;
and unless some fresh disturbance and another " little
war" should concentrate our attention for a moment on
these distant States, we are likely to remain so, to their
great detrunent, and not a little, in one aspect of the
case at least, to our own.
"When the changes in Perak were completed, Mr.
Hugh Low, formerly administrator of the Government of
Labuan, was appointed Eesident, and Mr. W. E. Maxwell,
who had had considerable experience in Malay affaii's.
Assistant Eesident. Both these gentlemen speak the
272 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. perak.
Malay tongue readily and idiomatically, and Mr. Maxwell
is an accomplished J\Ialay scholar. Of both the superior
and subordinate it may truly be said that, by tact, firm-
ness, patience, and a uniformly just regard for both Malay
and Chinese interests, they have not only pacified the
State, but have conciliated the rajahs, and in the main
have reconciled the people to the new order of things.
LETTER XVIII. PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 273
LET TEE XVIII.
British Eesidexct,
Larut, Febriuinj 11th.
I LEFT jMt. Justice "Wood's yesterday, and his sen'ant
despatched me from the jetty in a large boat with an
attap awning and six Khng rowers, whose oars worked
in nooses of rope. The narrow Strait was very calm, and
the hot, fiery light of the tropic evening resting upon it,
made it look like oil rather than water. In half an hour
I landed on the other side in the prosperous Pro\'ince
"VYellesley, under a row of magnificent casuarina trees,
with gray, feathery fohage drooping over a beach of coral
sand, behind which are the solemn glades of coco-nut
groves. On the little jetty a Sikh poHceman waited for
me, and presently Mrs. Isemonger, wife of the police
magistrate of the Pro\'ince, met me on the bright gxeen
lawn studded with climips of alamanda, which surrounds
their lovely, palm-shaded bungalow.
Though the shadows were fallinfj, Mr. Isemonger took
me to see something of the back country in a trap with
a fiery Sumatra pony. There are miles of coco -nut
plantations belonging to Chinamen all along the coast,
with the trees in straight lines forming lono-. broad avenues,
which have a certain gloomy grandeur about them. Then
com'e sugar-cane and padi, and then palm plantations
agam.
The coco-nut palm grows best near salt water, no
o
T
274 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xviii.
matter how loose and sandy the soil island in these congenial
circumstances needs neither manure nor care of any kind.
It bends lovingly towards the sea, and drops its ripe fruit
into it. But if it is planted more than two hundred yards
from the beach, it needs either rich or well-manured soil,
or the proximity of human habitations. It begins to bear
fruit between its fourth and tenth year, according to soil,
and a well-placed, generous tree bears from one hundred
and forty to one hundred and fifty nuts a year. They
are of wonderfully slow growth. It is three months from
the time the blossom appears before the fruit sets, then
it takes six months to grow, and three months more to
ripen, and after that will hang two months on the tree
before it falls — fourteen months from the first appearance
of the flower !
It is certainly not beautiful as grown in Province
Wellesley, and I am becoming faithless to my allegiance
to it in this region of areca and other more graceful
palms.
In returning we saw many Malay kamiJongs under
the palms, each with a fire lighted underneath it, and
there were many other fires for the water buffaloes, with
groups of these uncouth brutes gathered invariably on the
leeward side, glad to be smoked rather than bitten by the
mosquitos. These huge, thin-skinned animals have a
strange antipathy to white people. They are petted and
caressed by the Malays, and even small boys can do any-
thing with them, and can ride upon their backs, but con-
stantly when they see white people they raise their
muzzles, and if there be room charge them madly. A
buffalo is enormously strong, but he objects to the sun,
and likes to bathe in rivers, and plaster himself with mud,
and his tastes are much humoured by his owners. A
l)uffalo has often been known to vanquish a tiger when
l)oth have had fair play. Most of the drive back
LETTER xviir. A GLORIOUS NIGHT. 275
was accomplished by nearly incessant flashes of sheet
licfhtnincr.
O ■ O
"We had a most pleasant evening. Mrs. Isemonger,
who is a sister of Mr. Maxwell, my present host, is gentle,
thoughtful, well-informed, and studious, and instead of creat-
ing and living in an artificial English atmosphere which is
apt to make a residence in a foreign coimtry a very unpro-
ductive period, she has interested herself in the Malays,
and has not only acquired an excellent knowledge of
Malayan, but is translating a IMalayan book.
I felt much humiliated by my ignorance of Pro^dnce
WeUesley, of which in truth I had never heard until I
reached ]\Ialacca ! It is a mere strip, however, only thirty-
five miles long by about ten broad, but it is highly culti-
vated, fertile, rich, prosperous, and populous. From Pinang
one sees its broad stretches of bright green sugar-cane and
the chimneys of its sugar factories, and it grows rice and
cocoa-nuts, and is actually more populous than Pinang or
Malacca, and contains as many Malays as Sungei Ujong,
Selangor, and Pinang together — fiftv-eight thousand ! Mr.
Maxwell had promised to bring the Kinta, a steam-launch,
across from Georgetown by 8 p.m., and it shows how very
pleasant the evening was, that though I was very tired,
eight, nine, ten, and eleven came, and the conversation
never flagged.
Soon after eleven the Kinta appeared, a black shadow
on a silver sea, roaring for a boat, but the surf was so
hea^y that it was some time before the police boat was
got off; and then Mr. Maxwell, whose cheery, energetic
voice precedes him, and Mr. Walker landed, bulhing
everybody, as people often do when they know that they
are the dehnquents ! It was lovely in the white moon-
light with the cur\TQg shadows of palms on the dewy
grass, the grace of the drooping casuarinas, the shining
water, and the long drift of surf. It was hard to get off.
27 G THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xviii.
and the surf broke into the boat ; but when we were once
through it, the sea was hke oil, the oars dripped flame,
and, seen from the water, the long line of surf broke on
the shore not in snow, but in a long drift of greenish fire.
The Kinta is a steam-launch of the Perak Govern-
ment. Her boilers, to use an expressive Japanese phrase,
are " very sick," and she is not nearly so fine as the Abdul
Samat, but a quiet, peacefid boat, without any preten-
sions ; and really any " old tub " is safe on the Straits of
Malacca except in a " Sumatran." I stayed on deck for
some time enjoying the exquisite loveliness of the night,
and the vivacity of two of my companions, Mr. Maxwell,
the Assistant Eesident here, a really able and most ener-
getic man, very argumentative, bright, and pleasant ; and
Captain Walker, A.D.C. to Sir W. Robinson, on his way
from the ceaseless gaieties of Government House at Singa-
pore, to take command of the Sikh military police in the
solitary jungles of Perak. The. third, Mr. Innes, Super-
intendent of Lower Perak, whose wife so nearly lost her
life in the horrible affair at Pulo Pangkor, was in
dejected spirits, as if the swamps of Durian Sabatang
had been too much for him.
The little cabin below was friglitfully hot, and I shared
it not only with two nice Malay boys, sons of tlie exded
Abdullah, the late Sultan, who are being educated at
Malacca, but with a number of large and rampant rats.
Finding the heat and rats unbearable, I went on deck in
the rosy dawn, just as we were entering the Larut river,
a muddy stream, flowing swiftly Ijetween dense jungles
and mangrove swamps, and shores of shining slime, on
which at low water the alligators bask in the sun, one of
the many rivers of tlie I'eninsula which do not widen at
tlieir mouths.
The tide was high and the river brimming full, look-
ing as if it must drown all the forest, and the trestle
LETTER XVIII. A " DISMAL SWAMP." 277
work roots on which the mangroves are hoisted were all
submerged. It is a silent, lonely laud, all densely green.
Many an uprooted palm with its golden plumes and
wealth of golden husked nuts came floating down on the
swirling waters, and many a narrow creek well suited for
murder, over-arched with trees, and up which one might
travel far and still be among mangTove swamps and alli-
gators, came down into the Larut river; and once we
passed a small clearing, where some industrious Chinamen
are living in huts on some festering slime between the
river and the jungle ; and once a police station on stilts,
where six policemen stood in a row and saluted as we
passed, and at seven we reached Teluk Kartang, with a
pier, a long shed, two or three huts, and some officialism,
white and partly white, all in a " dismal swamp." A
small but very useful Chinese trading steamer, the SH
Saravjak, was lying against the pier, and we landed over
her filthy deck, on which filthy Chinese swine, among half
naked men almost as filthy, were -wrangling for decom-
posing ofi'al. Dismal as this place looks, an immense
trade in imports and exports is done there ; and all the
tin from the rich mines of the district is sent thence to
Pinang for transhipment.
Wliile my friends transacted business, I waited for
an age in an empty office where was one chair, a table
dark with years of ink splotches, a mouldy inkstand, a
piece of an old almanac, and an empty gin bottle. Out-
side, cockle-shells were piled against the wall ; then there
were ditches or streamlets cutting through profuse and
almost loathsome vegetation, and shining slune fat and
iridescent, swarming with loathsome forms of insect and
reptile life all rioting under the fierce sun, and among
them, almost odious by proximity to such vileness, were
small crabs with shells of a heavenly blue. The strong
vegetable stench was nearly overpowering, but I wrote to
278 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xviii.
you and worked at your embroidery a little, and so got
through this detention pleasantly, as through many a
longer though never a hotter one.
After a time three gharries arrived, and ]\Ir. Innes
and I went in one, the two other gentlemen in another,
and Sultan Abdullah's boys in the third. No amount of
world-wide practice in the getting in and out of strange
vehicles is any help to the tortuous process necessary for
mounting and dismounting from a Larut gharrie. A
gharrie is a two-wheeled cart with a seat across it for two
people, and a board in front on which the driver sits
when he is not running by his horse. This board and
the low roof which covers the whole produce the compli-
cation in getting in and out. The bottom of the cart is
filled up with grass and leaves, and you put your feet on
the board in front, and the little rats of fiery Sumatra
ponies, which will run till they drop, jolt you along at
great speed. Klings, untroubled by much clothing, own
and drive these vehicles, which are increasing rapidly.
The traffic on the road of heavy buffalo carts loaded with
tin cuts it up so badly that without care one might often
be thrown upon the pony's back at the river end of it.
Near the port we met three elephants, tlie centre one
of great size, rolling along, one of them witli a mahout
seated behind his great flapping ears. These are part of
the regalia of the deposed Sultan, and were sent down
from the interior for me and my baggage. The smallest
of them would have carried me and my " Gladstone bag "
and canvas roll. The first sight of " elephants at home "
is impressive, but they are fearfully ugly : and their roll-
ing gait does not promise well for the ease of my future
journey.
We passed tlirough a swampy but busy -looking
Chinese village, masculine almost solely, where China-
men were building gharries and selling all such things as
LETTER xvm. AX EPIGRAMMATIC DESCRIPTIOX. 279
Chinese coolies buy, just the same there as everywhere,
and at home there as every^vhere ; yellow, lean, smooth-
shaven, keen, industrious, self-reliant, sober, mercenary,
reliable, mysterious, opiimi-smoking, gambling, hugging
clan ties, forming no others, and managing their own
matters even to the post and money-order offices, through
which they are constantly sending money to the interior
of China. I hope that it is not true that they look at us
as a singularly able and highly educated Chinaman lately
said to me that they do, as " the incarnation of brute force
allied to brute vices !" This is a Chinese region, so the
disfression is excusable.
It was bright and hot, the glorious, equable equatorial
heat; and when we got out of the mangrove swamps
through which the road is causewayed, there was fine
tropical foliage, and the trees were festooned with a large,
blue Thunbergia of great beauty. It is eight miles from
the landing at Teluk Kartang to Taipeng, where the
British Eesidency is. The road crosses uninteresting
level country, but every jolt brings one nearer to the
Hijan mountams, which rise picturesquely from the plain
to a height of over three thousand feet. In the distance
there is an extraordinary " hidte " or isolated hill, Gunong
Pondok, a landmark for the whole region, and on the
right to the east a grand mountain range, the highest peak
of which cannot fall far short of eight thousand feet ;
and the blue-green ranges showing the foam of at least
one waterfall almost helped one to be cool.
"We reached Permatang, another Chinese \dllage of
some pretensions and j)opulation, near which are two very
large two-storied Malay houses in some disrepair, in which
the wife of the banished Mentri of Larut lives, with a
number of slaves. A quantity of mirthful looking slave
girls were standing beliind the window bars looking at
us surreptitiously. We alighted at the house of Mr.
280 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE, letter xviii.
Wynne, the Government Ap;ent, who at once said some-
thing courteous and hospitable about breakfast, which I
was longing for ; but after I had had a bath I found that
we were to pursue our journey, I regretting for the second
time already Mr. Maxwell's abstemiousness and power of
UoinfT without food !
From this point we drove along an excellent road
towards the mountains, over whose cool summits cloud
mists now and then drifted ; and near noon entered this
important Chinese town, with a street about a mile long,
with large bazaars and shops making a fine appearance,
being much decorated in Chinese style ; halls of meeting
for the different tribes, gambling houses, workshops, the
Treasury, a substantial dark wood building, large detached
barracks for the Sikh police, a hospital, a powder magazine,
a parade ground, a Government storehouse, a large, new
jail, neat bungalows for the minor English officials, and
on the top of a steep, isolated terraced hill, the British
Eesidency. This hill is really too steep for a vehicle to
ascend, but the plucky pony and the Kling driver together
pulled the gharrie up the zigzags in a series of spasms, and
I was glad to get out of the sunshine into a cool, airy house,
where there was a hope of breakfast, or rather tiffin.
The Iiesidency is large and lofty, and thoroughly
draughty, a high commendation so near the equator.
It consists of a room about thirty feet wide by sixty
long, and about twenty feet high at its highest part,
open at both ends, the front end a great bow window
without glass opening on an immense verandah. This
room and its verandali are like the fore cabin of a great
Clyde steamer. It has a red screen standing partly
across it, the back part Ijeing used for eating, and the
front for sitting and occupation. My bedroom and
sitting-room, and the room in whicli Sultan Abdullah's
boys sleep are on one side, and Mr. Maxwell's room and
LETTER XVIII. SULTAN ABDULLAH'S BOYS. 281
office on the other. Underneath are bath-rooms, and
guard -rooms for the Sikh sentries. There are no
ornaments or superfluities. There are two simple meals
daily, with tea and bananas at 7 A.M., and afternoon tea
at 5 P.M. Mr. Maxwell is most abstemious, and is ener-
getically at work from an early hour in the morning.
There is a perpetual coming and going of Malays, and
an air of business without fuss. There is a Chinese
" housemaid," who found a snake, four feet long, coiled
up under my down quilt yesterday, and a Malay butler,
but I have not seen any other domestics.
Those boys of Sultan Abdullah's are the most
amusing children I ever saw. They are nine and twelve
years old, with monkey -like, irrepressible faces. They
have no ballast. They talk ceaselessly, and are very
playful and witty, but though a large sum is being paid
for their education at Malacca, they speak atrocious
" pidjun," and never use Malayan, in my hearing at
least. They are never still for one instant ; they
chatter, read snatches from books, ask questions about
everything, but are too volatile to care for the answers,
turn summersaults, lean over my shoulders as I write,
bring me puzzles, and shriek and turn head over heels
when I can't find them out, and jump on Mr. Maxwell's
shoulders begging for dollars. I like them very much,
for though they are so restless and mercurial, they are
neither rude nor troublesome. They have kept the house
alive with their antics, but they are just starting on my
elephants for Kwala Kangsa, on a visit to the Eegent.
I wonder what will become of them ? Their father is an
exile in the Seychelles, and though it was once thought
that one of them might succeed the reigning Eajah,
another Eajah is so popular with the Malays, and so
intelligent, that it is now unlikely that his claims will
be set aside.
282 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. . letter xviii.
The steep little hill on which the Eesidency stands is
planted -with miserable coffee, with scanty yellow foliage.
The house on my side has a magnificent view of the
beautiful Hijan hills, down which a waterfall tumbles in a
broad sheet of foam only half-a-mile off, and which breed
a rampageous fresh breeze for a great part of the day.
The front verandah looks down on Taipeng and other
Chinese villages, on neat and prolific Chinese vegetable
gardens, on pits, formerly tin-mines, now full of muddy,
stagnant water, on narrow, muddy rividets bearing the
wash of the tin -mines to the Larut river, on all the
weediness and forlornness of a superficially exhausted
mining region, and beyond upon an expanse of jungle,
the limit of which is beyond the Imiit of vision, miles of
tree tops as level as the ocean, over which the cloud
shadows sail in purple all day long. In the early
morning the parade ground is gay with " thin red " lines
of soldiers, and all day long with a glass I can see the
occupations and bustle of Taipeng.
Taipeng is a thriving, increasing place, of over six
thousand inhabitants, solely Cliinese, with the exception
of a small Kling population, which keeps small shops,
lends money, drives gharries aiid bullock -carts, and
washes clothes. This place was the focus of the dis-
turbances in 1873, and the Chinese seem still to need to
be held in check, for they are not allowed to go out at
night without passes and lanterns. They are miners,
except those who keep the innumerable shops which
supply the miners, and some of them are rich. Taipeng
is tolerably empty during the day, but at dusk, when
the miners return, the streets and gambling dens are
crowded, and the usual babel of Cliinese tongues begins.
There are scarcely any Malays in the town.
]\Ir. Maxwell walks and rides about everywhere un-
attended and without precautions, but Sikh sentries guard
LETTER XVIII. THE "ARMED POLICE." 283
this house by night and day. They wear large blue
turbans, scarlet coats, and white trousers. There are
four hundred and fifty of them, recruited in India from
among the Sikhs and Pathans, and many of them have
seen service under our flag. They are to all intents and
purposes soldiers, drilled and disciplined as such, though
called " Armed Police," and are commanded by Major
Swinburne of the 80th Eegiment. There is a haK
battery of mountain train rifled guns, and many of these
men are drilled as gunners. Their joy would be in
shooting and looting, but they have not any scent for
crime. They are splendid looking men, with long
moustaches and whiskers, but they plait the long ends of
the latter and tuck them up under their turbans. They
ha,ve good-natured faces generally, and are sober, docile,
and peaceable, but Major Swinburne says that they
indulge in violent wordy warfare on " theological subjects."
They are devoted to the accumulation of money, and very
many of them being betrothed to little girls in India, save
nearly aU their pay in order to buy land and settle there.
When off duty they wear turbans and robes nearly as
white as snow, and look both classical and colossal.
They get on admirably with the Malays, but look down
on the Chinese, who are much afraid of them. One
sees a single Sikh driving four or five Chinamen in front
of him, having knotted their pigtails together for reins.
I have been awoke each night by the clank which
attends the change of guard, and as the moonlight flashes
on the bayonets, I realise that I am in Perak.
The air is so bracing here and the nights so cool,
that I have been out by seven each morning, and have
been into Taipeng in the evening. This morning I went
to see the hospital, mainly used by the Sikhs, who, though
very docile patients, are most troublesome in other ways,
owing to religious prejudices, which renders it nearly im-
284 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xviii.
possible to cook for tliem. There was one wretched
Chinaman there, horribly mangled. He was stealing a
boat on one of the many creeks, when an alligator got
hold of him, and tore both legs, one arm, and his back in
such a way, that it is wonderful that he lives. The
apothecary is a young INIadrassee. One or two cases of
that terrible disease known in Japan as Kakhi, and
elsewhere as Beri-Beri, have just appeared.^ We w^alked
also to a clear mountain torrent which comes thundering
down among great boulders and dense tropical vegetation
at the foot of the mountains, as clear and cold as if it
were a Highland stream dashing through the purple
heather.
There are " trumpeter beetles " here, with bright
green bodies and membranous-looking transparent wings,
four inches across, which make noise enough for a crea-
ture the size of a horse. Two were in the house to-night,
and you could scarcely hear anyone speak. But there is
a blessed respite from mosquitos.
Major Swinburne and Captain Walker have dined
here, and we had a simple dinner of roast mutton, the
first that I have tasted for ten months. It is a great
treat. One Ijecomes tired of made dishes, consisting
cliiefly of impoverished fowls, disguised in about twenty
different ways.
1 Since my visit there have been three fatal outbreaks of this epidemic,
three thousand deaths having occurred among the neighbouring miners
and coolies. So firmly did the disease ajijiear to have established itself,
that a large permanent hospital was erected by the joint efforts of the
chief mining adventurers and the Government, but it has now been taken
over altogether by the Government, and is supjiorted by an annual tax of
a dollar, levied upon every adult Chinaman. Extensive hospital accom-
modation and sufficient medical attendance have also been jirovided in
other stricken localities. In the jail, where the disease was very fatal, it
has nearly died out, in consequence, it is l)elieved, of supplying the
prisoners with a larger quantity of nitrogenous food. It has been proposed
to compel the employers of mining coolies to do the same thing, for the
ravages of the disease are actually affecting the prosperity of Larut.
LETTER xviii. MAJOR SWINBURNE. 285
Wlien I left Malacca, Captain Shaw said : " When
you see Paul Swinburne you'll see a man you'll not see
twice in a lifetime," so yesterday, when a tall, slender,
aristocratic -looking man, who scarcely looks severable
from the door-steps of a Pall Mall club, strode down the
room and addressed me abruptly with the words : " The
sooner you go away again the better ; there's nothing to
see, nothing to do, and nothing to learn," I was natur-
ally much interested. He has a dash of acquired eccen-
tricity of tone and manner, is very proud, but, unlike
some proud people, appreciates the co-himiaiiity of his
inferiors, is a brilliant talker, dashing over art, literature,
politics, society, tells stories brilliantly, never flags, is
totally regardless of " the equities of conversation," and
is much beloved by the Sikhs, to whom he is just.
At Pinang I heard an anecdote of him which is quite
credible. The regent (it is said) wanted him to use the
Sikhs to catch a female rimaway slave, and on his refusing,
the rajah made use of a very opprobrious epithet, on
which he drew himself up, saying : " You are a man of
high birth in your country, but I'm a man of high birth
in mine, and, so long as I bear Queen Victoria's com-
mission, I refuse to accept insult. I take no future
orders from your liighness." iSTor, it is said, has he.
My human surroundings have an unusual amount of
piquancy. Mr. Maxwell is very pleasant, strong, both
physically and mentally, clever and upright, educated at
Oxford and Lincoln's Inn, but brought up in the Straits
Settlements, of wliich his father was chief-justice. He
is able, combative, dogmatic, well-read and well-informed,
expresses himself incisively, is self-reliant, strong-willed,
thoroughly just, thoroughly a gentleman, and has immense
energy and busmess capacity, and a large amount of
governing power. He, too, likes talking, and talks well,
but with much perfectly good-natured vehemence. He is
286 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE, letter xviii.
a mau ou whose word one may implicitly rely. Brought
up among Malays, and speaking their language idiom-
atically, he not only likes them, but takes the trouble to
understand them and enter into their ideas and feelings.
He studies their literature, superstitious, and customs
carefully, and has made some valuable notes upon them.
I should tliink that few people understand the Malays
better than he does. He dislikes the Cliinese. I have
the very pleasant feeling regarding him that he is the
right man in the right place, and that his work is useful,
conscientious, and admirable. As Assistant Resident he
is virtually dictator of Larut, only subject to Mr. Low's
interference. He is a judge, and can inflict the penalty
of death, the regent's signature, however, being required
for the death-warrant. He rules the Chinese rigidly.
Captain Walker is a new comer, and does not know
more about Perak than I do.
At this dinner of four there was as much noise as
twenty stupid people would make ! Something brought
up the dead lock in Victoria, which excited violent feel-
ing for some reason not obvious. Captain Walker threw
off his somewhat suave A.JD.C. manner, and looked
dangerous, Mr. Maxwell fought for victory, and Major
Swinburne to beat Mr. Maxwell, and the row was deafen-
ing. I doubt whether such an argument could have
been got up in moist, hot Singapore, or steamy Malacca !
An energetic difference seems of daily occurrence, and
possibly is an essential ingredient of friendship. That
it should be possible shows what an invigorating climate
this must be. Major Swinburne, in an aggravating tone,
begins upon some peculiarity or foible, real or supposed,
of his friend, with a deluge of sarcasm, mimicry, ridicule,
and invective, torments him mercilessly, and without
giving him time to reply, disappears, saying Parthian-
like, " Now, my dear fellow, its no use resenting it,
LETTER XVIII. A MORNING HYMN. 287
you haven't such a friend as me in the world — you know
if it were not for me you'd be absolutely intolerable ! "
All this is very amusing. How many differing char-
acters are required to make up even the world that I
know !
It is strancre to be in a house in which there are no
pets, for a small Malay bear which lives at the back can
scarcely be called one. Sometimes in the evening a wild
animal called a lemur rushes wildly through the house
and out at the front verandah. I am always afraid of
being startled by his tearing through my room in the
depths of the night, for here, as in many other houses,
instead of doors there are screens raised a foot from the
ground.
This morning I got up before daylight and went up
a hill which is being cleared, to enjoy the sunrise, the
loveliest time of the tropic day. It was all dew and
rose colour, with a delicious freshness in the air, prolonged
unusually because the sun was so slow to climb above
the eastern mountain tops. Then there was a sudden
glory, and birds, beasts, and insects broke into a vociferous
chorus, the tuneless hymn which ascends daily without
a discord. There are sumptuously-coloured sunsets to be
seen from this elevation, but one has no time to enjoy
them, and they make one long for the lingering gold and
purple of more northern latitudes. I have really been
industrious since I came here, both in writing to you and
in " reading up " the native states in blue books, etc.
I. L. B.
288 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xix.
LETTEE XIX.
British Residency, Larut.
I AM remaining here for another day or two, so have time
to tell you a little about the surroundings.
Larut province is a strip of land about seventy
miles long, and from twenty -five to forty -five broad.
It was little known, and almost unexplored tiU 1848,
when a Malay, while bathing, found some coarse, black
sand, which on being assayed proved to be tin. He
obtained twenty Chinese coolies, opened a mine which
turned out lucrative, and the Chinese at home hearing
that money was to be made, flocked into Larut, but after
some years took to quarrelling about the ownership of
mines, and eventually to a war between the two leading
clans, which threatened to be a Avar of extermination,
and resulted in British interference, and the appointment
of a Resident, and then Chinese merchants in l*inang
made advances of money and provisions to such of their
countrymen as were willing to work the abandoned mines.
Very soon the population increased to such an extent
that it became necessary to choose sites for mining towns,
go-anting one to each faction, the Go Kwan town being
called Taipeng, and the Si Kwan town Kaniunting.
American mining enterprise could hardly go ahead
faster. At the end of 1873 the population of Larut
was four thousand, the men of the fighting factions only.
p:ieven months later these two mining towns contained
LETTER XIX. " MONKEY CUPS." 289
nine thousand inhabitants, a tenth of wliom were shop-
keepers, and the district thirty-three thousand, Larut
is level from the sea-shore to the mountain range, twenty
miles inland, and is very uninteresting.
We have been in a gharrie to Kamunting, a Chinese
mining town of four thousand people, three miles from
here, approached througli a pretty valley full of pitcher
plants with purple cups and lids. You can imagine the
joy of getting into my hands these wonderful nepenthes
or " monkey cups " for the first time. I gathered five
in the hope of finding one free from insects, but the cups
of all were full of dried flies and ants, looking much as
flies do wlien they have been clutched for a few days by
the hairs of the " sun-dew." The lid has a quantity of
nectar on its under side which attracts insects ; but
below the rolled rim of the cup, which is slightly corru-
gated, the interior is as smooth as glass, and the betrayed
flies must fall at once into the water at the bottom and
be drowned. As these ingenious arranr^ements are made
for their destruction, doubtless the plant feeds upon
their juices.^
We went first to a very large tin mine belonging to
a rich and very pleasant-looking Chinaman, who received
us and took us over it. The mine is like a large quarry,
with a number of small excavations which fill with water,
and are pumped by most ingenious Chinese pumps worked
by an endless chain, but there are two powerful steam
pumps at work also. About four hundred lean, leathery-
looking men were working, swarming up out of the holes
like ants in double columns, each man carrying a small bam-
boo tray holding about three pounds of stanniferous earth,
which is deposited in a sluice, and a great rush of water
washes away the sand, leaving the tin behind, looking
^ I have since learned that this is an ascertained fact, and that nepen-
thes are among the insectiverous plants.
U
290 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xix.
iiiucli like " giant " blasting powder. The Chinese are
as much wedded to these bamboo baskets as to their pig-
tails, but they involve a great waste of labour. A common
hoe is the other imi)lement used. The coolies are paid
by piece-work, and are earning just now about one shil-
ling and sixpence per day. Road -making and other
labour is performed by Klings, who get one shilling a
day.
The tin is smelted during the night in a very rude
furnace, with most ingenious Chinese bellows, is then
run into moulds made of sand, and turned out as slabs
weighing 66 lbs. each. Tlie export-duty on tin is the
chief source of revenue. Close to the smelting furnaces
there are airy sheds with platforms along each side,
divided into as many beds as there are Chinamen. A
bed consists only of a mat and a mosquito-net. There
are all the usual joss arrangements, and time is measured
by the burning of joss-sticks. Several rain-cloaks, made
of palm leaves, were hanging up. These, and nearly all
the other articles consumed by this large population are
imported from China.
Our Chinese host then took us to some rooms which
he had built for a cool retreat, to which, in anticipation
of our visit, he had conveyed champagne, sherry, and
bitter beer ! His look of incredulity when we said that
we preferred tea, was most amusing ; but on our persist-
ing, he produced delicious tea witli Chinese sweetmeats,
and Huntley and Palmer's coco-nut biscuits. He then
insisted on taking our liired gharrie and scrubby pony
and sending us on in his buggy with a fine Australian
horse, but Mr. Maxwell says that this was as much from
policy as courtesy, as it gives him importance to be on
obviously friendly terms with the Resident.
We went on to Kamunting, a forlorn town, mainly
built of attap, witli roads and ditches needing much
LETTER XIX. A SIKH BELLE. 291
improvement, and I bargained for some Chinese purses
and visited a gambling saloon, the place in which one
sees the peculiar expression of the Chinese face at its
fullest development. There is nothing very shocking
about it, nothing more than an intensified love of gain
without a mask. Each coolie takes his pipe of opium
after his day's work, and each has a pot of tea kept
always hot in a thickly wadded basket, a luxury which
no Chinaman seems able to do without.
We called at a Sikh guard-house, and the magnifi-
cent sergeant took me to see his wife, the woman of
the regiment, who is so rigidly secluded that not even
the commanding officer nor Mr. Maxwell have seen her.
She is very beautiful, and has an exquisite figure, but was
overloaded with jeweUery. She wore a large nose-jewel,
seven rings of large size weighing down her finely formed
ears, four necklaces, and silver bangles on each arm from
the wrist to the elbow, besides some on her beautiful
ankles. She had an infant boy, the child of the regi-
ment, in her arms, clothed only in a silver hoop, and the
father took him and presented him to me with much
pride. It was a pleasant family group.
The few days here have been a real rest, I have
been so much alone. There are no women to twitter ;
and when Mr. MaxweU is not at work he talks of things'
that are worth talking about. The climate, too, is brac-
mg and wholesome, and the boisterous afternoon wind,
which sweeps letters and papers irreverently away, keeps
off' the mosquitos. I. L B
2!)2 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
LETTER XX.
British Residency,
KwALA Kanqsa, February 16.
This is ratlier exciting-, for I have had an unusual journey,
and my circumstances are unusual, for Mr. Low, the
Ilesident, has not returned, and I am not only alone in
his bungalow in the heart of the jungle, but so far as I
can learn I am the only European in the region.
" Of all my wild adventures past
This frantic feat will prove the last,"
f(jr in a fortnight I purpose to be at Pinang on my way
to conventional Ceylon, and the beloved " wilds " will
be left behind.
At 4.30 this morning Mi-. Maxwell's energetic
voice roused me, and I got up, feeling for the first time
in Larut very tired from the unwonted dissipation of
another " dinner party," and from having been kept awake
late by the frantic rushes of the lemur and the noise of
the " trimipeter beetle," besides being awoke in a fright
at 2 A.M. by the noise made in changing guard, from a
dream that the Sikhs had mutinied and -were about to
massacre the Europeans, myself included ! We had
Ijaiianas and chocolate, and just at daybreak walked down
the hill, where I got into a little trap drawn by a fiery
little Sumatra pony, and driven by Mr. Gibbons, a worthy
Australian miner who is here road -making, and was
LETTER XX. THE EXCITEMENTS OF THE JUNGLE. 293
taken five miles to a place where the road becomes a
c|uagmu'e uot to be crossed. Elephants had been tele-
graphed for to meet me there, but the telegraph was
found to be broken. Mr. Maxwell, who accompanied us
on horseback, had sent a messenger on here for elephants,
and was dismayed on getting to the quagmire to meet
the news that they had gone to the jungle ; so there was
no means of conveyance but the small pachyderm
which was bringing my bag, and which was more than
two hours behind.
There was nothing for it but to walk, and w^e tramped
for four miles. I could not have done the half of it
had I not had my " mountain dress " on, the identical
mud -coloured tweed, in which I waded through the
mud of Northern Japan. The sun had risen splendidly
among crimson clouds, which, having tm-ned gray, were
a slight screen, and the air is so comparatively dry that,
though within 5° of the equator, it was not oppressively
hot.
The drive had brought us out of the Chinese country
into a region very thinly peopled by Malays only, here
and there along the road side, living in houses of all
Malay styles, from the little attap cabin with its gridiron
floor supported on stilts, to the large picturesque house
with steep brown roofs, deep eaves and porches, and walls
of matting or bamboo basket work in squares, light and
dark alternately, reached by ladders with rungs eighteen
inches apart, so difficult for shod feet.
The trees and plants of the jungle were very exciting.
Ah ! what a delight it is to see trees and plants at home
which one has only seen as the exotics of a hothouse, or
read of in books ! In the day's journey I counted one
hundred and twenty-six differing trees and shrubs, fifty-
three trailers, seventeen epiphytes, and twenty-eight ferns.
I saw more of the shrubs and epiphytes than I have yet
294 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
done, from the altitude of au elephant's back. There was
one Asphniuin niches [bird's nest fern] which had thii'ty-
seven perfect fronds radiating from a centre, each frond
from three and a quarter to five and a half feet long, and
varying from myrtle to the freshest tint of pea-green !
There was an orchid with hardly visible leaves, which
bore six crowded clusters of flowers close to the branch
of the tree on which it grew, each cluster composed of a
number of spikes of red coral tipped with pale green.
In the openings there were small trees with gorgeous ery-
thrina-like flowers, glowing begonias, red lilies, a trailer
with trumpet-shaped blossoms of canary yellow, and a
smaller trailer, which climbs over everything that is not
higli, entwining itself with the blue Thunbergia, and bear-
ing on single stalks single blossoms, primrose-shaped, of
a salmon orange colour with a velvety black centre. In
some places one came upon three varieties of nepenthes
or " monkey cups," some of their pitchers holding (I
should tliink) a pint of fluid, and most of them packed
with the skeletons of betrayed guests ; then in moist
places iipon steel blue aspleniums and luxuriant selagi-
nellas ; and then came ca^logynes with white blossoms,
white ilowered dendrobiums (crumentatuvi ?), all growing
on or clinging to trees, with scarlet- veined bauhinias,
caladiums, ginger worts, and aroids, inclining one to make
incessant exclamations of wonder and delight. You can-
not imagine how crowded together this tropical vegetation
is. There is not room for half of it on the ground, so it
seeks and finds its home high up on the strong, majestic
trees which bear it up into the sunsliine, where, indeed,
one has to look for most of tlie flowers.
It is glorious to see the vegetation of eternal summer
and the lavish prodigality of nature, and one revels among
hothouse plants " at home," and all the splendour of gigan-
tic leaves, and the beauty and grace of palms, bamboos,
LETTER XX. THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 295
and tree-ferns; the great, gaudy flowers are as marvellous
as the gaudy plumaged birds, and I feel that no words
can convey an idea of the beauty and magnificence of an
equatorial jungle ; but the very permanence of the beauty
is almost a fault. I should soon come to long for the
burst of spring with its general tenderness of green, and
its great broad splashes of sociable flowers, its masses
of buttercups, or ox-eye daisies, or dandelions, and
for the glories of autumn with its red and gold, and
leagues of purple heather. These splendid orchids and
other epiphytes grow singly. One sees one and not
another, there are no broad masses of colour to blaze in
the distance, the scents are heavy and overpowering, the
wealth is embarrassing. I revel in it all and rejoice in
it all ; it is intoxicating, yet I am haunted with visions of
mossy banks starred with primroses and anemones, of
stream sides blue with gentian, of meadows golden with
buttercups, and fields scarlet with poppies, and in spite
of my enjoyment and tropical enthusiasm, I agree with
Mr. Wallace and others that the flowers of a temperate
climate would give one more lasting pleasure.
On either side of the road the ground is densely
carpeted with the sensitive plant, whose lovely tripartite
leaves are green above and brown below. It is a fascin-
ating plant, and at first one feels guilty of cruelty if one
does more than look at it, but I have already learned as
all people do here to take delight in wounding its sensi-
bilities. Touch any part of a leaf ever so lightly, and
as quick as thought it folds up. Touch the centre of the
tlu-ee ever so lightly, and leaf and stalk fall smitten.
Touch a branch, and every leaf closes, and every stalk
falls as if weighted with lead. Walk over it, and you
seem to have blasted the earth with a fiery tread, leaving
desolation behind. Every trailing plant falls, the leaves
closing show only their red brown backs, and all the
29G THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
beauty has vanished, but the burned and withered-looking
earth is as fair as ever the next morning.
After walking for four miles we came upon a glorious
sight at a turn of the road, a small lake behind which
the mountains rise forest-covered, with a slope at their
feet on which stand the coco-nut groves, and the beauti-
ful Malay house of the exiled Mentri of Larut. I have
written of a lake, but no water was visible, for it was
concealed by thousands and thousands of the peltate
leaves of the lotus, nearly round, attaining a diameter of
eighteen inches, cool and dewy-looking under the torrid
sun, with a blue bloom upon their intense green. Above
them rose thousands of lotus flowers, buds, and seed-
vessels, each one a thing of perfect beauty, and not a
withered blossom was to be seen. The immense corollas
varied in colour from a deep rose crimson to a pink as pale
as that of a blush rose. Some were just opening, others
were half open, and others wide open, showing the crowded
golden stamens and the golden disk in the centre, i'rom
far off the deep rose pink of the glorious blossoms is to
be seen, and their beauty carried me back to the castle
moats of Yedo, and to many a gilded shrine in Japan, on
which the lotus blooms as an eml^lem of purity, right-
eousness, and immortality. Even here, where no such
symbolism attaches to it, it looks a sacred tiling. It was
delightful to see such a sociable flower rejoicing in a
crowd.
Beyond is the picturesque kampong of IMatang, with
many good houses and a mosque. Passing through a
gateway with brick posts, we entered a large walled
enclosure containing a coco-gi'ove, some fine trees, and
the beautiful dwellings of the Malay whom we have
deported to the Seychelles. This is one of the largest
Malay houses on the peninsula. It is built of wood
painted green and white, witli bold floral designs on a
LETTER XX. ELEPHANT UGLINESS. 297
white groimd round some of tlie circular windows, and
a very large porch for followers to wait in, up a ladder
of course. In a shed there were three gharries, and be-
hind the house several small houses for slaves and others.
A number of girls and children, probably mostly slaves,
mirthfully peeped at us from under the tasteful mat blinds.
Eeally the upper class of Malay houses show some
very good work. The thatch of the steep roof is beauti-
fully put on, and between the sides of finely woven checked
matting interspersed with lattice work and bamboo work,
the shady inner rooms with their carved doorways and
portieres of red silk, the pillows and cushions of gold
embroidery laid over the exquisitely fine matting on the
floors, the light from the half-shaded windows glancing
here and there as the breeze sways the screens, there is
an indescribable appropriateness to the region.
I waited for the elephant in a rambling empty house,
and Malays brought pierced coco-nuts, buffalo milk, and
a great houquet of lotus blossoms and seed-vessels, out of
which they took the seeds, and presented them on the
grand lotus leaf itself. Each seed is in appearance and
taste like a hazel-nut, but in the centre, in an oval slit, the
future lotus plant is folded up, the one vivid green seed
leaf being folded over a shoot, and this is intensely bitter.
The elephant at last came up and was brought below
the porch. They are truly hideous beasts, with their
gray, wrinkled, hairless hides, the huge ragged " flappers "
which cover their ears, and with which they fan them-
selves ceaselessly, the small mean eyes, the hideous pro-
boscis which coils itself snakishly round everything ; the
formless legs, so like trunks of trees ; the piggish back,
with the steep slope down to the mean, bare tail, and
the general unlikeness to all familiar and friendly beasts.
I can hardly \^Tite, for a little v:ah-vMh, the most de-
lightful of apes, is hanging with one long, lean arm round
298 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
my throat, while with its disengaged hand it keeps taking
my pen, dipping it in the ink, and scrawling over my
letter. It is the most winsome of creatures, but if I were
to oppose it there is no knowing what it might do, so I
will take another pen. The same is true of an elephant.
I am without knowledge of what it may be capable of !
Before I came I dreamt of howdahs and cloth of gold
trappings, but my elephant had neither. In fact there
was nothing grand about him but his ugliness. His back
was covered with a piece of raw hide, over which were
several mats, and on either side of the ridgy backbone a
shallow basket, filled with fresh leaves and twigs, and
held in place by ropes of rattan. I dropped into one of
these baskets from the porch, a young Malay lad into the
other, and my bag was tied on behind wdth rattan. A
noose of the same with a stirrup served for the driver to
mount. He was a Malay, wearing only a handkerchief
and sarong, a gossiping careless fellow, who jumped off
whenever he had a chance of a talk, and left us to our-
selves. He drove with a stick with a curved spike at
the end of it, which, when the elephant was bad, was
hooked into the membranous " flapper," always evoking
the uprearing and brandishing of the proboscis, and a
sound of ungentle expostulation, wdiich could be heard a
mile off. He sat on the head of the beast, sometimes
cross-legged, and sometunes with his legs behind the huge
ear covers. Mr. Maxwell assured me that he would not
send nie into a region without a European unless it were
perfectly safe, which I fully believed, any doubts as to my
safety, if I had any, being closely connected with my steed.
This mode of riding is not comfortable. One sits
facing forwards with tlie feet dangling over the edge of
the basket.^ This edge soon produces a sharp ache or
cramp, and when one tries to get relief by leaning back on
1 See Frontispiece.
LETTER XX. A NOVEL EXPERIENCE. 299
anything, the awkward, rolling motion is so painful, that
one reverts to the former position till it again becomes
intolerable. Then the elephant had not been loaded " with
brains," and his pack was as troublesome as the straw
shoes of the Japanese horses. It was always slipping
forwards or backwards, and as I was heavier than the
Malay lad, I was always slipping down and trying to
wriggle myself up on the great ridge w^hich was the
creature's backbone, and always failing, and the mahout
was always stopping and pulling the rattan ropes which
bound the whole arrangement together, but never succeed-
ing in improving it.
Before we had travelled two hours, the great bulk of
the elephant without any warnmg gently subsided behind,
and then as gently in front, the huge, ugly legs being
extended in front of him, and the man signed to me to
get off, which I did by getting on his head and letting
myself down by a rattan rope upon the driver, who made
a step of his back, for even when " kneeling," as this
queer attitude is called, a good ladder is needed for com-
fortable getting off and on. While the whole arrange-
ment of baskets w^as being re-rigged, I clambered into a
Malay dwelling of the poorer class, and was courteously
received and regaled with bananas and buffalo milk.
Hospitality is one of the Malay virtues. This house is
composed of a front hut and a back hut with a communi-
cation. Like all others it is raised to a good height on
posts. The uprights are of palm, and the elastic, gridiron
floor of split laths of the invaluable nihonfj palm {oncos-
pcrma filamentosum). The sides are made of neatly split
reeds, and the roof, as in all houses, of the dried leaves of
the nipah palm {nipa fruticans) stretched over a high
ridge pole and steep rafters of bamboo. I could not see
that a single nail had been used in the house. The whole
of it is lashed together with rattan. The furniture con-
300 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
sists entirely of mats, wliicli cover a part of the floor, and
are used both for sittinjj; on and sleepiuj^f on, and a few
small, hard, circular bolsters with embroidered ends. A
musket, a spear, some fishing-rods, and a buftalo yoke
hung against the wall of the reception-room. In the back
room, the province of the women and children, tliere were
an iron pot, a cluster of bananas, and two calabashes.
Tlie women wore only sarongs, and the children nothing.
The men, who were not much clothed, were lounging on
the mats.
The Malays are passionately fond of pets, and are said
to have much skill in taming birds and animals. Doubtless
their low voices and gentle, supple movements never shock
the timid sensitiveness of brutes. Besides this, Malay
children yield a very ready obedience to their elders, and
are encouraged to invite the confidence of birds and beasts,
rather than to torment them. They catch birds by means
of bird-lime made of gutta, by horse-hair nooses, and by
imitating their call. In this small house there were
bamboo cages containing twenty birds, most of them
talking minas and green-feathered small pigeons. Tliey
came out of their cages when called, and perched in rows
on the arms of the men. I don't know whether tlie
mina can learn many words, but it imitates the human
voice so wonderfully that in Hawaii when it spoke Eng-
lish I was quite deceived by it. These minas articulated
so Immanly tliat I did not know wliether a bird or a
;Malay spoke. There were four love-birds in an exquisitely
made bamboo cage, lovely Little creatures with red beaks
and blue and green plumage. The cliildren catch small
grasshoppers for their birds with a shovel-sliaped instru-
ment of open rattan work. AVhen I add that there were
some homely domestic fowls and a nearly tailless cat, I
tliink I have catalogued the visilde possessions of this
family, with the exception of a l^amboo cradle with a
LETTER XX. MALAY HOSPITALITY. 301
small brown inmate hanging from the rafters, and a
small shed, used, I believe, for storing rice.
The open floor, while it gives air and ventilation, has
also its disadvantages, for solid and liquid refuse is thrown
through it so conveniently that the ground imder the house
is apt to contain stagnant pools and heaps of decomposing
matter, and men lying asleep on mats on these gridirons
have sometimes been stabbed with a kris inserted between
the bars from below by an enemy seeking revenge.
I must not, however, give the impression that the
Malays are a dirty people. They wash their clothes
frequently, and bathe as often as is possible. They try to
build theu" houses near water, and use small bathing-sheds.
I went into another house, rather poorer than the
former, and, with a touching hospitality, they made signs
to me to know if I would like a coco-nut. I hinted
that I would, and the man at once got up and called to
him an ape or monkey about three feet high, which was
playing w^th a child, and the animal went out with him,
and in no time was at the top of a tall coco-nut tree.
His master said something to him, and he moved about
examining the nuts till he decided upon a green one,
which he wrung off, using teeth and hands for the oper-
ation. The slightly acid milk was refreshing, but its
" meat," which was of the consistency and nearly the
tastelessness of the white of an egg boiled for five
minutes, was not so good as that of the riper nuts.
I had walked on for some distance, and I had. to
walk back again before I found my elephant. 1 had
been poking about in the scrub in search of some acid
fruits, and when I got back to the road, was much sur-
prised to find that my boots were filled with blood, and
on looking for the cause I found five small brown leeches,
beautifully striped with yellow, finnly attached to my
ankles. I had not heard that these were pests in Perak,
302 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
and feared that they were something worse ; but the
elephant driver, seeing my plight, made some tobacco
juice and squirted it over the creatures, when they re-
coiled in great disgust. Owing to the exercise I was
obliged to take, the bites bled for several hours. I do
not remember feeling the first puncture. I have now
heard that these blood-suckers infest leaves and herbage,
and that when they hear the rustling made by man or
animal in passing, they stretch themselves to tlieir fullest
length, and if they can touch any part of his body or dress
they hold on to it, and as quickly as possible reach some
spot where tliey can suck their fill.
I am making my narrative as slow as my journey,
but the things I write of will be as new to you as they
were to me. New it was certainly to stand upon a car-
pet of the sensitive plant at noon, with the rays of a
nearly vertical sun streaming down from a cloudless,
steely blue sky, watching the jungle monster meekly
kneeling on tlie ground, with two Malays who do not
know a word of English as my companions, and myself
unarmed and unescorted in the heart of a region so lately
the scene of war, about which seven blue books have been
written, and about the lawlessness and violence of wliich
so many stories have been industriously circulated.
Certainly I always dreamed that there must be some-
thing splendid in riding on an elephant, but I don't feel
the least accession of dignity in consequence. It is true,
however, liere, that though the trappings are mean and
almost savage, a man's importance is estimated by the
number of his elephants. Wluiu the pack was adjusted,
the mahout jumped on the back, and giving me his hands
hauled me up over the head, after which the creature rose
gently from the ground, and we went on our journey.
But the ride was " a feafrul joy," if a joy at all !
Soon the driver jumped off for a gossip and a smoke,
LETTER XX. " A FEARFUL JOY." 303
leaving the elephant to " gang his ain gates " for a mile
or more, and he turned into the jungle, where he began
to rend and tear the trees, and then going to a mud-hole
he drew all the water out of it, squirted it with a loud
noise over himself and his riders, soaking my clothes \vith
it, and when he turned back to the road again, he several
times stopped and seemed to stand on his head by stiffen-
ing his proboscis and leaning upon it, and when I hit him
with my imibrella he uttered the loudest roar I ever heard.
My Malay fellow-rider jumped off and ran back for the
driver, on which the panniers came altogether down on
my side, and I hung on with difliculty, wondering what
other possible contingencies could occur, always expecting
that the beast, which was flourishing his proboscis, would
lift me off with it and deposit me in a mud-hole.
On the driver's return I had to dismount again, and
this time the elephant was allowed to go and take a pro-
per bath in a river. He threw quantities of water over
himself, and took up plenty more with which to cool his
sides as he went along. Tliick as the wrinkled hide of
an elephant looks, a very small insect can draw blood
from it, and when left to himself he sagaciously plasters
himself with mud to protect himself like the water buf-
falo. Mounting again, I rode for another two hours, but
he crawled about a mile an hour, and seemed to have
a steady purpose to lie down. He roared whenever
he was asked to go faster, sometimes with a roar of
rage, sometimes in angry and sometimes in plaintive
remonstrance. The driver got off and walked behind
him, and then he stopped altogether. Then the man
tried to pull him along by putting a hooked stick in his
huge " flapper," but this produced no other effect than a
series of howls ; then he got on his head again, after
which the brute made a succession of huge stumbles,
each one of which threatened to be a fall, and then the
304 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
driver with a look of despair got off again. Then I
made signs that I "would get off, but the elephant refused
to lie down, and I let myself down his unshapely shoulder
by a rattan rope till I could use the mahout's shoulders
as steps. The baskets were taken off and left at a house,
the elephant was turned loose in the jungle ; I walked
the remaining miles to Kwala Kangsa, and the driver
carried my portmanteau ■ Such was the comical end of
my first elephant ride. I think that altogether I walked
about eight miles, and as I was not knocked up, this says
a great deal for the climate of Perak. The Malay who
came with me told the people here that it was " a wicked
elephant," but I have since been told that it was " very
sick and tired to death," which I hope is the true version
of its most obnoxious conduct.
1 have said nothing about the magnificence of the
scenery for a part of the way, wliere the road goes
through a gTand mountain pass, where all the vegetable
glories of the tropics seem assembled, and one gets a new
idea of what scenery can be ; while beneath superb tree-
ferns and untattered bananas, and palms, and bright flow-
ered lianas, and gi-aceful trailers, and vermilion-coloured
orchids, and under sun-birds and humming birds and the
most splendid butterflies I ever saw, a torrent, as clear
as crystal, dashes over the rocks, and adds the music of
tum])ling water to tlie enchantment of a scene whose
loveliness no words can give any idea of. The pass of
Bukit Berapit, seen in solitude on a glorious morning, is
almost worth a journey round tlie world.
Another wonder of the route is Gunong Pondok, u
huge butte or isolated mass of red and white limestone,
much weather-stained and ore-stained with very brilliant
colours, fidl of caverns, many of which are quite inac-
cessible, their entrances being fringed with immense stalac-
tites. Some of the accessible caves have roofs seventv
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LETTER XX. KWALA KAXGSA. 305
feet in height. Gunong Pondok is shaped like the Bass
Rock, and is about twelve himdred feet in heiglit. Its
irregular top is forest-crowned, but its nearly perpendicular
walls of white or red rock aftbrd scarcely roothold for
trees, and it rises in comparatively barren solitude among
the forest-covered mountains of the interior.
At the end of ten hours travelling, as I was tramping
along alone, I began to meet Malays, then I met nine
elephants in groups of three, with men, women, and
children on their backs, apparently taking " an airing,"
the beasts looking grand, as their fronts always do. But
that part of the road passes through a lonely jungle
region, tiger, elephant, and rhinoceros haunted, and
only broken here and there by some rude ]\Ialay culti-
vation of bananas or sugar-cane. "VVlien the sun was
low I looked down upon a broad and beautiful river, with
liills and mountains on its farther side, a village on the
shores of a ];)romontory, and above that a grassy hill with
a bungalow under coco-palms at its top, which I knew
must be the Eesidency, from the scarlet uniforms at the
door. There was a small bridge over the Kangsa, then
a guard- room and some official residences on stilts, and at
the top of a steep slope the bungalow, which has a long-
flight of stairs under a latticed porch, leading to a broad
and comfortably furnished verandah used as the Eesident's
office and sitting-room, the centre part, which has a bed-
room on each side of it and runs to the back of the
house, serving for the eating-place. It is as unpretending
a dwelling as can be. It keeps out the sun and rain,
and gives all the comfort which is needed in this climate,
but nothing more. My journey of thirty-three miles
from the coast has brought me into the interior of the
State, where the Kangsa river joins the Perak, at a dis-
tance of a hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, and
I am alone in the wilds !
306 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
LETTER XX. — Continued.
1 FEAR that the involvement and confusion of dates in
this letter will be most puzzling. I was received by a
magnificent Oriental butler, and after I had hud a
delicious bath, dinner, or what Assam was pleased to
call breakfast, was " served." The word " served " was
strictly applicable, for linen, china, crystal, flowers, cook-
ing, were all alike exquisite. Assam, the Madrassee, is
handsomer and statelier than Babu at Malacca ; a smart
]\Ialay lad helps him, and a Cliinaman sits on the steps
and pulls the punkah. All things were harmonious, the
glorious coco-palms, the bright green slopes, the sunset
gold on the lake-like river, the ranges of forest-covered
mountains etherealising in the purple light, the swarthy
faces and scarlet uniforms of the Sikh guard, and rich
and luscious odours, floated in on balmy airs, glories of
the burning tropics, untellable and incommunicable !
My valise had not arrived, and I had been obliged
to re-dress myself in my mud-sjilashed tweed dress, there-
fore I was much annoyed to find the table set for
three, and I hung about unwillingly in the verandah,
fully expecting two Government clerks in faultless
evening dress to appear, and I was vexed to think that
my dream of solitude was not to be realised, when Assam
more emphatically assured me that the meal was " served/'
and I sat down, much mystified, at the well-appointed
table, when he led in a large ape, and the Malay servant
LETTER xx. A GEOTESQUE DINNER PARTY. 307
brought in a small one, and a Sikh brought in a large
retriever and tied him to my chair 1 This was all done
with the most profound solemnity. The circle being then
complete, dinner proceeded with great stateliness. The
apes had their curry, chutney, pine-apple, eggs, and bananas
on porcelain plates, and so had I. The chief difference
was that, whereas I waited to be helped, the big aj)e was
impolite enough occasionally to snatch something from a
dish as the butler passed round the table, and that the
small one before very long migrated from his chair to the
table, and, sitting by my plate, helped himself daintily
from it. What a gi'otesque dinner party ! Wliat a
delightful one ! My " next of kin " were so reasonably
silent ; they required no conversational efforts ; they were
most interesting companions. " Silence is golden," I felt;
shall I ever enjoy a dinner party so much again ?
My acquaintance with these fellow-creatures was
made just after I arrived. I saw the two tied by long
ropes to the verandah rail above the porch, and not liking
their looks, went as far from them as I could to write to
you. The big one is perhaps four feet high and very
strong, and the little one is about twenty inches liigh.^
After a time I heard a cry of distress, and saw that the
big one, wjiose name is Mahmoud, was frightening Eblis,
the small one. Eblis ran away, but Mahmoud having
got the rope in his hands, pulled it with a jerk each time
Eblis got to the length of his tether, and beat him with
the slack of it. I went as near to them as I dared,
hoping to rescue the little creature, and he tried to come
to me, but was always jerked back, the face of Mahmoud
showing evil triumph each time. At last Mahmoud
^ The sheet of my letter in which I afterwards described the physique
of these apes has unfortunately been lost, and I dare not trust to my
memory in a matter in which accuracy is essential. The description
of an ape on page 218 approaches near to my recollection of them.
308 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
snatched up a stout Malacca cane, and dragging Eblis
near liim, beat him unmercifully, the cries of the little
semi-human creature being most pathetic. I vainly tried
to get the Sildi sentry to interfere; perhaps it would have
been a breach of discipline if he had left his post, but at
the moment I should have been glad if he had run
Mahmoud through with a bayonet. Failing this, and the
case being clearly one of murderous assault, I rushed at
the rope which tied Eblis to the verandah and cut it
through, which so startled the big fellow that he let liim
go, and Eblis, beaten I fear to a jelly, jumped upon my
shoulder and flung his arms round my throat with a
grip of terror ; mine, I admit, being scarcely less.
I carried him to the easy-chair at the other end of
the verandah, and he lay down confidingly on my arm,
looking up with a bewitching, pathetic face, and murmur-
ing sweetly " ovf ! ouf!" He has scarcely left me
since, except to go out to sleep on the attap roof. He is
the most lovable, infatuating, little semi-human creature,
so altogether fascinating that 1 could waste the whole
day in watching him. As I write, he sometimes sits on
the table by me watching me attentively, or takes a pen,
dips it in the ink, and scribbles on a sheet of paper.
Occasionally he turns over the leaves of a book ; once he
took Mr. Low's official correspondence, envelope by
envelope out of the rack, opened each, took out the letters
and held them as if reading, but always replaced them.
Then he becomes companionable, and gently taking my
pen from my hand, puts it aside and lays his dainty hand
in mine, and sometimes he lies on my lap as I write, with
one long arm round my throat, and the small, antique,
pathetic face is occasionally laid softly against mine,
uttering the monosyllable "ouf! ouf!" which is capable
of a variation of tone and meaning truly extraordinary.
Mahmoud is sufficiently polite, but shows no sign of
LETTER XX. FUN AND FROLIC. 309
friendliness, I am glad to say. As I bore Eblis out of
reach of his clutches he threw the cane either at him or
me, and then began to dance.
That first night tigers came very near the house,
roaring discontentedly. At 4 am. I was awoke by a
loud noise, and looking out saw a wonderful scene. The
superb plumes of the coco-nut trees were motionless
against a sky blazing with stars. Four large elephants,
part of the regalia of the deposed Sultan, one of them
the Eoyal Elephant, a beast of prodigious size, were
standing at the door, looking majestic ; mahouts were
flitting about with torches ; Sikhs, whose great stature
was exaggerated by the fitful light, — some in their un-
dress white robes, and others in scarlet uniforms and
blue turbans — were gTouped as onlookers, the torch-
Light glinted on peripatetic bayonets, and the greenish,
undulating lamps of countless fireflies moved gently in
the shadow.
I have now been for three nights the sole inhabitant
of this bungalow ! I have taken five meals in the
society of apes only, who make me laugh with genuine
laughter. The sentries are absolutely silent, and I hardly
hear a human voice. It is so good to be away for a
time from the " wearing world," from all clatter, chatter,
and " strife of tongues," in the unsophisticated society
of apes and elephants. Dullness is out of the question.
The apes are always doing something new, and are far
more initiative than imitative. Eblis has just now
taken a letter of yours from an elastic band, and is hold-
ing it wide open, as if he were reading it ; an untamed
siamang, which lives on the roof, but has mustered up
courage to-day to come down into the verandah, has
jumped like a demon on the retriever's back, and, riding
astride, is beating him with a ruler ; and jolly, wicked
Mahmoud, having taken the cusliions out of the chairs,
310 THE COLDEN CHERSONESE. i.ktter xx.
has laid them in a row, has pulled a tablecover oft' the
table, and having rolled it np for a pillow, is now lying-
down in an easy, careless attitude, occasionally helping
himself to a piece of pine-apple. "Wlien they are angry
they make a fearful noise, and if you hinder them from
putting their hands into your plate they shriek with
rage like children, and utter much the same sound as
the Ainos do when displeased. They seem frightfully
jealous of the sweet little ivah-ivah Eblis. Mahmoud
beats it and teases it whenever it is not with me ; he
takes its food, and when it screams with rage he laughs
and shows his white teeth. He upset all the chairs in
the verandah this morning, and when I attempted to
scold him he took a banana which he was peeling and
threw it at me. I am sure that he would have a great
deal of rough wit if he could speak our tongue.
Tlie night I came Mr. Low's clerk, a Sinhalese, came
to aiTange an expedition, and early the next morning,
after I had breakfasted with the apes, he arrived, bringing
the Eoyal P^lephant, as well-broken and stately an animal
as I should wish to ride. He is such a height (they say
ten feet ?), that though he lay down to be mounted, a
good-sized ladder was needed for the climl> upon his
back. Assam put pillows and a good lunch into the
baskets, and as the day was glorious from sunrise to sun-
set I had an altogether delightful expedition.
We turned at once into the jungle, and rode through
it for seven hours on the left bank of the Perak river.
The loveliness was intoxicating. The trees were lofty
and magnificent ; there were very many such as I have
not seen before. Many run up a hundred feet or more
before they branch. The twilight was green and dim,
and ofttimes amidst the wealth of vegetation not a flower
was to be seen. But as often, through rifts in the
leafage far aloft, there were glimpses of the sunny.
i.ETTEK XX. A PERAK JUNGLE. 311
heavenly blue sky, and now and then there were open-
ings where trees had fallen, and the glorious tropical
sunshine streamed in on gaudy blossoms of liuge trees,
and on pure white orchids, and canary-coloured clusters
borne by lianas ; on sun-birds, iridescent and gorgeous in
the sunlight ; and on butterflies, some all golden, others
amber and black, and amber and blue, some with velvety
bands of violet and green, others altogether velvety black
with spots of vermilion or emerald-green, the under side
of the wings corresponding to tlie spot, while sometimes
a shoal of tm-quoise-blue or wholly canary-coloured sprites
fluttered in the sunbeams ; the flash of sun-birds and the
flutter of butterflies giving one an idea of the joy which
possibly was intended to be the heritage of all animated
existence. In these openings I was glad for the moment
to be neither an ornithologist nor an entomologist, so
that I might leave every one of these daintily-coloured
creatures to the enjoyment of its life and beauty.
It was not the trees and lianas only that were beauti-
ful in these sunny openings, but tlie ferns, mosses, orchids,
and selaginellas, with the crimson-tipped dracaena, and
the crimson-veined caladium, and the great red nepenthe
with purple blotches on its nearly diaphanous pitchers,
and another pitcher-plant of an epiphytal habit, with
pea-green pitchers scrambling to a great height over the
branches of the smaller trees. The beautiful tree-ferns
themselves were loaded with other ferns, orchids, and
mosses ; every fallen tree was draped with fresh green
forms, every swampy bit was the home of mottled aroids,
film ferns, and foliage plants, mostly green and gold,
while in some places there were ginger-worts with noble
shinmg leaves fully six feet long.
In the green twilight of the depths of the forest the
dew gemmed the leaves till nearly 10 a.m., but in the
openings the sun blazed with the lieat of a furnace.
312 THE GOLDEN CHEESONESE. letter xx.
The silence and colonrlessness of the heart of the forest,
and the colour, vivacity, light, and movement in the
openings, and among the tree-tops, contrast most curiously.
Legions of monkeys inhabit the tree-tops, and seem to
lead a completely aerial life. It is said that they nevei"
come down to earth, but that they cross the forests
swinging themselves from tree to tree.
The Malays, if they can, build their kampongs near
rivers, and during the day we passed several of these.
Several had mosques more or less rude. Every village
consists of such houses as I have described before, grouped,
l)ut not by any means closely, under the shade of coco-
palms, jak, durian, bread-fruit, mango, nutmeg, and other
fruit-trees. Plantations of bananas are never far off.
Many of these people have " dug outs " or other boats on
the adjacent river, some have bathing-sheds, and others
padi plantations. These kampongs have much of the
poetry as well as inanity of tropical life about them.
They are beautiful and appropriate, and food is above
them and around them. " The primal curse " can hardly
be known. A very little labour provides all that the
Malay desires, and if the tenure of the land be secure
(and the lack of security is one of the great evils), and
he be not over-taxed, his life must be calm and easy, if
not happy. The people were always courteous, and my
Sinhalese escort held long conversations in every kam-
2)ong. These jungle dwellers raise their houses on very
high posts, partly because tigers abound. The jak trees
(artocarp7is incisa), near of kin to the bread-fruit, and the
durian, flourish round all the dwellings. The jak fruit,
which may be called food rather tlian fruit, grows without
a visible stem from the trunk and branches of the very
liandsome tree which bears it, and weighs from sixty to
seventy j)Ounds. Tlie durian gi'ows to the size of a man's
head, and is covered closely with hard, sharp spines.
LETTER XX. VILLAGE LIFE. 313
The fall of either on ones head or shoulder is much to be
deprecated, and the Malays stretch strong nets above
their houses to secure themselves from accidents.
I saw for the first time the nutmeg growing in per-
fection. It was a great delight, as is the first sight of
any tree or flower well known from description. It is a
beautiful tree, from forty to fifty feet high when full-
grown, with shining foliage, somewhat resembling that of
the bay, and its fruit looks like a very large nectarine.
One fully ripe was gathered for me. It had opened, and
revealed the nutmeg with its dark brown shell showing-
through its crimson reticulated envelope of mace, the
whole lying in a bed of pure wliite, a beautiful object.
Each house in the hampong seemed to have all its
inmates at home doing nothing but chewing betel-nut.
In their home ddshcibilUs the men wear only the sarong,
and a handkerchief knotted round their heads, and I
tliink that the women also dispense with an upper
garment, for I noticed at the approach of two strange
men they invariably huddled another sarong over their
shoulders, heads, and faces, holding it so as to conceal
all but their eyes. The young children, as usual, were
only clothed in silver ornaments. This neglig^ dress in
the privacy of their homes is merely a matter of custom
and climate, for these people are no more savages than we
are. These ghmpses of a native tropic life, entirely un-
influenced by European civilisation, are most interesting.
In these hampongs the people have music, singing,
story-telling, games, and rehgious ceremonies, perhaps the
most important of all. I have not heard that the Perak
Malays differ in their reKgious observances from the other
Malays of the Peninsula. It seems that before " a
parish " can be formed there must be forty-four houses.
The kampong may then have a properly -constituted
mosque in which every Friday the religious officer recites
314 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
an oration in praise of God, the Prophet, and his vice-
gerents, from tlie steps of a rostrum. The same pei-son
performs the marriage ceremony. Another official per-
forms sacrificial duties, and recites the service for the
dead after the corpse has been lowered into the gi'ave.
There is an inferior official of tlie mosque who keeps it
clean, and reports to the Imaum absentees from public
worship, goes round the villages to give notice of pul)lic
prayer, assists at burials, and beats the great drum of the
mosque. The Imaum appears to be the highest function-
ary, and performs what are regarded as the most sacred
rites of Islamism. There are regular fees paid to these
persons for their services, and at sacrifices they receive
part of the \dctim. I was afraid of going into any of
the mosques. They are all conical buildings of wood
and attap raised on M'ooden pillars, and are usually on
small knolls a little way from the kam^wngs. They have
no minarets, but the larger ones have a separate shed in
which tlie drum or gong used for the call to prayer is
kept.
Buffaloes are sacrificed on religious occasions, and
at the births, circumcisions, marriages, and shaving of tlie
heads of the children of wealthy people. The buffalo
sacrificed for religious purposes must be always without
lilemish. Its liones must not be broken after deatli,
neither must its horns be used for common purposes. It
is slain near the mosque with solemn sacrificial cere-
monies, and one half is usually cooked and eaten on the
spot by the " parisliioners."
While I am on the sul)ject of religious observances, I
must tell you tliat I saw a Moslem funeral to-day from a
respectful distance. The graves are decently placed to-
gether usually, though some of the pious rich have large
isolated burial-places. The grave is dug l)y nile — i.e. the
digger continues his work till his ear and the surface are
LETTER XX. A MOSLEM FUNERAL. 315
on a level. It is shaped like ours, with one important
exception, that a chamber two feet high for the reception
of the body is dug in the side.
The corpse, that of a man I believe, covered with a
cloth and dressed in cotton clothing, was carried on a bier
formed of two planks, with the male relations following.
On reachmg the grave the Imaum read a service in a
monotonous tone, and then the body was lowered till it
reached the level of the side chamber, in which it was
placed, and inclosed with the planks on which it had been
carried. Some leaves and flowers were then thrown in,
and the grave was filled up, after which some water was
sprinkled upon it, and a man, not the Imaum, sitting
upon it, recited what the Sinhalese said was a sort of
confession of faith, turning towards Mecca. The relatives
bowed in the same direction and then left the place, but
on stated days afterwards offerings of spices and flowers
are made. It was reverential and decorous, perhaps even
more so than the Buddhist funerals which I saw in Japan,
but the tombs are not so carefully tended, and look more
melancholy. The same dumpy, pawn-shaped pillars are
placed at the head and feet of the raised mounds of earth
which cover the graves, as in Malacca. It is believed that
when the mourners have retired seven paces from the grave
two angels enter upon inquisitorial functions. When death
is seen to be approaching, the dying person is directed
to repeat a short form of confession of liis faith in the
unity of God ; and if he is unable, it is recited for him.
The offices of washing and shrouding the dead are religi-
ous ceremonies, and are performed by one of the officials
of the mosque. The influence of the great Prophet of
Arabia is wonderfully enduring.
This letter, which began among sun-birds and but-
terflies, has got into a dismal groove, out of which I
must rescue it, but it is difficult to give any consecutive
i
31U THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
iiccoiiiit of anything when the fascinating Eblis murmurs
mif ! ouf I sits on my writing book, takes my pen out
of my hand, makes these scrawls which I fear will make
my writing illegible, and claims constant attention.
The Eoyal Elephant is a noble animal. His docility is
perfect. He climbed up and down places so steep that a
good horse would have bungled at them, pulled down trees
when he was told to do it, held others which were slant-
ing dangerously across the track high above our heads till
we had safely passed under them, lifted fallen trees out of
his way, or took huge steps over them, and slid down a
steep bank into the Perak with great dexterity. He was
told to take a banana tree for his dinner, and he broke off
the tough thick stem just above the ground as if it had
been a stick, then neatly stripped the eight foot leaves,
and holding the thick end of each stalk imder his foot,
stripped off the whole leaf on each side of the midrib, and
then, with the dexterity of a monkey peeling a banana, he
peeled off the thick rind from the stem, and revelled in
the juices of the soft inside. I was sitting on the ground
in a place where tliere was scarcely room for him to pass,
and yet he was so noble and gentle that I never thought
of getting up even though his ponderous feet just touched
me, and I ate my lunch within the swing of his huge
proboscis, but. he stood quite still, except that he flapped
lus "ears" and squirted water over himself Each elephant
has his own driver, and there is quite a large vocabulary
of elephant language. The mahout carried an invaluable
knife-weapon, called a imrang, broadest and heaviest at
the point, and as we passed througli tlie jungle he slashed
to right and left to clear the track, and quite thick twigs
fell with hardly an effort on liis part.
After travelling for several hours we came upon a kam-
ponfj under palms and nutmeg trees, and then dismounted
and took our lunch, looking out from deep shadow down
LETTER XX. SWIMMING THE PERAK. 317
upon the beautiful river lying in the glory of the noonday
sun, its banks bright with birds and butterflies. The
mahout was here among friends, and the salutations were
numerous. If nose-rubbing as a form of greeting is prac-
tised I have never seen it. What I have seen is that
when one man approaches another, or is about to pay a
visit, he joins his hands as if in supplication, and the other
touches them on both sides, and afterwards raises his hands
to his lips and forehead. It is a courteous looking mode
of salutation.
At this point the Sinhalese said that the natives told
liim that it was possible to ford the Perak, but that the
mahout said that the elephant was a " diver," and wovdd
probably dive, but that there was no danger to us except
of getting very wet. I liked the prospect of a journey on
the other side, so we went down a steep bank into the broad,
bright, river, and putting out from the shore, went into the
middle, and shortly the elephant gently dropped down and
was entirely submerged, moving majestically along, with
not a bit of his huge bulk visible, the end of his pro-
boscis far ahead, writhing and coiling like a water snake
every now and then, the nostrils always in sight, but
having no apparent connection with the creature to which
they belonged. Of course we were sitting in the water,
but it was nearly as warm as the air, and so we went
for some distance up the clear, shining river, with the
tropic sun blazing down upon it, with everything that
could rejoice the eye upon its shores, with little beaches
of golden sand, and above the forest the mountains with
varying shades of indigo colouring.
There would have been nothing left to wish for if
you had been there to see, though you would have tried
to look as if you saw an elephant moving submerged
along a tropical river every day with people of three races
on his back ! !
;U8 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
The Sinlialese said, " I'm going to take you to Koto-
laniali ; no Eurojjeau lias been there since the war. I've
never been there, nor the Resident either." I have pored
over bhie books long enough to know that this is a place
which earned a most unenviable notoriety during the recent
troubles, and is described as " a stronghold of piracy, law-
lessness, and disaffection." As we were making a diagonal
crossing of the Perak, the Sinhalese said, " A few months
ago they would have been firing at us from both sides of
the river." It was a beautiful view at that point, with
the lovely river in its windings, and on the top of the
steep bank a Jcamjjong of largish houses under palms and
durians. A good many people assembled on the cliff,
some with muskets and some with spears, and the Sin-
halese said, " I wish we had not come ;" but as the elephant
scrambled up the bank the people seemed quite friendly,
and I dismounted and climbed up to a large house with
a very open floor, on which fine mats were laid in several
places. There were many women and children in the
room when I went in, and one of the former put a fine
mat over a rice sack for me. Presently the room filled
up with people, till there were fifty-nine seated in circles
on the floor, but some of the men remained standing, one
a thorough villain in looks, a Hadji, with a dirty green
turban and a red sarong. The rest of the men wore hand-
kerchiefs and sarongs only.
Tliese peoj)le really did look much like savages. They
all carried 2'x^^'c^ngs, or the short kris called a golo, and
having been told that the Malays were disarmed, I was
suri)rised to see several muskets, a rifle, and about thirty
spears on the wall. So I found myself in the heart of
what has been officially described as " a nest of robbers
and murderers," " the centre of disturbance and disaffec-
tion," etc. To make it yet more interesting, on inquiring
whose house it was, the name of a notorious " rebel "
!!'
>
O
6
•5
f2
LETTER XX. A " PIRATE'S NEST." 31»
leader was mentioned, and one of the women, I was told,
is the principal wife or mtlier widow of the Maliarajah
Lela, who was executed for complicity in the assassination
of Mr. Birch. However, though as a Briton I could not
have been a welcome visitor, they sent a monkey for twa
coco-nuts, and gave me their dehcious milk ; and when I
came away they took the entrance ladder from one of the
houses to help me to mount the elephant.
Mr. Low was at first displeased that I had been ta
Koto-lamah, and said that my escort was " ignorant and
foolish " for taking me ; but now he says that though he
would not have taken the responsibility of sending me, he
is glad that the thing was done, as it affords a proof such
as he has not yet had of the complete pacification of the
district; but, he added, it woidd appear somewhat odd that
the first Em-opeau to test the disposition of the Koto-
lamah people shoidd be a lady.
Leaving tliis large kampong we travelled by a much-
grown-up elephant track, needing the constant use of the
parang and the strength and wisdom of the elephant to
make it passable, saw several lairs and some recent tiger
tracks, crossed a very steep hill, and, after some hours of
hard riding, came down upon the lovely Perak, which
we crossed in a " dug-out " so nearly level with the water
that at every stroke of the paddle of the native who
crouched in the bow the water ran in over the edge.
We landed at the village of Kwala Kangsa
" In tlie glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening,"
in which the magnified purple mountains were piled like
Alps against the flaming clouds. By the river bank lay
the Dragon boat and the square bamboo floating batli,
through the side of which IVIr. Birch was mortall}-
wounded.
320 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. i.ktter xx.
On landing we met a very bright intelligent-looking
young Malay with a train of followers, a dandy almost,
in white trousers, short red sarong, black hajw with gold
buttons, gold watchguard, and red headdress. The ex-
pression of his face was keen and slightly scornful. This
is Eajah Dris, a judge, and the probable successor to the
Perak throne. The present llesident thinks highly both
of his character and his abilities, and he is very popular
among his countrymen. He walked with us as far as
the mosque, and I heard him ask questions about me.
The Mussulmen of the village, several of them being
Hadjis, were assembling for worship, lounging outside the
mosque till the call to prayer came. Ablutions before
worshipping are performed in floating baths in the river.
The trade of Kwala Kangsa seems in the hands of the
Chinese, with a few Klings among them, and they have
a row of shops.
LETTER XX. A JOYOUS WELCOME. 321
LET TEE XX.— Continued.
Feb. 17. — I was very glad that yesterday was Sunday,
so that I had a quiet day, for nearly twelve hours of
jungle riding on an elephant makes one very stiff and
sleepy. Three days of solitude, meals in the company
of apes, elephant excursions, wandering about alone, and
free, open air, tropical life in the midst of all luxuries
and comforts, have been very enchanting. At night, when
the servants had retired to their quarters and the apes to
the roof, and I was absolutely alone in the bungalow, the
silent Oriental sentries motionless below the verandah
counting for nothing, and without a single door or window
to give one the feeling of restraint, I had some of the
" I'm monarch of all I survey " feeling ; and when drum
beat and bugle blast, and the turning out of the Sikh
guard, indicated that the Eesident was in sight, I felt a
little reluctant to relinquish the society of animals, and
my " sohtary reign," which seemed almost " ancient " also.
Wlien Mr. Low, unattended as he always is, reached
the foot of the stairs the retriever leapt down with one
boimd, and through the air over his head fled Mahmoud
and Eblis, uttering piercing cries, the siamang, though
keeping at a distance, adding to the jubilations, and for
several minutes I saw nothing of my host, for these
creatures, making every intelligent demonstration of
delight, were hanging round him with their long arms ;
the retriever, nearly wild with joy, but frantically
Y
3-2-2 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letti:k xx.
jealous ; all the creatures -vvelcoiuiug liiui more warmly
than most people would welcome their relations after a
long absence. Can it Ije wondered at that people like
the society of these simple, loving, unsophisticated beings ?
Mr. Low's arrival has inflicted a severe mortification
on me, for Eblis, who has been absolutely devoted to me
since I rescued him from Mahmoud, has entirely deserted
me, takes no notice of me, and seems anxious to disclaim
our previous acquaintance ! 1 have seen children do
just the same thing, so it makes the kinship appear even
closer. He shows the most exquisite devotion to his
master, caresses him with his pretty baby hands, murmurs
ouf in the tenderest of human tones, and sits on his
shoulder or on his knee as he writes, looking up with a
strange wistfulness in his eyes, as if he would like to
express himself in something better than a monosyllable.
This is a curious life. Mr. Low sits at one "end of
the verandah at his business table with Eblis looking
like his familiar spirit, l)eside him. 1 sit at a table at
the other end, and during the long working hours we
never exchange one word. jMahmoud sometimes executes
wonderful capei'S, the strange, wikl, half-liuman face oi'
the siamang peers down from the roof with a half-trust-
ful, half-suspicious expression ; the retriever lies on thi;
floor with his head on his paws, sleeping with one eye
open, always on the watch for a coveted word of recogni-
tion from liis master, or a yet more coveted opportunity
of going (jut with liim ; tittin and diinier are silently
served in the verandah recess at long intervals ; the
sentries at the door are so silently changed that one
fancies that the motionless blue turbans and scarlet coats
contain always the same men ; in the foreground tlie
river flows silentlv, and the soft airs which alternate are
too feeble to stir the overshadowing palm-fronds or rustle
the attajJ of the roof. It is hot, silent, tropical. The
LETTER XX. THE BRITISH RESIDENT. 323
sound of Mr. Low's busy pen alone breaks the stillness
dui'ing much of the day; so silent is it that the first
hea\y drops of the daily tropical shower on the roof
have a startlins; effect.
Mr. Low is greatly esteemed, and is regarded in the
official circles of the Settlements as a model administrator.
He has had thirty years experience in the East, mainly
among Malays, and has brought not only a thorouglily
idiomatic knowledge of the Malay language, but a sympa-
thetic insight into Malay character to his present post.
He understands the Malays and likes them, and has not
a vestige of contempt for a dark skin, a prejudice which
is apt to create an impassable gulf between the British
official and the Asiatics under his sway. I am inclined
to think that ]\Ir. Low is hapj)ier among the Malays and
among his apes and other pets than he would be among
civilised Europeans !
He is working fourteen hours out of the twenty-four.
I think that work is Ms passion, and a change of work
liis sole recreation. He devotes himself to the promotion
of the interests of the State, and his evident desire is to
train the native rajahs to rule the people equitably. He
seems to grudge every dollar spent superfluously on the
English establishment, and contents himself with this
small and old-fashioned bungalow. In this once dis-
affected region he goes about unarmed, and in the day-
time the sentries only carry canes. His manner is as
quiet and unpretending as can possibly be, and he speaks
to Malays as respectfully as to Europeans, neither
lowering thereby his own dignity nor theirs. Apparently
they have free access to him during all hours of daylight,
and as I sit writing to you or reading, a ]\Ialay shadow
constantly falls across my paper, and a Malay, with
silent, cat-like tread glides up the steps and appears
unannounced in the verandah, on which j\Ir. Low at once
324 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter sx.
lays aside whatever he is doing, and quietly gives himself
to the business in hand. The reigning prince, the Eajah
Muda Yusuf, and llajah Dris, are daily visitors ; the
former brings a troop of followers with him, and they
remain outside, their red sarongs and picturesque attitudes
as they lounge in the shade giving to the place that
" native " air which everywhere I love, at least where
" natives " are treated as I think that they ought to be,
and my requirements are pretty severe !
I am painfully aware of the danger here, as every-
where, of forming hasty and inaccurate judgments, and of
drawing general conclusions from partial premises, and
on my present tour there is the added risk of seeing
things through official spectacles ; but still certain things
lie on the surface, and a traveller must be very stupid
indeed if he does not come to an approximately just con-
clusion concerning them. As, for instance, it is easy to
see that far in the interior of the Malay Peninsula, in
regions rarely visited by Europeans, themselves without
advisers, and away from the influence of public opinion,
dealing with weak rulers to whom they reT)resent pre-
ponderating brute force in the last resort, the position of
" Resident " is very much what the individual man chooses
to make it. Nor is it difficult to perceive whether the
relations between the English official and the natives are
hearty and cordial or sullen and distrustful, or whether
the Resident makes use of his position for purposes of
self-aggrandisement, and struts tempestuously and swagger-
ingly before the Malays, or whether he devotes his time
and energies to the promotion of prosperity, good order,
and progress, in a firm and friendly spirit.
After a very quiet day we went at sunset to see
Rajah Dris, not taking the dog. The trifling matter of
the dog being regarded as an abomination is one of the
iimumerable instances of the ingrained divergence be-
LETTER XX. EAJAH DPJS. 325
tween Moslem and Christian feeling. Eajah Dris lives
in a good house, but it is Europeanised, and consequently
vulgarised. He received us very politely on the stairs,
and took us into a sitting-room in which there were
various ill-assorted European things. His senior wife
was brought in, a dull, hea\'y looking woman, a daughter
of the Eajah Muda Yusuf, and after her a number of
slave women and babies, till the small room was well
filled. The Eajah hospitably entertained us with tea,
milk, and preserved bananas ; but I noticed with regi'et
that the white table-cloth was much soiled, and that the
china and glass were in very bad taste. The house and
its equipments are a distressing contrast to those of the
Datu Bandar in Sungei Ujong, who adheres closely to
Malay habits. Eajah Dris sent a servant the whole way
back with us, carrying a table lamp.
To-day the mercury was at 90° for several hours.
The nights, however, are cool enough for sleep. I have
lately taken to the Malay custom of a sleeping mat, and
find it cooler than even the hardest mattress. I did not
sleep much, however, for so many rats and lizards ran
about my room. These small, bright-eyed lizards go up
the walls in search of flies. They dart upon the fly
with very great speed, but just as you think that they
are about to swallow him they pause for a second or two
and then make the spring. I have never seen a fly
escape during this pause, which looks as if the lizard
charmed or petrified his victim. The IMalays have a
proverb based upon this fact, " Even the lizard gives the
fly time to pray." There were other noises ; for wild
beasts, tigers probably, came so near as to scare the
poultry and horses, and roared sullenly in the neighl^our-
hood for a long time, and the sentries challemred two
people, after which I heard a messenger tell Mr. Low of
a very distressing death.
326 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
Feb. 18. — Major Swinburne and Captain Walker
arrived in the morning, and we had a grand tiffin at
twelve, and Mahmoud was allowed to sit on the table,
and he ate sausages, jDommeloe, bananas, pine -apple,
chicken and curry, and then seizing a long glass of
champagne, drank a good deal before it was taken from
him. If drunkenness were not a loathsome human vice,
it would have been most amusing to see it burlesqued by
this ape. He tried to seem sober and to sit up, but
could not, then staggered to a chair, trying hard to w^alk
steadily, and nodding his head with a would-))e witty but
really obfuscated look, then finding that he coidd not sit
up, he reached a cushion and lay down very neatly,
resting his head on his elbow and trying to look (juite
reasonable, but not succeeding, and then he fell asleep.
After tiffin a rajah came and asked me to go with
him to his house, and we walked down with his train of
follow^ers and my Malay attendant. It was a very nice
house, with harmonious colouring and much deep shadow.
It soon filled with people. There were two women, but
not having an interpreter, I could not tell whether they
were the chief's wives or sisters. He showed me a
number of valuable krises, spears, and j^M?'a?i^s, and the
ladies brought sherbet and sweetmeats, and they were
altogether very jolly, and made me pronounce tlie Malay
names of things, and the women laughed heartily wlien I
pronounced them badly. They showed me some fine
diamonds, very beautifully set in that ricli, red " gold of
(Jpliir," w^hich makes our yellow w^estern gold look like
a l)razen imitation, as they evidently thought, for they
took off my opal ring, and holding the gold against tlieir
own ornaments made gestures of disapproval. I think
that opals were new to them, and they were evidently
dehghted witli their changing colours.
Mussulman law is very stringent as to some of the
LETTER XX. MAREIAGE CEREMONIES. 327
rights of wives. In ]\Ialay marriage contracts it is agreed
that all savings and " effects " are to be the property of
husband and wife equally, and are to be equally divided
in case of divorce. A man who insists on divorcing his
wife not only has to give her half his effects, Imt to
repay the sum paid as the marriage portion. It appears
that polygamy is rare, except among the chiefs.
Marriage is attended with elaborate arrangements
among these people, and the female friends of both
parties usually make the " engagement," after which the
bridegroom's friends go to the bride's father, talk over
the dowry, make presents, and pay the marriage expenses.
Commonly, especially among the higher classes, the bride-
groom does not see the lady's face until the marriage
day. Marriage is legalised by a religious ceremony, and
then if the wife be grown up her husband takes her to
liis own home. Girls are married at fourteen or fifteen,
and although large families are rare, they look old women
at forty.
On the day before the marriage expenses are paid by
the bridegroom, the bride-elect has her teeth filed. It is
this process which gives the Malay women, who are very
pretty as children, their very repulsive look. It produces
much the same appearance of wreck and ruin as blacken-
ing the teeth does in Japan, and makes a smile a thing
to be dreaded. Young girls are not allowed to chew
betel, which stains badly, and have white pearly teeth,
but these are considered like the teeth of animals. The
teeth are filed down to a quarter of their natural length
by means of a hard Sumatran stone or fine steel file.
The operation lasts about an hour, and the gums continue
swelled and painful for some days. After they have
recovered, the blackening of the teeth by means of betel
chewing is accelerated by means of a black liquid, ob-
tained by burning coco-nut sliells on iron. Three days
328
THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE.
LETTER XX.
before the marriage ceremony lienuu is ap])lied to the
nails of the hands and feet, and also to the palms of the
hands, and the hair is cut short over the forehead, some-
thing in the style of a " Gainsborough fringe."
The wedding feast is a very gi\and affair. Goats and
bufllxloes are killed, and the friends, and relatives of the
bride send contributions of food. The wedding decora-
tions are family property, and descend from mother to
MALAY YOUTH AXi) MAIUEN.
daughter, and both bride and bridegroom are covered with
flowers, jewels, and gay eml>roidery. The bride sits in
state and receives tlie congratulatory visits of her relatives
and friends, and after the actual ceremony is over, the
newly married couple sit on a seat raised above the guests,
and the sirih and betel-nut are largely chewed. There
are " floral decomtions," music, and feasting, all strangers
are made welcome, the young men spend the afternoon in
LETTER XX. MALAY CHILDREN. 329
games, among which cock-fightiug usually plays a pro-
mineut part, and the maidens amuse themselves in a part
of the house screened off from the rest of the guests by
curtains, and made very gay.
As religious ceremonies attend upon marriage and
death, so on the birth of a child the father puts his
mouth to the ear of the infant and solemnly pronounces
what is called the Azan or " Allah Akbar," the name of
the one God being the first sound which is allowed to fall
upon his ears on entering the world, as it is the last sound
which he hears on leaving it. There is a form of prayer
which is used at births, and another on the seventh day
afterwards, when the cliild's head is shaved. The sage
femme remains for forty days with the mother, who on
the fortieth day makes the ceremonial purifications and
p»rayers which are customary, and then returns to her
ordinary duties. The child, as soon as it can speak, learns
to recite j)rayers and passages from the Koran, and is very
early grounded in the distinctive principles of Islam.
The children of both sexes are very pretty, but with
strangers they are very shy and timid. They look very
innocent, and are docile, gentle, and obedient, spending
much of their time in taming their pets and playing with
them, and in playing games peculiar to their age. Except
in one or two cases in Suugei Ujong, I have not seen a
child with eye or skin disease, or any kind of deformity.
There have been rajahs all day in the verandah, and
their followers sitting on the steps, all received by ]\Ir.
Low with qiuet courtesy, and regaled with tea or coffee
and cigarettes. A short time ago the reigning prince, who
does not appear to be a cypher, came with a great train of
followers, some of them only wearing sarongs, a grandson
to whom he is much attached, and the deposed sultan's
two boys, of whom I told you before. They are m Malay
clotliing, and seem to have lost their vivacity, or at least
330 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
it is in abeyance. Before I came here, I understood from
many people that " His Highness " is very generally de-
tested. So also says Sir Benson Maxwell in Oilt Malay
Conquests. Major M'Nair in his amusing hook on Perak
says, " He is a man over middle age, and is described as
being of considerable ability, feared and hated by many
of the chiefs, and as being of a fierce and cruel disposi-
tion, but he was a proved man as to his loyalty " (to
British interests), " and there being no desire on the
part of the Government to annex the state of Perak,
his appointment was the wisest course that, under the
circumstances, could be pursued." This is all that the
greatest apologist for British proceedings in Perak has
to say.
I was not prepossessed in his favour before I came,
for among other stories of his cruel disposition, I was told
that it was " absolutely true " that three years ago he
poured boiling water down the back of a runaway female
slave who had been recaptured, and then put a red ants'
nest upon it. If " piracy " is to be the term applied to
levying black-mail he was certainly a pirate, for he exacted
a tenth of the cargo of every boat which passed up his
river, a rajah higher up doing the same thing. He is said
to have a very strong character, to be grasping, and to be
a " brute ; " but Mr. Low gets on very well with him ap-
parently. He is an elderly man, wearing a sort of fez on
a shaven head. He has a gray moustache. His brow is
a fine one, and his face has a look of force, but the lower
part of it is coarse and heavy. He was fanning himself
with his fez, and wlien I crossed the verandali and gave
him a fan, lie accepted it without the slightest gesture of
thanks, as if I had been a slave. When Mr. Low told
him that I had been at Koto-lamali, he said that the chief
in wluise liouse I had rested deserved to be shot, and
ou-jht to be shot ! He and Mr. Low talked business for
LETTER XX. A DREARY FUNERAL. 331
an hour ; but all iiuportant matters are transacted in what
is called a native council.
I wrote that I believed myself to be the only Euro-
pean in Kwala Kangsa, but I find that there was another
at the time when I wrote thus, a young man of good
family, who came out here seeking an appointment. He
was sunstricken three days ago, and violent fever and
delirium set in, during the height of which he overpow-
ered four Sikhs who were taking care of him, rushed out
of doors, fell down exhausted, w^as carried home, and died
at four in the morning, his last delirious dreams being of
gambling and losing heavily.
The lamentable burial took place in the evening as
the shadows fell. This sums up his story — a career of
dissipation, death at twenty-one, a rough oblong box, no
one to be sorry. It made my heart ache for the mother,
who would have given much to be where I was, and see
" the dreary death train " move slowly to the dreary
enclosure on a hill top, where the grass grows rank and
very green round a number of white wooden crosses,
which mark the graves of the officers and soldiers who
fell in 1876. The Union Jack was thrown over the
coffin, which was carried by six Sikhs, and Mr. Low,
Major Swinburne, Eajah Dris and some followers, and
Sultan Abdullah's two boys, who had nothing better to do,
followed it. By the time the grave was reached torches
were required, and the burial-service was read from my
prayer-book. It was all sad and saddening.
The weather is still glorious, the winding Perak still
miiTors in scarcely rippled blue the mtensely blue sky,
" never wind blows loudly," but soft airs rustle the trees.
One could not lead a more tropical life than this, with
apes and elephants about one under the coco-palms, and
with the mercury ranging from 80° to 90°! Gorgeous,
indeed, are the birds and butterflies and flowers ; but often
332 THE GOLDEX CHERSONESE. letter xx.
when the erythrina and the poinciana rcgia are strewing
the ground with their flaming blossoms, I think with a
passionate longing of the fragile Trientalis Euroim, of
crimson-tipped lichens, of faint odours of half hidden
primroses, of whiffs of honey and heather from purple
moorlands, and of all the homely, fragrant, unobtrusive
flowers that are linked with you. I should like a chance
of being " cold to the bone " !
I have wasted too much of my time to-day upon the
apes. They fascinate me more daily. They look exactly
like familiar demons, and certainly anyone having them
about him two hundred years ago would have been burned
as a wizard. "When Mr. Low walks down the verandah,
these two familiars walk behind him witli a stealthy tread.
He is having a business conversation just now with some
Eajahs, whose numerous followers are standing and lying
about, and Eblis is sitting on liis shoulder with one arm
round his neck, wliile ]\Iahmoud sits on the table opening
letters, and the siamang, sitting on the rafters, is looking
down with an unpleasant look. Eblis condescends to
notice me to-day, and occasionally sits on my shoulder
murmuring " oufl oxifl" the sweet sound which means all
varieties of affection and happiness. They say wah-wah
distinctly, and scream with rage like children, Init liave
none of the meaningless chatter of monkeys. It is partly
their silence which makes them such very pleasant com-
panions. At sunrise, liowever, like their forest brethren,
they liail the sun for some minutes with a noise wliicli 1
have never heard them make again during the day, loud
and musical, as if uttered by hiuuan vocal organs, very
clear and pleasant. Doubtless the Malays like Mr. Low
all tlie better for his love of pets.
At lunch they were both as usual sitting at the table.
I am still much afraid of Mahmoud, but Captain Walker
is infatuated about him, and likes his rough, jolly manners,
LETTER XX. A COCO-NUT GATHERER. .333
and his love of fun and rough play. As Assam was
bringing me a cup of coffee this creature put out his long
arm, and with his face brimming over with frolic, threw
the coffee over the mat. Then he took up a long glass
of beer and began to drink it eagerly, but as Mr, Low
disapproved of his being allowed to get tipsy a second
time, it was taken from him, upon wliich he took up the
breast of a fricasseed chicken and threw it at the offender.
The miscreant did every kind of ludicrous thing, finishing
by pulling every one to go out with him, as he always
does at that hour ; and when he had succeeded in getting
us all out was in a moment at the top of a high tree,
leaping from branch to branch, throwing himself on coffee
shrubs below, swinging himself up again in a flash, leap-
ing, bounding, a picture of agility, strength, and happiness.
The usual morning gathering of rajahs and their followers,
^vith Klings and Sikhs, was there, and I suspect that they
thought adult Europeans very foolish for being amused
with these harum-scarum antics.
A follower had brought a " baboon," an ape or monkey
trained to gather coco-nuts, a hideous beast on very long-
legs when on all fours, but capable of walking erect.
They called him a " dog-faced baboon," but I think they
were wrong. He has a short, curved tail, sable-coloured
fur darkening down his back, and a most repulsive,
treacherous, and ferocious countenance. He is fierce,
but likes or at all events obeys his owner, who held him
with a rope fifty feet long. At present he is only half
tame, and would go back to the jungle if he were liberated.
He was sent up a coco-nut tree wliich was heavily loaded
with nuts in various stages of ripeness and unripeness,
going up in surly fashion, looking round at intervals and
shaking his chain angrily. When he got to the top he
shook the fronds and stalks, but no nuts fell, and he
chose a ripe one, and twisted it round and round till its
334 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
tenacious fibres gave way, and then threw it down and
began to descend, thinking he had done enough, but on
being spoken to he went to work again with great vigour,
picked out all the ripe nuts on the tree, twisted them all
off, and then came down in a thoroughly bad, sulky, temper.
He was walking erect, and it seemed discourteous not to
go and thank him for all his hard toil.
As I write I see a fascinating sight, three black apes
sitting under the roof in such a position that I can only
see their faces, and they are all leaning their chins on a
beam, and with their wrinkled faces and gray beards are
looking exactly like . It is most interesting to be
among wild beasts, which, though tame, or partly so, are
not in captivity, and to see their great sagacity and their
singular likeness and unlikeness to us. I could dispense
witli the reptiles though. Last night there were seventeen
lizards in my room and two in my slippers. During the
ju'ofound stillness of about 3 AM., a crowd hooting, yellhig,
and beating clappers, passed not far off in the darkness,
and there was a sound of ravaging and rending caused by
a herd of elephants which had broken into the banana
grounds.
Besides apes, elephants, dogs, and other pets, there
are some fine jungle - fowls, a pheasant, a " fireback," I
think, and an argus pheasant of glorious beauty ; but glori-
ous is not quite the word either, for the hundred-eyed
feathers of its tail are painted rather in browns than
colours. These birds are under the charge of a poor
Chinaman, who once had money, but lias gone to com-
plete ruin from opium-smoking. His frame is reduced to
a skeleton covered with skin. I never saw such emacia-
tion even in an advanced stage of illness.
Just now I saw Mahmoud and Eblis walk into my
room, and shortly following them, I found that Mahmoud
lia<l drawn ;i })inow to the foot of the bed, and was lying
LETTER XX.
AX OPIUM WRECK.
335
comfortably with his head upon it, and that Ebli.s was
l}-ing at the other end. I do hope that you will not be
tired of the apes. To me they are so intensely interest-
ing that I cannot help writing about them. Eblis has
AX OPIUM AVKECK.
been feverish for some days. I think he has never re-
covered from the thrashing he got the day I came. He
is pining and gTOwing very weak ; he eats notlung but
little bits of banana, and ]\Ir. Low thinks he is sure to
die. It is a curious fact that these ajies, which are tamed
by li^^ing with Europeans, acquire a great aversion to
]\Ialays.
February 1 9. — Eblis became much worse while I was
out yesterday, and I fear will surely die. He can hardly
336 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
hold anything in his cold, feeble hands, and eats nothing.
He has a strangely human, far-away look, just what one
sees in the eyes of children who have nearly done with
this world.
The heat is much greater to-day, there is less breeze,
and the mercury has reached 90°, but in the absence of
mosquitos, and with pine-apples and bananas always at
hand, one gets on very well. But mosquitos do embitter
e>dstence and interfere with work. Apparently people
never become impervious to the poison as I thought they
did, and there is not a Malay in his mat hut, or a Chinese
coolie in his crowded barrack, who has not his mosquito
curtains ; and I have already mentioned that the Malays
light fires under their houses to smoke them away. Last
night a malignant and hideous insect, above an inch long,
of the bug species appeared. The bite of this is as severe
as the sting of a hornet.
The jungle seems to be full of wild beasts, specially
tigers, in this neighbourhood, and the rhinoceros is not
uncommon. Its horn is worth $15, but Eajah Muda
Yusuf, who desires to have a monopoly of them, says that
there are horns with certain peculiar markings which can
be sold to the Chinese for $500^ each, to be powdered
and used as medicine. Wild elephants are abundant,
but like the rhinoceros, they ravage the deep recesses of
the jungle. All the tame elephants here, however, were
once wild, including the fifty which, with swords, dragons,
bells, Icriscs with gold scabbards, and a few other gold
articles, formed the Perak regalia. The herds are hunted
with tame, steady elepliants, and on a likely one being
singled out, he is driven by slow degTees into a strong
enclosure, and there attached by stout, rattan ropes to an
experienced old elefjliaut, and fed on meagre diet for some
' It is possible that tliis was an exaggeration, and that the real price
is $50.
LETTER XX. ELEPHANT TAMING. 337
weeks, varied with such dainties as sugar-cane and sweet
cakes. The captive is allowed to go and bathe, and plaster
himself with mud, all the while secured to his tame com-
panion, and though he makes the most desperate struggles
for liberty he always ends by giving in, and being led
back to his fastenings in the corral. At times a man
gets upon him, sits on his head, and walks upon his Ijack.
It is here generally about two years before an elephant is
regarded as thoroughly broken in and to be trusted ; and
as elsewhere stories are told of elephant revenge and
keepers being killed. A full-grown elephant requires about
200 lbs. of food a day. These animals are destructive to
the coco-nut trees, and when they get an opportunity
they put their heads against them, and then, with a queer
swaying movement, throw the weight of their bodies over
and over again against the stem till the palm comes
down with a crash, and the dainty monster regales him-
self with the blossoms and the nuts. The Malays pet
and caress them, and talk to them as they do to their
buffaloes. Half a ton is considered a sufficient load for
a journey if it be metal or anything which goes mto
small compass, but if the burden be bulky, from four to six
hundredweight is enough. Except where there are rivers
or roads suitable for bullock-carts or pack bullocks, they
do nearly all the carrying trade of Perak, carrying loads on
"elephant tracks" through the jungle. An elephant always
puts his foot into the hole which another elephant's foot
has made, so that a frequented track is nothing but a
series of pits filled with mud and water. Trying to get
along one of these I was altogether baffled, for it had no
verge. The jungle presented an impassable wall of dense
"vegetation on either side, the undergrowth and trees being
matted together by the stout, interminable strands of the
rattan and other tenacious creepers, including a thorn-
bearing one, known among the Malays as " tigers' claws "
z
338 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xx.
from tlie curved hook of tlie tliorn. I tliink I made my
way for about seven feet. This was a favourable specimen
of a junjj;le track, and I now understand how the Malays,
by felling two or three trees, so that they lay across
similar and worse roads, were able to delay the British
troops at a given spot for a day at a time.
One might think that elepliants roaming at large
would render culti\ation impossible, but they have the
greatest horror of anything that looks like a fence, and
though they are almost powerful enough to break down
a strong stockade, a sHght fence of reeds usually keeps
tliem out of padi, cane, and maize plantations.
Malays are gradually coming into Perak. It is said
that there has been recently a large immigration from
Selangor. The Malay population is fifty-seven thousand
nearly, with a large preponderance of males, but fifty-
eight thousand have crowded into the little strip of land
called l*rovince Wellesley, which is altogether under
British rule, and sixty-seven thousand into Malacca, which
has the same advantage. I suppose that slavery and
polygamy have had something to do with the diminu-
tion of the population, as well as small-pox. Formerly
large armies of fighting men coidd be raised in these
States. Islamism is always antagonistic to national pro-
gress. It seems to petrify or congeal national life, plac-
ing each individual in the position of a member of a
pure theocracy, rather than in that of a ])atriotic citizen
of a country, or member of a nationality. In these
States law, government, and social customs have no
existence apart from religion, and, indeed, they grow
out of it.
It is strange tliat a people converted from Arabia,
and partly, no douljt, civilised both from Arabia and
Persia, should never have constructed anything permanent.
If they were swept away to morrow not a trace of them
LETTER XX. A DWINDLING RACE. 339
except their metal work would be to be found. Civilised
as they are they don't leave any more impress on the
country than a Eed Indian would. They have not been
destroyed by great wars, or great pestilences, or the
ravages of drink, nor can it be said that they perish
mysteriously, as some peoples have done, by contact with
Europeans, yet it is evident that the dwindling process
has been going on for several generations. I. L. B.
340 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxi.
LETTER XXI.
KwALA Kangsa, February 20.
Yesterday afternoon I had an expedition which I liked
very much, though it ended a little awkwardly owing
to a late start. Captain Walker was going on a shoot-
ing excursion to a lotus lake at some distance, and
invited me to join him. So we started after tiffin with
two Malays, crossed the Perak in a " dug-out," and
walked for a mile over a sandy, grassy shore, which there
lies between the bright water and the forest, then turned
into the jungle, and waded througli a stream which was
up to my knees as we went, and u]i to my waist as we
returned. Then a tremendous sliower came on, and we
were asked to climb into a largish Malay house, of which
the floor was a perilously open gridiron. At least three
families were in it, and" there were some very big men,
but the women liid themselves behind a screen of matting.
It looked forlorn. A young baboon was chained to the
floor, and walked up and down restlessly like a wild beast
in a menagerie ; there were many birds in cages, and
under the house was much rulibish, among whicli
numerous fowls were picking. There was much fishing-
tackle on the walls, both men and women being exces-
sively fond of what I suppose may be called angling.
They brought us young coco-nuts, and the milk, drank
as it always ought to be, through one of the holes in
the nut, was absolutely delicious.
LETTER XXI. MALAY BIRD-SCARING. 341
Where the Malays are not sophisticated enough to
have glass or china they use diied gourds for drinking-
vessels. The coco-nut is an invaluable product to them.
Besides furnishing them with an incomparable drink, it
is the basis of the curries on which they live so much,
and its meat and milk enter into the composition of their
sweet dishes. I went to see the women behind their
screen, and found one of them engaged in making a dish
which looked like sometliing which we used to call syl-
labub. It was composed of remarkably unbleached sago,
which they make from the sago-palm, boiled down wdtli
sugar to nearly a jelly. It was on an earthenware plate,
and the woman who was preparing it mixed sugar with
coco-nut milk, and whipping it with a bimch of twigs to
a slight froth, poured it over the jelly.
When the rain ceased we got through the timber
belt into a forlorn swamp of wet padi, where the water
was a foot deep, and in some places so imintelligibly hot
that it was unpleasant to put one's feet into it. It was
truly a dismal swamp, and looked as if the jjadi were
coming up by accident among the reeds and weeds.
Indeed, I should have thought that it was a rice fallow,
but for a number of grotesque scarecrows, some mere
bundles of tatters, but others wearing the aspect of big-
birds, big dolls, or cats. I could not think how it was
that these things made spasmodic jerking movements, as
there was not a breath of air, and they were all soaked
by the shower, tiU I saw that they were attached by
long strings to a little grass hut raised on poles, in which
a girl or boy sat " bird-scaring." The sparrows rob the
rice-fields, and so do the beautiful padi-birds, of which
we saw great numbers.
The Malays are certainly not industrious ; they have
no need to be so, and their cultivation is rude. They
plough the rice-land with a plough consisting of a pole
342 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxi.
eight feet long, with a fork protruding from one end to
act as a coulter, and a bar of wood inserted over this at
an oblique angle forms a guiding handle. This plough
is drawn by the great water buffalo. After ploughing,
the clods are broken by dragging a heavj'' beam over
them, and are harrowed by means of a beam set with
iron spikes. The women do the sowing and planting.
The harvest succeeds the planting in four months. The
rice ears are cut short off, sometimes by a small sickle,
and sometimes by an instrument winch produces the
effect of shears. Threshing consists in beating the ears
with thick sticks to loosen the husks, after which the
padi is carried in baskets to platforms ten feet above
the ground, and is allowed to fall on mats, when th-c-
chaff is driven away by the wmd. It is husked by
a pestle, and it requires some skill to avoid crush-
ing the grain. All tliese operations are performed by
women.
The Perak Malays don't like working for otlier
people, but some of them cultivate sugar-cane and maize
for sale ; even for clearing jungle-land foreign labour has
to be resorted to.
Ah, that swamp is a doleful region ! One cannot
tell where it ends and where the jungle begins,, and dark,
heavy, ominous -looking clouds generally concealed tlie
forest -covered hills wliich are not far off. I ahnost
felt the redundancy of vegetation to be oppressive, and
the redundancy of insect and reptile life certainly was so ;
swarms of living creatures leapt in and out of the
water, bigger ones hidden from view splashed heavily,
and a few blackish, slug-like looking reptiles which dre\\
blood, and hunji on for an liour or two, attached them-
.selves to my ankles. I was amused when Captain
Walker congratulated himself on tlie absence of leeches,
for these blood-suckers were at least their next-of-kin.
LETTER XXI. PICTURESQUE DISMALNESS. 343
I fell down into the water twice from the submerged
ridge that I tried to walk upon, hut there is no risk oi"
cold from a hot bath in a stove.
Then we came to a smothered, reedy, ditch-hke stream,
in which was an old " dug-out " half full of water, in which
we managed to stow ourselves, and by careful balancing
contrived to keep its edges just above the water. Our
impeded progress down this ditch started myiiads of whirr-
ing, splashing creatures. The ditch opened into a reedy
swamp where hideous, pink, water buffaloes w^ere wallow-
ing and enjoying themselves, but on the report of a gun
they all plunged into deep water and swam away, except
for their big horns looking more like hippopotami than
bovine quadrupeds. They are nearly as ugly as a rhinoceros ;
all albino animals are ugly, and when these are wet their
hides are a bright salmon pink.
The swamp merged itself into a lotus lake, covered
over much of its extent with thousands of noble leaves
and rose-j)ink blossoms. It seemed almost sacrilege to
tear and bruise and break them and push rudely through
them in our canoe. A sadder and lonelier scene could not
be. I have seldom been more powerfully affected by nature.
The lake lying in hot mist under dark clouds, with the
swamp and jungle on one side and an absolutely impene-
trable wall of entangled trees and trailers on the other, so
dense and matted that before putting one's feet on shore
space would have to be cut for them with a parang, seemed
as if it must be a hundred miles from the abodes of men,
and as if nobody had ever been there before or ever would
be there again. The heavy mist lifted, showing moun-
tains, range beyond range, forest -covered, extendmg back
into the heart of the peninsula ; and though the highest
may be under five thousand feet in height, yet from their
shape, and from rising so near the sea-level, and from the
woolly mists which hung round their bases, and from some-
344 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxi.
thing in the gray, sad atmosphere, tliey looked fully ten
thousand feet high.
Captain Walker climbed into a low tree which over-
Imng the lake to look out for teal and widgeon which
were perfectly innumerable, while the Malays, never utter-
ing a word, silently poled the boat over the dreary lake
in the dreary evening to put up the birds. There they
went high over our heads in long flights, and every time
there was the report of a gun there were screams and
shrieks and squawks, and myriads of birds rose out of their
reedy covers, and fish splashed, and the smoke lay heavily
on the water, and then all was silent again. Any place
more solitary and apparently isolated could not be imagined
— it was a most pathetic scene. Hazy visions of the mere
near which King Arthur lay dying came before my eyes,
If I had seen the solemn boat with "tlie three fair
queens," in " robes of samite, mystic, wonderful," I should
not have been surprised, nor would it have been odd if
the lake had changed into tlie Styx, across which I
was being ferried, a cold, colourless shade. To and fro,
up and down, we poled over the tragic waters tiU I
actually felt a terror far beyond eeriness taking posses-
sion of me.
It grew gi-ayer and darker, and we went back for
Captain Walker, who, with the absorption of a true sports-
man, had hardly noticed the falling shadows. It was a
relief to hear the human voice once more. It broke the
worst spell I was ever bound by. As he came out on the
branch to get into the canoe it gave way, and he fell into
the water up to his chin. Then the boat pole broke, so
that when we got back to the padi it was obvious that
" the dark " was coming " at one stride," and I suggested
that, as we had two miles to walk and a river to cross at
night, and we should certainly be very late for dinner, Mr.
Low might become uneasy about us, as we were botli
LETTER XXI. AN ALARM. 345
strangers and unable to speak the language, but Captain
Walker thought differently.
There had been so much rain that it was heavy wading
through the padi, and it was quite dark when we reached
the jungle, in which the rain had made the footing very
precarious, and in darkness we forded the swollen stream,
and stumbled along the shore of the Perak, where fii-eflies
in thousands were flashing among the bushes, a beautiful
sight. When we reached the bank of the river where we
had left the canoe we found several Malays, who laughed
and seemed singularly pleased to see us, and talked voci-
ferously to our men, i.e. vociferously for Malays, who are
in the habit of speaking quietly. It was very difficult to
get down the steep, slippery bank, into a precarious canoe
which I could not see, and so thick was the darkness that
I sat down in the water between the two gridirons, and
had to remain there during the crossing, which took a long
time, being against the stream.
When we landed a Sikh sergeant met us, very much
excited. He spoke ^Malayan, and I guessed from a few
words that I knew that there was a hue and cry at the
Eesidency. You know how all pleasure is at once spoilt
when, after you have been enjoying yourself very much,
you find that people at home have been restless and uneasy
about you, and as it is one of my travelling principles to
avoid being a bother to people, I was very sorry. We
found a general state of perturbation. Major Swinburne,
who was leaning over the verandah, received us with some
very pungent objurgations, and told us that Mr. Low was
out and very anxious. I was covered with mire, and wet
from head to foot, and disappeared, but when we sat down
to the long-delayed dinner I saw from Mr. Low's silence
and gloomy manner that he had been really much annoyed ;
however, he recovered liimself, and we had a very lively
evening of conversation and discussion, though I had a good
346 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxi.
deal of pain from the inflamed bites of the bloodsuckers
in the swamp. Malay scouting parties had been sent in
various directions. Eajah Dris was away with one, and
the Sikh police were all ready to do nobody knows what,
as there were no dogs. IMajor Swinburne said that his fears
did not travel farther than the river, wliich he thinks is
dangerous to cross at night in a " dug out ;" but Mr. Low
had before him the possibility of our having been assailed
by bad characters, or of our having encountered a tiger in
the jungle, and of my having been carried off from my
inability to climb a tree !
Eblis is surely dying. He went to the roof, where the
half-tamed siamang was supporting him hour after horn-
as gently as a mother would support a sick child. This
\vild ape has been very gentle and good to Eblis ever since
he became ill. I went out for a short time with Mr. Low,
and on returning he called Eblis, but the little thing was
too weak to come, and began to cry feebly, on which the
wild ape took him by one of his hands, put an arm round
liim, gently led him to a place from which he could drop
upon ]\Ir. Low's chair, and then darted away, but while
daylight lasted was looking anxiously at Eblis, and at 6
A.M. had so far conquered his timidity that he sat on the
window-sill behind Mr. Low, that he might watch his sick
friend. The little bewitching thing, which is much ema-
ciated, clings to its master now the wliole time, unlike
other animals, which hide themselves when they are ill,
puts out its feeble little arms to him with a look of
unsjteakable affection on its poor, pinched face, and mur-
nmrs in a feeble voice ovf ! ouf I Mr. Low pours a few
drops of milk down its throat every half liour, and if he
puts it down for a moment, it screams like a baby and
stretches out its thin hands.
It is very interesting and pleasant to see the relations
wliich exist between ]\lr. Low and the ^Malays. At this
LETTER xxr. PATIENCE AND KINDNESS. 347
moment three rajahs are lying about in the verandah,
and their numerous followers are clustered on and about
the stairs. He never raises his voice to a native, and
they look as if they like liim, and from their laughter
and cheeriness they must be perfectly at ease with him.
He is altogether devoted to the interests of Perak, and
fully carries out his instructions/ which were, " to look
upon Perak as a native State ultimately to be governed
by native rajahs," whom he is to endeavour to educate
and advise " without interferincj with the religion or
custom of the country." He obviously attempts to train
and educate these men in the principles and practice
of good government, so that they shall be able to rule
firmly and justly. Perak is likely to become the most
important State of the Peninsula, and I earnestly hope
that Mr. Low's wise and patient efforts will bring forth
good fruit, at all events in Piajah Dris.
Mr, Low is only a httle over fifty now, and when he
first came the rajahs told him that they were " glad that
the Queen had sent them an old gentleman ! " He is
excessively cautious, and, like most people who have had
dealings with Orientals, is possibly somewhat suspicious,
but his caution is combined with singular kindness of
heart, and an almost faulty generosity regarding his own
concerns, as, for instance, he refuses to send his servants
to prison when they rob him, saying, " Poor fellows ! they
know no better." He is just as patiently forbearing to
the apes. Mr. told me that he had made a very
clean and careful copy of a despatch to Lord Carnarvon,
when Mahmoud dipped his fingers in the ink and drew
them over a whole page, and he only took him in his arms
and said, " Poor creature, you've given me a great deal of
trouble, but you know no better."
This is my last evening here, and I am so sorry. It
^ See Appendix A.
348 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxi.
is truly " the wilds." There is rest. Then the apes are
delightful companions, and there are all sorts of beasts,
and birds, and creeping things, from elephants downwards.
The scenery and vegetation of the neighbourhood are
beautiful, the quiet Malay life which passes before one
in a series of pictures is very interesting, and the sight
of wise and righteous rule carried on before one's eyes,
with a total absence of humbug and red-tapeism, and
which never leaves out of sight the training of the
Malays to rule themselves, is always pleasing. I like
Kwala Kangsa better than any place that I have been at
in Asia, and am proportionately sorrier to leave it. Mr,
Low would have sent me up the Perak in the Dragon
boat, and over the mountains into Kinta on elephants, if
I could have stayed ; but I cannot live longer without
your letters, and tliey, alas, are at Colombo. Mr. Low
kindly expresses regret at my going, and says he has got
quite used to my being here, and added, " You never
speak at the wi'ong time. When men are visiting me
they never know when to be quiet, but bother one in the
middle of business." This is most amusing, for it would
be usually said, " women never know when to be quiet."
Mr. Maxwell one day said that when men were with him
he could " get nothing done for their clatter." I wished
to start at 4 a.m. to-morrow to get the coolness before
sunrise, but there are so many tigers about just now in
the jungle through wliich the road passes that it is not
considered prudent for me to leave before six, when they
will have retired to their lairs. I. L. B.
LETTER XXII. A PLEASANT CANTER. 349
LETTEE XXII.
British Residency, Taipeng, February 21.
1 Ail once again on tliis breezy hill, watching the purple
cloud-shadows sail over the level expanse of tree-tops and
mangroves, having accomplished in about four hours the
journey which took nearly twelve in going up. The sun
was not up when I left the bungalow at Kwala Kangsa
this morning. I rode a capital pony, on Mr. Low's
English saddle, a Malay orderly on horseback escorting
me, and the royal elephant carried my luggage. It was
absurd to see this huge beast lie down merely to receive
my little valise and canvas roll, with a small accumu-
lation of Malacca canes, mats, krises, tigers' teeth and
claws, and an elephant's tusk, the whole not weighing
100 lbs.
]\Ir. Low was already at liis work, writing and nursing
EblLs at the same time, the wild ape sitting on a beam
looking on. I left, wishing I were coming instead of going,
and had a delightful ride of eighteen miles. The little
horse walked very fast and cantered easily. How peaceful
Perak is now, to allow of a lady riding so far through
the jungle with only an unarmed Malay attendant !
Major IM'Xair writes : " The ordinary native is a simple,
courteous being, who joins with an intense love of hberty
a great affection for his simple home and its belongmgs,"
and I quite believe him. Stories of aonok running,
" piracies," treachery, revenge, poisoned Jcrises, and assas-
350 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
sinations, have been made very much of, and any crime
or slight disturbance in the native States throws the
Settlements into a panic. It must have been under the
influence of one of these that such a large sea and land
force was sent to Perak three years ago. Crime in the
Malay districts in these States is so rare, that were it not
for the Chinese, a few policemen would be all the force
that would be needed. The " village system," the old
Malay system with its headman and village officials,
though formerly abused, seems under the new regime to
work well, and by it the Malays have been long accus-
tomed to a species of self-government, and to the main-
tenance of law and order. I notice that all the European
officials who speak their language and act righteously
towards them like them very much, and this says nmch
in their favour.
I met with no adventures on the journey. I had
a delightful canter of several miles before the sun was
above the tree-tops, the morning mists, rose-flushed, rolled
grandly away, and just as I reached the beautiful pass of
Bukit Berapit the apes were hooting their morning hymn,
and the forests rang with the joyous trills and songs of
birds. " All Thy works praise Thee, Lord ! "
There were gorgeous butterflies. Among them I
noticed one with the upper part of its body and the
upper side of its wings of jet black velvet, and the lower
half of its body and the under side of its wings of peacock
blue velvet, spotted ; another of the same " make," but
with gold instead of blue, and a third with the upper
part of the body and wings of black velvet with cerise
spots, the lower part of tlie body cerise, and the under
side of the wings white with cerise spots. All these
measured fully five inches across their expanded wings.
In one opening only I counted thirty-seven varieties of
these brilliant creatures, not in hundreds but in thou-
LETTER xxii. THE PASS OF BUKIT BERAPIT. 351
sands, mixed up with blue and crimson dragon-flies and
iridescent flies, all joyous in the sunshine.
The loud-tongued stream of crystal water was very
full, and through the deep greenery, and among the great,
gray, granite boulders, it flung its broad drifts of foam,
rejoicing in its strength ; and every green thing leant
lovingly towards it or stooped to touch it, and all exquisite
things which love damp, all tender mosses and selagi-
nellas, all shade-loving ferns and aroids, flourish round it
in perennial beauty ; while high above, in the svmshine,
amidst birds and butterflies, the graceful areca palm
struggles with the feathery bamboo for precarious root-
hold on rocky ledges, and spikes of rose crimson blossoms,
and dark green fronds of bananas, and all the leafy wealth
born of moisture and sunshine, cling about it tenderly.
And lower down the great forest trees arch over it, and
the sunbeams trickle through them, and dance in many a
quiet pool, turning the far down sands to gold, brighten-
ing majestic tree-ferns, and shining on the fragile poly-
podium tamariscinum which clings tremblingly to the
branches of the graceful waringhan, on a beautiful lygo-
dium which adorns the uncouth trunk of an artocarpus,
on glossy ginger- worts and trailing yams, on climbers and
epiphytes, and on gigantic lianas which, climbing to the
tops of the tallest trees, descend in vast festoons, many of
them with orange and scarlet flowers and fruitage, passing
from tree to tree, and interlacing the forest with a living
network, while selaginellas and lindsayas, and film ferns,
and tricliomanes radicans drape the rocks in feathery
green, along with mosses scarcely distinguishable from
ferns. Little ri\T.ilets flash out in foam among the
dark foliage, and mingle their musical warble with the
deep bass of the torrent, and there are twilight depths
of leafy shade into which the sunshine never penetrates,
damp and cool, in which the music of the water is all
352 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
too sweet, and the loveliness too entrancing, creating
that sadness hardly " akin to pain " which is latent in
all intense enjo}Tnent.
Gunong Pondok, the limestone huttc, twelve hundred
feet in nearly perpendicular height, showed all its bril-
liancy of colour, and Gunong Bubu. one of the highest
mountains in Perak, reared his gi-anite crest above the
forest. The lotus lake at Bukit Gantang was infinitely
more beautiful than under the grayer sky of Friday; a
thousand rosy vases were drinking in the sunshine, and
ten thousand classic leaves were spreachng their blue-
green shields below them; all nature smiled and sang, I
was loth to exchange my good horse for a gharrie, with a
Kling driver draped slightly in Turkey red cotton sittmg
on the shafts, who, statuesque as he was, had a far less
human expression than INIahmoud and Eblis. In the
noonday the indigo-coloured Hijan hills, with their swollen
waterfall coming down in a sheet of foam, looked cool,
but as we dashed through Taipeng I felt overpowered once
more by what seems the " wearing world," after beautiful,
silent Kwala Kangsa, for there are large shops with gaudy
signboards, stalls in the streets, tribal halls, buffalo-carts
witli buffaloes yoked singly, for the spread of their huge
horns is so great that they cannot be yoked in pairs,
trains of carts with cinnamon-coloured, humped bullocks
yoked in pairs standing at shop doors, ghames with fiery
Sumatra ponies dashing about, crowds of Chinese coolies,
busy and half-naked, filling the air with, the din of their
ceaseless industry, and all the epitomised stir of a world
which toils, and strives, and thirsts for gain.
But I must give these coolies their due, for in some
ways they show more self-respect than the ordinary
English labourer, inasmuch as in bad times they don't
become chargeable to any one, and when the price of the
commodity which they produce falls, as that of tin has
LETTER XXII. A BAD SPIRIT. 353
done, instead of "striking" and abusing everybody all
round, they accept the situation, keep quiet, live more
frugally, and work for lower wages till things inend.
But I don't intend to hold up the Taipeng Chinese as
patterns of the virtues in other respects, for they are not.
They are turbulent; and crime, growing chiefly out of
their passion for gain, is very rife among them. The
first thing I heard on arriving here was that a Chinese
gang had waylaid a revenue ofiicer in one of the narrow
creeks, and that his hacked and mutilated body had
drifted do\vn to Permatan» this mornino-.
Mr. Maxwell tells me that, as he returned from escort-
ing me to Bukit Gantang, he overtook a gharrie with a
Malay woman in it, and dismounting joined her husband
who was walking, but did not speak to the woman. To-
day the man told him that his wife woke the following
night with a scream wliich was succeeded by a trance ; and
that, knowing that a devil had entered into her, he sent
for a pavxm, a wise man or sorcerer, who on arriving
asked questions of the bad spirit, who answered with the
woman's tongue. "How did you come?" "With the
tuan" i.e. Mr. Maxwell. " How did you come with
him ?" " On the tail of liis gray horse." " Where from ? "
" Changat-Jering." The husband said that these Chan-
gat-Jering devils were very bad ones. The ^jazm^i then
exorcised the devil, and burned strong smelling drugs
under the woman's nose, after which he came out of her,
and she fell asleep, the " wise man " receiving a fee.
I never heard in any country of such universal belief
in devils, famihars, omens, ghosts, sorceries, and witch-
crafts. The Malays have many queer notions about tigers,
and usually only speak of them in whispers, because they
think that certain souls of human beings who have de-
parted this life have taken up their abode in these beasts,
and in some places, for this reason, they will not kiU a
2 A
354 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter sxir.
tiger unless he commits some specially bad aggression.
They also beheve that some men are tigers by night and
men by day !
The pellsit, the bad spirit which rode on the tail of
Mr. Maxwell's horse, is supposed to be the ghost of a
woman who has died in childbirth. In the form of a
large bird uttering a harsh cry it is believed to haunt
forests and burial-gTounds and to afflict cliildren. The
]\Ialays have a bottle-imp, the j^^long, which will take no
other sustenance than the blood of its owner, but it
rewards liini by aiding him in carrying out revengeful
purposes. The harmless owl has strange superstitions
attaching to it, and is called the " spectre bird ;" you may
remember that the fear of encountering it was one of the
reasons why the Permatang Pasir men would not go with
us through the jungle to Eassa.
A vile fiend called the penangalan takes possession
of the forms of women, turns them into witches, and
compels them to quit the greater part of their bodies, and
fly away by night to gratify a vampire craving for human
l)lood. This is very like one of the ghoul stories in the
Arabian Nights Entertainments. Then they have a
spectre huntsman with demon dogs who roams the forests,
and a storm fiend who rides the wliirlwind, and spirits
borrowed from Persia and Arabia. It almost seems as if
the severe monotheism to which they have been con-
verted compels tliem to create a gigantic demonology.
They have also many odd but harmless superstitions :
I'or instance, that certain people liave tlie power of making
themselves invulnerable by the agency of spirits ; that the
regalia of the States are possessed of supernatural powers ;
that the wearing of a tiger claw prevents disease ; that
rude " ^olian liarps " hung up in trees will keep the
forest goblins from being troublesome ; that charms and
amulets worn or placed about a house ward off many
LETTER XXII. " RUNNING AMUCK." 355
evils ; that at dangerous rapids, such as those of Jerom
Pangong on the Perak river, the spirits must be propi-
tiated by ofierings of betel-nut and bananas ; that to ensure
good luck a betel -ch ewer must invariably spit to the
left ; that it is unlucky either to repair or pull down a
house ; that spirits can be propitiated and diseases can be
kept away by hanging up jjalm leaves and cages in the
neighbourhood of hampongs, and many others. They also
believe as firmly as the Chinese do in auspicious and in-
auspicious days, spells, magic, and a species of astrology.
I hope that ]\Ir. Maxwell will publish his investigations
into these subjects.
" Piunnmg amuck " (amok) is supposed by some to be
the result of " possession ;" but now, at least, it is compara-
tively uncommon in these States. A Malay is on some
points excessively sensitive regarding his honour, and to
wipe out a stain upon it by assassinating the offender is
considered as correct and in accordance with etiquette,
as duelling formerly was in our own country. In cases,
however, in which the offender is of higher rank than the
injured man, the latter in despair sometimes resorts to
opium, and, rushing forth in a frenzy, slays all he can lay
hands upon. This indiscriminate slaying is the amok
proper. In certain cases, such as those arising out of
jealousy, the desire for vengeance gains absolute posses-
sion of a Malay. Mr. Newbold says that he has seen
letters regarding insults in which the writers say, " I
ardently long for his blood to clean my face," or " I
ardently long for his blood to wash out the pollution of
the hog's flesh with which he has smeared me ! "
Considering how punctilious and courteous the Malays
are, how rough many of the best of us are, how brutal
in manner many of the worst of us are, and how incon-
siderate our sailors are of the customs of foreign peoples,
specially in regard to the seclusion of their women,
356 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
it is wonderful that bloody revenge is not more common
than it is.
" Atnok " means a furious and reckless onset. When
Mr. Birch was murdered, the cry " a77iok ! amok ! " was
raised, and the passion of murder seized on all present.
Only about a year ago one of the sons of the Eajali Muda
Yusuf, a youth of twenty, was suddenly seized with this
monomania, drew his kris, and rushing at people killed
six, wounded two, and then escaped into the jungle.
Major M'Nair says that a Malay, in speaking of amok,
says : " My eyes got dark, and I ran on."
In Malacca Captain Shaw told me that "running
amuck " was formerly very common, and that on an ex-
pedition he made, one of his own attendants was suddenly
seized with the " amok " frenzy. He mentioned that he
liad known of as many as forty people being injured by
a single " ainok " runner. When the cry " amok ! amok !"
is raised, people fly to the right and left for shelter, for after
the blinded madman's kris has once "drank blood," his fury
becomes ungovernable, his sole desire is to kill ; he strikes
here and there ; men fall along his course ; he stabs
fugitives in the back, his kris drips blood, he rushes on
yet more wildly, blood and murder in his course ; there
are shrieks and groans, his bloodshot eyes start from their
sockets, his frenzy gives him unnatural strength ; then
all of a sudden lie drops, shot through the heart, or from
sudden exhaustion, clutching his bloody kris even in the
act of rendering up his life.
As his desire is to kill everybody, so, as he rushes on,
everybody's desire is to kill him ; and gashed from behind
or wounded by shots, liis course is often red with his own
blood. Under English rule the great object of the police
is to take the " amok " runner alive, and have liim tried
like an ordinary criminal for murder ; and if he can be
brought to bay, as he sometimes is, they succeed in pinning
LETTER xxn. THE SUPPOSED OEIGIN OF AMOK. 357
him to the wall by means of such a stout two-pronged
fork as I saw kept for the piu^pose in Malacca. Usually,
however, the fate of the " amok " runner is a violent death,
and men feel no more scruple about killing him in his
frenzy than they would about killing a man-eating tiger.
I hear that this form of frenzy affects the Malays of all
the islands of the Archipelago. Some people attribute it
to the excessive use of opium by unprepared constitutions,
and others to monomania arising from an unusual form
of digestive disturbance ; but from it being pecuKar to
Malays, I rather incline to Major M'Xair's view : " There
can be no doubt that the amok had its origin in the deed
of some desperate Malay, that tradition handed it down
to his liighly-sensitive successors, and the example was
followed and continues to be followed as the right thing
to do by those who are excited to ivenzj by apprehension,
or by some injury that they regard as deadly, and only to
be washed out in blood."
I have been interrupted by a ^isit from two discon-
solate-looking Ceylon planters, who have come " prospect-
ing" for coffee. An enterprising son of an Edinburgh
"Baihe" has been trying coffee -planting beyond the
Perak, but he has got into difiiculties with his labourers,
and is " getting out of it." This difficulty about labour
win possibly have to be solved by the introduction of
coohes from India, for the Malays won't work except
for themselves ; and the Chinese not only prefer the
excitement of mining and the evening hubbub of the
mining towns, but in lonely places they are not always
very manageable by people unused to them.
Even for clearing the jungle foreign labour must be
employed. Perak is a healthy and splendid State, and
while the low groimds are suited for sugar, tapioca, and
tobacco, the slopes of the hills will produce coffee, cin-
chona, vanilla, tea, cloves, and nutmegs. It is a land of
358 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
promise, but at present of promise only ! I understand
that to start a plantation a capital of from £2500 to
£3500 would be requii-ed. Jungle is cleared at the rate
of 25s. per acre. The wages of Javanese coolies are Is.
a day, and a hut which will hold fifty of them can be put
up for £5. Land can be had for three years free of
charge. It is then granted in perpetuity for a dollar
an acre, and there is a tax of 2^- per cent on exported
produce. These arrangements are not regarded as alto-
gether satisfactory, and will probably be improved upon.
Tell some of our friends who have sons with practical
good sense, but more muscle than brains, that there are
openings in the jungles of Perak ! Good sense, persever-
ance, steadiness, and a degree of knowledge of planting,
are, however, preliminary requisites.
The two " prosj)ectors " look as if they had heard
couleur de rose reports, and had not " struck ile." Pos-
sibly they expected to find hotels and macadamised roads.
Eoads must precede planting, I think, unless there are
available lands near the rivers.
I have mentioned slavery and debt-slavery more than
once. The latter is a great curse in Perak, and being a
part of " Malay custom " which our treaties bind us to
respect, it is very difficult to deal with. In the little
States of Sungei Ujong and Sclangor, with their handful
of Malays, it has been abolished with comparative ease.
In Perak, with its comparatively large Malay population,
about four tliousand are slaves, and the case seems full
of complications.
Undoubtedly the existence of slavery has been one
cause of the decay of the native States, and of the exodus
of Malays into the British settlements. Some people
palliate the system, and speak of it as " a mild form of
domestic servitude;" but Mr. Birch, the late murdered
Eesident, wrote of it in these strong terms : " I believe
LETTER XXII. DEBT - SLAVERY. .359
that the system as practised in Perak at the present time
involves evils and cruelties which are unknown to any
but those who have actually lived in these States."
From the moment a man or woman becomes a debtor,
he or she, if unable to pay, may be taken up by the
creditor, and may be treated as a slave, being made to
work in any way that the creditor chooses, the debtor's
earnings belonging to the creditor, who allows no credit
towards the reduction of the debt. To make the hard-
ship greater, if a relative or friend comes forward to pay
the debt, the creditor has the right to refuse payment, and
to keep his slave, whose only hope of bettering himself is
in getting his owner to accept payment for him from a
third party, so that he may become the slave of the
person who has ransomed him.
But there are worse evils still, for in cases where a
married man contracts a debt, his wife and existing
children, those who may hereafter be born, and their
descendants, pass into slavery ; and all, male and female,
are compelled as slaves to work for their master, who in
very many cases compels the women and girls to live a life
of degradation for his benefit, and even the wives of a
creditor are well satisfied to receive the earnings of these
poor creatures. If a debt be contracted by an unmarried
man or woman, and he or she marry afterwards, the
person so taken in marriage and all the offspring become
slave debtors. The worst features of the system are
seen where a Eajah is the creditor, for he is the last man
to be willing to receive payment of a debt and free the
debtor, for the number of his followers, even if they are
but women and girls, increases his consequence, and
debtors when once taken into a Eajah's household are
looked upon as being as much a part of his property as
his cattle or elephants. Mr. Swettenham, the Assistant
Colonial Secretary of the Straits Settlements, writes that.
360 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
" In Perak tlie cruelties exercised towards debtors are
even exclaimed at by Malays in the other States."^ In
Selangor, where it is said that slavery has been quietly
abolished, only five years ago the second son of that
quiet-looking Abdul Samat killed three slave debtors for
no other reason than that he willed it ; and when two
girls and a boy, slave-debtors of the Sultan's, ran away,
tliis same bloodthirsty son caught them, took the boy
into a iield, and had him krissed. His wife, saying she
was going to batlie in the Langat river, told the tv/o
girls to follow her to a log which lay in the water a few
yards from her house, where they were seized, and a boy
follower of her husband took them successively by the
hair and held their heads under the water with his foot
till they were dead, when their corpses were left upon
the slimy bank. The Sultan, to do him justice, was
very angry wlien his son went to him and said, " I have
thrown away those children who ran away."
In Perak it has been the custom to Imnt and capture
the Jakun women and make them and their children
slaves.
Instances of cruelty have greatly diminished since
British influence has entered Perak, and I should think
that Mr. Low will ere long mature a scheme for the
emancipation of all persons held in bondage.^ I heard
of a curious case this morning. The aimt of a Malay
policeman in Larut, passing near a village, met an
acquaintance, and taking a stone from the roadside sat
down upon it while she stopped to talk, and on getting
up forgot to remove it. An hour later a village child
tri])ped over the stone and slightly cut its forehead. The
[)lacing the stone in the pathway was traced to the
1 For Mr. Swettenham's Heporl on Slavery in the Native States, seu
Ajipendix 15.
' Such a scheme is now under consideration ; see Appendix C.
LETTER xxn. MOSLEM PRAYERS. 361
woman, who was arrested and sentenced to pay a fine of
$25, and being unable to pay it she and her children
became slave-debtors to the father of the child which had
been hurt. In this case, though Captain Speedy lent
the policeman money wherewith to pay his aunt's fine,
the creditor repeatedly refused to receive it, preferring
to exercise his prerogative of holding the family as his
rightfid slaves.
Slavery and polygamy, the usual accompaniments of
Islamism, go far to account for the decay of these States.
I wish it were possible to know to what extent the
Malays are a " religious " people as Moslems. That they
are bigots and have successfully resisted all attempts to
convert them to Christianity there is no doubt, as well as
that they are ignorant and grossly superstitious. Their
prayers, so far as I can hear anything about them, consist
mainly of reiterated confessions of belief in the Divine
unity, and of suuple appeals for mercy now and at the
last day.
The pilgrimage to Mecca is made not only once, but
twice and tlirice by those who can afford it, and at much
cost earthen jars containing water from the holy well of
Zem-zem, the well said to have been shown to Hagar in
the wilderness, are brought home by the pilgrims for them-
selves and their friends for use in the hour of death,
when Eblis, the devil, is supposed to stand by offering a
bowl of the purest water with which to tempt the soul
to abjure its faith in the unity of God. One of the
declarations most commonly used is, " There is no God
but God alone, whose covenant is truth and whose servant
is victorious. There is no God but God without a
partner. His is the kingdom, to Him be praise, and He
over all tilings is Almightv." There is a c:i'and ring of
Old Testament truth about these words, though of a
melancholy half truth only.
362 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
The men who make the IMecca pilgrimage are not
regarded by the Englisli who know them as a " holy lot ";
in fact they are said to lead idle lives, and to " live like
leeches on the toil of their fellow-men," inciting the
people " to revolt or to make amok." Doubtless it adds
to a man's consequence for life to be privileged to wear
the Arab costume and to be styled Tuan haclji. Yet
they may have been stirred to devotion and contrition at
the time as they circled the Kaabeh reciting such special
prayers as, " God, I extend my hands to Tliee, great is
my longing towards Thee. Oh accept Thou my suppli-
cations, remove my hindrances, pity my humiliation, and
mercifully grant me Thy pardon ; " and " my God,
verily I take refuge with Thee from idolatry, and dis-
obedience, and every hypocrisy, and from evil conversa-
tion, and evil thoughts concerning property, and children,
and family;" or, " God, I beg of Thee that faith winch
shall not fall away, and that certainty which shall not
perish, and the good aid of Thy prophet JMohammed —
may God bless and preserve him ! God, shade me
loith Thy shadow in that day when there is no shade hid
Thy shadow, and cause me to drink from the cup of Thy
apostle Mohammed — may God bless him and preserv'e
him ! that pleasant draught after which is no thirst to all
eternity. O Lord of honour and glory." ^
As I write I look down upon Taipeng on " a people
wholly given to idolatry." This is emphatically " The
dark Peninsula," though both Protestants and Ilomanists
have made attempts to win the Malays to Christianity.
It may be that the relentless crusade waged by the
Portuguese against Islamism has made the opposition to
the Cross more sullen and bigoted than it would other-
^ I have preferred to give, instead of the translation of these prayers
which I obtained in Malacca, one introduced by Canon Tristram into a
deliglitful paper on Mecca in the Sunday at Home for February 1 883.
LETTER XXII. MALAY PROVERBS, 363
wise have been. Christian missionary effort is now
chiefly among the Chinese, and by means of admirable
girls' schools in Singapore, Malacca, and Pinang.
In Taipeng five dialects of Chinese are spoken, and
Chinamen constantly commimicate with each other in
Malay, because they can't understand each other's Chinese.
They must spend large sums on opium, for the right to
sell it has been let for £4000 a year !
Mr. Maxwell tells me that the Malay proverbs are
remarkably numerous and interesting. To me the interest
of them lies cliiefly in their resemblance to the ideas
gathered up in the proverbs of ourselves and the Japanese.^
Thus, " Out of the frpng-pan into the fire " is, " Freed
from the mouth of the alligator to fall into the tiger's
jaws." " It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," is,
"Wlien the junk is wrecked the shark gets his fill."
" The creel tells the basket it is coarsely plaited " is
equivalent to " The kettle calling the pot black." " For
dread of the ghost to clasp the corpse," has a grim irony
about it that I like.
Certain Scriptural proverbial phrases have their Malay
coimterparts. Thus, the impossibility of the Ethiopian
changing his skin or the leopard his spots is represented
by " Though you may feed a jungle-fowl off a gold plate,
it win make for the jungle all the same." Casting pearls
before swine by " What is the use of the peacock strutting
in the jungle ? " " Can these stones become bread ? " by
" Can the earth become grain ? " " Neither can salt water
jdeld sweet," by a very elaborate axiom, " You may plant
the bitter cucumber in a bed of sago, manure it witli
honey, water it with molasses, and train it over sugar-
1 Sir. Harwell has since published a paper on Slalay proverbs in the
Transactions of the Straits branch of the Roj^al Asiatic Society. I have
not been able to obtain it, but I understand that it contains a very copious
and valuable collection of Malay proverbial philosophy.
364 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxii.
cane, but it will be the bitter cucumber still," and " Clear
water cannot be drawn from a muddy fountain."
Some of their sapngs are characteristic. In allusion
to the sport of cock-fighting, a coward is called " a duck
w^ith spurs." A treacherous person is said to " sit like a
cat, but leap like a tiger ; " and of a chatterer it is said,
" The tortoise produces a myriad eggs and no one knows
it ; the hen lays one and tells the whole world." " Grind-
ing pepper for a bird on the wing " is regarded as equiva-
lent to " First catch your hare before you cook it." "To
plant sugar-cane on the lips " is to be " All things to all
men," Fatalism is expressed by a saying, " Even the fish
which inhabit the seventh depth of the sea sooner or later
enter the net." "Now it is wet, now it is fine," is a
common way of saying that a day of revenge is not far
off. Secrecy is enjoined by the cynical axiom, " If you
have rice, hide it under the unhusked grain." " The last
degree of stinginess is not to disturb the mildew," is a
neat axiom ; and " The plantain does not bear fruit twice,"
tells that the Malays have an inkling that " There is a
tide in the affairs of men," etc.
I have found it very interesting to be the guest of a
man who studies the Malays as sympathetically as Mr.
Maxwell does. I hope he will not get promotion too
soon!^ I. L. B.
' As I copy this letter I hear that Mr. Maxwell has been removed
to a higher and more highly paid post, but that he leaves the Malays with
very sincere regret, and that they deeply deplore his loss, because they not
only liked but trusted him. During the time in which he was Assistant-
Resident, and living in the midst of a large Chinese population, it was
necessary to be very firm, and at times almost severely firm, but the Chinese
have shown their appreciation of official rectitude by ])resentiiig him with
a gorgeous umbrella of red silk, embroidered with gold, which they call
"A ten -thousand-man umbrella," i.e. an ofrering from a community wliicli
is not only unanimous in making it, but counts at least that number of
persons.
LETTER xsiii. " GANG MURDERS." 365
&
LETTER XXIII.
Mr. Justice Wood's, The Peak,
PiNANG, February 24.
HowEVEE kind and hospitable people are, the process of
" breaking in " to conventionalities again is always a
severe one, and I never feel well except in the quiet and
freedom of the wilds, though in the abstract nothing can
be more healthy than the climate of this lofty Peak. The
mercury has been down at G8° for two nights, and blankets
have been a comfort !
Shortly after finishing my last letter I left Taipeng
with Mr. Maxwell, calling on our way to the coast at
Permatang, to inquire if there were any scent of the
murderers of the revenue officer, but there was none.
The inspector said that he had seen many murdered
bodies, but never one so frightfidly mutilated. These
Chinese " gang murders " are nearly always committed
for gain, and the Chinese delight in cruel hackings and
purposeless mutilations. The Malay assassinations are
nearly all affairs of jealousy — a single stab and no more.
The last part of the drive on a road causewayed through
the endless mangrove swamp impresses the imagination
strongly by its dolefulness. Here are hundreds of square
miles all along the coast nothing but swamp and slime,
loaded with rank and useless vegetation, which has not
even beauty to justify its existence, teeming with alligators,
serpents, and other vengeful creatures. There is a mourn-
366 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. letter xxiri.
fulness in seeing the pointed fruit of the mangrove drop
down through the still air into the slime beneath, with
the rootlet already formed of that which never fails to
become a tree,
A Sikh guard of honour of fifty men in scarlet
uniforms lined the way to the boat as a farewell to
Major Swinburne, whose feet they had embraced and
kissed M-ith every Oriental demonstration of woe two
hours before. We asked him what his farewells were,
and he says that he said, " You are a lot of unmitigated
scoundrels ; half of you deserve hanging ; but keep out
of scrapes if you can till I come back, that I may have
the pleasure of hanging you myself." He really likes
them though, and called after Captain Walker, who is to
act as his substitute, " Now, old man, don't knock those
fellows about ! " The chief dread of the " fellows " is
that they will be at the mercy of an interpreter under
the new rdgimc. The Malays give sohriquets to all
Europeans, founded upon their physical or mental
idiosyncrasies. Thus they call Major Swinburne "The
Mad One " and " The Outspoken One." Captain Walker
they have already dubbed " The Black Panther." They
call Mr. Maxwell " The Cat-eyed One," and " The Tiger
Cub."
Just before sailing I had the satisfaction of getting
this telegram from Kwala Kangsa, " Eblis is a little
better this morning. He lias eaten two grasshoppers
and has taken his milk without trouble, but he is very
weak."^
We embarked at 5.30 p.m. along with a swarm of
mosquitos, and after a beautiful night anchored at
Georgetown at 2 a.m., but it was a ludicrously uncom-
^ Those of my readers who liave become interested in this most be-
\ritching ape will be sorry to hear that, after recovering and thriving for
a consi<lerablo time, he died, to the great giief of his friends.
LETTER XXIII. A PERSECUTED INFANT. 367
fortable voyage. An English would-be lady, i.e., a " fine
lady," a product of imperfect civilisation with which I
have little sympathy, had demanded rather than asked
for a passage in the Kinta, and this involved not only a
baby, but an ayah and man-servant. The little cabin of
the launch can hold two on two couches, but the lady,
after appropriating one, filled up most of the other with
bags and impedimenta of various kinds. The floor was
covered with luggage, among which the ayah and infant
slept, and the man sat inside on the lowest rung of the
ladder. Thus there were five human beiugs, a host of
mosquitos, and a lamp in the stifling den, in which the
mercury stood all night at 88°. Then a whole bottle of
milk was spilt and turned sour, a phial of brandy was
broken and ^ave off its disojustinEf fumes, and the infant
screamed with a ferocious persistency, which contrasted
with the patient wistfulness of the sick Eblis and his
gentle murmur of " ouf ! ouf !" Before we anchored the
lady asked me to go and wake the gentlemen, and get a
tea-spoonful of brandy for her, at which request, though
made with all due gravity, they laughed so tremendously
that I was hardly able to go back to her with it. Major
Swinburne, who professes to be a woman and child hater,
was quite irrepressible, and whenever the infant cried
outrageously, called to his servant, " Wring that brat's
neck," the servant, of course, knowing not a word of
English, and at 2 a.m., when there was chocolate on deck,
and the unfortimate baby was roaring and kicking, he
called down to me, "Will you come and drink some
chocolate to King Herod's memory ?" Mr. Maxwell, who
has four children, did not behave much better ; and it was
a great exertion to me, by over -done courtesy and
desperate attempts at conversation, to keep the mother
as far as possible from hearing what was going on !
At 6 A.M., in the glory of the tropic sunrise, Mr.
368 THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE, letter xxiii.
Maxwell and I landed in Province Wellesley, under the
magnificent casuarina trees, which droop in mournful
grace over the sandy shore. The sombreness of the
interminable groves of coco-palms on the one side of the
Strait, the brightness of the sun -kissed peaks on the
other, and the deep shadows on the amber water, were
all beautiful. Truly in the tropics " the outgoings of the
morning rejoice." We found Mrs. Isemonger away, no
one knew where, so we broke open the tea-chest, and
got some breakfast, at the end of which she returned, and
we had a very pleasant morning. At noon a six-oared
gig, which was the last of the " Government facilities,"
took us over to Georgetown, spending an hour in crossing
against an unfavourable tide, under a blazing sun. This
was the last of the Malay Peninsula. . . .
S.S. MalvM, February 2^th. — We sailed from Pinang
in glorious sunshine at any early hour this afternoon, and
have exchanged the sparkling calms of the Malacca
Straits for the indolent roll of the Bay of Bengal. The
steamer's head points north-west. In the far distance
the hills of the Peninsula lie like mists upon a reddening
sky. My tropic dream is fading, and the " Golden
Chersonese " is already a memory. ...
APPENDIX A.
RESIDENTS.
A POLICY of advice, and that alone, was contemplated by the Colonial
Office ; but without its orders or even cognisance affairs were such
that the government of those Malayan States to which Residents
have been accredited has been from the first exercised by the Resi-
denta themselves, mainly because neither in Perak, Selangor, nor
Sungei Ujong has there ever been a rider powerful enough to carry
out such an officer's ad^"ice, the Rajahs and other petty chiefs being
able to set liim at defiance. Ad-vdce would be given that peace and
order should be preserved, justice administered without regard to
the rank of the criminal, the collection of revenue placed upon
a satisfactory footing, and good administration generally secured,
but had any reigning prince attempted to carry out these recom-
mendations he would have been overborne by the Rajahs, whose
revenues depended on the very practices which the Resident de-
nounced, and by the piratical bands whose source of livelihood was
the weakness and mal-administration of the rulers. The Pangkor
Treaty contained the words that the Resident's advice " must be
acted upon" and consequently the Residents have taken the direction
of public affairs, organising armed forces, imposing taxes, taking
into their own hands the collection of the revenues, receiving all
complaints, executing justice, punishing eAnl- doers, apprehending
criminals, and repressing armed gangs of robbers. These officers
are, in fact, far more the agents of the Governor of the Straits
Settlements than the advasers of the native princes, and though paid
out of native revenues are the virtual rulers of the country in all
matters, except those which relate to Malay religion and custom.
As stated by Lord Carnarvon, " Their special objects should be the
maintenance of peace and law, the initiation of a sound system of
taxation, with the consequent development of the general resources
of the country, and the supervision of the collection of the revenue
so as to ensure the receipt of funds necessary to carry out the prin-
2 B
370 APPENDIX.
cipal engagements of the Government^ and to pay for the cost of
British officers and whatever establishments may be found necessary
to support them." Lord Carnarvon in the same despatch states :
" Neither annexation nor the government of the country by British
officers in the name of the Sultan [a measure very little removed
from annexation] could be allowed ;" and elsewhere he says : "It
should be our present pcdicy to tind and train up some chief or
chiefs of sufficient capacity and enlightenment to appreciate the
advantages of a civilised government, and to render some effectual
assistance in the government of the country."
The treaty of Pangkor provides " that the Resident's advice
must be asked and acted upon (in Perak) on all questions other
than those relating to Malay religion and custom, and that the
collection and control of all revenue and the general administration
of the country must be regulated under the advice of these Resi-
dents." It was on the same terms that Residents were appointed
at Selangor and Sungei Ujong.
APPENDIX B.
SLAVERY IX THE MALAY STATES.
Langat, 30lh June 1875.
Sir — When on board the Colonial steamer Plato last week,
accompanying His Excellency the Governor in a tour to some of
the native States, His Excellency made inquiry of me with regard
to the present state of debt-slavery in the Peninsula.
This was a subject so large and important as hardly to admit
of thorough explanation in a conversation, I therefore asked His
Excellency's leave to report upon it.
I now beg to give you a detailed account of the circumstiinces
of debt-slavery ;us known to me personally.
In treating the question under its present condition, — I mean,
under Malay rule, — it is necessary to consider the ail-but slavery of
the debtors, and the difficulty of making any arrangement between
debtor and creditor, which while it frees the one will satisfy the
other, and still be in keeping with the "adat Malayu," as inter-
preted in these States.
The relative positions of debtor and creditor in the Western
States, more especially in Perak, involve evils which are, I believe,
quite unknown to Europeans, even those living so near as Singapore.
The evils to which I refer have hitherto been regarded as
APPENDIX. 371
unavoidable, and a part of the ordinary relations between Rajahs
and subjects.
I may premise by saying that though the system of " debt-
slavery," as it has been called, exists to some extent in all the States,
it is only seen in its worst light where a Rajah or Chief is the credi-
tor and a subject the debtor.
Few subjects in a Malay country are well off. The principal
reason of this is, that as soon as a man or woman is kno^\^l to be iu
possession of money, he or she would be robbed by the Rajah ; or
the money would be borrowed with no intention of future pay-
ment, whether the subject %\'ished to lend or not.
Thus, when a Ryot (or subject) is in want of money, he goes to
his Rajah or chief to lend it him, because he alone can do so. Either
money or goods are then lent, and a certain time stipulated for pay-
ment. If at the expiry of that time the money is not paid, it is
usual to await some time longer, say two or three or even six
months.
Should payment not then be made, the debtor, if a single man,
is taken into the creditor's house ; he becomes one of his followers,
and is bound to execute any order or do any work the Rajah as
creditor may deniand, until the debt is paid, however long a time
that may be.
During this time the Rajah usually provides the debtor %vith
food and clothing, but if the creditor gives him money, that money
is added to the debt.
Often, however, the Rajah gives nothing, and the debtor has to
find food and clothing as he can.
Should the debtor marry, — and the Rajah will in all probability
find him a wife, — then the debtor's ■wife, his children, his grand-
children, all become equally bound with himself to the payment of
this debt.
Should the debtor be originally married, then not only he, but
his wife and children, are taken into the Rajah's house, and are his
to order until the debt is paid.
Should the debtor be a woman, unmarried, or a widow, the
same course is taken, and whoever marries her becomes jointly
responsible for the debt ; and this goes on through generations, —
the children and grand-children of the debtor being held in the
same bondage by the children and grand-children of the creditor.
Should at any time the debtor succeed in raising the amount of
the debt and proffer it to the creditor, then it would be customary
to accept it. If, however, a large family were in bondage for the
debt, one whose numbers seemed to the Rajah to add to his dignity,
372 APPENDIX.
then he would probably refuse to accept jiayment, not absolutely,
but would say " wait," and the waiting might last for years.
Debtors once absorbed into the Eajah's household are looked
upon as his property, just as his bullocks or his goats, and those
who alone would have the power to interfere, look on and say
nothing, because they do the same themselves.
In different States this debtor-bondage is carried to greater or
less extremities, but in Perak the cruelties exercised towards debtors
are even exclaimed against by Malays in other States.
Many Chiefs in Perak have a following principally composed of
young men and girls, for the most part debtors.
The men are treated as I have already described — either food
and clothes are found for them or not ; they are usually found, —
for the Rajah's power and his pride consists in the number of arms-
bearing followers he has at his beck and call ; men, too, are useful
to him in many other ways. Those who have grown old in theii'
bondage, whether men or women, either for very shame the Rajali
provides for, or he compels their children to support them.
The men either (1) follow because they like it (a very small
percentage indeed) ; or (2) they are debtors, or the children of
debtors ; or (3) they are real slaves from Sumatra or Abyssinia, or
the children of slaves.
The girls are treated differently ; they are (1) either slaves or
the daughters of slaves ; or (2) debtors, the daughters or grand-
daughters of debtors ; or (3) the Rajah has simply taken them from
their houses into his own house because he wanted them ; or (4)
they follow him for pleasure.
In Perak some of the Chiefs do not provide their girls with food
or clothing, but they tell them to get these necessaries of life as
they best can, i.e. by prostitution, for the labour of the debtor being
the property of the creditor, prostitution is in this case a necessity
and not a choice.
Each Rajah in his own district claims the privilege of fining,
either for a capital offence or for a trifling misdeed. Should then,
a man be fined and not pay the fine, he and his family, if he has
one, are at once taken into this debt-bondage, not to work out the
fine, but to toil away tlieir lives amidst blows and upbraidings —
the daughters driven to prostitution, the sons to thieving, and even
greater crimes.
This is no exaggerated statement, but the plain truth.
When the Rajah gives nothing, neither food nor clothes, or when
he is a passionate man and threatens to kill one or other of his
followers for some trivial offence, or for no offence at all, it often
APPENDIX. 373
happens that one will seek refuge in flight. If caught, though it
may be said to be the received custom to inflict only some slight
punishment, yet that would not deter a Rajah from punishing such
an off'ence even with death should it seem good to him.
• •••••••
Bond-debtors are handed about from one Rajah to another without
a thought of consulting them. If one runs away and is caught, it
is at great risk of being put to death, whilst probably no one would
move a finger to save him, his master excusing himself on the plea
that it is necessary to frighten others from running away also.
• •*•••••
These Rajah-creditors would tell you smilingly that they knew
by Mohammedan law the creditors can take and sell all their debtor's
property for an overdue debt, and that then the debtor is free ; but
they never act on that principle.
Many men and women, however, daily incur debts, knowing well
what lies before them in case of non-pajTnent.
Malays, by their laws, are allowed to buy and sell slaves, and
if, having for years lost sight of a slave, the o-s\Tier finds him or
her, he takes the slave with his wife and family, if he has one, as
his lawful property.
There is one other phase of debtor-bondage, and that a common
one, where the father or mother places one or more of their o\('n
children as security with the creditor for a debt ; thus in reality
selling their own flesh and blood into often a lifelong bondage. If
these children die in the creditor's hands the parents supply their
places by others, or the Rajah, should he wish it, can at any time
after the debt is due take the whole family into his house.
Only the other day a man here, for a debt of $40, placed his
daughter in a Rajah's hands and ran away. Probably he will never
retiu'n ; meanwhile the girl must obey her master in all things like
the veriest slave. Such a state of things as this is only brought
about by the custom Avhich allows it.
Another common practice in the States, more especially in
Perak, is to capture, as you might wild beasts, the nnofi^ending
Jakun women, and make them and their children slaves through
generations.
In April I was in Ulu Selangor, and the Headmen there com-
plained that a chief from Slim had a fortnight before caught 14
Jakuns and one Malay in Ulu Selangor, had chained them and
driven off to Slim. Arrived there the Malay was liberated and he
returned.
374 APPENDIX.
Letters were written to Slim and Perak, but though we ascer-
tained the party had reached Slim, they did not remain there, and
they have not yet been discovered.
I have already stated that the Rajah looks to the number of his
follo-s^ang as the gauge of his power, and other Rajahs will respect
and fear him accordingly. Thus he tries to get men into his service
in this way, and i? rather inclined to refuse payment should the
debtor be so fortunate as to raise the requisite amount of his debt.
Almost the only chance the debtor ha.s of raising this amount
is by successful gaml)ling. Of course it hardly ever happens that
he is successful, but, like all gamblers, he always thinks he will be,
and thus gambling becomes a mania with him, %vhich he will
gratify at all costs, caring little by what means he gets money for
play so long as he does obtain it.
Tliese are the general facts relating to the position of the Slave-
debtor, and these things which I have described, seemingly so
difficult of belief, are done almost daily ; looked upon by those who
do them as a right diA'ine ; by the victims as a fate from which
there is no reprieve.
To compel his followers to obey him implicitly the Rajah treats
them with a severity which sometimes makes death the punishment
of the slightest offence to him. These followers he thus holds t<>
do whatever he bids them, even to the commission of the gravest
crimes.
They again, having to pro^-ide themselves with food and clothes,
and yet having to work for him, are led to prey on the defenceless
population, from whom, in the name of their Rajah-master, they
extort whatever there is to get, and on whom they sometimes visit
those cruelites which they have themselves abeady experienced.
This system of debtor-bondage influences then the whole popu-
lation, not slightly but deeply, in ways it is hardy possible to credit
except when seen in a constant intercourse with all classes of
Malay society.
The question at issue seems to be, how to deprive the Rajah of
this great power, an unscrupulous instrument in unscrupulous
lijinds^ — how to free the debtors from their bondage, the women
from lives of forced i^rostitution, the unofl'ending population from
the robberies and murderous freaks of Rajahs and their bondsmen.'
In Pirak it is different ; the debtor-bondage is one of the chief
customs — one of the "pillars of the State" — an abuse jealously
1 Some of these remarks apply specially to Selaiigor, in which State
slavery is now abolislied. I- L- !'•
APPENDIX. 375
guarded by the Perak Rajahs and Chiefs, and especially by those
wlio make the worst uses of it.
I haAe often discussed this question of debt-slavery ^^-ith the
^Malays themselves, but they say they see no way under the rule of
tlieir Rajahs to put down this curse of their country, -nith all the
evils that follow in its train. — I have, etc.
(Signed) FRANK A. SWETTENHAM,
(Now Asst. Colonial
Secretary at Singapore.)
The Honourable
The Secretary for Native States,
Singapore, Straits Settlements.
APPENDIX C.
No. I.
From H.B.M.'s. Resident, Perak, to Colonial Secretary.
Straits Settlements.
Residency, Kwala Kangsa,
December 14, 1878.
Sir — In reference to your letter of the 28th June last, directing,
by command of His Excellency the Governor, my particular atten-
tion to the plan adopted in Selangor for the extinction of the claims
against slave-debtors, by a valuation of their services to theii-
creditors according to a fixed scale, and directing me to consider
whether a similar scheme might not now be prepared for reference
to His Excellency with a view to its being afterwards submitted
for the consideration of the Council of State :
1. I have the honour to state in reply that a copy of that
letter and its enclosure was supplied to the Assistant Resident of
Perak, and its contents communicated to the other magistrates, with
instructions on all occasions in which such cases should be brought
before them, to endeavour viiih the consent of the creditors to come
to a settlement on such a basis.
2. The Toh Puan Halimah, daughter of the exiled Laxamana of
Perak, and chief wife of the banished Mentri of the State, had
invested most of her private money in advances of this description,
which, up to the time of British interference, was the favourite form
of security, and she is now the largest claimant in the country for
376 APPENDIX.
the repayment of her money. Another, Wan Teh Sapiah, has also
claims of a like natiire on several families, and both these ladies
•willingly undertook to accept of liquidation by such an arrange-
ment.
3. In the former case it has, I am sorry to say, fallen through,
from the impossibility of inducing the debtors to work regularly,
and fiom very many of them, who are living in entii^e freedom in
different parts of the country, declining to come into the arrange-
ment though acknowledging their debts.
4. In many other cases the creditors from the first put forward
the certainty of the failure of such a system from the above-men-
tioned cause ; others have objected that they had no regular employ-
ment in which to place their debtors ; others that they are utterly
ruined by the events of recent years, and that they would accede to
the proposal if fairly carried out on the other part, provided the
Government would advance money as the native Rajahs did to
enable them to open mines or gardens in which they could employ
their debtors ; nearly all have declared themselves mlling, and even
anxious to accept a just amount in payment of their debts, several
suggesting that the State might conveniently undertake to do this,
employing the labour in public works until the debtor should
be free.
5. I cannot undertake to say what may have been the practice
in former times, as to the treatment in Perak, of this class of persons,
but no case of cruelty or any great hardship has been brought to
my notice since I came into the country. By far the larger number
of the slave debtors live with their families apart and often at great
distances from their masters, enjoying all the fruits of their labour,
rendering occasional assistance to them when called upon to do so,
which, in the majority of cases is of rare occurrence.
6. The circumstances of Perak would probably be found to
differ from those of Selangor, which I understand has a nuich smaller
population ; was governed by an enlightened ruler under the advice
of British Residents, who succeeded in introducing the present regu-
lation immediately after the conquest of the district.
7. To introduce such a measure into Perak at the present time
woiild in my opinion have a very disturbing effect, and although I
do not think that it would lead to any extensive or organised armed
resistance, I am sure that it would so shake the confidence which
has arisen between the European officers and principal people that
years would be required to restore it.
8. I confess that I am not able to devote all my sympathy to
the weaker cla.ss in this question. I concur with the principal
APPENDIX. 377
natives that the introduction of a measure which formed no part of
the original contract would practically amount to a confiscation of
their property, the value of the labour of this class of persons being
scarcely more than nominal, and I adhere to the opinion that the
just and politic course is, as has been done, to prohibit any exten-
sion or renewal of the practice either of slave indebtedness or
slavery ; to secure good treatment for the servile classes under penalty
of enforced manumission ; to reduce claims when they come before
the magistrates to the minimum which justice to the creditor will
permit ; to await the increased means of freeing themselves which
must develop for the poorer classes upon the extensive introduction
of European capital in agricultural industries ; and, finally, to pur-
chase at a rate which, in consequence of the notorious discourage-
ment with which every case is treated by the European ofiicers and
the courts, and the pressure of other influences, Avill in time be
much diminished from what would probably be considered a fair
equivalent. — I have, etc.
(Signed) HUGH LOW, Resident.
The Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Straits
Settlements, Singapore.
No. II.
From H.B.M's. Eesident, Perak, to the Honourable the
Colonial Secretary.
Teluk Anson, April 26, 1882.
Sir — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of the 14th instant, calling upon me for information as to the
progress made towards the extinction of debt slavery in this State
since 1879, for transmission to Her Majesty's Secretary of State.
2. In reply I have the honour to report that the policy ex-
plained in my letters to your predecessor, dated 28th May and 14th
December 1878, has been steadily pursued in Perak. All slave
debtors who have appealed to the protection of the courts having
their cases adjudicated upon on the most liberal terms consistent
with justice to the creditors, and a considerable number have availed
themselves of the facilities presented to them and bought up the
claims upon them.
3. Further and more intimate knowledge of the people has
confirmed the impression that whatever may have been the case in
former times, cruelty to slaves or slave debtors has been very rare
378 APPENDIX.
since the establishment of settled government, and in every instance
in which such has come to my knowledge or to that of the British
otficers manumission without compensation was aimed out.
4. Three such cases have occurred in the families of two very
high officers of State, and these, -with, one other case, are all the
instances of cruelty which have been reported to me.
5. An attempt was made in 1879 to procure a census of the
population through the chiefs of the village communities. Each of
these chiefs recorded the name of every householder in his district,
with the number of persons, distinguishing their sex and condition.
6. A total of 47,359 is thus arrived at for the free native Malay
population. Of these 14,875 were males above, and 9313 below,
16 years of age. The females numbered 14,761 and 8410.
7. The number of slaves was returned as 1670, of whom 775
were males and 895 females. The slave debtors were respectively
728 and 652, giving a total of 1380 ; the two servile classes num-
bering, of both sexes, 3050. I fear, however, that these numbers
do not include all the bond population, as His Highness the Regent
and one or two others vnth extensive claims did not give in returns.
8. I regret to state that the attempt which, as reported in my
letter of the 14th December, Avas liberally made by the Toh Puan
Halimah, chief vdia of the ex-Muntri of Pc-rak, to facilitate the
manumission of her slaves and debtors by working off the just
claims against them on fair terms, was successful only to a very
inconsiderable extent. The Malays of Perak are, as a rule, so ad-
verse to and so unaccustomed to steady labour, and can so easily
provide for their Avants, that they altogether decline, except for
short periods, to perform services of any nature even for high wages.
9. The opinion of those having claims upon the servile classes
is now pretty general in favour of manumission upon equitable
terms, and although a few old Conservative families in such districts
as Kinta would prefer to adhere to the former state of things, I have
considered that the time has arrived when a general measure having
this end in view may be taken into consideration in the hope of
carrying it out completely in the year 1883.
10. His Excellency the Governor may have observed in the
minutes of the ]\Iarch Session of the Council of State that the sub-
ject of manumission of slaves and debtors was brought to the notice
of His Highness the Regent by the Resident, and that a meeting of
the Council was appointed for the 15th May, for the purpose of con-
sidering the terms on which such a measure .shoidd be based, and
the m.inner in which it .«hould be carried out.
1 1 . My own idea is that a commission, consisting of one or two
APPENDIX. 379
native chiefs and the principal European oflScer of each district,
should be appointed to inquire, under -n-ritten instructions, into the
circumstances of each case, and award, subject to the approval of the
Government, such compensation as may seem fair to both parties ;
that the money necessary to pay the amounts awarded shall be
advanced by the Government ; that the sum adjudged to be paid
for manumission shall remain, in whole or in part, as may be deter-
mined in Coimcil, a debt from the freedman to the State, which he
shall be bound to repay by a deduction of a portion of his wages
for labour on the public works of the country, which he must con-
tinue until his debt is cleared off, should he be unable or unwilling
to raise the money by other means ; that male relatives shall take
upon them the obligations incurred for the freedom of female rela-
tions who may themselves be unable to pay ; and that, from the
date of the completion of the measure, every person in the State
shall be absolutely free, and slavery and bond indebtedness declared
to be illegal institutions and for ever abolished.
1 2. I have formerly stated it as the opinion of the best informed
natives that a sum varying from $60,000 to $80,000 would be
sufficient to meet the necessary expenditure, but I fear that the
larger amount would be insufficient, as it woidd be advisable to
deal with an institution invohdng so great a change in the habits
of. and loss to the people, ■v\'ith a certain measure of liberality. — I
have, etc.
(Signed) HUGH LOW, Eesident.
The Hon. the Colonial Secretary,
etc. etc. etc.
Straits Settlements.
INDEX.
Abdullah, his two sons, 276, 281
Abdulsamat, Sultan, 216 ; his steam
launch, 224 ; his three houses, 230 ;
councU of state, 231 ; harem, 233 ;
gift, 234
Ah Loi, the enterprising Chinaman at
Kwala Lumper, 220 ; entertains Sir
F. A. Weld, 221
Alligators, 166
Amok, " running amuck," 165; sup-
posed origin of meaning, 355-357
Ampagnan tin mine near Kwala Lum-
por, 208
Anamese children, 99 ; to^\Ti, 100 ;
physical appearance of the adults,
104
Anamite river-dwellings, 101
Ant-to^\Ti, an, 196 ; the quarriers and
labourers, 197, 198
Apes used to gather coco-nuts, 301,
319, 333
Babas, the, 17
Baba, his Hadji dress, 147
Beri-Beri disease, the, 284
Bernam river, the, 244
Betel-nut, the, 180; how prepared,
181
Biggs, Rev., colonial chaplain at
Malacca, 126
Birch, Mr., his murder at Passir
Salah, 270
Birds, the, of the Peninsula, 10, 11
Bird-scaring, 341.
Blachang, a Malay condiment, 180
Buffaloes, water, 274
Bukit Berapit pass, 350, 351
Bukit Gantang lotus lake, 352
Bukit Jugra, 226 ; reception by the
Sultan Abdulsamat, 230
Burdon, Bishop and Mrs., 32, 36
Butterflies, 350
Cangtte, punishment of the, 68, 79
Canton, first impressions of, 43, 46 ;
streets, 46 ; drains and barricades,
47 ; watchmen, 47; constabulary,
48 ; public buildings, temples, 49 ;
signboards, 49 ; dwelling-houses,
50 ; ghastly gifts, 50 ; junks and
boats, 55 ; city of house-boats, 56 ;
the Five-storied Pagoda, 58 ; the
Wall, 59 ; Tartar City, 60 ; street
sights [and sounds, 61 ; costumes,
62 ; food and restaurants, 63 ;
bridal procession, 64; the "Beggars'
Square," 64 ; temples and worship,
65 ; crippled feet, 66 ; the Naam-
Hoi prison, 67-80 ; the Ma T'au,
80-85.
Capitans China, the, 190, 191
Chinese, the, in the Peninsula, 17
Cholen, an Anamese town, 100; burial-
ground, 103
Choquan, a Cochin - Chinese village,
96 ; interior of a house, 97-99
Cobra, a, 223
Coffee-planting in Perak, 357
Datu Bandab, 202 ; his house, 202,'
203
Debt-slavery, 358-360, 370-379
Bindings islands, the, 249 ; scene of
Mr. Lloyd's murder, 250
Douglas, Mr. Bloomfield, Resident at
Klang, 217,
382
INDEX.
Dragon-Play, a Cliinese, 201
Dris, Rajah, 320 ; his house, 325
Eblis, the small ape at Kwala Kangsa,
307 ; his illness, 335, 346 ; recovery,
death, 366
Elephants, "at home," 278 ; ugliness,
297 ; mode of riding, 298 ; a Royal
one, 310 ; described, 316 ; swim-
ming the Perak, 311 ; at dinner,
316 ; taming, 336, 337 ; tracks,
337
Fauna, the, of the Peninsula, 7-12
Fern, the Elk-horn, 177
Fish, the, of the Peninsula, 11, 12
Gang murders, Chinese, 365
Gharrie, a Larut, 278
Go Kwans and Si Kwans, the, 267
Gomuti palm, the, 263
Gunong Bubu hill, 352
Ponduk hill, 279, 304, 352
Hatward, Mr., superintendent of
police at Malacca, 153
Henry, Rev. B., 54, 73
Hijan hills, the, 279, 282, 352
Hongkong, 30 ; on fire, 31-34 ; Vic-
toria, 35 ; climate, 35 ; Episcopal
Palace, 36 ; " pidjun English," 37 ;
area and population, 38 ; prosperity,
trade, 39 ; garrison, 40 ; imports,
exports, 41 ; the Tung-Wah hos-
pital, 87 ; surgery and medicine,
89 ; ventilation and cleanliness, 90
House-boats, Chinese, 55-58
Insects, the, of the Peninsula, 10
Isemonger, Mr., police magistrate of
Province Wellesley, 253
Tslamism, 361, 362
Junks, Chinese, 55
Kamtjnting, a Chinese mining town,
290
Kangsa river, the, 305
Kin Kiang steamer, the precautions ,
on board, 42
Klang river, the, 217
Klang village, 217; residency at, 217;
decay of, 219 ; Ah Loi, the enter-
prising Chinaman, 220 ; a cobra,
223 ; climate, 235 ; mosquitos, 235 ;
the fort, 236 ; the "Adat Malayu,"
238 ; jail, hospital, 239
Klings, the, 94 ; in Singapore, 115 ;
beauty of the womeu, 116 ; cloth-
ing, 117
Koto-lamah, 319
Kris, the JIalay, 24 ; a man-eating,
229
Kwala Kangsa, journey to, 292-305 ;
a grotesque dinner party, 306 ;
Mahmoud and Eblis, 307 ; a Perak
jimgle, 311 ; village life, 313; re-
ligious observances, 31 4 ; a Moslem's
funeral, 315 ; swiiiiining the Perak,
317 ; a " Pirate's nest," 319 ; visit
to Rajah Dris, 324 ; marriage cere-
monies, 327 ; children, 329 ; a
dreary funeral, 331 ; elephant tam-
ing, 336, 337 ; a padi swamp, 341 ;
a lotus lake, 343
Kwala Lumpor, 216
Langat river, the, 224
Larut, destruction of, 268 ; British
Residency, 280 ; trumpeter beetles,
284 ; dinner party at, 286 ; Chinese
mining enterprise, 288 ; visit to a
tin mine, 289
Larut river, the, 276
Leeches, land, 301, 302
Linggiriver,(the, 155, 160; alligators,
166 ; a night on, 173 ; its abrupt
windings, 174 ; mysterious and un-
familiar sounds, 175 ; the jungle,
177 ; monkeys, 180
Lizards, 325
Lloyd, Mr. , murder of, 1 99, 250
Lotus blowers, 296 ; seed, 297 ; lake,
343
Low, Mr. Hugh, British Resident at
Perak, 321 ; his wise administra-
tion, 323 ; on debt-slavery, 375-
379
Mahmoud, tlie ape, 307
Malacca, conquest of, 2 ; first view of,
124 ; Government bungalow, 125 ;
the old Stadthaus, 126 ; its stagna-
tion and monotony, 130, 131 ;
houses, 132; Chinese population,
133, 134 ; opium farmers, 134 ; the
jungle, 135, 136 ; villages or karri'
pongs, 137 ; native costume, 138,
INDEX.
383
139 ; ornaments, 139 ; religion,
140 ; tiger stories, 142, 143 ; a
thunderstorm, 143 ; the festival of
the Chinese New Year, 144-147 ;
children's ornaments, 145 ; the
police force, 149 ; commercial de-
cay, 149 ; Francis Xavier, 150 ;
his cathedral, 151
Malay Peninsula, 1 ; the Straits Settle-
ments, 3 ; geology, 5 ; climate,
temperature, 5, 6 ; monsoons, 6 ;
products, 7 ; botany, 7 ; fauna,
7-9 ; reptiles, 9 ; insects, birds, 10,
11 ; fish, 11, 12 ; mid tribes, 13-
17 ; Chinese, 17
Malays proper of the Peninsula, 17 ;
physiognomy, customs, religion,
18 ; language, literature, 19 ; poetry,
music, medicine, 20 ; astronomy,
21 ; modes of measuring distance
and time, 21 ; maritime habits, 22 ;
sports, 23 ; domesticity, food, wea-
pons, 24 ; epistolary etiquette, 25 ;
government, slavery, and debt-bond-
age, 25 ; villages or kampongs,
137 ; character, 138 ; costume,
138, 139; children, 139 ; pilgrim-
ages to IJecca, 140 ; aptitude for
semi-military service, 149 ; fond-
ness for pets, 300 ; proverbs, 363,
364
Mangrove swamp, a, 162, 163
Marriage ceremonies in Perak, 327,
328
Martyrs and refugees, Christian, in
Canton, 53, 54
Matang, kampong of the exiled Mentri
of Larut, 296
Ma T'au, the, or place of execution in
Canton, 80-84; preliminaries of
execution, 81 ; death procession,
82
Maxwell, Sir Benson, on the Chinese
oaths, 239
Maxwell, Mr., Assistant Resident at
Perak, 276 ; described, 285
Me-Kong, or Cambodia River, the,
93, 94
M'Nair, Major, describes Rajah Muda
Yusuf, 330 ; on the supposed origin
of amok, 357
" Monkey cups," 289, 294
Moslem funeral, a, 314, 315 ; prayers,
362
Moussa, Rajah, 226, 230
Muda Yusuf, Rajah, 329, 330
Murray, Captain, British Resident at
Sungei Ujong, 182 ; his fine char-
acter, 186 ; official duties, 187 ;
death, 205
Naam-Hoi prison, the, 67 ; punish-
ment of the cangue, 68 ; the head
gaoler, 68 ; crime and misery, 69 ;
prisoners and captives, 70 - 72 ;
mortality, 72 ; cruelties and ini-
quities, 73 ; the Yamun, 74 ; judg-
ment-seat, 74 ; and judge, 75 ; the
torture of kneeling, 77; "putting
the question," 78, 79
Nepenthes, or monkey cups, 289, 294
New Year, the, Chinese festival of,
144-147
Nioto village, 182
Nutmeg, the, 313
Ophir, mount, 124
Oraug Beuua, or Oi-ang-utan, the, 13 ;
portraits of, 14; appearance, colour,
15 ; customs, 16
"Ouf," the ape at Klang, 218, 219
Owl, the, or "spectre bird," 169, 354
Pangkor Treaty, the, 269, 270
Peking, the s.s., breakfast on board,
252
Perak, 260 ; rivers, 260 ; tin-mining,
261 ; gold and precious stones, 261 ;
fruits and vegetables, 262 ; trade,
population, 264 ; revenue, public
works, 265 ; antecedents, 266 ;
Chinese disturbances in Larut, 267,
268 ; appeal to England, 269 ; the
Pangkor Treaty, 270 ; murder of
Mr. Birch, 270
Perak river, the, 310
Perraatang, a Chinese village, 279
Permatang Pasir police station, 165 ;
the village, 170
Pidjun English, 37
Pinang, 251 ; origin of name, 251 ;
number of Asiatics, 255 ; Chxilia
Street, 256 ; Georgetown, 257 ; area,
products, 258 ; pepper - planting,
259
Plantation Hill, a night on, 199
Proverbs, Malay, 363, 364
Province Wellesley, 273
384
INDEX.
Ratkt, or Orang Laut, the, 16
Rassa village, 183
Reptiles, the, of the Peninsula, 9
Residents, terms of appointment, 369,
370
Rhinoceros horns, 336
River-dwellings, Anamite, 101
Rumbow hills, the, 163
Saigon, 94 ; European life, 96 ; an
unsuccessful colony, 103 ; convent,
105
Sakeis or Jakuns, the, 15
Samangs, the, 15
Seiangor, 207 ; tin mines, 207, 208
low lands, 208 ; limestone caves,
209 ; natural capabilities, 209
murder of Tuauku Bongsu, 211
British Residents, 212, 213 ; boun
daries, 215 ; destroyed, 242 ; vari
eties of slime, 243 ; fort, 243 ; a
"waif" tried, 247
Sempang police station, the, 162
Sensitive plant, the, 295
Serambang, 187; tin, its staple pro-
duct, 187; the joss-house, 188;
gambling - house, 189; "Capitans
China," 190, 191 ; court - house,
192 ; prison, 193, 194 ; sanitarium,
195-200 ; a Chinese Dragon Play,
201 ; the Datu Bandar, 202 ; re-
turn to Malacca, 204
Sharaeen Island, 44 ; its community,
45
Shaw, Captain, Lieutenant-Governor
of Malacca, 126, 127
Sikh belle, a, 291
Sikhs, the, armed police at Taipeng,
283
Singapore, 107 ; heat, 110 ; progress,
111; exports. 111; "farmers,"
112; official circle, 112; staple of
conversation, 113; climate, vegeta-
tion, 114; population, 114, 115;
the Klings, 115-117 ; native streets,
119 ; cathedral, 121
Sinkehs, the, 17
Slavery and debt-bondage, 25
Smith, Mr. Cecil, Colonial Secretary
at Singapore, 108
Smith, Mr. Mackrill, 44
Straits Settlements, the, 3. See Malay
Peninsula
Sungei Ujong, 154 ; boundaries, 155 ;
the Datu Klana obtains an English
Resident, and the protection of the
English flag, 156 ; population, ex-
ports and imports, 157 ; revenue,
158 ; military police force, 159 ;
scenery, rainfall, 159 ; mineral
wealth, 159 ; the new Datu Klana,
160 ; tin mines, 187
Superstitions, Malay, 353-355
Swettenham, Mr. Frank, on debt-
slavery, 370-375
Swinburne, Major, 284 ; anecdote of,
285 ; his farewell to the Sikhs, 366
Syed Abdulrahman, Datu Klana of
Sungei Ujong, 148 ; his wife and
daughter, 149 ; loyal character, 157 ;
death, 160
Syers, Mr., superintendent of the
SC'langor police force, 224, 248
Taipeng, 280 ; the Sikhs, 283 ; hos-
pital, 283
Tapioca cultivation near Kwala Lum-
por, 219
Teluk Kartang, 277
Tiger stories, 142, 143, 227, 228
Tin mine, visit to a, 289 ; smelting,
290
Tuauku Bongsu, murder of, 211
VicTOKiA, 35. See Hongkong.
Weapons, Malay, 24
Weld, Sir V. A., his account of a
theatrical exhibition at Kwala Lum-
por, 7i. 221
Whampoa, 43
Willow pattern, the, scene of, 51, 65
Xaviek, Francis, traditions of, in
Malacca, 150 ; ruin of his cathedral,
151
Prznted by R. & R. Clakk, Edinburgh.
BINDING SrCT. APR Z t Off
DS Bishop, Isabella Lucy (Bird)
592 The golden Chersonese and
B57 The way thither
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