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THE CHERSONESE 



WITH THE GILDING OFF. 



EMILY INNES. 



IN TWO VOLUMES 

VOL. II. 



LONDON : 

mCHAKD BENTLEY AND SON, 

^Dblishirs in CibimiTS to "S^it .^jtjfsts tlic <E!itttn. 

1885. 

[All SishtB Selerved.] 



?oUi^.e.L/- 



CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 



-:- 



CHAPTER 

I. UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES 
II. FOOD 

III. DURIAN SABATANG 

IV. PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG 
V. PANGKOR . 

VI. AFTER THE MURDER 
VII. VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME 



VIII. LANGAT AGAIN 



IX. BOYCOTTING 
X. OUR LAST YEAR 



Xr. RESIGNATION 



PACK 
1 

. 25 
. 49 
. 59 
. 85 
. 102 
. 124 
. 161 
. 181 
. 201 
. 225 



i^r^Mv^wiv^^iVM^i^ 



THE CHEESONESE WITH THE 

GILDING OFF. 




CHAPTER L 

UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

FOUND more difficulty in buying 
fowls at the hill than at the 
Bandar. There were not nearly 
so many running about, for there was as 
yet no village, but only a few scattered 
wigwams here and there. If I sent a ser- 
vant to one of these to buy some of the 
owner's fowls, I was as likely as not to 
receive the answer that they were kept as 
pets, not as food. In fact, I found that to 

VOL. II. 18 



2 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

an unsophisticated Malay, who has not 
mixed much with Europeans, or with 
dwellers in towns, and learnt their mer- 
cenary ways, it is quite an insult to ask if 
he will sell anything. 

Malays from the up-country used some- 
times to find their way to my door, with 
their hands full of fowls, which they said 
they wished to lay at my feet They were 
the poorest ryots possible, with nothing on 
but a ragged and dirty sarong, yet they 
were quite horrified at my asking if they 
had brought their fowls to sell. They care- 
fully explained that the fowls (perhaps 
several dollars' worth) were a present to 
me ; but in the same breath they suggested 
that if out of my compassion for them I 
would give them a small trifle to buy rice, 
it would be very acceptable. It seemed to 
me that the distinction between selling and 
this proposed proceeding was imaginary, so 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



I used to force them in a hard-hearted way 
to mention a price. 

I generally found that the more delicacy 
and refinement of feeling they had paraded, 
the higher was the price they wanted, and 
the less the fowls would bear examination. 
The owners appeared to think that the 
fowls would taste better on account of 
having belonged to a noble race that had 
never soiled its scutcheon by commercial 
dealings, but I did not find it so. I 
thought it simply a very troublesome way 
of marketing ; but there was often no help 
for it, as fowls were not to be obtained in 
any other way, unless I sent to the Bandar. 

We were able to get a walk here of about 
a mile long, besides the path up the hill, 
which hardly counted as a permanent path, 
for the incessant growth of the jungle closed 
it up in a few days, if not kept cleared. 
There was but the one walk, as at the 

18—2 



4 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

Bandar, but it was a far more interesting 
one. The first bit was really beautiful ; it 
took us down a picturesque winding car- 
riage-road, bordered on both sides by bright 
flowers, waving cocpanut-palms and fruit- 
trees. At the foot of the hill this road 
swept round along the edge of the river for 
a little, and then turned inland towards the 
Sultan's house, having reached which it 
ceased ; but we used to return by a bridle- 
path which coasted along the side of the 
hill, following all its inflections and gra- 
dually ascending until it reached the spur 
on which our house stood. This last part 
of the walk was extremely pretty, little 
streamlets gushing out fi^om amid granite 
rocks and ferns at every turn. 

Before we reached the Sultan's, I used 
generally to be surrounded by fi'om half a 
dozen to a dozen little brown children asking 
for flowers. This practice had grown out of 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES., 5 

the fact that before starting for my walk 
I had been in the habit of putting a flower 
in my button-hole. One day a tiny child 
walked boldly up to me in the middle of 
the road, stretched out its little fet hand, 
and calmly said, ' Mem, I should like that 
flower.' Of course I gave it. Next day 
there were two children, next day four, and 
so on, till it became an established institu- 
tion that I not only brought flowers in my 
button-hole, but a large bouquet in my 
hand for distribution, and was quite dis- 
appointed if by some accident the children, 
not expecting us, did not appear. I found 
that they only cared for the scented ones ; 
the most gorgeous hibiscus was slighted in 
favour of the unpretending bunga milor, 
and an amaryllis was nowhere compared to 
a tuberose. It is curious that the Malays, 
though very fond of sweet-scented flowers, 
did not take the trouble to grow them 



6 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

themselves. I suppose this fact is due to 
their great laziness, which makes them 
unwilling to do any work that is not either 
necessary for existence or remunerative. 
I never met with such a thing as a Malay 
flower-garden, except at a police-station, 
where the police had probably been ordered 
to make it. 

Our lawn-tennis ground had now become 
covered with grass, and we often played for 
an hour tete-a-tete. It was surrounded by 
a rude fence ' to keep off the ruder natives,' 
as one of our visitors remarked. The 
natives were much interested in looking on 
at the game, and Tunku Panglima Raja one 
day expressed a wish to join us. He was 
very active, and flew about the ground 
with his petticoats tucked up, but had not 
much notion of the game, hitting the ball 
straight up into the air as high as he 
possibly could being his idea of playing* 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVE^. 7 

Another day little Raja SlemaD, the Tunku 
Muda's son, asked to be allowed to play, 
but finding there was no royal road to 
lawn-tennis, and that he could not at once 
master the game and play as well as our- 
selves, he was disgusted, and at every miss 
exclaimed, * Al-lah !' in tones of increasing 
vexation, just as a French boy might have 
cried, * Mon Dieu !' He did not come 
again. 

In consequence of having dismissed Taip, 
we had to make some changes among our 
servants. The orderly's position in the 
estabUshment was a singular one, com- 
bining some of the duties of a policeman, 
soldier, footman, and housemaid,. He was 
originally chosen fi:om among the Malay 
police, and was supposed merely to guard 
the house by day, and our persons when 
we walked out, and to clean his own and 
his master's gun. It was found, however, 



8 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

that these employments did not give him 
nearly enough to do, and that consequently 
he either spent almost the whole day in 
sleep, or else, if of a lively nature, in run- 
ning off to the bazaar to gamble or smoke 
opium. So, by permission of the authori- 
ties, we gave him an extra dollar or two 
per month in consideration of his waiting at 
table, and doing little odd jobs about the 
house. 

Little Suteh, the * disorderly,' had by this 
time become quite a clever little waiter. 
Suteh's delight on first entering our service 
was to cover himself from head to foot 
with ferocious-looking weapons-^namely, a 
large gun over his shoulder, a belt with 
ammunition across his chest, a revolver in 
a leathern pouch, and two or three krises 
stuck into his sarong. In this fashion he 
strutted behind us in the bazaar, the envy 
and admiration of all the little boys, He 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



held his gun so awkwardly that we were 
more afraid of it than of all the dangers 
against which it was supposed to protect us ; 
and Mr. Innes, feeling also the absurdity of 
being followed by a fisit child in a red 
petticoat armed with a rusty gun, soon told 
him, to his great disgust, to leave his 
weapons behind. The gun was allowed to 
reappear when the boy followed us up the 
hiU, on account of the tigers ; but we con- 
sidered that we took our lives in our hands 
every time that we ascended or descended 
the hill with Suteh behind us. His gun 
was supposed to be loaded all ready for the 
tiger, and in climbing over the fallen trunks 
of trees, or pushing through the tangled 
grass, six or eight feet high, it was a 
marvel that even it, ancient and rusty 
though it was, never went off. We dis- 
pensed with his attendance altogether after 
a time, and took our walks alone. 



lo UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES^ 

At first Suteh was extraordinarily stupid 
in waiting, and I thought I should never 
teach him. He was three months learning 
how to hand a knife. His savage instincts 
naturally prompted him to grasp the 
handle and ofifer the blade, as if about to 
stab. He could not imagine that there 
could be any other way of taking hold of 
a knife. When after much drilling he was 
induced to present the handle, he kept the 
blade tightly shut up in his warm and 
du-ty little black hand in a very unappe- 
tizing manner ; the same with the bowl of 
a spoon, or the prongs of a fork. Then, 
whenever there was a lull in the cares of 
waiting, he would fold his arms and walk 
round the room, examining the books and 
pictures on the walls, and humming a tune 
or talking aJoud to himself. 

He appeared to have no eye for dirt, and 
could never make up his mind as to whether 



UNSOPHISTICA TED NA TIVES. 1 1 

a glass had been used or not. He would 
take it up, turn it round and round, and 
hold it up to the light — all this in the 
middle of dinner — in order to decide 
whether or not to take it away; and 
often ended by putting it down again as 
clean, even when it had obviously (to our 
eyes) been used for beer or porter. Having 
seen Mr. Innes and the Resident one day 
mixing beer and porter together to make 
* half-and-half,' Suteh thought he Avould be 
very clever and do it for them next time ; 
but instead of beer he used claret by 
mistake, and produced an awful compound 
of claret and porter. 

Another day he was told at dinner to 
go and fetch some ice from the next room. 
A large chest of ice had been presented to 
us by the chinchew of the steamer, he 
having brought it on to Langat by mistake, 
instead of leaving it at Malacca, where it 



12 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



had been ordered for a grand dinner to the 
Governor, or some great person. Suteh 
had never heard of ice in his life, so he 
stared inquiringly. *Go into the next 
room,' said I, ' and bring us some of what 
you find in a large box there. Take a 
dish and a spoon with you/ Suteh went, 
and presently reappeared with a dish full 
of — sawdust ! which he solemnly proceeded 
to hand round the table, no doubt thinking 
it a vegetable or condiment. I had for- 
gotten at the time I sent him that the ice 
was packed in sawdust. 

Another day I had made a grand arrange- 
ment of flowers for the middle of the table, 
and coming into the room just aflier lunch, 
saw that they had disappeared. I said to 
Suteh : ' You need not have thrown those 
flowers away ; they were quite fi-esh ; and 
what have you done with the vase ?' 

Suteh replied with a virtuous air: *I 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 13 

remembered that the mem told me yester- 
day to put the white tablecloth and other 
things away after Imieh, and not to leave 
them on all the afternoon ; therefore I have 
put them in the drawer.' And opening the 
drawer, he showed me the flowers ranged 
tidily in rows according to their species, 
with their wet stalks on the folded table- 
cloth, while the vase occupied another 
corner of the drawer, water and all. But 
it did not do to laugh at Suteh's mistakes, 
for he was very sensitive, and would have 
thrown up his situation at once if openly 
ridiculed. 

We probably appeared quite as stupid to 
him as he to us. He was at first astonished 
to find that we were not familiar with the 
various sorts of pisang or banana — with the 
customs and language of Malays — with the 
habits of alligators, and so forth ; and being 
occasionally appealed to on such points, 



14 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



which were to him the A B C of human 
knowledge, he apparently took it for granted 
that we knew nothing at all, and volun- 
teered, with an air as if he hardly expected 
us to believe him, such pieces of informa- 
tion as that in the Malay country many 
plants grew from seeds, which were put 
into the ground, and after a time became 
young plants. He took up a duckling one 
day, and explained to me that 4n the 
Malay country' ducks were cleverer at 
swimming than chickens, because the 
former were web-footed ; in short, he was 
prepared to give lectures on all the most 
ordinary phenomena of nature, supposing 
them to be peculiar to the Malay country. 

We preferred Malay servants when we 
could get them, as they are much better 
able to turn their hands to anything than 
the Klings or Chinese. A Malay 'boy' 
will do anything, from hemming a duster 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 15 

to taking an oar in a boat, if required ; and 

a really good Sarawak boy is the best 
servant in the world. Their dress is very 
becoming to their brown skins, consisting 
of a white jacket and trousers, a red silk 
sarong, with gold thread interwoven, and a 
red and yellow handkerchief on the head. 
With their bare feet they glide noiselessly 
round the table, handing you everything 
you want just at the right moment, and 
between whiles they stand behind your 
chair with the quiet dignity of princes. 
Malays are never vulgar. Vulgarity and 
snobbishness seem to be growths peculiar 
to civilization, and savages are free from 
them. Indeed, the manners of all classes 
of Malays are extremely good, except those 
of the women, and of some of the men who 
have mixed much with Europeans. 

The Malay * boys ' are very faithful and 
devoted, and it is no unusual thinfif for 



1 6 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



them, when their master is returning to 
England, to offer to go with him without 
wages. Mr. Innes several times had offers 
of this kind from his * boys/ who declared 
they would be no expense to him, as they 
could easily make themselves useful enough 
on board ship to earn a little daily rice, 
which was all they required. One ■ boy' was 
so pressing in begging to be allowed to 
follow Mr. Innes all over the world, that he 
was only dissuaded by being told that he 
would never see a countryman or anyone 
who could speak Malay in England, and 
would probably die from cold, though he 
were to put on six coats. The cold of 
England was something the Malays could 
never realize, and I created much astonish- 
ment one day among a party of them by 
showing them the winter clothes I had worn 
on board ship, including a muff. 

These boys often used English words 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 17 

without having any suspicion that they 
were English, and would correct my pro- 
nunciation of them in the most amusing 
W' 'way. I often asked them what was the 
right pronunciation of a Malay word, and 
they sometimes volunteered it; so when I 
used such words as 'glass/ ' bottle/ ' stripe/ 
'blacking/ and so forth, they would re- 
spectfully inform me that the proper pro- 
nunciation of these words was gtdlass, botole^ 
essateripe^ and berleckin. 

I never succeeded in imbuing my servants 
with the proper respect for me until I had 
had them for some time. None of them 
had been accustomed to English mistresses ; 
they all had the true Oriental contempt for 
women at the bottom of their hearts, and 
though they obeyed my orders when the 
Tuan was present, they often disobeyed 
them when he was away. I remember one 
* boy ' I had — who afterwards turned out a 

VOL. II. 19 



// 



1 8 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



very good servant — was particularly imper- 
tinent at first. I told him one day to whiten 
Mr. Innes's sun-helmet, and to fold a pug- 
garee round it in a certain way, which I 
showed him. Afterwards I found he had 
done nothing whatever to the helmet, and 
on being asked why, he quietly said, * Be- 
cause I was not sure that the Tuan wished 
it done so.' To this I replied, ' You would 
like to know the Tuan's wishes? I can 
tell you what they will be, when he hears 
that you do not obey my orders. He will 
wish, I very much fear, to beat you. I am 
sorry for you, but I cannot help it.' The 
helmet and puggaree were whitened and 
folded in double-quick time, though it is 
scarcely ^necessary to say the threat I had 
held out of the Tuan's wrath taking the 
form of personal castigation was an empty 
one. 

Another time, when Mr. Innes was away. 



UNSOPHISTICA TED NA TIVES. 1 9 

the ' boy ' of the period put the dinner on 
the table for me without any white cloth. 
I came in and said, ' What is this? you 
have forgotten the table-cloth; put it on, 
and then let me know.' As I was leaving 
the room I heard him reply, to the effect 
that he did not think the white cloth neces- 
sary, as the Tuan was away ( !). Of this 1 
thought it best to take no notice, allowing 
him to suppose if he liked that I had either 
not heard or not understood him ; and 
after some minutes he came to inform me it 
was put right. 

Such mistakes and such speeches were 
only made by freshly caught savages, who 
had never been in service before. After 
about a week I generally had to explain to 
a new servant that I was his Tuan as well 
as Mr. Innes, and that if he did not choose 
to obey me he might go back to Singapore, 
or wherever he came from, by next steamer. 

19—2 



20 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

This greatly astonished him, and he did not 
thoroughly believe it till at the end of the 
month he found it was I, and not Mr. 
Innes, who paid him his wages. Finding 
me entrusted with his money, he naturally 
became anxious to please me, no doubt 
imagining that if he did not do so, I should, 
according to the custom of native ladies, 
find some excuse for cheating him out of 
his wages. 

Suteh was removed from us shortly after 
Taip left, and was succeeded by Mutu, a 
Kling. 

Mutu, our new orderly, had a shining 
black face, set off by a white turban and a 
gold nose-ring. He had also two gold ear- 
rings in each ear, one high up and one low 
down. I chose him from among three can- 
didates partly on account of his nose-ring, I 
own, thinking it gave an air of wealth and 
distinction to his outer man, and I felt 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 21 

much disappointed when, after the visit of a 
certain chitty (money-lender), with whom 
Mutu was closeted for half an hour, nose* 
ring and earrings had disappeared. In 
their place Mutu now wore little wooden 
plugs, to keep the holes open, which were 
the reverse of becoming. As I had not 
stipulated when engaging him that he 
should wear his gold ornaments, I could 
not complain, but felt as much defrauded as 
Miss Edgworth's 'Little Frank,' when he 
had bought the coloured jar, and the 
chemist sent it home white, having poured 
the coloured water out of it. 

Mutu, being a Kling, paid a great deal of 
attention to his dress. Klings, both men 
and women, are especially remarkable for 
the good taste with which they dress them- 
selves. The art of draping fine muslin 
round their persons so as to set their figures 
off to the best advantage is studied by them 



22 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 

till absolute perfection of grace is attained. I 
do not hesitate to confess that a well-dressed 
and handsome Kling woman, even though 
she might be only a coolie's or washerman's 
wife, was a far more beautiful sight in my 
eyes than the most fashionably dressed 
European lady of Singapore, whoever she 
might be, with her whalebone and steel, her 
kilted plaitings and angular frills, her 
pinched-in waist and distended skirts. In 
fact, the European style of dress, ugly and 
inconvenient enough m Europe, is doubly 
so in the East. The frills are badly ironed, 
the colours of cambrics, etc., are faded from 
frequent washing, and the trains of the 
dresses, though perhaps only one inch on 
the ground, become dirty in a few minutes 
from the all-pervading red dust of Singa- 
pore, or from sweeping across the stone or 
wooden floors of jungle bungalows. 

I would not exactly recommend the 



UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 23 



English ladies to dress as the Dutch ladies 
do in Java, that is, in a bad imitation of 
the Malay dress, which, as I have already 
said, I consider ungraceful and cumbrous ; 
nor do I dare to recommend the adoption 
of the Kling costume. For many reasons 
the latter would be unsuitable to English 
ladies, who play lawn-tennis, ride, and 
indulge in other active exercises. But 
surely a dress might be found among the 
Turkish, Jewish, Persian, or other Oriental 
nations, both prettier and more comfortable 
in a hot climate than the English. 

I found the artistic proclivities of my 
Kling servants rather troublesome some- 
times. They did not stop short at draping 
themselves gracefully, but carried the prin- 
ciple of a ' sweet neglect ' into other 
departments. For instance, Mutu never 
could put a table-cloth on straight and 
flat ; he liked it long on one side and short 



24 UNSOPHISTICATED NATIVES. 



on the other, and I believe, if I would have 
allowed it, he would have draped the table 
in picturesque folds as if it had been a 
statue. In short, he was devoted to what 
I once saw described in a Saturday Review 
article as 'the Love of the Lop-sided/ 




CHAPTER IL 

FOOD. 

T was during this second year 
that we began to send home to 
a co-operative store for groceries, 
tinned meats, drinkables, etc., instead of 
sending for them, as formerly, from Singa- 
pore. We found at the end of the year 
that we had made a saving of £80 by this 
means, allowing for loss of money in ex- 
change and loss of interest during four or 
five months, while the ' goods ' were far 
superior, from being fi-esher and the tins in 
better condition. 

We absolutely found it cheaper to send 



26 FOOD. 

for lard from England for cooking purposes, 
than to order tins of ghee from Malacca or 
Singapore. This seems most unnatural, as 
the ghee was prepared in the Malay country 
itself, and was used by all the poor people 
round, so that it ought to have been cheap ; 
but what made it expensive to us was that 
it was almost invariably sent to us in a 
leaky tin, and by the time it reached 
us had nearly all leaked out. We paid, 
if I recollect rightly, thirty shillings for 
each tin; but often there was not more 
than five shillings' worth of ghee remain- 
ing. Kedress — ^from a jungle — is unattain- 
able; the only reply we got to our 
complaints being an assurance that ' the 
goods at the time of embarkation were 
in perfect order.' Perhaps they ^ere; 
the tins may have been knocked into 
holes by rough treatment on board the 
steamers. 



FOOD. 27 

The first co-operative store that we tried 
was not a success. Although its bill 
reached us duly, thus proving that our 
correct address was known at the store, the 
cases were all addressed wrongly or in- 
sufiiciently, whereby some of them went to 
Langkat in Sumatra, and remained there 
unclaimed for six months, while others 
went on to Hong Kong. Eventually they 
all reached us, but in a sad condition. 
The things had been packed by some one 
evidently ignorant of tropical climates. 
Hams, tongues, tinned fish, flesh, and 
vegetables had all been put pell-mell to- 
gether in coarse salt. Of course the salt 
had melted, and left the tins rusted and 
leaking, and the hams, etc., damp and 
rattling about in a half-empty chest. We 
wrote to complain, and received only in- 
solence in return, so I need not say we did 
not patronize that store again ; but we 



28 FOOD. 

found the Civil Service Supply Association, 
to which we next applied, most satisfactory, 
and continued to deal with it till we left the 
East finally. 

It was, of course, necessary to look ahead 
and send one's order four or five months 
before the things were wanted; but this 
was but a slight inconvenience. At first, 
imtil we learnt to allow several weeks for 
delay in executing the order, we were rather 
apt to run out of stores. On several occa- 
sions we were reduced to some bottles of 
mustard, some pickles, and anchovy sauce. 
The principle which regulated the survival 
of things in our store-room was just the 
opposite of that which regulates the world 
according to Darwin : it was the survival 
of the unfittest (for the purpose for which 
they were designed — i.e., to be eaten). I 
was sometimes very nearly reduced to feed- 
ing Mr. Innes on the diet recommended by 



FOOD. 29 

Grumio as good for the temper — namely, 
^ the mustard without the beef/ 

We did not always send at once to 
Malacca or Singapore when our store-room 
was empty, as we hoped the stores from 
England might arrive at any moment by 
native boat. Mr, Innes astonished me by 
his genius for cooking on one of these 
emergencies. There was nothing but fowls 
to be had, and we were so tired of these that 
we both agreed it was of no use to have 
them cooked. So he ordered a large dish 
of rice to be boiled, and some eggs ; and 
with these, and some mustard, anchovy 
sauce, capers, olives, pickles, and various 
other condiments that lingered on the 
shelves, he produced a most delicious dish. 
If we had only written down, at the time, 
the quantities and names of the things 
which he put in, I believe the recipe would 
have been an invaluable one to housekeepers 



o 



o FOOD. • 



in the East, and he might have been im- 
mortalized by calling it after himself. 

We found this hot climate was quite a 
touchstone for butter. Whether what we 
received under that name was really oleo- 
margarine, butterine, or some other com- 
position, I know not ; but on opening a 
tin we generally found the upper half was 
full of oil, and the lower half of grey or 
white fat, which latter had sometimes 
a bad smell. The Co-operative butter 
was, however, better, being fresher from 
home. 

We were also able to grow a few vege- 
tables in our garden at the hill, which were 
a great comfort to us. The principal kinds 
were sweet potatoes or yams, caladium, 
tapioca (the root of which boiled is a little 
like a potato), a kind of spinach, a kind of 
haricot-bean, Indian corn, and brinjal or 
egg-plant. We also succeeded in producing 



FOOD. 31 

some tiny cucumbers from seed bought at 
Malacca, but they did not flourish. 

The durian seasons were considered by 
many Malays to be the great events of the 
year. There were two per annum, and 
most of our boatmen, police, and servants 
used to make themselves ill by indulging 
to excess in this luscious fruit. A car- 
penter in the middle of a job once asked 
Mr. Innes's permission to knock off work 
and go home for three days to eat durian in 
his father's garden, and Mr. Innes knew the 
country and the people too well to refuse. 
He knew, that is, that a refusal would be 
considered so unreasonable and unkind that 
the man would take French leave, feeling 
himself quite justified in doing so. But 
what would be thought of an English car- 
penter who begged to be allowed three 
days' hoKday to eat cherries or goose- 
berries ? 



32 FOOD. 

— — ' 

I was much aggrieved once by a mistake 
made by a shopman in Singapore. I had 
ordered, as usual, four dozen tins of con- 
densed milk and four dozen tins of biscuits 
(we never had bread, as there was no yeast 
to be had in the country). The shopman 
jumbled these two orders together, and sent 
me four dozen tins of ' milk biscuits.' The 
consequence was that for a whole month I 
was deprived of my solitary comfort and 
pick-me-up — namely, my afternoon cup of 
tea. I drank cafe noir at breakfast, and 
tried it again at five o'clock, but found it 
was neither refreshing nor wholesome at 
that hour, as it prevented my sleeping at 
night. We tried tea without milk, and 
with lemon, but we did not care for it. 

This seems to me now, and probably will 
seem to others who ' live at home at ease,' 
but a trifling grievance ; but my experience 
is, that the less you have to eat the more 



FOOD. 33 

you think about it, especially if you have 
nothing else to think about. 

I shall never forget the description which 
q. member of a Missionary College once gave 
me of the excitement that prevailed among 
the students of that saintly establishment 
on * pudding- day.' They had pudding only 
once a week, poor fellows ! — which, now 
that I have lived at Langat, quite accounts 
for their excitement, in my opinion ; but at 
the time that I first heard the description 
I own I was shocked at such sentiments 
coming from men who had forsworn the 
world and its pleasures, and were about to 
devote themselves ' to a life of hardship and 
self-denial. 

We knew it was of no use to apply to 
the Sultan for milk, as, though he kept 
many cows, they were never milked. Soon 
after our arrival at Langat, he had kindly 
offered to lend us a cow for milking, and 

VOL. II. 20 



34 FOOD. 

sent it to our house. We tethered her to 
one of the props or legs of the house, so 
that she might benefit by the shade ; and 
Taip tried to milk her, but without result. 
Then Apat tried ; then the Indian road- 
coolies volunteered to try ; last of all, Mr. 
Innes himself tried ; but the animal, not 
being accustomed to be milked, grew very 
frightened, and almost pulled the house 
down in her efforts to get away, while she 
roared till the whole village came up to 
see what was the matter. We kept her for 
two or three days to see if she would calm 
down, but she did not, and kept us awake 
at night by her noise ; so we sent her back 
to the Sultan with thanks. 

I think it was during this year that we 
had a visit from the Administrator, Colonel 
Anson. We were told beforehand by the 
Kesident that he would come on a certain 
day, and that the party, including himself, 



FOOD, 35 

would consist of about eight persons ; he 
added that he was not sure whether they 
would want anything to eat, but he fancied 
not, as the Administrator was in haste to 
return to Penang. 1 consulted with Mr. 
Innes, and we agreed that we had better 
be provided against the chance, since we 
had been taken unawares and put to shame 
on the last occasion of a similar kind. So, 
with a considerable amount of trouble, we 
arranged as fine a banquet as the combined 
resources of Singapore and Langat could 
be made to yield; and this time we took 
care that it was all ready in time. 

But alas for us ! or rather, I should say, 
for me ! the Administrator had previously 
arranged to be at Penang on a certain day^ 
and could not afford to lose a single tide 
if he was to keep his word ; so he nierely 
called on us for a few minutes, then on the 
Sultan, and then took boat for the steamer. 

20—2 



36 FOOD. 

I was left with a dinner for ten persons on 
my hands, which had to be thrown away, 
for the Administrator had even carried off 
Mr. Innes with him, and our servants, 
being partly Malays and partly Chinese, 
did not care for European dainties. The 
Malays prefer their putrid fish, and 
the Chinese their puppy-dogs, etc. The 
essence of good housekeeping in these 
climates is, therefore, to have enough for 
your guests, but very little more, as 
nothing will keep beyond a few hours. 
It would have been useless for me to 
attempt to save any of the food we had 
prepared with so much care, although Mr. 
Innes returned next day. 

There were certainly, as the natives had 
said, plenty of tigers at the hill. They 
came moaning around the house about once 
a week generally, but sometimes for several 
nights together. I grew so accustomed 



FOOD. 37 

to their noise that I used to go to sleep 
in the middle of the loudest growls. We 
kept lights burning all night, partly as a 
protection against them and thieves, partly 
because our mails sometimes arrived in 
the middle of the night, when entrusted 
to native boatmen. It was also useful to 
have a light when the Chinese or Malays 
took to stabbing each other over their 
gambling, as happened now and then ; for 
the wounded men invariably came straight 
up to the Tuan to complain, and to have 
their wounds dressed by him. 

I never heard tigers actually roar after 
that first night at the Bandar, and 1 fancy 
it must be very seldom that they do so. 
Other growls and roars we heard some- 
times, probably those of black panthers and 
leopards ; and these noises went on at the 
hill all the year round, whereas at the 
Bandar the tigers only came at the very 



38 FOOD. 

dry season, presumably to drink of the 
Langat river, which was less brackish 
than the Jugra river. We had a slight 
paling round the garden at the hill, about 
five feet high, made of stakes, so far apart 
that goats used to walk fi*eely in between 
them. This of course would have been 
no real obstacle to a tiger, had he been 
determined on making his way in ; espe- 
cially as after a time the paling rotted and 
broke in many parts; yet it still seemed 
to have an awe-inspiring effect, as we 
could hear the wild beasts apparently 
following the line outside the enclosure ; 
either they never came inside, or else when 
inside they were mute from caution. 

One day, after a considerable interval, we 
went up the hill-path behind our house; 
this path, if not constantly cleared by the 
police, was apt to close up, by the growth 
of high grass, branches, and climbing 



FOOD. 39 

plants. On this occasion we had some 
difficulty in getting along, being obliged 
to stop continually to break the small 
branches which impeded our progress. We 
had climbed about half-way up the hill, 
when suddenly a loud grunt exploded close 
to us, followed by a dashing and crashing 
of some heavy body into the jungle; 
evidently we had startled a wild pig. The 
noise was so loud and so close that we 
stopped still in astonishment to discuss the 
event — ^but our talk was interrupted by 
two low growls in well-known tones, a 
little farther off than those of the pig 
had been, but still very near. We both 
exclaimed at the same moment : ' Did you 
hear tlmtT 

There was no necessity of saying what 

* that ' was ; anyone who has once heard the 

* Aowm ! aowm !' of a tiger could never 
mistake its slightest utterance afterwards. 



40 FOOD. 

We stood still for a moment, expecting 
(at least I know / did) in another second 
to see it burst out on us. I can recall the 
scene vividly now ; the impenetrable green 
of the jungle around, the cleared path in 
the middle, with the sun blazing down 
upon our two figures, clad in white from 
head to foot.* After waiting a minute or 
two, as the tiger did not appear, we had a 
little argument as to whether we should go 
on or back. 

' Come on,' said Mr. Innes ; * you are 
surely not going back because a tiger 
growls at you ? One would suppose you 
had never heard a tiger growl before !' 

'Well, I never did hear one growl in 
open daylight, and only a few yards off, 
before,' said I. ' Of course I am going 

• The spot was near the 'Folly/ so that there 
were no trees on the right hand to intercept the 
sunshine — only shrubs and tall grass. 



FOOD. 41 

back. What is the use of going on ? The 
tiger would most likely stalk us from 
behind all the way up, and we have not 
even a gun — ^not that a gun would be 
of any use.' 

' Why should a tiger's having growled 
make any diflference?' urged Mr. Ihnes. 
*We always knew there were heaps of 
tigers here, and yet you never minded 
walking here before.' 

* No, because I thought they were asleep 
in the daytime; and besides, they were 
supposed to be too much afraid of us to 
come near us. But now that they are 
growing so impudent as to growl at us 
like this, there is no knowing what they 
may do next !' 

' Oh, come on !' said Mr. Innes. * You 
won't see the tiger, I promise you.' 

But it was of no use ; I had an unplea- 
sant feeling all the time we were talking 



42 FOOD. 

that the tiger was close by, watching us, 
and that if we stopped much longer he 
would screw up his courage to spring 
out on us. I felt sure that he had intended 
the wild pig we had scared for his dinner ; 
and being hungry, and angry at his dis-' 
appointment, it seemed probable it might 
occur to him to dine on us instead. So I 
cut the matter short by beginning to go 
down the hill. Mr. Innes seemed very 
unwilling to come with me, but I suggested 
that we were just as likely to meet the 
tiger that way as the other, and I did not 
want to meet it alone ; whereupon he gave 
in and followed slowly. 

Two days afterwards I received a message 
from the office at the foot of the hill, where 
Mr. Innes was then sitting, to the eflfect 
that a fine tiger had been killed by the 
natives. I followed the messenger, and 
from the top of our plateau saw, down 



FOOD. 43 

below, what appeared to me like the carcase 
of a cow, lying on the ground, surrounded 
by natives. The tiger was very fat, and 
had a magnificent skin. The Malay 
sergeant measured it, and made it come 
to nine feet only, which surprised us, as 
it looked larger; but I do not think the 
sergeant measured it properly. He made 
one of his men keep one end of the tape- 
line on the tip of the animal's nose, while 
he took the other end straight in a bee- 
line to the tip of its tail, without following 
the sinuosities of the body. I pointed this 
out to him at the time, but he was too 
much excited to pay any attention. 

Mr. Innes presently brought up to me, 
with words of high compliment on his 
bravery, the Malay who had killed the 
tiger, and who was to receive the Govern- 
ment reward of $50. I was rather sur- 
prised at hearing him so emphatic in his 



44 FOOD. 

commendation, and privately asked him 
whether he really thought it so very brave 
to shoot a trapped tiger ? 

* Trapped ? said he. ' What do you 
mean ? This tiger was shot by that fellow 
in the jungle !' 

* Yes, I know/ said I ; ' but when he 
shot it, it was at the bottom of a deep pit 
that he had dug for it, the sergeant says.' 
It turned out that not one of the natives, 
in telling Mr. Innes that a tiger had been 
' shot,' had thought it necessary to mention 
the trifling detail of its having been first 
trapped. This was not from any intention 
to deceive, but merely that they looked on 
it as a self-evident fact that a tiger must 
be trapped before it could be shot ; they 
had never heard of any other way of 
killing it. 

The sergeant assured us he knew all 
about curing skins, and that he had done 



FOOD. 45 

them before, with great success; so Mr. 
Innes gave him $2, at his request, where- 
with to buy arsenic, etc., for the process. 
But in the course of a week he was proved 
to be an impostor, for the skin was ruined 
and worthless when it left his hands. We 
only learnt when too late that it is never 
safe to trust native skill in curing, and that 
the best thing for us to have done would 
have been to keep the skin in a tub full of 
arrack until we could take it to Singa- 
pore. 

The Malays begged for a few of the 
claws, which were given them ; while the 
Chinese smashed up the skull, and ground 
it into powder to make medicine. A 
Chinaman told me the strength of the 
tiger would be commurdcated to anyone 
who took the medicine. 

I did not go so much up the hill-path 
after that tiger was caught. * Seeing is 



46 FOOD. 

believing/ and after seeing that huge 
yellow- striped beast, he was always present 
to my mind's eye when walking in the 
jungle. Mr. Innes laughed at me for this, 
saying the hill was now safer than before, 
as there was one tiger the less ; but I was 
only just beginning to leave off the habit 
of looking over my shoulder for tigers, 
when fresh evidence of their existence was 
forced on me. 

One rainy day (it had rained incessantly 
for weeks, and the hill-path was conse- 
quently quite overgrown), we were walking 
in the back veranda for exercise. I had 
noticed for some minutes a large yellowish- 
brown patch on the hill opposite us. This 
patch fascinated me, as any unusual spot 
will fascinate one, in a landscape to every 
other detail of which the eye is accustomed. 
At first I fancied, then I was convinced I 
saw it move. What large animal could it 



FOOD. 47 

be, in so strange a situation ? After a few 
minutes more of gazing at it, as we walked 
up and down, I stopped short, and pointed 
it out to Mr. Innes, saying I believed it 
was a tiger. Mr. Innes scoffed at the 
notion, and said it must be one of the 
Sultan's cows. I reminded him that we 
had never seen a cow so high up on the 
hill, and that cows never went about alone ; 
' besides,' said I, * it is a tiger ! I see its 
stripes !' I dashed into the sitting-room, 
seized an opera-glass that lay there, and 
put it into Mr. Innes's hands. After one 
. glance, he exclaimed : 

* I declare it is a tiger, and a very big 
fellow, too !' He went for his gun, while I 
undertook to keep an eye on the tiger's 
movements. 

* Be quick ! be quick ! he is going off 
into the jungle!' I called after him; but 
alas ! by the time the gun was found and 



48 FOOD. 

loaded, the tiger had yawned, shaken himself, 
and slowly retired into cover. It should be 
mentioned that we could have had a shot at 
him, had the gun been ready, with the most 
perfect safety ; otherwise I should not have 
been so anxious for it We measured the 
distance afterwards from our veranda to the 
log on which he was lying, and found it 
just a hundred and seventy -four yards. It 
was not at all probable we should have hit 
the creature in a vital part from that 
distance, neither of us being a good shot, 
but I felt much disappointed at our having 
lost the chance of trying. The grass 
around the log was very tall, which ac- 
counted for our not having seen him dis- 
tinctly until he got up. 




CHAPTER III. 

DURIAN SABATANG. 

HAD not been long at the hill 
when the Sultan's womenkind 
came to call on me. I first 
became aware of their arrival by seeing 
Suteh going in haste for a watering-pot. 
Wondering, why he wanted it, I peeped out 
of my room and saw about twenty women 
standing in a row, sticking out first one foot 
and then another, while Suteh watered 
away at them as if they tvere plants in a 
flower-bed. This was because it was a 
very muddy day, and they did not wish to 
make the house dirty. The Malay women's 
VOL. ir. 21 




50 DURIAN SABATANG. 

feet, I suppose from never having worn 
shoes, are of a very curious shape ; each toe 
stands out straight, square, and separate 
from the rest, with a wide space between 

it and its neighbour. 
The toes are all of 
about equal length, 
and give the effect of the black notes on the 
keyboard of a piano. The foot is fully 
three times as wide at the toes as at the 
h^l. Probably if the Malay women could 
see European feet with the toes close to- 
gether, and the foot almost the same 
width throughout, they would feel the 
same mixture of pity and contempt 
that we feel on seeing a Chinese lady's 
foot. 

My visitors having entered, one woman, 
the chief of the party, talked with great 
volubility, while the rest squatted silently 
around. The younger ones seemed shy, 



DURIAN SABATANG. 51 

and if I spoke to them, they turned their 
backs and giggled, but spoke no word. 

I went in due course to the Sultan's to 
return this visit. I found the women's 
apartments were in a separate building from 
that in which the Sultan received Mr. Innes 
and the Resident. There was the usual 
sort of ladder to be gone up in order to get 
into the house, like the kind of ladder that 
would be used in a hen-house in England ; 
having duly hopped up it like a hen, my 
hands were seized by a dozen women, who 
half-led and half-pushed me into the room. 
It was a low-roofed, dark shanty, the floor 
being made of lantei, or strips of split 
bamboo, with spaces between them, and 
covered here and there with dirty mats. 
A compound of coflfee and tea mixed to- 
gether without any milk was then handed 
round, with sweet cakes and biscuits, the 
remains of which, according to Malay 

21—2 



52 DURIAN SABATANG. 

custom, were afterwards sent to our house. 
Some of these women wore enormous gold 
earrings, about the size of half a crown, but 
shaped to a point in the middle, like an old 
Roman shield, rather becoming ; and they 
also wore gold belts of a peculiar shape, 
very wide in front, and dwindling away to 
nothing at the sides, while the back was of 
silk. 

Our second year was now drawing to an 
end, and we began to consider where we 
should spend our three weeks' privilege 
leave. We decided to spend it in Java, as 
that was the nearest country where a breath 
of cool air w^as to be had. Mr. Innes 
applied for his leave to the Resident, and 
received permission to go on a certain day 
in May. In the interim, the Resident came 
up for one of his usual visits. This time 
he was accompanied by a daughter. 

The house we lived in, like all others in 



DURIAN SABATANG. 53 

the country, was so open in every part that 
anything spoken in a tone above a whisper 
could be heard all over the house. 

Thus it was that Mr. Innes and I heard 
the Resident dilating to his daughter on the 
charms of our bungalow, and consulting 
with her how it would be advisable to 
apportion the rooms. He was just coming 
to the room where we were sitting, with 
the words, * And this, you know, will do 
beautifully for the nursery,^ on his lips, 
when he perceived us. Knowing that we 
must have heard what he had said, he 
explained that he was thinking what an 
excellent house it would be for his son-in- 
law, should he be the person sent to do 
Mr. Innes's duty for him during his leave. 
It seemed to us strange that the son-in-law 
should think it worth while to move to 
Langat with a large family for so short a 
time as three weeks. The enigma was 



54 DURIAN SABATANG. 



explained in a few days by two letters 
that arrived. One was from the Kesident, 
saying he had met at Malacca the Super- 
intendent of Lower Perak (Mr. Paul), who 
wished to go to Europe on sick-leave, 
and to find some one to relieve him at 
Durian Sabatang in the State of Perak 
during his absence; that Mr. Innes had 
been proposed, and that, much as the 
Resident would regret losing us, he would 
not stand in the way of Mr. Innes's pro- 
motion, on which he heartily congratu- 
lated him, etc. The other letter was from 
the Superintendent himself, conveying the 
same news, and adding that at the time he 
had met the Resident, he was on his way to 
Singapore to see the Governor, to whom 
he should mention Mr. Innes as the proper 
person for his substitute at Durian Saba- 
tang. 

It is impossible to express the annoyance 



DURIAN SABATANG. 55 

we felt on reading these two letters. By 
the date of Mr. Paul's letter, it was evident 
that he must have already seen the Governor 
—perhaps arranged everything with him. 
To explain our feelings, I must mention 
that Durian Sabatang had the reputation 
of being a ' white man's grave/ Mr. Paul 
himself had often expatiated to Mr. Innes 
on the unhealthiness of its climate, assuring 
him that it was far worse than that of the 
Gold Coast of Africa, of which he had had 
personal experience. That this was true 
was evident, as his own health had broken 
down completely, which was the cause of 
his now going to Europe. To leave our 
beautiful new bungalow, just after we had 
had all the trouble of getting it built in a 
healthy situation, and of making it com- 
fortable inside, in order to go back to a 
palm- leaf wigwam in a swamp, was really 
too trying. 



56 DURIAN SABATANG. 

After some consideration Mr. Innes 
wrote to the Eesident, saying that he 
should decline the offered promotion 
immediately on reaching Singapore. The 
Eesident wrote back to say he regretted 
that we could not have the steam-launch 
on the day previously arranged, to take 
us and our luggage to meet the Singapore 
steamer at the mouth of the river, as she 
was going into dock, and it would take 
some time to repair her ; but if we would 
wait a week, we could have her. 

*By which time the Durian Sabatang 
appointment will have been telegraphed 
home, no doubt, and I shall have to accept 
it,' said Mr. Innes; and he wrote back 
that since the steam-launch was not avail- 
able, and it was of great importance to 
him to see the Governor as soon as 
possible, it was his intention to proceed to 
Malacca on the day fixed, in an open boat. 



DURIAN SABATANG. 57 

* That will fetch the steam-launch/ said 
he to me. His prophecy was correct, and 
the steam-launch made her appearance in 
due time. 

When we reached Singapore, Mr. Innes 
went to see the Governor (Sir William 
Robinson) at once, but found that he 
had already telegraphed the appointment 
to the Home Government. He now ex- 
pressed great regret that the mistake 
should have occurred, but pointed out that 
it would place him in a foolish position if 
he had to send a contradiction of his last 
telegram; and he added that he thought 
Mr. Innes was unwise to refuse promotion 
when offered, as if he did so it was not 
likely to be offered again. 

Mr. Innes urged the unhealthiness of 
Durian Sabatang, and that although the 
move might be called promotion, since the 
Acting Superintendentship of Lower Perak 



S8 DURIAN SABATANG. 

was a more important post than the 
CoUectorate of Langat, yet the higher 
pay which he would receive would pro- 
bably not compensate him for the expenses 
of moving. The Governor's arguments 
finally prevailed, however, I regret to say ; 
for fi-om that ill-omened move to Durian 
Sabatang date all our subsequent misfor- 
tunes. 

We enjoyed our trip to Java very much, 
even though the Durian Sabatang affair 
was hanging over us. We then returned 
to Langat to pack up, and in due time 
arrived at Durian Sabatang. 




CHAPTER IV. 

PLEASUEES OF DUEIAN SABATANG. 

URIAN SABATANG was a 

wretched Chinese village, built 
on a flat mud - swamp, about 
forty miles up the Perak river. 

Our first sight of the place filled us with 
dismay. The Residency, or Government 
bungalow, in which we were expected to 
live, was an ancient shed made of palm- 
leaves, propped up on about fifty tottering 
legs made of the stems of palms. The shed 
was in so dilapidated a condition that no 
respectable English farmer would have put 
a respectable English cow into it. There 



6o PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 



was a ladder at the back, and another at the 
front, by which the shed could be entered. 

The so-called * garden' attached to this 
charming abode consisted of a straight flat 
strip of flower-border on each side of a 
straight flat strip of road, about fifty yards 
in length, which led up to the house. 
These borders were planted with what were 
meant to be flowering shrubs, which, not 
being protected by any fence, were nibbled 
to mere stumps by stray goats. There 
was, however, a bit of swampy turf at the 
back of the residential shed, on which we 
eventually managed to play lawn-tennis 
under difficulties. 

On entering the shed, we were at once 
struck by the numerous gaps in the thatch. 
A storm of rain generally occurs once in 
every twenty -four hours in the Straits 
Settlements, consequently it was not long 
before we had an opportunity of experi- 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 6i 

encing all the discomforts attendant on a 
leaky roof. There appeared to be about 
twelve permanent leaks ; but, besides these, 
every now and then the wind would lift 
up a large piece of thatch bodily, while 
the rain poured down as if from buckets 
through the temporary openings thus made. 
There were no ceilings to the rooms; the 
bedrooms were only formed by palm-leaf 
fences about eight feet high, something like 
the * wattles' used in Kent for enclosing 
sheep. The skeleton framework of poles, 
on which the thatch rested, was not veiled 
or disguised in any way. High up on 
these poles, where they converged among 
cobwebs so black and solid from age that 
they looked like pieces of cloth waving in 
the wind, sat rats of all sizes, eating, play- 
ing, and enjoying themselves thoroughly. 
I think they were the only beings that 
did enjoy themselves thoroughly in Durian 



62 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

Sabatang. The cat gazed fiercely at them 
with glittering eyes from below; but not 
being gifted, like a sloth, with the power 
of hanging by her claws from the under 
side of a pole, she could not reach them. 
At first we used to amuse ourselves by 
throwing all sorts of missiles at the rats; 
but we never hit them, and only ftirther 
damaged the frail roof, so we had to give 
that up. 

The use of the shed's fifty legs soon 
became apparent. The first morning after 
our arrival, on looking out of the window- 
hole (windows there are none, of course, 
in so hot a climate), I saw the whole 
country was under water, and one of my 
poor hens, which I had brought with me 
from Langat, was floating past the house 
on the flood with all her new-born chickens. 
This flood was the result of a high tide 
fi'om the sea, from which Durian Sabatang 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 63 

is not very distant as the crow flies. 
We had many such floods during my 
stay in this delectable swamp. The Kling 
gardener delighted in them, as they gave 
him an unfailing excuse for doing nothing. 
When asked why there were neither flowers 
nor vegetables in the garden, he always laid 
the blame on the floods. 

It was, however, vexatious not to be 
able to grow vegetables at home, as none 
fit to eat were to be had in the squalid 
Chinese shops. As for fresh beef or 
mutton, that was quite hopeless. Such a 
thing as a cow or a sheep had never been 
seen in Durian Sabatang. It would have 
cost a great deal more than our pay to 
have imported cows and sheep, and to have 
kept cowherds and shepherds to look after 
them, not to speak of the inevitable loss 
of the animals by death from sea-sickness 
or by the thieveries of the very men 



64 PLEASURES OF D URIAH SABATANG. 

employed to guard them. We lived, there- 
fore, as at Langat, almost entirely on tinned 
meats, which were always much damaged 
by the climate before they reached us. We 
got so sick of them at last that often we 
let them go away from the table untouched, 
and preferred to starve. These tins had, 
most probably, been for many months in 
the Singapore shops, and a month in the 
tropics is more damaging than a year at 
home. A Singapore shopkeeper, imless he 
is greatly belied, looks on an order from a 
* junglewallah ' as a Heaven - sent oppor- 
tunity of getting rid of his unsaleable 
goods. He knows that the freight to the 
jungle is so heavy that the wretched victim 
will think twice before sending anything 
back. 

Whene'er we took our walk abroad — for 
there was only one road in Durian Saba- 
tang, and that only half a mile in length — 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SAB ATA NG. 65 



we saw many hideous, nine-tenths-naked 
Chinese coolies, almost all with repulsive 
skin-diseases, and all, without exception, 
owning the most villainous countenances ; 
they scowled at us with hebetated looks, 
being opium-eaters to a man. Pro-* 
bably they could not see — as, indeed, I 
never could myself — what business we 
English had there at all; however, they 
at any rate had no right to complain, for 
they were as much intruders as ourselves, 
the Malays, or rather the Sakeis, being the 
aborigines. 

A large proportion of the Chinese popula-^ 
tion was generally in prison for some crime 
or other, and gangs of them might be seen 
walking about with chains on their legs, 
each gang under the charge of a small 
Malay policeman with a loaded gun. These 
convicts were generally considered by the 
English and the Malays to be the flower 

VOL. II. 22 



66 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

of the Chinese community, the argument 
being that all Chinese are scoundrels 
deserving of prison, and that those who 
elude prison are merely more practised 
scoundrels than the rest. Thus the con- 
victs were much run after as washermen, 
tailors, and caretakers ; and on one occasion, 
the superintendent of police, being obliged 
to leave suddenly, put his house and all its 
contents under the charge of his pet convict 
as being one of the few comparatively honest 
men in the place. The consequence was 
that this conivict might be seen any day in 
the superintendent's veranda, lounging com- 
fortably in a long chair, with his legs, iron 
chains and all, stuck up on the table, and a 
cigarette in his mouth. I believe, however, 
that the superintendent had no reason to 
regret his choice of a caretaker. 

Some of the convicts were told off to do 
housework in the houses of the three Euro- 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 67 

peans every day; that is, they had to carry 
all the water required for baths, cooking 
purposes, etc. I used to watch the process 
from the window. The first thing the con- 
victs did oil reaching the river, which ran 
past the garden, was to wash themselves all 
over, clothes — what little they had — and 
all; there were sometimes thirty or more 
in the gang ; and as soon as half of them 
had done they filled their pails at the same 
spot, while their comrades were still bathing, 
and brought us our drinking-water for the 
day. I was much disgusted' at this, and 
was on the point of sending out a message 
to them that I should be obliged if they 
would fetch our water first and bathe 
themselves afterwards ; but my husband 
pointed out to me that a few coolies 
more or less bathing there did not 
signify, since the whole population of the 
village not only bathed, but threw every 

22—2 



68 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG, 

sort of refuse into the river a few yards 
farther up. 

The housework was always looked on by 
the convicts as specially degrading, there- 
fore the worst criminals were chosen for it; 
and I had an opportunity every day, when 
walking in the garden, of reading their 
term of imprisonment marked on their 
clothes, and of knowing myself to be sur* 
rounded by murderers and villains of the 
deepest dye. This was rather interesting 
than otherwise. 

For society we had a fluctuating company 
of three at the most, all British. There 
was, I need scarcely say, no doctor among 
them. If any one of the three fell ill and 
wished for medical advice, he had to send a 
boat up the river to ask leave of the Resi- 
dent to go to Penang. The boat took 
about five days to go up the river, as it was 
against the stream, and about three to come 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 69 

back; so even in case of the Resident's 
happening to be at home, and replying at 
once, there must still be eight days' delay 
at the very least before the invalid could 
get permission to go to Penang, and after 
that, possibly a whole fortnight might in- 
tervene before the steamer could arrive to 
take him. The diseases most common to 
Englishmen in the tropics are fever, cholera, 
and sunstroke, any one of which may carry 
off a strong man in a few hours ; but in this 
Government service it was looked upon as a 
crime for any officer, even though feeling 
himself at the point of death, to leaVe his 
post without the proper official eight days 
of delay. The theory in high official circles 
was that ^ an officer worth anything would 
always rather die at his post than leave it 
without permission.' The high officials 
who uttered this noble sentiment doubtless 
forgot that, although their own posts might 



70 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

possibly be worth dying for, it is a little 
unreasonable to expect the same amount of 
enthusiasm from a man whose pay is hardly 
sufficient to keep him, and whose chief 
occupation is to digest the snubs which 
they delight to administer to all those below 
them on the official ladder. 

It is needless to say that there was no 
Christian church in Durian Sabatang. The 
nearest church was at Penang, which was 
practically as far off as if it had been at 
Timbuctoo. 

A trading steamer used to come once a 
fortnight, except when she broke down or 
went into dock. One or other of these mis- 
fortunes happened pretty frequently ; and oh ! 
the straining of the eyes down the river on 
the days when the steamer was expected, 
and the heartsick disappointment when she 
did not come; or, on the other hand, the 
wild tumult of delight when her whistle, 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 71 

faint and far-off, but still unmistakable, 
was heard ! It was not surprising that we 
felt so much excitement about her coming, 
as the whole of our comfort for a month 
depended on that single uncertain thread; 
she had a horrid way of going into dock 
without giving us poor dwellers in jungles 
the slightest warning, and when that was 
the case, we were literally half-starved until 
she came out again. It is impossible in 
the tropics to keep a large stock of eatables 
and drinkables, as everything goes bad 
with the most frightful rapidity. The re- 
sources of Durian Sabatang itself, in the 
way of food, consisted of skinny fowls, as 
usual ; of river-fish, with a strong muddy 
flavour ; and occasionally, as a great treat, 
of a piece of fresh pork, butchered to make 
a Chinese holiday. 

Besides stores, the steamer brought us 
letters and newspapers, and was our only 



>2 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

means of communication with the outside 
world. The rest of the fortnight, when we 
had devoured our newspapers, was wearjj 
stale, flat, and unprofitable, our lives being 
a burden to us through heat, ennui, and 
mosquitoes, of which last, of course, there 
were millions. 

Mr. Innes found no arrangements made 
for his reception at Durian Sabatang. In 
the Government office there were neither 
pens nor ink, paper nor envelopes ; there 
was not even a bit of literal red tape 
nor a penny almanack* Of figurative red 
tape, however, there was, as we soon 
found, so much, that it prevented our 
obtaining the literal article and other 
stationery for many weeks, during which 
Mr. Innes used my private note-paper for 
official purposes ; and instead of being 
thanked by Government for his generosity 
at my expense, was officially reproved for 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 73 

not using the foolscap which did not 
exists 

The oflEice itself, as well as the Residency^ 
was terribly out of repair ; the kitchen ot 
the latter was such a perfect dog-kennel, 
that even the faithful Apat declared he 
could not endure it, and must resign ; the 
wooden wharf was in a dangerous con- 
dition ; the wooden bridges over the creeks 
were impassable from decay. Yet there 
was apparently no money to be obtained 
for necessary repairs ; there was no one 
even to drive a nail at Government expense. 
In Langat, the police and boat-boys, who 
were all Malays, had cheerfully done many 
little jobs of carpentering, painting, etc., 
at the public buildings in their leisure 
time, thus saving the Government a good 
deal of money, and at the same time 
keeping themselves out of mischief Here, 
the police were Sikhs and Pathanb, and 



74 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 



were considered too sacred to be made of 
use in any way that was not strictly 
military. These lordly beings, therefore, 
confined themselves to marching up and 
down below the house, gun in hand, as 
sentries, and begging for brandy whenever 
they saw me, under pretext of drinking 
my health. Even our orderly, a slipshod, 
petticoated Malay boy, was a * milingtary 
man ;' we only discovered this startling 
fact one day by finding that the Com- 
mandant of Perak, who had arrived that 
morning on a visit of inspection, and who 
had promised to lunch with us, had ordered 
Master Amin off to prison. 

' For what ?' was my natural question. 

'It appears that he has lost his regi- 
mental jacket, or sold it,' replied Mr. Innes. 
'I suppose when he became our orderly 
he thought it would not be asked for 
again.* 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 75 

' Well, but who is to get the luncheon 
ready? Tell the Commandant, please, 
that unless he will let the boy out on 
bail, we shall none of us get any 
luncheon.' 

Accordingly, in a few minutes Amin, 
once more a free man, waited on us ; but, 
luncheon over, went back to prison. 

There was a note from the Resident of 
Perak awaiting Mr. Innes on his arrival 
at Durian Sabatang; but it contained 
no reference to business, except a recom- 
mendation to consult Mr. Graham Kerr on 
all points, and an expressed hope, which 
sounded rather sarcastic under the circum- 
stances, that Mr. Innes would find every- 
thing comfortable. 

The society of which I have spoken con- 
sisted, in detail, of an English Superin- 
tendent of Police, of an English youth of 
about eighteen, and of Mr. Kerr, who was a 



7^ PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

Scotchman* With these materials, we 
sometimes managed to get up a game of 
lawn-tennis in the evening when the 
weather permitted ; but what with the 
storms of rain and the high tides, that was 
not often the case. The ground lay so 
low, that unless the daily rain took place 
during the night — this sounds somewhat 
like a bull — and was succeeded by a hot 
sun all day, the lawn was still so swampy 
by five o'clock that every footstep went 
with a swish I slush ! into the grass, and 
a rash player often found himself sitting 
unexpectedly on the ground, to the detri- 
ment of his white clothes and. the amuse- 
ment of the rest of us. The high tides, 
which took place about once a month, and 
lasted for two or three days, laid the whole 
garden under water ; they not only made 
lawn-tennis impossible, but if anyone had 
to enter or leave the house while they were 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 77 

at their height, he had to be carried in a 
long chair by coolies, who waded bare- 
legged through the water* Mr. Innes went 
to and from the office in this fashion 
several times ; as for me, it was not neces-i 
sary that I should go out at any stated 
hour, so I remained in the house until the 
waters had abated. 

We found, in addition to most of the 
insects and reptiles from which we had 
suffered at Langat, there was a plague of 
centipedes at Durian Sabatang. These 
creatures used to crawl up from tl\e damp 
bath-rooms and hide themselves in the 
beds, waiting until their victim was fast 
asleep, when they wriggled out and stung 
him. I was several times stung by them. 
The first time I could not imagine what 
new animal it was, as the pain was quite 
unlike anything I had ever felt before ; and 
after bathing the wound in brandy, which 



78 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

was the only spirit we had in the house, 
I began to hunt about warily for snakes, 
but found only a centipede about five 
inches long under the pillow. I killed it, 
though with difficulty, as it wriggled about 
so fast that much agility was required in 
order to hit it. It was probably only a 
young one, as those we generally found 
about the house were about nine inches 
long. I was never bitten by a full-grown 
one ; I suppose they had more discretion 
than to hide themselves in the very lair 
of their natural enemy, man. 

The bicycle-spider, as we called it, was 
also very common at Durian Sabatang. 
This was a spider of enormous size, from 
which fact it had received its name. It 
had a comparatively small body, with a 
quantity of enormously long thin legs, 
which represented the spokes of the bicycle, 
while the circular outline was formed by a 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 79 

large, flat, round, white nest, which it 
hugged to its body, with a few of its legs, 
while it ran about with the rest. The 
nest was made of thick white spider-web. 
I never had the opportunity of examining 
one with the eggs in it. The discarded 
white nest or envelope we used to find on 
the floor, presumably aJfter the young ones 
had been hatched. 

We were not persecuted by the natives 
here as at Langat. Our predecessor, Mr. 
Paul, had very sensibly put a stop to their 
coming round the house at all hours. I 
was not long enough in Durian Sabatang 
to become intimate with any of the natives, 
and therefore do not know if they bestowed 
a nickname on me, as they did on all the 
English Tuans. They called Mr. Innes 
the Tuan Senang, which means easy-going, 
comfortable, contented ; another ofiicer was 
called the Tuan Kras (hard) on account. 



8o PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

it was believed, of the severe sentences 
which he gave in court ; another was called 
the Tuan Muka-papan, literally ' board- 
faced/ When I looked this epithet out in 
the dictionary, I found it translated ' shame- 
less efirontery;' but a Malay told me it 
meant that the Tuan in question had un- 
limited command of countenance ; that 
whatever you said to this gifted individual, 
his face remained like a board, absolutely 
without expression ; in short, that, like 
Talleyrand, if you were to give him a 
kick from behind, no trace of it would 
appear on his features, 

Mr, Innes was quite disheartened at the 
fearful amount of false witness and perjury 
to which he had to listen every day in 
court at Durian Sabatang. He found it 
worse in this respect than Langat. Every-t 
one, both natives and the few Europeans, 
told him that it was well known that in 



V 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 8i 

Durian Sabatang any man wishing to buy 
witnesses had only to go out into the street, 
and he could get any number for 10 cents 
(5d.) per head, who would swear to anything 
he told them. 

After Mr. Innes had been some time at 
Durian Sabatang, a correspondence arose 
between him and the Resident on the sub- 
ject of slavery. Mr. Innes was astonished 
one day at a policeman bringing him a 
warrant to be signed for the capture of a 
runaway slave. Up to this time he had 
supposed that the customs followed in 
Perak were the same as those of Selangor. 
It had been, as I have already mentioned, 
one of his duties in Selangor to advise the 
Sultan in matters of slavery, and he had 
never found the slightest difficulty in in- 
ducing him to set the slaves free without 
ransom. Now, it appeared, Mr. Innes was 
expected to pursue a diametrically opposite 

VOL. II. 23 



82 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 



practice, and to. range himself on the side of 
the slave-catchers. Horrible stories were 
told him, by the three Europeans in Durian 
Sabatang, of the cruelties practised on the 
slaves when recaptured. These stories 
were confirmed by other Europeans who 
looked in at Durian Sabatang now and 
then for a few hours on their way elsewhere, 
and also by many natives. 

Native testimony is not worth much, 
and the European testimony was only 
that of the natives at secondhand, for no 
European professed to have himself actually 
seen the alleged cruelties. But whether 
these stories were wholly, partly, or not at 
all true, did not appear to Mr. Innes to be 
the chief point for consideration ; the real 
question was, should he or should he not 
become a slave- catcher ? 

Mr. Innes did not demand that slavery 
should be done away with, but its open 



PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 83 

toleration seemed inconsistent with the 
presence of the British flag, which floated 
proudly in front of our house. The nominal 
ruler of Perak, Raja Yusuf, was himself a 
slave-owner to a greater extent than anyone 
else in the country; therefore, unless he 
could he persuaded, like the Sultan of 
Selangor, to give freedom to his slaves, it 
was useless to attempt to do away with the 
system. But Mr. Innes contended that 
though it might be dangerous and unwise 
for the English to interfere to prevent 
slavery, yet the actual aiding and abetting 
of it was a different thing altogether ; and 
that the signature of an English magistrate 
at the foot of a warrant for catching a run- 
away slave was equivalent to aiding and 
abetting the system. He therefore sug' 
gested that the English magistrates in 
general, and himself in particular, should 
be relieved from the duty of signing the 

23—2 



84 PLEASURES OF DURIAN SABATANG. 

slave- warrants. An episode at this time 
occurred which, for a season, diverted 
everyone's thoughts. This was the murder 
generally known in those parts as * the 
Pangkor tragedy.' 



CHAPTER V. 



PANGKOR. 




FTER we had vegetated in Durian 
Sabatang for some months, we 
were electrified one night by 
hearing the whistle of a steamer. Who 
could it be? Mr. Innes looked out, saw 
the fiery eye of a small steam - launch 
gleaming in the blackness of the river, 
and went to meet the new arrival. He 
proved to be a young Englishman, slightly 
known to us, who had a thrilling tale to 
tell. The Chinese coolies at Lumut, to 
the number of many hundreds, were in 
open mutiny, he said, against the English, 



86 PANGKOR. 



and he himself had fled for his life by night. 
Lumut, it should be mentioned, was a 
sugar-estate at some distance, the owner 
of which had lately become bankrupt. Mr. 
Innes felt at first inclined to pooh-pooh the 
danger, though he thought it quite pro- 
bable the coolies were justly irritated at 
not having their wages paid. He, how- 
ever, started with the young Englishman 
next morning for Lumut, taking with him 
a few Sikh police under a Subadar of the 
name of Deen Mahomed. 

Of this Deen Mahomed a story is told, 
which for the comfort of humane readers 
I can assure them is not true^ either of 
him or of anyone else, but it serves to show 
the sort of reputation he had. The story 
is to the eflFect that in the Perak War, after 
a skirmish, he informed his chief that there 
were sixty-three prisoners. Whereupon his 
chief blazed out in fiiry : 



PANGKOR. 87 



* What the etcetera do you mean, sir, by 
cumbering us with all these prisoners? 
Don't you know we want to push on as 
quickly as we can ?' 

The chief went to bed in very bad 
humour, Next morning, the Subadar 
appeared and touched his cap. 

* Well, what have you got to say ? 
What are we to do with those confounded 

prisoners ?' 

'The prisoners, sir, all died in the 
night/ 

^ Died ill the night! What, sixty -three 
of them ?' 

' Yes, sir.' 

' Died in the night ? Well, well, perhaps 
on the whole it was the best thing you — 
ahem ! — they could do ; for now we can 

push on.' 

There were also anecdotes of the strange 
suicide of one inconvenient prisoner, and 



88 PANGKOR. 



of the shooting of another, under Deen 
Mahomed's charge on another occasion. 
The former, Deen Mahomed said, had 
jumped overboard from the steam-launch; 
but sailors who were present on board, 
though they did not actually see what 
took place, declared the prisoner was so 
chained and bound that the thing was 
physically impossible. The second, Deen 
Mahomed said, he had shot because the man 
was escaping; but rumour said it was a 
singular fact that the bullet-wound found 
in the man's body was in front None of 
these anecdotes rested on really good 
evidence, however; they only served to 
raise a laugh among the European oflGicials, 
who all agreed that Deen Mahomed was 
a * very useful fellow ; still,' they would 
add, 'there is no doubt he is a character. 
Quite an original !' 
When Mr. Innes arrived at Lumut he 



PANGKOK. 89 



found there was a good deal of truth in 
the young Englishman's report. The 
Chinese, though they could hardly as yet 
be called in open mutiny, were evidently 
ripe for it ; in fact, in the very first words 
which Mr. Innes exchanged with their 
headman, the latter openly threatened his 
—the magistrate's— life, and that of all 
the Englishmen in the State. The words 
were hardly out of his mouth when the 
audacious Chinaman measured his length 
on the floor, Deen Mahomed having with 
the speed of lightning twisted his hand 
into the man's pigtail and laid him low, 
without waiting for orders. Mr. Innes 
could hardly forbear a smile at the neat 
way in which it was done; but, after 
allowing the man to lie there for a minute 
or two as a lesson, he desired Deen 
Mahomed to let him get up, and then 
addressed the coolies through him as inter- 



90 PANGKOR. 



preter, for they did not know Malay. He 
told them that he could not allow them 
to remain at Lumut, as, the estate beiog 
bankrupt, there was no longer work fcr 
them there; but that he would give them 
all a free passage, with food, to Penaug, 
and would report their case to the authori- 
ties in Penang, who, he. had no doubt, 
would soon find them suitable employment 
and wages. The men appeared satisfied 
with this programme, translated for them 
into Chinese by the headman, whose pig- 
tail was still in the grasp of Deen 
Mahomed, and whose manners were conse- 
quently wonderfully softened and improved. 
Mr. Innes saw the coolies all off by the 
.next steamer, pajdng another visit to 
Lumut for the purpose ; and it was hoped 
that the whole affair had blown over, a 
hope not destined to be realized. 

On his way back fi'om Lumut, Mr. Innes 



PANGKOR. 91 



called, in his magisterial capacity, on the 
Superintendent of the neighbouring island 
of Pangkor, and happened to mention that 
I was very unwell — a not surprising result 
of the discomforts of Durian Sabatang. 
The Superintendent and his wife kindly 
suggested that a visit of two or three 
days to them at the seaside might benefit 
me. I had never seen either of them, but 
that was of no consequence in a country 

« 

where English are so rare that all are to 
a certain extent brothers. So on receiving 
a note from Mrs. Lloyd, I accepted the 
invitation without scruple, and a few days 
more saw me on board a steam-launch on 
my way to Pangkor. Mr. Innes was, of 
course, unable to accompany me, as he 
was tied to his office work in Durian 
Sabatang. 

When I arrived at the Lloyds', the first 
thing they told me was that all their men- 



92 PANGKOR. 



servants had absconded the day before, 
Immediately after receiving their wages. I 
was not much surprised- at this, as I had 
often heard of such things happening to 
other people. We ourselves had never 
had any experience of the kind, but we 
attributed this to our having brought two 
trustworthy servants with us /rom Sarawak, 
where the servants are, as a rule, far better 
than those to be had in the Malay penin- 
sula. In fact, the latter are always said 
to be the refuse of China; and those who 
take situations in isolated jungles are the 
refuse of that refuse — men who have made 
the towns too hot to hold them, and are 
glad to be in hiding for a time. I felt very 
sorry for my hostess, who did not look 
strong, and had three small children, the 
youngest only six months old. She had 
been obliged to get in some Kling servants 
from the village at a moment's notice— 



PANGKOR. 93 



one to act as house-boy, the other as under- 
nurse — but they appeared to be ignorant 
savages. There was also a Chinese ayah, 
of whom more anon. 

I had luckily brought Apat with me as 
my attendant. He went by the nickname 
of the ^Faithftd,' because a sort of canine 
fidelity appeared to be his strongest 
characteristic. As soon as he discovered 
the state of afikirs, he both cooked the 
dinner and waited on us at table, also 
doing what he could to help in the house- 
work. 

Next day we went for a walk on the 
island, ending with a call on the Penghulu, 
or Malay headman of the district. Our 
reception was not particularly cordial, and 
on our way home I was told the cause of 
this. Mrs. Lloyd had been ill, and the 
Penghulu's womenkind had come to call 
on her and inquire after her health. They 



94 PANGKOR. 



thought it due to themselves, Malay fashion, 
to come in a troop of thirty, tailing off into 
a rabble of dirty unclad little slave boys 
and girls ; they forced their way into her 
bedroom, -where she was lying down with 
a bad headache, and, intrusive and obtuse 
like all Malay women, began to ask foolish 
and impertinent questions, to touch Mrs. 
Lloyd's face and dress with their dirty 
hands, and to beg for everything they 
saw, which, as I have said, in their code 
of manners is considered a delicate compli- 
ment to the owner. They did not mean 
any harm ; on the contrary, they doubtless 
thought they were showing themselves ex- 
tremely kind and neighbourly ; but the not 
unnatural result of their attentions was that 
on Captain Lloyd's coming in, Mrs. Lloyd 
begged him to send them away, and he 
cleared the room without ceremony. The 
women went home and complained to the 



PANGKOR. 95 



Penghulu that the Superintendent had been 
uncivil, no doubt greatly exaggerating his 
actions ; and since that day the Penghulu 
and he had been barely on speaking terms. 

On the following day we paid a visit to 
the deserted sugar estate of Lumut, which 
was on the mainland close by. Here we 
visited the hut of the Eurasian Superin- 
tendent, who was remaining there almost 
alone until all the affairs of the estate 
should be wound up. He evidently wished 
to make himself extremely agreeable, and 
busied himself in preparing tea for us. As 
we steamed baxjk in the launch to Pangkor, 
I asked Captain Lloyd how it was that 
this man, who was doubtless looked on 
as a white man by the Chinese coolies, 
had been able to stay on in no danger 
from them, although the two other white 
men on the estate hg^d both fled. He 
replied that this man was believed to 



96 PANGKOR. 



belong to the same Chinese Hoey, or secret 
society, as the coolies. I afterwards found 
that this was the case, and that at the very 
time that this wretch was giving us tea, 
and affecting to be so anxious for our 
comfort, he must have been acquainted 
with all the plans of the Hoey, and must 
have known that in a few hours we should 
in all probabUity be murdered; yet he never 
gave us the least hint of it. True, had he 
done so, and had it become know^n to the 
Hoey that he had done so, his own life 
might have been in danger ; but if he had 
chosen, he might quite easily have warned 
us without any Chinaman's being the 
wiser. 

The evening passed without anything 
eventful occurring, and as the mosquitoes 
were maddening, we separated for the night 
soon after nine. 

I had been asleep some two hours, per- 



PANGKOR. 97 



haps, when I was suddenly awakened by a 
great shouting and a great light overhead. 
The house was, like ours at Durian Saba- 
tang, subdivided by partitions only of about 
eight feet in height, so that a light in any 
one room lit up the whole roof, which was 
visible from all parts of the house. Besides 
the shouting and the glare I heard several 
shots fired; ' A Chinese festival, no doubt,' 
thought I; and I felt no alarm, but only 
surprise that Captain Lloyd should allow 
Chinese to come into his house making 
such a disturbance at midnight. After the 
noise had gone on for a few seconds, I began 
to think it strange that I did not hear 
Captain Lloyd's voice, and then to think 
that the sounds were almost too loud and 
confused even for a Chinese feast. I did 
not feel inclined to go out of my room, as 
my dress was hardly the thing for a mixed 
company, but compromised matters by 
VOL. II. 24 



98 PANGKOR. 



jumping on a small table that stood near, 
and peeping over the partition. Then I 
saw a sight which at once convinced me 
that all was not right. In the doorway- 
opposite me, which I knew was that of Mrs. 
Lloyd's room, were two Chinamen dashing 
open a box with hatchets. Yet I was far 
from guessing what was the fact, namely, 
that my host had been murdered a few 
minutes before, and that he and his wife 
were now lying, weltering in their blood, 
just inside that doorway! I cried out 
loudly, ' Captain Lloyd ! Mrs. Lloyd ! 
what is all this? what is the matter?' 
There was, of course, no answer ; but one 
of the Chinamen looked up, saw me, and, 
with his hatchet still in his hand, made for 
the door of my bedroom. I darted down 
and held the door, in the insane hope of 
keeping him out; but, alas! it was only 
made, like the rest of the house, of palm- 



P ANGKOR. 99 



leaves lashed together with rattan, and in 
another moment the Chinaman had forced 
it open, and stood before me. Even then I 
did not understand that he intended to 
murder me. I was ignorant of the tragedy 
that had just taken place, and it never 
occurred to me as possible that the Lloyds 
were not alive and well somewhere about 
the house. The Chinaman marched gravely 
and stolidly into the middle of the room, I 
retreating before him, and saying in Malay, 
' What are you doing here? what do you 
want? Get out!' He made no answer, 
but held the hatchet up in front of him, 
grasping the handle with both hands, and, 
without the smallest change of expression 
in his countenance, made cuts, as I then 
thought, ineffectually at my head. I raised 
my hand to parry the blows, and, as I felt 
absolutely no pain, fancied I had succeeded; 
but I must have fiiUen down insensible, as 

24—2 



loo P ANGKOR. 



I remember nothing more. The doctor, on 
afterwards examining my head, found three 
trifling cuts and one severe one upon it, the 
latter about four inches long and tolerably 
deep. 

It may seem stupid of me to have been 
I so' long in taking in the idea that I was 



I 



\ 



going to be murdered, but I must plead in 
I excuse that the demeanour of my friend the 

Chinaman was calculated to mislead me as 
to his intentions. The ideal murderer of 
history and fiction is, as we know, a being 
full of fire and fury, rushing upqn his 
victim with a glance so deadly that it tells 
its own tale, and at once carries conviction 
even to the dullest intellect. But this man 
was calm, composed, phlegmatic; he ad- 
vanced without the smallest emotion or 
flurry, and appeared, in fact, exactly as if 
he were going about his ordinary business. 
The secret of this may be that he was em- 



PANGKOR. loi 



ployed in his usual business; for he proved 
to be one of a gang that made robbery and 
murder their nightly occupation in Province 
Wellesley. 



CHAPTER VI. 



AFTER THE MURDEB. 




DO not know how long I lay 
unconscious, but my next re- 
collection is of being waked by 
the sound of many excited Malay voices in 
the room. On first coming to myself I was 
by no means clear in my head or memory, 
and tried in vain to recollect where I was 
and what had happened. What helped to 
bewilder me was that I found myself lying 
on the floor under a bed, among boxes and 
lumber that were all strange to me. I 
listened eagerly to the noise going on in the 
room, but as about twenty Malays were all 



AFTER THE MURDER. 103 

talking at once, even a better Malay scholar 
than myself might have been puzzled. I 
gathered, however, from a stray sentence, 
that Captain Lloyd was dead. This filled 
me with horror, which increased when I 
heard them talking about a Chinaman who 
was dead, and when I listened in vain for 
the voices of Mrs. Lloyd or the children. 
The silence of the latter seemed indeed 
ominous, as during my short acquaintance 
with them I had never before known them 
to be all quiet simultaneously. The poor 
little things had kept up a constant wailing 
night and day, from not being accustomed 
to their new nurse; so that now, when 
there was so much additional cause for their 
crying, their silence seemed most unnatural. 
I would have given a great deal at that 
moment to have heard again the pitiful 
wailing that had kept me awake on the first 
night of my arrival. 



I04 AFTER THE MURDER. 

Presently I heard one of the Malays in- 
quiring after me, and another replied, in a 
cheerful voice : 

* Doubtless she is dead, and her body 
thrown into the sea/ 

This did not seem to convince the ques- 
tioner, who called out : 

* Mem Perak ! mem Perak !' (lady from 
Perak) ^ where are you? Do not fear; we 
are your friends. Come out !' 

I felt 60 sure by this time that I was the 
only survivor from a general massacre of 
the English and their followers — ^for I had 
made up my mind that the dead Chinaman 
of whom they spoke was Apat, my servant 
— ^that I resisted without difficulty this 
polite invitation to come and be murdered, 
as I considered it. In fact, the more the 
Malays called me, the less inclined I felt to 
come; and when one of them presently 
lifted up the draperies of the bed and peered 



AFTER THE MURDER. 105 

under it, I held my breath and lay as still as 
possible. He did not see me, as there was very 
little light, and the boxes concealed me. 

The Malays continued to chatter, and I 
to listen. I heard one of them giving 
orders, and others deferentially repljring, 
* Yes, sir, certainly, Tuan Penghulu.' I 
immediately jumped to the conclusion, from 
what I had known of the quarrel between 
Captain Lloyd and the Penghulu, that the 
latter had planned the murder; and I 
wondered if I were * the humble instrument 
destined by Providence ' to be the means of 
hanging the Penghulu as high as Haman. 
In the meantime it seemed extremely doubt- 
ful whether I could remain undiscovered 
where I was until help should arrive, and I 
began to think of all the stories I had heard 
of Malays on the war-path, and to wonder 
if, like other savages, they were in the 
habit of torturing their victims before 



io6 AFTER THE MURDER. 

putting them to death. In the midst of 
these speculations, which had just then a 
painftd and personal interest for me, I 
suddenly heard the Penghulu dictating a 
letter, apparently to Mr. Innes, urging him 
to come at once and to bring plenty of 
police. This produced quite a revolution 
in my opinions ; it was incompatible 
with my theory that the Penghulu was 
a murderous rebel, as the police in question 
were Sikhs and Pathans under the notorious 
Deen Mahomed ; in short, they were for- 
midable fellows, and the very last men 
whom a rebellious Malay would wish to 
meet. My doubts of the Penghulu were 
further dispelled by my hearing the well- 
known nasal drawl of my servant Apat, who 
came in saying he had hunted everywhere 
for me, and could not find me. This 
determined me to come out and show 
myself, and I did so. 



AFTER THE MURDER. 107 

I must confess that the moment of my 
emerging from my retreat was an exciting 
one, for I could not really tell for certain 
whether I had heard aright — ^whether, in 
fact, I should be welcomed or murdered. 
But I was not long left in doubt. After a 
general exclamation of * Wah !' from every- 
body, they rushed up to me, Apat foremost. 
In delight at seeing me again, he seized 
both my hands, grinning from ear to ear, 
and expressing his joy at my being alive. 
I then had to tell the assembled company 
all that I knew of my own adventures, 
which was, of course, very little ; and they 
in return took up the tale from where I left 
off. They told me that, in the middle of 
the night, they had heard shots at the 
Kesidency, and had looked out and seen a 
great blaze of light in the direction of the 
house. They immediately armed them- 
selves, and came to find out what was 



io8 AFTER THE MURDER. 

going on, arriving in time to see a quantity 
of boats foil of Chinamen putting off from 
the shore. As they had no means at hand 
of pursuing them, they went into the house, 
where they found Captain Lloyd dead, Mrs. 
Lloyd apparently dying, the furniture all 
wrecked, and the bedclothes and other 
draperies just bursting into flames ; the 
Chinese having set fire to them with 
torches, no doubt in hopes of obliterating 
all traces of their crime. The Malays ex- 
tinguished the flames, and did what they 
could for the dead and the dying. The 
Penghulu was on the point of sending off a 
report of the affair to Mr. Innes, mention- 
ing, among other items, that I was missing, 
when I appeared. This story tallied so per- 
fectly with all that I had heard whilst Ijring 
perdue^ that I saw no reason to doubt it. 

The Penghulu then showed me Captain 
Lloyd's body, which was on the floor. 



AFTER THE MURDER. 109 

reverently covered witli a sheet, and the 
seemingly lifeless form of Mrs. Lloyd on 
the very bed from under which I had just 
come out. Her eyes were closed, and her 
face deathly pale, except where it was 
covered with blood, or black from the 
bruises of the hammers with which the 
fiendish rufiians had not scrupled to strike 
her. Intensely shocked at this sight, I 
asked the Penghulu whether he thought 
she was alive. He said yes, but that he 
did not think she could possibly recover ; 
in proof of which he pointed to a washhand 
basin half-full of blood which he said she had 
vomited, showing, as he thought, that she 
had received some frightftil internal injury. 
I suggested that ' while there was life there 
was hope,' and that we ought to do all we 
could to get her English medical assistance ; 
and, after discussing what was possible to 
be done, it was proposed that I should go 



no AFTER THE MURDER, 

in the steam-launch, which was just about 
to set off for Durian Sabatang, and fetch 
with all speed the trading steamer, now 
probably somewhere on the Perak river. 
I felt some doubt as to whether I had 
not better remain with Mrs. Lloyd, in 
case of her becoming conscious ; but the 
Penghulu assured me that, from his ex- 
perience of such cases, she would certainly 
not recover consciousness for hours, per- 
haps not for days ; and that I might safely 
leave her in the charge of her Chinese ayah 
and of his own wife (who sat beside the 
bed fanning her), and be back again with 
the steamer before she could wake. Ac- 
cordingly this was settled, and as the 
steam-launch was not yet quite ready, the 
Penghulu sat down to finish his letter, 
while I went to make some alterations 
in my dress. First, however, I inquired 
after the children, and, to my amazement. 



AFTER THE MURDER. 1 1 1 

was told they were alive and unharmed. I 
walked into the nursery to see them for 
myself, and there they were, all placidly 
asleep in their little cribs. How they had 
contrived to sleep through all the disturb- 
ances was wonderful, unless, as was after- 
wards suggested, they had been drugged by 
the Chinese ayah. 

The Malays now brought me a looking- 
glass to show me what my own appearance 
was like, and truly I was a ghastly object. 
My face, my hair, and my clothes were 
covered with not merely stains, but masses 
of clotted blood. I could not attempt to 
alter this, as I did not wish to keep the 
steam-launch waiting ; so I merely added a 
hat and a long cloak to the clothes that I 
already wore, and started. 

Once on board I had plenty of time, 
and tried to wash the blood from my face ; 
but the skin was bruised and painful to 



112 AFTER THE MURDER. 

the touch, and I desisted, under the im- 
pression that my fece was cloven in half 
by a sword-cut — a mistaken impression, as 
it turned out, for I had no wounds except 
those on the top of my head. I now 
took the opportunity of asking A pat ' the 
Faithful ' where he had been during the 
attack. He hung his head, and replied 
that he had run away. I asked if it had 
never occurred to him to try to help me. 
He protested that at the very first sight 
of the robbers he was running to warn 
me, when he was wounded in the leg — here 
he showed an infinitesimal scratch on his 
ankle — and that then he ran away ; but 
after getting into the jungle he turned 
back, intending to look for me, when the 
Chinese ayah, who wanted him to help her 
up a steep bank, assured him that she had 
seen me escape, and that I was a little way 
on in fi*ont. 



AFTER THE MURDER. 113 

I think it occurred to Apat that his 
conduct had not been particularly heroic; 
but I could not but recollect that one 
of his first acts on finding me to be alive 
had been to put into my hands my dress- 
ing-bag, which he knew contained dollars. 
Any other Chinese servant would certainly 
have kept that bag to himself, and said 
nothing about it ; so, comparatively, Apat 
was still entitled to his distinctive appella- 
tion of the ' Faithful/ 

The steam-launch was much longer in 
meeting the steamer than I had expected ; 
but at last the welcome sight of her masts 
appeared, and I stopped her and told my 
story. I then sent on the steam-launch 
to Durian Sabatang, with Apat bearing a 
verbal message to Mr. Innes that he was 
not to be alarmed, as I felt quite well. 
This message Apat never delivered, but 
appeared before Mr. Innes with tears 

VOL. II. 25 



114 AFTER THE MURDER. 

streaming down his face, and in such a 
state of fright at having to deliver bad 
news, that Mr. Lines could get hardly any 
news out of him at all. The Penghulu's 
letter was not much better, being like all 
Malay letters — fiill of complimentary 
nothings, with the one piece of information 
crammed into half a line and placed in 
the middle of the letter, where it was as 
difficult to find as the proverbial needle 
in a haystack. 

On our return to Pangkor, a coffin was 
hastily made for the body of Captain 
Lloyd, and it was carried on board to be 
taken to Penang. Mrs. Lloyd, still un- 
conscious, and the children were also 
carried on board. I wished to remain 
behind to meet my husband, but was told 

that for several reasons it was advisable 
that I should also go to Penang: first, 
my testimony would be wanted at the 



AFTER THE MURDER. 115 

inquest; secondly, my own wounds re- 
quired medical attention ; and thirdly, I 
might be of use in attending Mrs. Lloyd, 
as there was no European woman on board. 
To these representations I yielded, and, 
leaving a note to be delivered to Mr. Innes 
on his arrival, I went on board. 

We arrived at Penang at daybreak on 
Sunday. Our arrival caused, as may be 
supposed, a considerable sensation. Crowds 
of natives swarmed on to the wharf. The 
English authorities of Penang were soon in 
attendance, and an inquest was held on 
board ; after which a discussion took place 
as to what was to be done with the sur- 
vivors. The Lieutenant - Governor of 
Penang and his wife— Sir Archibald and 
Lady Anson — ^with their usual hospitality 
and warm-heartedness, wished to take in 
the whole party — children, ayahs, and all ; 
but this was overruled by the doctor, who 

25—2 



ii6 AFTER THE MURDER. 

decided that Mrs. Lloyd was too ill to be 
moved so far, the Lieutenant-Governor's 
house being several miles oflF, So it ended 
in Mrs. Lloyd and the children being taken 
in by a friend close at hand ; while I went 
to the Lieutenant-Governor s house, where 
everything was done for me that could 
possibly be done in the way of kindness 
and attention. Before I left the steamer 
the doctor insisted on my having part of 
my head shaved. I have no doubt he was 
right ; but the shaving, while the wounds 
were still fresh, hurt me terribly, whereas 
up to that moment I had felt no pain or 
discomfort from them. 

I had barely arrived at the Lieutenant- 
Governor's house when Mr. Innes arrived 
from Durian Sabatang. He had received 
the most garbled account of the affair — 
first from Apat, and then from the 
Penghulu at Pangkor, where he stopped 



4FTER THE MURDER. 117 

for a few minutes on the way. He had had 
a most dangerous voyage himself, having 
come in a little steam-launch, which was 
only fit for river use, and having en- 
countered an awful storm at sea. As soon 
as he had satisfied himself that I was 
neither dead nor dying, he went to inter- 
view the Lieutenant-Governor, who warned 
him that he would get into dire disgrace 
with his chief for having left his post with- 
out permission, as the excuse of a half- 
murdered wife was not admissible in official 
circles ; and directed him to return at once 
to the scene of the murder, whither police, 
men-of-war, and all manner of defences 
were now being sent in hot haste, to 
^lock the stable-door,* and to capture the 
murderers if possible. 

Investigations were meanwhile made in 
Penang, which resulted in the discovery 
that the murder had been done by a gang 



ii8 AFTER THE MURDER. 

of Chinamen, composed partly of the ex- 
coolies of Lumut, and partly of professional 
gang- robbers, who had hired a junk, and 
been seen to start in the direction of 
Pangkor some days previously. It further 
came out that these coolies, indignant at 
being summarily disbanded in Lumut, and 
at not being at once provided with work by 
the Penang Government, had taken it into 
their foolish heads that Captain Lloyd was 
in some way to blame for their misfortunes, 
and that he was keeping back the money 
which ought to have been paid them in 
wages. Just at that juncture arrived the 
three Chinese servants who had absconded 
from Captain Lloyd's the day before my 
unlucky visit. They acted upon the dis- 
contented coolies like a spark upon gun- 
powder. The servants fancied they had 
themselves some grievance against Captain 
Lloyd, particularly the cook, who on one 



AFTER THE MURDER. ti9 



occasion had so far forgotten himself as to 
fling a plate at his master's head ; and they 
easily persuaded the coolies that they would 
be only doing what was just and fair if 
they organized an expedition to recover 
their lawfiil wages, which, the servants 
declared, were kept by Captain Lloyd, to 
the extent of $7,000, in a safe in his bed- 
room. 

It is scarcely .necessary to say that the 
money so kept was not really the wages of 
the Lumut coolies; it was Government 
revenue, collected by Captain Lloyd, and 
kept in the safe until the proper day of 
forwarding it should arrive. However, the 
coolies swallowed the tale greedily, took 
some professional gang-robbers and the 
three servants with them, and carried out 
the expedition as we have seen. They 
found only $1,000 in the safe, instead of 
the reported $7,000 ; but they partly con- 



120 AFTER THE MURDER. 

soled themselves by carrying off all the 
watches, bracelets, and other valuables in 
the house. It was believed that at least 
sixty Chinamen had taken part in the 
affair. 

While these facts were oozing out in 
Penang, Mr, Innes and Deen Mahomed 
had not been idle. They obtained informa- 
tion from the Penang police which led to 
the arrest on suspicion of about forty 
Chinamen, most of whom were afterwards 
let off for want of sufficient evidence, 
though there were proofs clear to every 
European mind of their guilt. One ring- 
leader was captured by Deen Mahomed 
with his usual ability. It was Tan Ah 
Teck, the ex-headman at Lumut, the same 
who had threatened Mr. Innes's life, and had 
been thereupon floored by Deeri Mahomed. 
The latter now heard that this man might 
possibly be found after dark at a certain 



AFTER THE MURDER. 121 

wood - cutter's hut* An expedition was 
therefore arranged under Mr, Innes, and 
he, Deen Mahomed, and about ten Sikh 
policemen, started for the hut. The night 
was most inclement ; in fact, next morning 
it was found that no less than eight inches 
of rain had fallen within twelve hours — a 
thing, quite unprecedented even in that 
climate. * However, Mn Innes and Deen 
Mahomed agreed that the worse the weather 
the better for their purpose, as they were 
more likely to find Mr. Tan Ah Teck at 
home. But in this they were disappointed. 
They found several coolies in the hut; but 
Tan Ah Teck was not there, and the 
coolies denied all knowledge of him. 
Nevertheless, Deen Mahomed suspected, 
firom their manner, that he was not fiu* off, 
and laid his plans accordingly. He took 
Mr. Innes aside, and confided to him his 
impression, adding that in such weather 



122 AFTER THE MURDER. 



Tan Ah Teck would be sure to come back 
soon, if he could be deceived into thinking 
that the police were gone. He therefore 
proposed that Mr. Innes and all the police- 
men except two should return to the steam- 
launch, taking with them all the coolies, 
and making as much noise as possible on 
the way. He, Deen Mahomed, would 
remain behind, lying in wait with the two 
policemen for the return of Tan Ah Teck. 
All fell out exactly as he had foreseen. 
The voices of the retreating party had 
hardly died away in the distance, when a 
Chinaman stole up in the darkness, 
scratched gently at the palm-leaf shutter, 
and called softly in Chinese to know if the 
coast was clear, no doubt believing some of 
his comrades to be inside. Deen Mahomed 
darted forward, pinioned his arms, and 
dragged him to the light, when he easily 
recognised Tan Ah Teck ; and, after 



AFTER THE MURDER, 123 

securing him, fired the two shots agreed 
upon between him and Mr. Innes as the 
signal of success. At the assizes, Tan Ah 
Teck was convicted, and sentenced to penal 
servitude for life. He died in prison some 
time afterwards, and it is satisfactory to 
know that when dying he voluntarily con- 
fessed his guilt to the Superintendent of 
Prisons in Singapore. 




CHAPTER VIL 

VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

jFTER three weeks, when the 
country was again quiet, and 
the English in Penang had 
ceased to look shudderingly under their 
beds at night for Chinese robbers, I re- 
turned to Durian Sabatang. I was twice 
summoned from thence to go to Penang as 
a witness, and obeyed the first time, partly 
in the vain hope of identifying my would- 
be murderer, and partly in fear of a terrible- 
looking document which informed me that 
* Victoria, by the grace of God,' etc., greeted 
the Sheriff of Penang, and commanded 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 125 

him to summon me to Penang. Not being 
accustomed to receive subpoenas, I thought 
myself obliged to obey ; and it was not till 
I arrived at Penang that I found I might 
have set the Penang authorities at .defiance 
had I chosen, since, being domiciled in the 
Native States, I was under the rule of 
Eaja Yusuf. I had to go alone, as Mr. 
Innes had not time to ask permission fi'om 
Mr. Low to accompany me. The steamer, 
which was the only means of transit, started 
at night ; it was very dirty, and crowded 
with still dirtier natives. Needless to say, 
there was no accommodation for ladies on 
board, so that I had to pass the night on 
deck among the mosquitoes and coolies. 

We had hardly left Durian Sabatang, 
when the steamer ran down a small Malay 
boat in the dark, and then went crashing 
into the mangrove-trees on the bank with 
such force that I thought surely a hole 



126 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

must be knocked in the ship. However, 
there was not ; we picked up first the crew 
of the boat, then the boat itself, put the one 
into the other, and calmly proceeded on 
our way. After this little excitement was 
over, I looked round to see how many 
boats there would have been to take to in 
case of the ship Having sprung a serious 
leak, and to my surprise found there were 
none at all. I asked the captain what he 
would do in case of any accident happening, 
such as the boiler bursting (a not unfre^ 
quent occurrence in those parts, where the 
engineers are often very ignorant of their 
trade), or a collision at sea. He replied, 
simply, that he did not know. 

At daybreak we passed the island of 
Pangkor. I scarcely liked to look at the 
place, which recalled so many horrors to me. 
When I had last seen it, three weeks before, 
it bad been brightly lit up by the torches 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME, 127 

of the Malays, whose advent had probably 
saved the lives of Mrs. Lloyd and myself. 
Now, all was quiet and peaceful in the 
grey dawn ; but two men-of-war and some 
smaller vessels anchored near testified by 
their unwonted presence to the somewhat 
tardy care which the British Government 
takes of its officials. 

In the course of the same day we reached 
Matang, a small hamlet near the mouth of 
the Perak Eiver. Here the steamer was to 
remain two days, to set down her passengers 
and cargo and take up a fi'esh relay of 
both. The question was, what was to be 
done with me ? There was one Englishman 
stationed at Matang, but he was a bachelor, 
therefore not prepared to entertain ladies- 
errant. It was impossible for me to remain 
on board two whole days and nights, there 
being no sleeping arrangements ; and it 
was equally impossible for me to sleep XA 



128 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

the jungle. So the telegraph was put into 
requisition (there was a telegraph in Perak 
— delightfiil sign of civilization !), and a 
message was sent to the Resident, then the 
guest of the Assistant-Resident at Taipeng, 
about eight miles off. The answer came 
back shortly, and consisted of a polite in- 
vitation to me to stay at the Assistant- 
Resident's house as long as the steamer 
remained in port. I gladly accepted this 
offer, and was soon jolting in a tiny gharry 
over the very bad road (of those days) that 
led to Taipeng. 

My stay of two days there was most 
enjoyable, and I look back upon it as one 
of the few bright gleams in my dreary 
jungle life. There were several Europeans, 
even including two ladies, in Taipeng, be- 
sides the Resident, the Assistant-Resident, 
and the Commandant. We had some de- 
lightful walks and drives in the neighbour- 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 129 



hood; and though one day I and two 
others were thrown out of a buggy, and 
flew through the air over a steep bank, that 
only afforded a pleasant little excitement, 
as no one was hurt — not even the pony, 
whose backing over the bank had been the 
cause of the upset. 

Before the steamer left Matang the Resi- 
dent kindly ordered it to be thoroughly 
cleaned and made comfortable for me with 
all manner of luxuries, and forbade that 
any passenger but myself should go on 
board. The difference that this made was 
enormous ; the steamer was now like my 
own yacht, and I shall always feel grateful 
to Mr. Low for his consideration for me on 
this occasion. 

The steamer, by Mr. Low's orders, called 
for me at Penang when I was ready to 
come away, and took me back to Matang, 
I being again the only passenger allowed 

VOL. II. 26 



130 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

on board. She stopped twenty-four hours 
at Matang, which time I spent, as before, 
at Taipeng, carrying back with me to 
Durian Sabatang most pleasant recollections 
of the courtesy and hospitality with which 
I had been treated, and an invitation to 
Mr. Innes and myself to visit the Resident 
at his own house at Christmas, now rapidly 
approaching. 

Christmas came, and with it the steamer, 
beautifully clean as before, to fetch us for 
our visit We had a delightful passage to 
Matang. As we entered the mouth of the 
Perak River, we saw some Malays strug- 
gling to fire off a cannon, which they 
effected after we had passed. This, the 
captain informed us, was to let the world of 
Matang know we had arrived. We natu- 
rally felt some inches taller on hearing this. 
At the landing-place we found a ' guard of 
honour ' of Sikhs and Pathans drawn up to 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 131 

receive us, and we then mounted gharries, 
which were waiting for us, and drove off to 
Taipeng. Here we stayed a night, and 
early next morning set off on elephants for 
Kuala Kangsa, where Mr. Low lived. The 
beauty of the country through which we 
passed I shall never forget. The Pass of 
Bukit Berapit was perfectly lovely in the 
early dawn, the dew still glistening on the 
marvellous variety of foliage, and the king- 
fishers and parrots darting across the moun- 
tain stream that swept beside the path. 

I had been told beforehand that I should 
probably find the motion of the elephant 
very fatiguing, but it was not so. I en- 
joyed it very much, though I was twice on 
the point of tumbling off. We were seated 
in small baskets, balanced one on each side 
of the elephant's back. There was no way 
of keeping in the basket except by holding on 
tight with one's hands whenever the animal 

26—2 



132 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

gave a lurch. It did not lurch often, but 
on coming to a bridge it tried the boards 
with one foot, and then, shaking its head 
wisely to express its distrust of them, 
plunged head foremost into the ditch by the 
side of the road. I was not prepared for 
this sudden dip, and should certainly have 
gone over the elephant's head had I not 
been caught in time ; again, when the ele- 
phant left the ditch and mounted the road 
once more, I was all but off over its tail. 
These little accidents, however, only gave rise 
to a good deal of laughing at my expense. 

In time we reached the d^k-bungalow of 
Bukit Putus, which was half-way to Kuala 
Kangsa, and were introduced to Toh Puan 
Halima, wife of one of the deported Malay 
chiefs. This lady had, very sensibly, de- 
clined to follow her lord's fortunes when he 
was sent to the Seychelles, and preferred 
living comfortably at home. She appeared 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 133 

to amuse herself very well during his ab- 
sence, and her grief, if any, had produced 
the same result in her as in Falstaff, for her 
fine figure was rather spoilt by excessive 
embonpoint. 

Having slept at the d^k-bungalow, we 
went on next day to Kuala Kangsa, partly 
on elephants, partly in a buggy belonging 
to a native raja, lent for the occasion. 

At Kuala Kangsa we were received by 
Mr. Low, who, during our stay of some 
days, astonished us by the luxurious fare 
that he set before us. Fresh fish, fresh 
beef, fi-esh game, mutton and venison, pre- 
served pdtes de foies gras and other luxuries 
from Crosse and Blackwell's, iced cham- 
pagne, and all manner of cool drinks, made 
it difficult to believe we were in the heart 
of a Malay jungle. We no longer wondered 
at Mr. Low's staying contentedly in Perak, 
and never wishing to go to England, a 



134 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 



contentment on which he much prided him- 
self, and which he was apt to hold up to his 
subordinates for their imitation. Living 
thus comfortably, and monarch of all he 
surveyed, he was better off and in a higher 
position than he could hope to enjoy in 
England, where, as everyone knows, even 
colonial governors are nobodies, unless they 
happen to have titles to fame other than 
their official rank. 

Most of Mr. Low's subordinates were 
less fortunately situated. Having been 
accustomed in England to positions of per- 
fect independence, to daily comforts and 
good food, they lost all these at a blow by 
taking service in the Malay Native States, 
and gained nothing in exchange — not even 
money ; for instance, at the end of our six 
years' service we were actually poorer than 
at the beginning. 

Next morning we took a tour round the 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 135 



garden, poultry-yard, etc., with our host. 
Then the mystery of his well-furnished 
table was explained. In order to obtain 
the fresh beef and mutton we had admired, 
he kept a flock of sheep and a herd of cows, 
the expense of importing and looking after 
which animals was, he told us, greatly in- 
creased by the deaths that occurred among 
them on board ship, and by the thefts of the 
cow-herds and shepherds, who came to him 
every now and then with tales of ^ wolves ' 
having carried off the best of the flock. 
(There were no wolves in the country, but 
no Kling shepherd would allow a trifling 
detail like that to spoil his story.) 

The fish were caught in the Eiver Perak, 
and kept ready in a pond near the house ; 
' the Christmas turkey was one of a large 
flock imported from Malacca, and tended 
by a man kept solely for that purpose ; 
then there were Argus pheasants and 



136 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME, 

widgeon in cages, and I think also deer, 
which had been trapped by the natives. 
The fish and the turkeys paid toll to the 
numerous local thieves, as well as the cows 
and sheep ; so that I was not at all sur- 
prised when Mr. Low told me he was never 
able to put by any part of his pay (then 
about £1,500 a year), but spent it all on 
his living. 

We had not been many hours at Mr. 
Low's before he and Mr. Innes began to 
discuss the local slavery question ; but 
at first in private, since, besides my un- 
worthy self, other guests were present 
before whom it was not thought advisable 
to air the differences of the Government 
officials. Mr. Low, however, broke through 
this reticence shortly, announcing at limcheon 
that he found Mr. Innes so refractory that 
he should appeal to me to convert him. I 
replied that I required to be converted 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 137 

myself first; whereupon Mr. Low said I 
should, if I pleased, read the whole of the 
correspondence from beginning to end, after 
which he was certain I should be on his 
side of the question. He was as good as 
Ms word, and after luncheon gave me an 
enormous pile of official -looking docu- 
ments. 

I felt much flattered at this, and shut 
myself into my room to study them, it 
being the hour when everyone else was 
taking a siesta — a practice I never cared for. 
I read the papers straight through in their 
order attentively, and was astonished at 
what seemed to me the weakness of Mr. Low's 
arguments. He repeated again and again 
that the slaves were fi'om time immemorial 
the property of their owners, just as much 
as if they were elephants or cows ; that it 
would be as unjust to deprive the owners 
of their slaves as of their elephants or 



138 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

COWS ; that it would create a revolution 
in the country if the slaves were freed 
without full pecuniary compensation given to 
the owners ; and, finally, that to grant such 
compensation would ruin the Government. 
At dinner-time Mr. Low asked me what 
was the result of my reading. I replied 
that I was in exactly the same mind as 
before. 

'Why, do you not see,* said Mr. Low, 
^ how difficult, how impossible it would be 
to fi^e the slaves ? ' 

' Very likely,' said I ; * but Mr. Lines 
does not ask you to free the slaves. You 
compare the position of the slaves to that 
of the elephants and cows ; let us grant, 
for the sake of argument, that it is so. 
Now, when an elephant or a cow runs 
away, is the magistrate expected to sign 
a warrant to help its owner to catch 
it?' 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 139 

* No ; certainly not/ said Mr. Low. 

* Then why should he help to catch the 
slaves? All Mr. Innes asks is that in 
future when a raja applies to an English- 
man for help in catching his runaway 
animals, he shall be politely requested to 
catch them himself. There is surely 
nothing very luareasonable in that?' 

But Mr. Low would not argue ; he only 
said half playfully : 

* Mrs. Innes, I am disappointed in you ; 
I had thought you a sensible woman.' 

Next day, when showing me round the 
garden, he remarked half in earnest : 

' It is too good, your making such a fuss 
about these slaves. You are a slave your- 
self, you know — all married women are 
slaves !' 

I replied, *Just so. That is precisely 
why I can sympathize with other slaves.' 

One remark Mr. Low made to both me 



I40 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

and Mr. Innes separately on this visit, 
which often afterwards recurred to our 
minds. He said to me, ^ Innes wants to 
be made a martyr of, I know ; but I shall 
not gratify him. There go two to the 
making of a martyr, and I shall not allow 
him to leave the service merely on the 
score of his views on the slavery ques- 
tion.' 

Shortly afterwards I was again sub- 
poenaed to go to Penang; but as the hot 
voyage was very trying to my health, 
and my testimony was not in the least 
important, I ventured to disobey the 
second summons. In truth, I was so 
ill, that my husband had determined to 
send me to Europe, and only waited to see 
if I should be wanted at the assizes before 
taking my passage. It turned out that I 
was not wanted at the assizes, of which I 
was glad on the whole; but, at the same 



'« •»■* vw ' 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 141 

r ■ 

time, I was sorry not to see and hear the 
end of an affair in which I took a deep 
interest. I never rightly heard all the 
details of the trial, but I believe that only 
three Chinamen were convicted, of whom 
one was hanged, and two were sentenced to 
penal servitude for life. Immediately after 
the sentences were pronounced, the man 
condemned to be hanged exclaimed, point- 
ing to some of the prisoners who had 
just been let off, ' Seven of those men 
whom you have let go are guilty !' No 
notice was, however, taken of this re- 
mark. 

The one who was hanged declared from 
the first that he had committed all the 
murders, or would-be murders. He drew 
a plan of the house (a most curious 
specimen of drawing) to illustrate his con- 
fession, with little figures to represent the 
bodies lying in the different rooms as he 



142 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

had left them. Mine was Ipng in the 
middle of my room, just where I recollected 
the man striking at me ; but how I came 
to be eventually in the other room hidden 
under the bed this man professed himself 
unable to say. Several theories were sug- 
gested to account for this curious fact, the 
most probable one being that, after remain- 
ing absolutely unconscious for some time, I 
may have partly recovered, and have had 
sufficient instinct of self-preservation to 
wander away and hide myself. 

It was elicited at the trial that the sixty 
brave Chinamen who set forth to murder 
one Englishman and some women and 
children did not dare to do so without first 
making sure that the Englishman had no 
revolver. They arranged to have it stolen 
from Mrs. Lloyd's bedroom on the after- 
noon before the murder. This service was 
probably rendered them by the Chinese 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 143 

ayah, who alone had access to the room, 
and who was proved to have been a great 
friend of the cook, the leader of the ex- 
pedition. That cook was, unfortunately, 
never caught. The revolver was found 
next day hidden in the jungle. 

Mrs. Lloyd gave evidence that her 
husband, on hearing a noise, had gone to 
the front-door unarmed, and had almost 
immediately staggered back into the room, 
wounded, and gasping out, ' Give me my 
revolver !' She flew to get it, and found 
the case, but it was empty ! Then she 
recollected turning and seeing her husband 
surrounded by Chinamen; but after this 
she remembered no more, being, like 
myself, struck down and left for dead. 

The Chinese ayah, who was believed to 
have stolen the revolver and made every- 
thing ready for the murderers, got off scot- 
free. So did the twelve Malay police, who 



144 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

were supposed to guard the Residency, but 
who fled like rabbits at the approach of 
danger. So did about fifl;y-seven of the 
murderers, if the estimate of their number 
at sixty, made independently by several 

« 

witnesses, be correct. So did the Eurasian 
Superintendent, who was believed to have 
been an accessory before the fact ; but this 
could not be proved against him. 

Mrs. Lloyd recovered wonderfully soon 
from the fearful wounds she had received. 
When I saw her in Penang at the 'pre- 
liminary inquiry,' the three weeks that had 
elapsed since the murder had already oblite- 
rated almost all trace of scars. I never 
saw her again, as I did not attend the 
assizes, and she went home to Ireland im- 
mediately after them. 

The doctors in Penang said that the 
rapid recovery of both Mrs. Lloyd and 
myself was owing to our being ' below par ' 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 145 



— the consequence of our having for some 
years lived chiefly on tinned meats, etc. 
Had we been living in Singapore, where a 
more generous diet is attainable, the danger 
of fever and inflammation would have been 
much greater. Semi-starvation, it would 
appear, has its advantages. Many a Malay, 
owing to the national diet of fish and 
vegetables, combined with teetotalism, has 
recovered from wounds that would have 
been fatal to a European accustomed to live 
on beef, mutton, and brandy. 

About this time I began to receive letters 
fi*om my friends at home, in reply to the 
news of ' The Pangkor Tragedy,' which had 
just reached them. They implored me to 
leave that horrible country at once, pro- 
mised that they would use all their interest 
to get us moved from Durian Sabatang, 
and, in short, made so much fuss that my 
husband thought, as my health really had 

VOL. II. 27 



146 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

suffered considerably, the best way would 
be for me to take a run home. 

After shaking hands with Apat, and 
telling him to take great care of the Tuan 
during my absence, which I believed would 
be only for six months, I went to Penang 
in a small steamer — Mr. Innes getting 
official leave to accompany me so far. 

There I was transferred to a P. and 0. 
steamer, and soon began to pick up health 
and strength, though apparently not to any 
very satisfactory extent, as after reaching 
home I used to overhear my old friends 
remarking that I was ' a wreck,* that they 
should not have known me if they had not 
been told my name, that it was evident I 
had only just come home in time to save 
my life, and so forth. Yet I had only been 
four years away — one in Sarawak, and three 
in the Native States. 

On board the P. and 0. steamer the 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME, 147 

Governor of Singapore and his wife hap- 
pened to be passengers. One day I asked 
him if nothing could be done to remedy the 
loss occasioned to Government officials by 
the depreciation of the dollar. I told him 
that my husband, when entering the Native 
States service, had stipulated that his pay 
should not be less than £500 a year sterling. 
The Governor took out a pencil, made a 
calculation, and tried to console me by 
telling me it was the same for all, and that 
he himself lost £600 per annum from the 
same cause; but I did not feel, much con- 
soled, as I thought, though I did not say 
so, that he could better afford to lose £600 
than we £60. He still had £4,400 of pay 
left, and as horses, carriages, plate, linen, 
and servants were provided for him in addi- 
tion by Government, I could not think him 
so badly off as we, who had to find every- 
thing but an orderly and a gardener, and 

27—2 



148 7/5/75 TO PERAK AND HOME, 



who, owing to our isolated situation, had 
to pay their weight in gold for some of 
what in England are considered the neces- 
saries of life. 

On the voyage I compared notes with the 
other passengers, who were coming from 
all sorts of places, including the Andaman 
Islands and the Gulf of Carpentaria, and 
found that, although many of the ladies 
were very sorry for themselves on account 
of having to live in desolate places and 
horrible climates, not one of them was quite 
so badly off, from every point of view, as 
we were at Langat. They were expressing 
sympathy with each other, and calling for 
mine, because they lived twenty miles from 
the doctor, or ten from their nearest neigh- 
bour, or five from the butcher ; or because 
their service had only small privileges of 
pension and leave attached to it. To each 
fresh grievance I simply and with perfect 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 149 

truth replied, ' We have none at all.' When 
it came to their having mutton and beef 
only once a month, and I made my usual 
answer, they hinted pretty plainly that the 
officials of the Native Malav States Service 

a/ 

must be fools to stay on in it. That was 
my own opinion. But the truth was, we 
were always hoping that pensions would 
ere long be granted to the officers in the 
Native States. 

One of the first letters I received from 
Mr. Innes after reaching home told me of 
the sudden death of Apat under very sus- 
picious circumstances. Mr. Innes had 
asked some officers of a man-of-war to 
lunch at Durian Sabatang, and he was much 
annoyed at the remarkably bad luncheon 
that was set before himself and his guests. 
At last he spoke about it to the servant in 
waiting, saying, 

* Tell Apat this is really too bad.' 



150 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

The servant replied, * Apat, sir, is dead.' 
' Dead /' exclaimed Mr. Innes, aghast ; 
and the gueste, overhearing, inquired, with 
horror, * What, is the man who cooked 
the food we have been eating dead f 

The servant repeated his statement; 
whereat they all rose and went into the 
kitchen, but found that Apat's body had 
already been carried away by his friends. 
They followed, and a sort of post-mortem 
examination was held, when the conclusion 
was come to that death might have oc- 
curred from his having himself taken too 
much opium, or, on the other hand, it might 
have resulted from some other poison. A 
suspicious circumstance was that a Chinese 
sculleryman lately hired by Mr. Innes was 
missing, and never reappeared, and that 
Apat's wages, which had been paid him 
that morning, were also missing. It was 
suggested that the sculleryman was an 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 151 

emissary of the Penang Hoey, sent to 
murder Apat on account of the evidence he 
had given at the trial ; but this seems im- 
probable, as Apat had given no evidence that 
could inculpate anyone. He had been in his 
usual health up to the day of his death. 

When I had been at home about six 
months, and was thmking of returning to 
the East, I received a letter from Mr. Innes 
telling me not to do so, as he himself hoped 
to come home in August, by which time he 
would have had a year of Durian Sabatang ; 
and Mr. Paul would return to take up his 
own duties there. He added that his health 
was suffering very much from the climate 
of Durian Sabatang and from overwork, as 
he was doing the work of three men be- 
sides his own. 

The reason of this was, that first, Mr. 
Bruce, the Superintendent of Police, had 
been sent to Pangkor to supply the place 



152 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME, 

of Captain Lloyd, deceased; secondly, Mr. 
Kerr was absent at Taipeng; thirdly, the 
youth of eighteen, formerly mentioned, was 
away at Penang on leave. Mr. Innes had 
to do all the additional work, without, of 
course, a cent of additional pay. He would 
not have minded it in the least had he not 
been in ill -health at the time, but imder the 
circumstances he could not but feel it hard. 

Shortly afterwards I received another 
letter from him, begun on May 3rd at 
Durian Sabatang, and finished on May 12th 
^t Penang. In it he told me that he was 
lying ill in the latter place from the conse- 
quences of fever and ague caught at Ron- 
kop, a horrible malarious swamp, which he 
had been obliged to visit in the course of 
his duties. He added : 

' I am attended by Dr. Large, of the 74th 
Highlanders, a very clever yoimg man. 
He at first took a serious view of my case^ 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 153 

but now thinks better of it ; he insists on 
perfect rest, and keeps me always lying on 
my back, except when I am sitting in a hot 
bath. I am here on half-pay at my own 
expense. Some day I will show you the 
official telegrams to me when I was lying, 
I believe, very near death; the worst is 
over now, but I have suffered great pain. 
I must not write more now/ 

I received a letter by the same mail from 
a friend of his, who was often at his bed- 
side during this illness, telling me that Mr. 
Innes had lain for three days and nights at 
the point of death, and that his having 
pulled through was considered quite won- 
derful by the doctors. This friend strongly 
recommended his going home at once, 
saying, ^ Candidly, I do not believe he will 
ever recover if he remains in this country/ 
Dr. Large also said that he would not 
answer for the consequences if Mr. Innes^ 



154 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

were not removed at once to a colder 
climate. 

' He says it is the climate alone that is 
killing me/ wrote Mr. Innes in a later 
letter. Nevertheless, although this was 
in May, it was August before Mr. Innes 
finally obtained sick-leave; and even then 
he only obtained it through the strong 
medical certificates which the Government 
doctors gave him. 

' Dr. Large,' he wrote, ' is very angry 
at my staying so long, and has written a 
stiflF letter to the authorities on the subject, 
which I have not yet sent on.' 

The truth was, the chief was imwell 
himself, and wished to go away on leave, 
so that it was very inconvenient that 
Mr. Innes should have fallen ill at that 
particular time. The Perak Government 
Service was so economically manned that 
no proper provision was made for any 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME, 155 

officer's absence; but the rightful burden 
of the absent one was placed on the 
shoulders of the next in command, in 
addition to his own. 

Mr. Innes showed me afterwards the 
telegrams above-mentioned, which betrayed 
the official indignation at Mr. Innes having 
ventured to leave Durian Sabatang with- 
out permission. As I have explained 
before, to obtain such leave would have 
taken a week at the very least, and a week's 
delay would in all human probability have 
resulted in Mr. Innes's death ; in fact, his 
being put on board the steamer at Durian 
Sabatang was not so much his own doing 
(for he was too ill to muster up the neces- 
sary energy) as that of Mr. Kerr, who 
felt it his duty not to allow a fellow- 
countryman to die without medical attend- 
ance. Nevertheless, it required the Colonial 
Secretary's interference to obtain for Mr. 



156 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

Innes his full pay during his illness at 
Penang; and he was obliged to pay his 
own hotel bills and medical charges. 

Being now partly restored to health, Mr. 
Innes returned by his chief's desire, and 
contrary to the orders of the doctors, to 
Durian Sabatang. In this I think he made 
a great mistake. He gained nothing what- 
ever, but on the contrary injured his 
health greatly, by staying on to please his 
superior. When he eventually started for 
England, which was in August, the doctor 
had a sort of chair-bed made up for him 
on deck, and ordered him not to stir out 
of it the whole way home ; he was to lie 
down flat, day and night. Dr. Large' s 
verdict, however, that *it was the climate 
alone that was killing him,' was soon 
proved to be correct ; for no sooner did the 
ship leave the sweltering tropical climate 
behind than the patient began to mend; 



VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 157 

and by the time he reached Southampton 
he looked quite strong again. But Dr. 
Andrew Clark, whom he consulted, warned 
him that he had arrived in England at a 
very unlucky time; to come straight from 
the vapour-bath atmosphere of the Straits 
Settlements to the raw fogs of a London 
October was a trial to any constitution; 
and he peremptorily ordered him to Nice 
for the winter. This was annoying, on 
account of money matters. We had saved 
a little money at Langat, but what with 
our passage-money home and back again, 
which alone would cost £400, our sales 
of furniture and other expenses, we felt 
that a winter at Nice was likely to eat up 
all our little savings. However, it had 
to be done, and it was done. 

Apropos of our sales of furniture, we 
considered ourselves badly used by Govern- 
ment. When we first went to Langat, we 



158 VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

took our own furniture, and congratulated 
ourselves on having done so, as nothing 
but four bare walls met our eyes. We 
long afterwards heard that the Government 
had provided furniture for our house at 
Langat, but that the authorities, finding we 
had our own, kept what had been intended 
for us at Klang. What became of it I do 
not know ; but we never received any of it, 
except a table, desk, etc., for the Court- 
room. 

When w^e moved into our large new 
bungalow at the hill, we required more 
furniture ; so we sent to England for beds 
and bedding, looking-glasses, and so forth ; 
and Mr. Innes employed men in Klang to 
make cabinets and tables for the drawing- 
room out of the handsome mirabow-wood 
common in those parts. All this new 
furniture had just arrived when we w^ere 
ordered to Durian Sabatang. We took it 



7/5/75 TO PERAK AND HOME. 159 

with us, but to our dismay found that the 
shed there appointed for our residence was 
already sufficiently though roughly fur- 
nished by Government. There was literally 
not room for our furniture, as the shed was 
small ; so after some hesitation we deter- 
mined to sell part of it by auction at once. 
As there was nobody but natives — ^who do 
not care for European furniture — ^to buy 
it, we naturally got next to nothing for 
it. There was no better alternative, how- 
ever ; we were to remain in Durian Sabatang 
a year, and it would have been very incon- 
venient to have had our rooms crowded 
like a furniture-shop all that time ; while 
the heavy freight charged by the steamers, 
and the risk of breakage, made it not worth 
while to send the things to the auction- 
rooms in Singapore. At the end of Mr. 
Innes's year at Durian Sabatang, when he 
was going to England, he sold off the 



.i6o VISITS TO PERAK AND HOME. 

remainder of our goods and chattels, in- 
eluding a piano which had been new — 
a present to me — four years before ; and 
suffered, as before, a considerable loss by 
the transaction. I should recommend any- 
one going to live in the Native Malay States 
never to waste money in buying furniture, 
but to insist on its being supplied by 
Government* It is only fair, and I believe 
it is also the rule, that considering the 
officers are liable to be constantly moved, 
they should be saved the expense of buying 
and selling furniture every time. Ours cost 
us, from first to last, as many hundreds of 
pounds as it fetched tens. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LANGAT AGAIN, 




Y husband had only been able to 
obtain six months' sick-leave. 
More than a month of that had 
been taken up by the- voyage, so that he 
arrived in England at the end of September. 
It being a mild winter, it was not till 
December that we went to Nice. Before 
leaving, he had an interview with some of 
the authorities at Downing Street, who 
told him that although his leave nominally 
expired in January, there was no doubt 
that the application which he had made for 
another six months would be granted, 
VOL. II. 28 



i62 LANGAT AGAIN. 



backed as it was by Dr. (now Sir Andrew) 
Clark ; we might therefore go abroad with 
easy consciences. What was our amaze- 
ment and disgust, when we had been about 
a month at Nice, at receiving peremptory 
orders jfrom the Colonial Office to proceed 
to Langat without delay, as the Resident of 
Selangor had represented that he could no 
longer carry on the Government without 
Mr. Innes's valuable services ! 

Here, I regret to say, we committed 
another great error. We weakly obeyed, 
or nearly obeyed ; that is to say, we com- 
promised matters on obtaining three months' 
more leave from the Colonial Office instead 
of the six they had guaranteed. What we 
ought to have done — we now see clearly, 
but too late — was to let the Resident com- 
plain, and let the Government dispense, if 
they chose, with Mr. Innes's services. The 
Government would then have been obliged 



LANG AT AGAIN. 163 

to give us four months* full pay, besides 
which we should have saved the £200 
passage-money and all the other expenses 
of our passage out, and the £200 passage- 
money and a great deal besides which it 
cost us to come home again. Above all, 
we should have saved ourselves an immense 
amount of ill-health, and two dreary years 
of vegetating at Langat. Also, Mr* Innes 
would have been two years further advanced 
in his present occupation as a tea-merchant. 

We started from Venice by P. and 0^ 
boat in April, 1880. 

Our poor Apat being dead, and our other 
former servants lost sight of, we had to 
engage a new set on passing through 
Singapore. This we hoped we should have 
plenty of time to do, as the steamer which 
was to take us on to Malacca was in dock ; 
so we imagined that, there being no fitting 
means of locomotion, we should not be ex- 

28—2 



1 64 LANG AT AGAIN. 

pec ted to proceed on our journey till the 
steamer was repaired, which it was to be in a 
few days. We reckoned, however, too much 
on the good-nature of the Government, 
for as we were going to church on Sunday 
we received an official intimation that Mr. 
Innes must be in Langat by the date on 
which his leave expired, and that as the 
s.s. Py.ah Pekliet was not available, he had 
better proceed by the Bainhow^ which would 
start in a few hours. The Rainbow was a 
filthy little Chinese-owned coasting steamer, 
not fit for any lady to trjavel by. So much 
I knew, but I did not at this time know 
how bad she was, or I should certainly have 
waited until the next steamer. 

We had to turn back literally from the 
church door, drive frantically home, pack 
up, and engage any servants we could find. 
We had already been in treaty with two 
Chinamen, and now we hastily sent for 



LANGAT AGAIN. 165 

them and engaged them, giving them, as is 
usual, half their month's wages in hand, to 
clinch the bargain. They went off home to 
get their bundles, and were to meet us again 
on the way to the steamer. 

Soon afterwards we drove off from the 
friend's house where we had been staying, 
and overtook our two new servants on the 
road ; but lo ! on inspecting them we foimd 
that one of them (the cook) was not the 
same man that we had engaged* He per- 
sisted that he was, probably hoping that we 
had engaged the other man in such a hurry 
that we should not detect the difference; 
but it was most palpable, as the other had 
been a good-looking intelligent fellow of 
about thirty, while this one was a wizened 
old creature of at least seventy summers, 
parcel-deaf and parcel-blind. However, 
there was no help for it ; it was evident that 
we must take this cook or have none at all, 



i66 LANG AT AGAIN. 

perhaps for months, as- we knew by expe- 
rience how diflScult it was to persuade cooks 
to go to the Native States, So with a very 
bad grace we told the Changeling, as we 
dubbed the old man, that he might come 
with us, if he pleased, until we could get 
somebody better. This substitution of one 
man for another is not at all unusual with 
the ^ heathen Chinee.' He has no sense of 
honour as to keeping an engagement. 

The Changeling proved a dirty, dishonest, 
lazy old creature, just as might have been 
predicted from his face. He was so trouble- 
some and impudent that I gave him notice 
to quit at least once a month on an average 
while he remained with me ; and after doing 
so, used to sit down and write heartrending 
appeals to my friends in Singapore, begging 
them to find me a cook, while Mr. Innes 
did the same. But it was all in vain. Our 
friends, both ladies .and gentlemen, wrote to 



LANG AT AGAIN. 167 

say they could not persuade servants to 
go to the country of Selangor. Often, 
after being actually engaged, and accepting 
the chinkraniy or earnest-money, the man 
would come back and lay it on the table, 
saying, * We have inquired about the country 
of Selangor, and we find it is the country 
where the master beats his servants ; we 
cannot go there/ In vain our fiiends 
represented that we were quite diflferent 
people, and in fact lived at quite a different 
place; and that no master or any other 
man would dare to lay a finger on them 
while they were in our service ; the reply 
was always the same. The Changeling, 
until he got accustomed to my habit of 
giving him notice, used to come up at the 
end of the month for his wages with an 
anxious look, evidently expecting me to 
tell him that he might go that day, as I 
had another cook coming ; but as this never 



1 68 LANG AT AGAIN. 

happened, after a time he simply grinned in 
triumph when I handed him the dollars, 
knowing I was powerless to replace 
him. 

I tried sometimes to make him cleaner in 
his person, which was so unpleasant that 
I stood afar off when ordering dinner. I 
gave him a large cake of common yellow 
sbap, and said to him, * Gro wash!' This is 
no insult to a Chinaman of the coolie class, 
to which the Changeling evidently belonged; 
he sees no disgrace in being dirty. But as 
the soap produced no visible effect on our 
friend, we believed he ate it. 

Looking downstairs for a saucer one day, 
I ca,me on a dark object in a teacup. I 
pulled it out, and found it was the Change- 
ling's best pigtail, oiled and brushed all 
ready for the next holiday. These China- 
men, however careless of their appearance 
in the matter of cleanliness, are much given 



LANG AT AGAIN. 169 

to the vanity of wearing false hair. On 
seeing the tail, my first thought was that the 
Changeling was probably a convict who had 
had his pigtail cut ofi^ in prison ; but' after- 
wards one day I saw the one he was wear-, 
ing pulled so violently by the watercarrier, 
in a scuffle, that had it been merely stuck 
on it must have come off. Evidently the 
one I had found in the' teacup was intended 
as an addition to, not a substitute for, the 
natural tail. I locked the spare teacups up 
after that ! 

It must be owned there was a. basis 
of truth in the rumours which deterred 
Singapore servants fi*om coming to the 
country of Selangor. There was a man in 
Klang who went by the nickname of the 
' Dhoby Pukul ' (the Whipped Washermd,n). 
The origin of the nickname was told to Yne 
by the Kesident himself, who was very 
proud of the part he played in the story. 



X70 LANG AT AGAIN. 

A certain visitor, so it was said, had been 
staying with the Resident, and was going 
off by steamer from Klang. The visitor's 
*boy' came rushing to the dhoby, de- 
manding his master's clothes m a hurry. 
The clothes were all ready, but the dhoby 
asked : 

* Have you brought money to pay ?' 
The boy said 'No/ 

The dhoby did not trust him, and 
said: 

*I will not let the clothes out of 
my hands until I see the Tuan. I will 
take the clothes myself to the Tuan on 
board the steamer, and then he can pay 
me/ 

The boy went back to the Residency. 

' Well, boy, where are the clothes ?' 

* The dhoby, sir, says he will not give 
them up unless I bring the money for 
them.' 



LANG AT AGAIN. 171 

*Whq,t is this insolence? Send the ser- 
geant here/ 

The sergeant came, and the Resident 
ordered him to tie up the dhoby and 
give him a public flogging, which was, 
report said, actually done. 

* That is what I call a free country,' 
jocularly remarked the Resident, at the 
close of this anecdote. 

* No doubt — for the Tuans,' said I. 

It appeared to me, and 1 told the 
Resident so, a little hard to flog a man 
because he preferred a ready-money system 
to one of credit. I suggested that most 
likely the Dhoby Pukul thought the boy 
really had the money and was trying to 
cheat him of it — a not unlikely supposi- 
tion ; and also, that in the hurry and bustle 
of the steamer's going off, the poor dhoby 
would really have stood a bad chance of 
being paid, unless he held the clothes as 



172 LANGAT AGAIN. 

security. To all thiis the Resident merely 
replied by turning to Mr. InHes with a 
smile, and remarking that * Women have 
no sense of humour.' 

To return to our voyage in the Rainbow. 
When I first arrived at the top of the 
ladder that led up the ship's side, I 
did not see a single spot where I could 
put my foot down without treading on a 
Chinese coolie. There were over 200 of 
them on board, going to the tin-mines ; 
the whole length of the steamer was about 
forty-five feet, and the deck as well as the 
hold was crowded with chests, etc. The 
coolies lay, almost entirely naked and half- 
stupid with opium, on every inch of avail- 
able space, so that we could not move until 
the Chinese supercargo came and kicked 
them to make them stand up and give 
room to pass. There was a dirty little 
cabin on deck, which was allotted to us, 



LANGAT AGAIN. 173 

so we had our luggage put into it and 
determined to remain on the bridge for 
the two days and two nights of our stay. 
The bridge was very small, and was made 
still smaller by hen-coops full of live fowls, 
which did duty as benches, but we felt 
comparatively happy on it, as coolies were 
not allowed there, 

The first night was luckily fine, and 
nearly the whole of next day we spent on 
shore at Malacca, where the steamer stopped 
twelve hours. The Lieutenant-Governor of 
Malacca and his wife were kind and hos- 
pitable to us, as they always were to 
passing strangers. They gave us at once 
that first of necessaries and greatest of 
luxuries in the East — a bath— which it is 
needless to say was unattainable on board 
the Rainbow^ and invited us to tiflSn and 
afternoon tea. The steamer then left, and 
all went tolerably well until midnight, 



174 I^ANGAT AGAIN. 

when a storm came on. We were still in 
our Sunday clothes, having had no time 
to change them in Singapore, and no oppor- 
tunity of getting at our boxes since then; 
my dress was a thin muslin, and Mr. 
Innes's, of white duck, was not much 
better calculated to resist a tropical storm, 
one minute of which is enough to drench 
you to the skin, even through a thick 
awning : so with a sigh for our water- 
proofs, which were in the hold, we were 
forced to go down from the bridge to the 
cabin. There we were as perfectly miser- 
able as it is possible to be, for about five 
hours, while the rain lasted. 

The steamer rolled and pitched fearfully, 
making every one of the two hundred and 
odd Chinamen on board sea- sick, and the 
horrible noises they made, together with 
the stifling heat and revolting smells of the 
cabin, ultimately made me sick also. The 



LANGAT AGAIN. 175 

sea came in at the port, so that we had 
to shut it, making the heat worse than 
ever; and the cockroaches crawled over 
everything, including us, trying to keep 
themselves above water. The cabin-floor 
was several inches deep in bilge- water, in 
the midst of which our trunks shifted and 
splashed about with every lurch of the 
steamer. 

Such are the pleasures of travelling in 
the Native Malay States. I am, I fear, of a 
revengeful nature, for I own nothing would 
please me better than to hear that by some 
chance or other the Colonial Secretary and 
his wife, or better still, the Governor and 
his wife, had been forced to make a passage 
in the Rainbow in stormy weather. But 
alas ! such poetical justice is seldom dealt 
out in this prosaic world. Governors and 
Colonial Secretaries lade men with burdens 
grievous to be borne, which they them- 



176 LANGAT AGAIN. 

selves will not so much as touch with the 
tips of their fingers. 

So now we were once more back in our 
butcherless, bakerless, tailorless, cobblerless, 
doctorless, bookless, milkless, postless, and 
altogether comfortless jungle. 

We did not find any of our fellow- 
officials in the pweetest of tempers. The 
Resident was still ill-humoured because, we 
were told, he guessed that Mr. Innes had 
not, nearly two years before, recommended 
his son-in-law to the Governor as his 
locuni'teneiis during his absence. The son- 
in-law was unfriendly for the same reason. 
It was perfectly true that Mr. Innes had 
not recommended the son-in-law, but it 
would have been unjust if he had done so. 
The proper person by seniority to have 
Mr. Innes's acting appointment was the 
Collector and Magistrate of Klang, the 
second collector in the country of Selangor. 



LANGAT AGAIN. 177 

This little man was a Eurasian, or half- 
caste, and had acted for some time as 
secretary to the Eesident. He knew the 
Langat appointment was justly his due, 
and had come to Mr. Innes to ask him 
that in his approaching interview with the 
Governor he would put in a good word for 
him, as otherwise he feared his superior's 
interest would carry all before it, and 
would secure the berth for his son-in- 
law. He added that if he were to remain 
much longer in his present post of secretary 
he should go mad. My husband assured 
him there was no need for so much excite- 
ment, as he saw no reason why the usual 
rule of promotion should not be followed 
on this occasion, and should certainly say 
so to the Governor, if he were asked. 

The Eurasian was comforted, and no 
doubt still more so when in due time he 
received the appointment. It might have 

VOL. II. 29 



178 LANG AT AGAIN. 

been supposed that he at any rate would 
not be hostile to Mr. Innes on his return, 
he having enjoyed the post, moreover, for 
folly nine months longer than he could 
reasonably have expected. But, alas for 
the gratitude of Eurasian nature! this 
little man had become so accustomed to 
live in our big house that he looked on 
it as his own, and resented our coming 
back almost as if we had done him a 
personal injury. 

He also neglected us by keeping our 
stores in the warehouse at Klang until they 
rotted, instead of allowing them to be for- 
warded at once by the steam-launch, or any 
boat that was going. For the next two 
years, consequently, when our stores at 
length arrived, the bags of flour were often 
full of maggots, the potatoes had shoots 
eight inches long, the onions were all rotten 
and mouldy, and so on with everything 



LANG AT AGAIN. 179 

else. Mr. Innes wrote officially, at last, to 
complain of some tinned milk having been 
delayed in Klang more than a month. His 
letter was referred to the Resident, who, in 
reply, recommended him to pay an agent to 
forward his stores through Klang, as it was 
nobody's business to interfere with them! 
This, of course, we could not afford to do, 
nor had we ever heard of such a thing being 
done in the States before ; on the contrary, 
at Durian Sabatang Mr. Innes had always 
ordei^d anything arriving by the steamers 
for officers or planters in the interior to be 
forwarded to them at once. Such a trifling 
service as this was looked upon by nearly 
all the Englishmen in the States as a duty 
they owed to their fellow-countrjonen, and 
which, with this exception, was always 
willingly performed by them. 

We only wished that our stores had, in 
truth, not been * interfered with ' by the 

29—2 



i8o LANGAT AGAIN. 



white and whitey-brown authorities of 
Klang; as, had they been left alone, the 
Malay boatswain of the steam-launch, an 
excellent, steady fellow, would have will- 
ingly put them on board for us; but he 

was not allowed. 



CHAPTER IX. 



BOYCOTTING. 




[HE Resident saw little of us 
during the two years following 
my return to Langat; and when 
he came there on business, and Mr. Innes, 
as in duty bound, went to meet him at the 
landing-place, he dispensed with his com- 
pany, saying that he wished to see the 
Sultan privately. Things were, in short, 
at a dead-lock between the two. The Resi- 
dent confined himself to answering official 
letters, or acknowledging receipt of revenue. 
At one time three collections of revenue 
had been successively sent to Klang, in 



i82 BOYCOTTING. 

three weekly boats, before a line was sent 
in acknowledgment. Mr. Innes greAV 
alarmed at this, and would send no more, 
fearing the money had been stolen by 
the way; this produced at length a curt 
note from the Resident, asking why 
the collections were not forwarded as 
usual. 

Although the Resident had several times, 
on his visits to Langat, told my husband 
that he did not wish for his company, he 
had never issued any general or permanent 
instructions on the point. Consequently, 
when a steam-whistle sounded, Mr. Innes 
still continued to go down to the landing- 
place, it being part of his duty to do so. 
Seeing this, the Resident left off whistling 
altogether, and used to come quietly into 
Langat, interview the Sultan, and go away 
again without Mr. Innes having seen him 
at all. We could not think what was the 



BOYCOTTING. 183 

object of this at first, except to lower Mr, 
Innes in the eyes of the natives. However, 
afterwards it appeared, to our surprise, that 
the Resident fiad made it a ground of com- 
plaint to the Governor that Mr. Innes did not 
take the trouble of accompanying him on his 
visits to tlie Svltan^ nor even of meeting him 
at the landing-place 1 

Another charge was that the Resident 
* felt no confidence ' in Mr, Innes. This 
was rather vague, but was easily disposed 
of by referring to the Resident's letter, 
written in 1876, in which he expressed the 
greatest satisfaction and confidence in him* 
The latter now challenged him to mention 
any facts which would justify a loss of 
confidence in him since 1876, and the 
Resident being unable to reply, the com- 
plaint fell to the ground. The letter 
quoted was as follows : 



i84 BOYCOTTING. 



* British Resident's Office, Klang, 

6th Dec, 1876. 

* My deab Innes, 

* As you have now been six months 
in your present post as Collector and Magis- 
trate at Langat, I think it is only due to 
you to express my entire appreciation and 
satisfaction of the very successful manner 
in which you have performed your duties. 
I have remarked with very much pleasure 
the great influence you possess with the 
Sultan, his sons, and the other chiefs at 
Langat ; and your nice tact on many occa- 
sions has been of very great assistance to 
me on most important occasions. Your 
knowledge of the language and the character 
of the Malays has enabled you to perform 
your fiscal and magisterial duties with very 
great credit to yourself, and with great 
advantage to the trading community and 
natives of the country. It has afibrded me 



BOYCOTTING. 185 



very great pleasure to recommend your 
appointment as a Member of Council. I 
most sincerely trust your confirmation will 
secure to the State your valuable services. 
* Yours very truly, etc., 



' Acting Eesident of Selangor.' 

Another letter, dated March 27, 1878, 
from the Resident to the Colonial Secretary 
(Singapore), contains the following pas- 
sage: 

' It aflPbrds me great pleasure to state, for 
the information of his Excellency the Go- 
vernor, that I found all the respective 
departments of the Government in satis- 
factory order, and that the administration 
of Mr. Innes as Acting Resident during my 
absence has in every way borne out the 
very high opinion I formed of his abilities 



1 86 BOYCOTTING. 



when 1 had the honour of recommending 
him as my locum tenens.^ 

Other letters there were to the same 
effect, which I have not by me, as they 
formed part of the official correspondence 
at Langat. Of the two I have quoted, I 
had taken copies for a special purpose. 

After this, the Kesident neglected to 
inform Mr. Innes of the meetings of 
the Mixed Council, of which he had 
been appointed a member by Sir William 
Jervois ; and left out also the Tunku 
Panglima Raja, for the sole reason appa- 
rently that he was a friend of ours. All 
this did not trouble us much — indeed, I 
was very glad that we saw so little of the 
Kesident ; but, unluckily, his staying away 
prevented other people who visited Langat 
from coming to see me, as they almost 
always came in his company. During my 



BOYCOTTING. 187 



stay of two years I only saw white faces 
five times, except when I went on a visit to 
Singapore. 

The first of these five occasions was 
when the new Governor, Sir Frederick 
Weld, came to Langat. He and his suite 
remained a few minutes in our house, 
remarked on the beauty of the situation, 
and went oflF again. Even that short visit 
I imagine that I owed entirely to the 
good offices of the Assistant Colonial Secre- 
tary, Mr. Swettenham. The Governors 
themselves were changed so rapidly that 
they (with the exception of Sir William 
Jervois) never had time to learn much 
practically about the Native States. This 
made the third Governor, and the sixth 
change of Government, since we had been 
in the service ; for between each Governor 
there was an interregnum, when the 
Administrator took the helm ; he took 



1 88 BOYCOTTING. 

it also when the Governors went to Penang 
Hill for change of air. 

The second occasion was when the 
daughters of the Resident called and 
solemnly deposited the cards of their papa 
and mamma. This proceeding amused us 
a good deal ; I suppose I ought to have 
sent our cards in return by native boat, 
but the fact was we had none with us, as 
we should as soon have thought of taking 
cards to the Desert of Sahara as to Langat. 

The third occasion was when Captain 
Murray, Resident of Sungei TJjong (third 
and smallest Native Malay State) ran over 
to see us in a little steam-launch. He was 
topographically our nearest neighbour, but 
was always so busy in his own little king- 
dom that, to our great regret, we saw very 
little of him. He had often invited us to 
go and stay with him at Sungei Ujong, 
but we had never been able to avail our- 



BOYCOTTING. 189 



selves of the invitation. He now appeared 
unexpectedly, to our great delight, with a 
friend ; and they stayed a night with us. 
That was the last time we ever saw him. 
A short time afterwards (we heard) he was 
entertaining the Governor at Sungei TJjong, 
and on the Governor's departure he re- 
mained for a minute or two at the door of 
his house, without his hat, having taken it 
off in a parting salutation. In that minute 
the mischief was done; he sickened from 
sunstroke, was taken to Malacca, and died 
there in a few hours. Everj^one who knew 
him grieved over his loss, and no one, I 
think, more sincerely than we. He was of 
so cheerful and buoyant a spirit that he 
made even our dreary jungle bright by his 
presence. 

A fourth occasion was when the 
Assistant Colonial Secretary came as 
auditor on a tour through the States. 



190 BOYCOTTING. 

An effort was made, Mr. Innes told me, to 
dissuade him from coming up the hill to 
call on me by representing that they must 
get off by the next tide ; but the Assistant 
Colonial Secretary, having himself lived 
in Langat long before the Resident had 
entered the service, naturally took an 
interest in the place, and refused to be 
hurried away from it. So he very kindly 
came up and spent a good part of the day 
with us after finishing his audit, while the 
Resident sat in his steam-launch on the 
river below, among the mosquitoes. 

The fifth and last time that we had a 
visit from a fellow-countryman was when 
Mr. Holme, an officer of the Buffs, arrived 
at Langat in the course of a walking-tour 
he was making through the States. He 
and a brother officer of the name of Lewis 
had walked all through Perak at the back 
of the mountains, often in places where no 



BOYCOTTING. 191 



white man had been, and the singular part 
of their expedition was that neither of them 
knew half-a-dozen words of Malay. The 
people among whom they travelled were 
reported to be very fierce, but did them no 
harm. Their mode of obtaining food was 
by holding out one hand with money in it, 
and the other empty, and saying : ' Makan ' 
(food). It was a daring and successful 
expedition, except that Mr. Lewis's health 
gave way at last under the privations and 
exposure, and Mr. Holme had just shipped 
him off to Singapore at Klang before 
coming up to Langat. Mr. Holme him- 
self did not appear to have suffered in 
health at all, but on the contrary, looked 
^ as hard as nails.' 

Some of the natives seemed delighted to 
see us back again on our return from 
Europe. Most of the rajas, on meeting Mr. 
Innes, inquired whether he had brought 



192 BOYCOTTING. 

with him the same wife that he had before ; 
evidently supposing that Mr. Innes, like a 
raja, kept a considerable assortment of wives 
at home, and took them out in turns. 

The Sultan, after expressing great plea- 
sure at Mr. Innes's return, added naively, 
* I am so glad, because now you are back I 
shall receive a larger allowance.' He then 
proceeded to explain that during Mr. Innes's 
absence in Durian Sabatang and Europe 
his * allowance ' had dwindled down very 
much. Large sums had been deducted every 
month in order to pay for public works 
undertaken in Langat; and smaller sums 
to pay for all manner of European manu- 
factures, including a piano, a quantity of 
pictures of the English royal family, a 
buggy, English crockery, forks and spoons, 
and so forth. The Sultan said he did not 
mind paying for these things, though they 
were not of the slightest use to him, if the 






BOYCOTTING. 193 



English Tuans thought it necessary for his 
dignity to have them; all he wished was 
that these expenses should be kept within 
moderate bounds. 

He ordered his clerk to bring his account- 
books to show to Mr. Innes in proof of 
what he had said ; and he repeated to us that 
he had often received less than his usual 
income of $1,000 per month ; indeed, 
one month he had only, he said, received 
$90. He complained that this was really 
not enough for him to live upon, as every- 
one in the country who was in want 
looked to him for assistance, and he could 
not possibly send them away; no Sultan 
had ever been known to do such a thing. 
He added : 

' I do not know how to play the piano, 
nor does anyone in my house ; and, more- 
over, I am too old to learn, I prefer 
fingers to forks ; European crockery and 

VOL. II. 30 



194 BOYCOTTING, 

glass is not suited to my servants, who 
smash it continually; and as for the horses, 
I suppose we do not understand the care of 
them, for they do nothing but die, one 
after the other, as fast as they can. The 
buggy is all broken, and we do not know 
how to mend it ; and the gun which was 
sent me is useless, as I never did care to 
shoot, and am now too old to begin. I 
should be glad if no more European articles 
were sold to me for the present, as I wish 
to receive my $1,000 intact. Please write 
all that to the authorities.' 

Mr. Innes put off as long as he could 
doing anything in the matter ; but when- 
ever the Sultan met us out for a walk in 
the evening, he used to stop us and ask if 
the letter to the Resident had been written. 
At length Mr. Innes did write. The Resi- 
dent, by way of answer, came up to Langat 
and saw the Sultan privately as usual ; and 



BOYCOTTING. 195 



then informed Mr. Innes that the Sultan 
had denied to him everything that he had 
before said to us. This, I think, was very 
possible ; for, according to Malay ideas of 
politeness, the Sultan was more than justi- 
fied in saying one thing to the Resident's 
face and another behind his back. Such a 
practice is not utterly unknown among 
English people; the only difi-erence being 
that there are some limits to an English- 
man's mendacity in the cause of courtesy, 
but there are none whatever to a Malay's. 

We vegetated on in Langat for the first 
year without any break in our dull life. 
Then I once more fell ill, and went to 
Singapore for medical advice. Mr. Innes 
did not ask for leave to accompany me, as 
he wished to let his leave accumulate till 
next year. He would then be entitled to 
three months, which he proposed to spend 
in making a trip to Australia, with the 

30—2 



196 BOYCOTTING. 

object of looking out for other employment^ 
as we were both thoroughly disgusted with 
the Malay Native States. Our prospects 
were indeed most dismal. 

There was no hope of our being removed 
to Perak, so long as the then Resident was 
there ; and there was no hope of our posi- 
tion improving in Selangor, for the new 
Governor invariably checked Mr. Innes 
whenever he attempted to overstep the 
strict limits of official intercourse. Pro- 
bably the Governor was right, according to 
the strict letter of the law of red-tape ; but 
we could not but think that if so, that law 
was very unsuitable to the circumstances. 
It enabled the local authorities to shelve 
complaints, both from Mr. Innes and the 
natives, without fear of consequences. 
This possibility had been foreseen by Sir 
William Jervois, who had instituted two 
checks on the Resident's otherwise un- 



J 



BOYCOTTING. 197 



limited power. The first of these was the 
Mixed Legislative Council, of which Mr. 
Innes was appointed a member, together 
with certain natives (such as the Tunku 
Panglima Eaja) who were known to 
possess some independence of character; 
the second was an official diary, to be 
kept by each Collector at his station and 
forwarded through the Kesident once a 
month to the Governor. 

When this plan of an official diary was 
first started, the Colonial Secretary of the 
period (Mr. John Douglas) expressly told 
Mr. Innes that it was a great boon to the 
Collectors, as by it they could let the 
Oovemor know if they had anything to 
complain of, or if anything wrong was 
going on in the country. But our superior 
rendered Sir William Jervois's precautions 
useless, by the simple expedient of sup- 
pressing both the diaries and the Membera 



198 BOYCOTTING. 

of Council when it suited him. The course 
of procedure was usually as follows : The 
Sultan, or some other native, complained 
of some grievance ; either it was a boat- 
swain who had been assaulted and beaten 
for not touching his cap when holding a 
ladder with both hands, or it was the 
Tunku Panglima who was studiously- 
excluded from the Council ; or it was 
some story about some wood that the 
Sultan said had been paid for, but not 
delivered to him. After considerable 
pressure, Mr. Innes mentioned the matter, 
what^ever it was, by letter to his superior. 
He took not the faintest notice. Some 
weeks having elapsed, Mr. Innes wrote 
again. Same result. A third or a fourth 
letter sometimes followed, equally un- 
answered ; and then Mr. Innes, as a last 
resource, mentioned the affair in his official 
diary. But the diaries containing these 



BOYCOTTING. 199 



entries were not allowed to reach head- 
quarters. They reappeared at Langat 
with the obnoxious passages scored in 
red, and an order that the diary should 
be re-copied, omitting them. 

On one occasion, after re- copying the 
diary as desired, Mr. Innes made the 
expunged part the subject of a special 
private letter to the Governor, but it was 
of no avail ; he merely received a repri- 
mand for his neglect of official etiquette. 
In short, it seemed impossible, so long as 
Mr. Innes remained in the service, for him 
to get a hearing. Afterwards, when he had 
resigned, and met some of the Singapore 
officials face to face, they tried to console 
him by telling him that on every occasion, 
while he had received a reprimand, for 
form's sake, his immediate superior had 
received a much severer one, because it 
was evident that he was in the wrong. 



200 BOYCOTTING. 

But this was not much of a consolation ; 
for in the first place, as Mr. Innes was 
admittedly in the right, he did not see why 
he should have been censured at all, even 
though mildly — 

* Perhaps you were right to dissemble your love, 
But why did you kick me downstairs V 

he felt inclined to quote; secondly, the 
Resident saw and triumphantly forwarded 
each snub to Mr. Innes, while the latter 
was not allowed to see those which fell 
to the Resident's share, and did not even 
guess their existence ; thirdly, the consola- 
tion, such as it was, came too late, Mr. 
Innes having been driven out of the service 
in the interim. 




CHAPTER X. 

OUR LAST YEAR, 

WAS too ill when I first reached 
Singapore to enjoy myself ; but 
soon recovered under medical 
treatment, and in about three weeks re- 
turned to Langat, bringing with me a 
most lovely and fascinating puppy where- 
with to cheer our solitude. He was a 
round ball of flufiy dark-brown velvet at 
this time, and afforded us great amusement. 
It was soon quite impossible to find such a 
thing as a pair of boots or shoes ; one was 
generally in the garden, and the other 
perhaps in the hen-house or kitchen ; while 



202 OUR LAST YEAR. 

everything in the house, from the Japanese 
tables to the cat's tail and the Tuan's legs, 
bore witness, in tiny rows of dots, to the 
fact that the puppy's teeth were coming 
on nicely. 

I also brought back with me a cook, 
whom I had managed to persuade into 
trusting his valuable person in the Native 
States. The Changeling was quite aston- 
ished to find he was really to go at last, 
and put on a quantity of sentimental airs 
about his having been with us so long, and 
served us so devotedly ! which showed that 
at any rate he was not devoid of imagina- 
tion. 

My new cook was a much cleverer 
fellow. He was also a Chinaman. On 
my telling him that we wished very much 
he would learn to make bread, and that I 
knew it could be done by using tuwak, the 
fermented juice of the coco-palm, as yeast, 



OUR LAST YEAR. 203 



he set to work, and, after a few failures, 
produced charming little loaves, a treat 
we had never before enjoyed in Langat- 
Soon after this discovery, however, I began 
to find my cook dreadfully sleepy and lazy 
all day. I supposed this to be due to 
opium, and Mr. Innes confirmed me in the 
idea, saying that a good cook was sure to 
take to opium in a place like Langat, there 
not being enough scope for his genius in 
cooking our simple meals. 

But one night, when I could not sleep, 
the truth was disclosed. On going out into 
the veranda I saw the kitchen in such a 
blaze of light that at first I thought it was 
on fire; the light was streaming brightly 
through every chink in the palm-leaf walls 
and thatch. I rushed down in haste to see 
what was the matter, and found the cook 
drawing a batch of about fifty small loaves 
from the oven. I said to him : 



304 OUR LAST YEAR. 



' Why do you make such a quantity of 
loaves at once ? — we shall never get through 
all those before they go bad — and why did 
you sit up at night to make them ? Surely 
you have plenty of time in the day to bake 
the three or four loaves we require !' 

The man made some excuses which I 
could see were untrue. However, I con- 
tented myself with forbidding him to bake 
at night in future. I wondered where he 
had got all the flour to make the loaves, 
as he had certainly not got it from me, I 
never gave the cooks much at a time of any 
perishable article, for if not looked after 
they allowed everything to go bad, and 
continued to use it all the same for our 
food. 

A few days after this the Malay sergeant 
of police called on me, and mysteriously 
asked if it was true that my cook had my 
permission to sell loaves every day in the 



OUR LAST YEAR. 205 

bazaar. It appeared on inquiry that the 
man had been making a double income 
by carrying on the trade of baker to the 
whole village while earning wages as 
my cook. He sold at least fifty of the 
small rolls I had seen every morning at 
eleven o'clock, which he had baked in the 
night. The sergeant said he thought it 
his duty to tell me, because no doubt the 
flour was stolen from me. This I assured 
him was impossible. In fact, when I called 
the cook and asked him w^here he got the 
flotir, he proved to me that he had ordered 
a sack on his own account from Malacca 
some time before. I could not but admire 
the man's ingenuity and industry, but I 
represented to him that it was not right he 
should work all night (burning our fire- 
wood, too, recklessly) and thus render him- 
self utterly useless and incapable by day. 
This remonstrance, I need scarcely say, had 



2o6 OUR LAST YEAR. 

not the slightest effect; he was far too 
clever not to perceive at once what all 
jungle servants find out pretty soon, 
namely, that he was master of the situation. 
Perhaps I should mention, lest English 
ladies should be shocked at my speaking to 
the cook in my sleeping costume, that it 
was much more elaborate than what is worn 
in England under similar circumstances. 
In Malaya no one gets into bed, as they 
do in colder climates; the heat of sheets, 
blankets, and counterpanes would be un- 
endurable; therefore most people only lie 
on the bed (which consists of a mattress or 
mat, covered with a single sheet) with no 
covering on them but their nightdress. 
This custom makes it necessary that the 
nightdress should be a presentable costume. 
Luxurious bachelors usually had magnifi^- 
cent suits of Chinese silk for sleeping in ; 
but I contented myself with, first, a toilette 



OUR LAST YEAR. 207 

of thin flannel as a protection against rheu- 
matism, and over that a chintz dressing- 
gown, or 'morning robe/ to quote the 
language of the shops ; so that at any emer- 
gency, such as a mail-boat arriving, or a 
murder, or a fire, I was ready dressed. 
In fact, in Malacca and Singapore I have 
seen ladies go to church on Sundays in 
much the same garb. The nights were, 
comparatively speaking, cool, the thermo- 
meter often going down to TS'', while in the 
daytime it was at 85° or 90°. 

As our puppy grew bigger, we began to 
fear that his sleek, well-fed, attractive ap- 
pearance might prove too great a tempta- 
tion to some Chinaman, and he might find 
his way into their saucepans. We knew 
that certain Chinese carpenters of the Sul- 
tan's were in the habit of eating dogs, for 
one day, when a pariah dog had been shot 
in our garden, a deputation of carpenters 



2o8 OUR LAST YEAR. 

came up and begged that they might have 
it to eat. Of course we granted the re- 
quest. I am glad to say, for the honour of 
the Langat Chinamen, that they respected 
our puppy, and he was allowed to grow up 
uneaten. 

As for the Sultan, he apparently looked 
on our keeping a dog at all as a great joke, 
and whenever he met us on our evening 
walk, attended by Berowald the puppy, 
would go off into a fit of irrepressible 
laughter, pointing with a shaky old finger 
at the dog, by way of explaining his hila- 
rity. We asked him once (feeling our 
dignity, in the person of Berowaldus, rather 
hurt) what he saw to laugh at ? but got no 
satisfactory answer, he being still speechless 
from laughing. As dogs were never made 
pets or friends of by Malays, but were 
looked on as unclean animals, no doubt our 
being followed by one out of doors must 



OUR LAST YEAR. 209 

have seemed to the Sultan as unnatural and 
absurd as a Chinawoman's walking out 
attended by a tame pig would be in this 
country. The Tunku Panglima Raja, how- 
ever, and his son, Raja Amin, both pro- 
fessed to admire Berry (as we called him 
on weekdays, keeping his full name for 
Sundays and holidays) very much; so 
when we left Langat, not being able to 
take him to Europe, we presented him to 
them. 

Our garden all this time was getting on 
finely, and our sunflowers were the admira- 
tion of all the natives — not for their beauty, 
but for their seeds, which were often begged 
of us, to be used as medicine. With the 
wealth of sunflowers and lilies, the scarcity 
of anything to eat, and the unlimited op- 
portunities of lying in the shade and doing 
nothing, that Langat presented, I suppose 
it would have been a sort of paradise to an 

VOL. ir. 31 



ajo OUR LAST YEAR. 

aesthete; but sBstheticism was, unfortunately, 
not much in our Une. 

We tried hard to add honey to the list 
of our articles of diet. Immense swarms 
of small bees often buzzed through the air ; 
the noise of their myriad wings, growing 
louder and louder as they neared the 
house, often deceived me into thinking that 
a steam-launch had arrived. Being very 
fond of honey, I oflfered a good price to 
the natives if they would go and fetch me 
some from the jungle, which abounded in 
bees' nests ; but they assured me it was 
not worth eating. This I did not believe, 
but thought perhaps they were afraid of 
the tigers, though I knew they often . went 
into the jungle for firewood. One day a 
fine swarm settled in our garden, and I 
appealed to the gardener's superstition, 
telling him that in England such an 
accident was considered to bring good 



OUR LAST YEAR. 211 

"- - — - - I I — II ■ I . . 

fortune to the house, and urging him not 
to allow our luck to fly away. But it was 
useless ; he had never heard of such- a thing 
as catching bees and keepmg them, and 
knew not how to set about it ; neither did 
I — at least not practically. 

Long afterwards a piece of honeycomb 
was brought me by a man who had found 
it in the jungle, but it was- so dirty and so 
full of insects that I began to think the 
natives were right in despising wild honey 
as an article of food. Nevertheless, if the 
honey could be kept clean by adopting the 
system of European hives, I should think 
bee-keeping might prove a profitable trade 
in Malaya. It might also be a pleasant 
occupation for the leisure hours of the 
Government oflEicials. 

The growing disgust that we felt at the 
state of things in the Native States, and at 
the perfect hopelessness of any improvement, 

31—2 



212 OUR LAST YEAR. 

culminated when the Residency of Sungei 
Ujong, vacant by the death of Captain 
Murray, was given to Mr. Paul from 
Durian Sabatang. Of this appointment 
in itself we highly approved, for Mr. 
Paul was undoubtedly the person entitled 
by seniority in the service to the post, 
and as a rule such claims had been too 
much neglected. 

In fact, Mr. Paul's appointment was so 
contrary to the usual course pursued — that 
of bringing in some one from the * closed 
service ' of Smgapore or Penang, and put< 
ting him over the heads of those who had 
borne the burden and heat of the day in 
the Native States — that there were not 
wanting scandalous people who said it 
was due to the fact of Mr. Paul's being 
of the same religion with the chief officials 
in Singapore, who happened at this time 
to be mostly Roman Catholics. Indeed, 



OUR LAST YEAR. 213 

I have several times heard it remarked in 
the States that * Protestants had little 
chance/ and it was rumoured that an 
official, one of whose family was already a 
member of the Romish Church, was about 
to enter its fold *in compliment to the 
Oovemor;' but this did not seem very 
probable to us, as some time before, on the 
occasion of the Bishop of Labuan's visit, 
the same official had presented himself, 
doubtless on the principle of ^better late 
than never,' as a candidate for confirma- 
tion. 

As I have said, we approved of Mr. 
Paul's appointment to Sungei Ujong. But 
now the question arose — who was to succeed 
him at Durian Sabatang ? Mr. Innes was 
the obvious person, fi-om bemg next in 
length of service to Mr. Paul; and for 
many months we expected by every boat to 
receive the news that we were to go. Our 



214 OUR LAST YEAR. 



feelings on the occasion were very mixed. 
We had hated Durian Sabatang when we 
were there before, and considered it one of 
the unhealthiest, most God-forsaken places 
on this earth ; but we felt that there was 
an enormous difference between the position 
of Acting Superintendent and the permanent 
appointment. The latter post carried with 
it half as much pay again as we were re- 
ceiving at Langat. The money would pro- 
bably enable us to realize, much sooner 
than if we stayed on at Langat, the 
plan we now had in view, of going to 
Australia to * better ourselves ; ' and we 
could not but feel that though it would 
be sad to exchange our comfortable 
bungalow, beautiful garden and lovely 
scenery for the swamps of Durian Sabatang^ 
yet the removal on official grounds would 
be agreeable. 
, No such change, however, was in store 



OUR LAST YEAR. 215 

for us, and shortly after that we heard that 
Durian Sabatang had been given to Mr. 
Denison, junior by some years to Mr. Innes 
in the service. This was passing over Mr. 
Innes in a very marked manner, and we felt 
extremely indignant at the cause. Durian 
Sabatang, however, was such a very doubt- 
ful blessing that after a time we rather con- 
gratulated ourselves on having missed it, 
reflecting that in all probability one or both 
of us would have died very shortly had we 
been sent there. 

Time went on. The Governor, Sir 
Frederick Weld, paid a second visit to 
Langat, but I did not see him this time. 
In reply to the Tunku Panglima Raja's 
questions, I suggested that it would 
be unusual to expect such very important 
persons to climb so steep a hill as that 
of Jugra in the heat of the noon-day sun ; 
in fact, made the best excuses I could 



2i6 OUR LAST YEAR. 



for their non-appearance at our bungalow* 
However, except for the honour of the 
Governors' visits, I would, to own the 
truth, just as soon have been without them. 
I had begun to think such visits had 
nothing in common with those of angels, 
except that they were few and far between. 
Governors give immense trouble to poor 
housekeepers in lonely jungles by never 
coming on the day or at the hour when 
they are expected, and by never dining 
when expected, and vice versd. 

I am sure it is all done quite innocently 
and unintentionally, for how should they, 
who have everything made easy for them 
wherever they go, know anything of the 
difficulties of living in such a place as 
Langat? It would doubtless never occur 
to a Governor, nor to any of his suite, that 
if they wanted a good dinner at Langat 
they should have given a month's notice at 



OUR LAST YEAR. 217 

the very least — two would have been better, 
and three better still. Yet such was the 
fact ; for we depended, for everything but 
skinny fowls, entirely on Singapore; and 
the Chinese steamer, which was our only 
means of communication, came very irre- 
gularly, and often went into dock for a 
month or two at a time. 

The Sultan, I know, felt very much as I 
did on this subject, although he could, 
unlike me, lay the whole country under 
contribution, and set hundreds of slaves to 
work if he chose. 

When the Governors had come and gone, 
and all the fuss and bustle of their flying 
visits were over, there was always, besides 
the disappointment at these trifles having 
gone wrong, a general soreness of heart at 
the thought that we were left exactly as we 
were before. The natives quoted to us a 
Malay version of the saying, * The king's 



2i8 OUR LAST YEAR. 

face should give grace ;' and we could not 
help feeling that they were right, if the 
supposed supervision of the Singapore 
Governors were to be anything more than 
a name, in being discontented at the 
Governor's taking it for granted that all 
was going on well, because the local 
authorities affirmed it. 

We pointed out to them, however, that if 
they really wished their grievances re- 
dressed, they could easily go to Singapore 
and ask to see the Governor there, when no 
doubt he would attend to them. There 
was no such possibility for us, alas ! as we 
had not the good fortune to be free Malays. 
My husband, being a servant of the Govern- 
ment, could not go to Singapore when he 
wished, and I, whose very existence was 
not acknowledged by the Government, 
could not hope to be listened to by any 
Government official. 



OUR LAST YEAR. 219 

Our life at Langat became more and 
more like the life of a lighthouse-keeper, to 
which we had always compared it. Much 
as we liked some of the natives, it was im- 
possible to feel satisfied with their sole 
society. If we attempted to talk to them, 
we were pulled up at every moment, not 
only by our mutual ignorance of each 
other's language, but by their ignorance of 
European arts, customs, manufactures, poli- 
tics, everything. They were like intelligent 
children, and would ask questions by the 
hour together, if encouraged, but would 
rarely give any interesting information 
about themselves in return, because, like 
children, they had no knowledge of what 
is, and what is not, interesting to other 
people. 

At length, at nearly the end of the second 
year after our return to Langat, Mr. Innes 
received a letter which determined him to 



22b OUR LAST YEAR. 

resign. It was an order that on the 1st of 
January, 1882, he and his effects (meaning 
rae, I suppose, among other goods and 
chattels) should proceed to Kuala Selangor, 
there to take up the post of Collector and 
Magistrate ; while the second Collector (the 
little Eurasian before mentioned), hitherto 
his inferior in position, was to come to 
Langat in our stead; and the third Col- 
lector, from Kuala Selangor, was to relieve 
the Eurasian at Klang. 

Mr. Innes brought this letter up to me, 
and asked me to read it, saying it was quite 
clear that the Governor wished him to 
resign ; and since it was useless struggling 
on against both Governor and Residents, he 
should write by that very mail to tender 
his resignation. After reading the letter it 
appeared to me in the same light that it did 
to my husband: it was a clear case of pro- 
motion for the two other Collectors, and of 



OUR LAST YEAR. 221 



degradation for us. Ours had been, as I 
have before mentioned, by far the first and 
best of the CoUectorates, both on account of 
the pay, the position of trust as adviser 
to the Sultan, and, latterly, the excellent 
house. We were now ordered to go to a 
place of which we perfectly well knew 
the reputation, though we had never seen 
it. 

Euala Selangor will be best described in 
the words of Miss Bird, who, as all readers 
of the * Golden Chersonese' know, is not 
given to exaggerating the discomforts of 
the Malayan peninsula : 

* (Kuala) Selangor is a most wretched 
place, worse than Klang. . . . Slime was 
everywhere, oozing, bubbling, smelling 
putrid in the sun, all glimmering, shining 
and iridescent, breeding fever and horrible 
life. . . . Within the fort the Collector and 
Magistrate has a wretched habitation, mostly 



222 OUR LAST YEAR. 

made of attap. ... It looked most miser- 
able, the few things about being empty 
bottles and meat- tins. A man would need 
many resources, great energy, and an 
earnest desire to do his 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 ' (pp. 243, 
244). 

Nevertheless, it seemed to me to be a 
mistake to do anything of such importance 
as resigning the service in a hurry, and I j 

persuaded Mr. Innes not to send his resig- 
nation by that boat, but to think it over for 
a few days. He did so, but the more he 
thought it over the more irate he be- 
came. 

TJnfortimately neither he nor I knew in 
what a bad position a voluntary resignation 



OUR LAST YEAR. 223 



places a Government officer. We did not 
find out till too late the fact that it is 
better to obtain dismissal than to resign 
voluntarily. We. recalled the case of a 
subordinate officer who had, we knew, 
been recommended to retire on account 
of his drunken habits; he had received 
a considerable sum as compensation for 
dismissal, and three (I am not sure that 
it was not six) months' notice. Mr. 
Innes argued that surely he would be 
at least as well treated as this man, and 
said he would spend the three months' 
privilege leave, to which he was entitled, in 
a trip to Australia, in search of employ- 
ment. I still tried to dissuade him fi-om 
resigning, but as I could only repeat my 
vague belief that, what he meant to do was 
a mistake, and could not advise him what 
to do instead, he adhered to his intention. 
We had been particularly unlucky in 



224 OUR LAST YEAR. 

always living in a station where there were 
no other Government officials. We had no 
one to whom to apply for information as to 
the best course to pursue. 



CHAPTER XL 



RESIGNATION. 




HREE days afterwards Mr. Innes 
wrote his resignation, but as 
he rather hoped that even at 
the eleventh hour the Governor would 
give him a hearing, and as also he ex- 
pected no sympathy from the Resident, 
he determined to send his letter direct to 
the Governor, and to insert in it a sentence 
which would let him know that he con- 
sidered himself ill-used. He accordingly 
explained that the chief cause of his 
resignation was his being ordered to Kuala 
Selangor. 
VOL. ir. 32 



226 RESIGNATION. 

We waited in some anxiety for the 
Governor's answer to this. It came. It 
was the usual thing — a rebuke to Mr. Innea 
for having departed from the official routine, 
and a cold remark that his resignation 
must be sent through the proper channel,, 
namely, the Resident. Mr. Innes, in utter 
disgust, at once re-wrote his resignation, 
but left out all allusion to the cause, and 
enclosed it in proper form under cover to 
the Resident. It was several weeks before 
the Governor's acceptance came. 

In the meantime there arrived at Langat 
a quantity of the furniture of our suc- 
cessor, with orders that it was to be 
stored in our house ; and a flock of goats, 
also belonging to the Eurasian, which were 
to be allowed to stray about in our garden, 
of which, in two days' time, they would 
have made a perfect desert. This was a 
little too much; Mr. Innes, finding the 



RESIGNATION. 227 

furniture and goats on their way up the 
hill, sternly ordered them back, the former 
to be warehoused in the ' godown ' belong- 
ing to Government, and the latter to be 
looked after by the police. 

A letter from the Resident was then 
handed him, informing him that this inva- 
sion would be followed in a few days by 
the whole Eurasian family, babies included. 
Mr. Innes sat down and wrote, in reply to 
this, an official letter to the Governor, com- 
plaining of the ' indecent haste ' with which 
he was being turned out of his house, with- 
out even knowing whether his resignation 
had been accepted by the Governor. 

As we knew that the answer to this 
could not arrive before the threatened in- 
vasion of Eurasian babies (whom we could 
hardly send to be warehoused in the go- 
down, or hand over to the police), I deter- 
mined not to wait till they came, but to 

32—2 



22S RESIGNATION. 



leave Mr. Innes to face them alone. Ac- 
cordingly he and I went in the four-oar gig 
to meet a steamer bound from Penang to 
Singapore, the captain of which had pro- 
mised to be on the look-out for me. This 
was my farewell to Langat, after ha^dng 
lived there, off and on, for nearly six years, 
which had seemed to me more like sixty. 
Some of the natives wept at the idea of our 
leaving, especially the Tunku Panglima 
Raja. Others, however, including the 
Sultan, betrayed the usual Oriental ten- 
dency to worship the rising, rather than 
the setting sun. 

One of the first pieces of information I 
learnt after leaving Langat, was that in 
future the officers of the Malay Native 
States were to have pensions. This was 
told me by the captain of the steamer. I 
asked if he was quite certain of it, and what 
was his authority for the statement. He 



RESIGNATION. 229 



said that everyone knew it, and that some 
months before, on putting in at Klang as 
usual, he had found all the white and semi- 
white officials there in a state of excited 
delight over the printed notices to that 
effect, which had just been given them by the 
Resident. The notice had not reached us. 

I went on to Singapore, and some weeks 
after Mr. Innes arrived, having wound up 
all his affairs at Langat. He went next day 
by appointment to see the Governor, and 
they had a long talk. When he came back, 
I was surprised to find that whereas on 
setting out for this interview he had been 
full of wrath against the Resident of 
Selangor, he came back even more indignant 
with the Resident of Perak. 

We had been ordered to Kuala Selangor, 
Mr. Innes informed me, in pure ignorance 
that we should thereby be degraded. Far 
from its being done, as we had supposed, 



230 RESIGN A TION. 

with a view to induce Mr. Innes to resign, 
the Governor had expressed great regret at 
his resignation. It had never occurred to 
the Governor, nor to the Colonial Secretary, 
that we should dislike Kuala Selangor, since 
Mr. Innes was to have received the same 
pay there as at Langat. The Assistant 
Colonial Secretary, Mr. Swettenham, who 
could have told them that there were other 
questions besides that of pay involved, was 
(most unfortunately for us) away on leave 
in Japan at the moment. The Governor 
said he was surprised to find how strongly 
we preferred Langat to Kuala Selangor, as 
he had seen the latter place one day, and 
thought it charming. (I fancy he must have 
seen it through a telescope from on board 
the Government yacht.) We knew by 
common report that the house, although 
built by Government at nearly the same 
expense as our fine Langat bungalow, was a 



RESIGNATION. 231 



wretched hovel compared to it, it being a 
mystery, to all who saw the Kuala Selangor 
house, how the Collector could possibly have 
spent two thousand dollars on it. 

Mr. Innes was informed by the Governor 
that pensions were to be given to the 
Native States officers, and also that a copy 
of the notification to that efifect had been 
sent to Selangor for him. On hearing 
from Mr. Innes that he had not received 
it, the Governor remarked it was very un- 
fortunate. But this remark, Uke his regret 
at my husband's resignation, came too late 
to be of any use. 

He agreed that Mr. Innes should be 
allowed compensation for his six years' 
service at the usual rate ; also, three 
months' pay in lieu of the three months' 
privilege leave to which he was entitled ; 
also our passage-money home. There 
was precedent for all these claims in cases 



232 RESIGNATION. 



of persons who had been dismissed, and 
Sir F. Weld thought that although the 
present was an instance of voluntary re- 
signation, the peculiar hardships of the case 
made it a fit opportunity for stretching a 
point. He wrote to the Secretary of State 
for the Colonies, recommending that all 
these claims should be complied with, and 
assured Mr. Innes that he might consider 
them as already granted ; in proof of which 
he advanced the sum necessary for our 
passage home, to be repaid when we should 
receive the compensation. 

We left Singapore in a very few days after 
Mr. Innes's arrival there. We travelled for the 
first time in one of Holt's steamers, I having 
until that time always travelled by P. and 0. 
There being only two other passengers 
besides ourselves, we received more atten- 
tion, and felt ourselves of more importance, 
than when we were only two items in a 



RESIGNATION. 233 

large crowd. We had more and better 
cabin accommodation, the servants were 
more civil and less greedy, and the food 
was superior, both as to quality and cookery, 
probably from everything being on a smaller 
and more manageable scale. 

Soon after we arrived at home, Mr. Innes 
received the answer to the application he 
had made to the Colonial Office. Every- 
thing was refused — ^the compensation for 
six years^ service, the compensation for 
privilege leave, and the passage-money. 
Lord Kimberley saw no ground for grant- 
ing the application, * because Mr. Innes had 
resigned spontaneously.' As, however, the 
passage-money had been paid, the Govern- 
ment, making a virtue of necessity, did not 
ask for it back again. 

After a time, Mr. Innes, seeing a very 
able letter in the Times from Sir Benson 
Maxwell, on the subject of slavery in 



234 RESIGNATION. 



Borneo, wrote to the London and China 
Express on the subject of the slavery in 
Perak. His letter, we learn from a Blue- 
Book* published in November, 1882, at- 
tracted the attention of Lord Kimberley, 
who at once sent it out to the Governor of 
Singapore, requesting to have his observa- 
tions on it. The Governor's observations, 
which follow in the Blue-Book, made us 
open our eyes wide. He declared that ' the 
statement that slavery is approved of and 
practically encouraged by the English 
Resident of Perak . . . is . . . directly op- 
posed to fact Any officer who per- 
mitted such a state of things to exist ' (as 
was described in the letter) * would be in- 
stantly dismissed the service ' ( ! ). 

Who would suppose, on reading the 

* Further Correspondence respecting Slavery in the 
Protected Malay States (in continuation of C. 3,285 
of July, 1882). 



RESIGNATION. 235 

above, that English officers in Perak were, 
at the moment the Governor penned those 
lines, signing warrants for capturing run- 
away slaves ? Yet such was the fact. 
Perhaps the Governor thinks that is not 
* practically encouraging ' slavery ? If so, 
I must beg to differ from him. 

Mr. Low, in his letter, which comes next 
in the Blue-Book, does not at any rate 
attempt to deny the slave- warrant business, 
but he speaks of it in euphemistic phrases 
that would not be readily understood by 
the uninitiated. He says : * It is quite 
true that Mr. Innes, when acting in the 
absence of Mr. Paul as Superintendent 
of Lower Perak, expressed to m? his dis- 
inclination to carry out the regvlations of the 
Government he served^ but I do not remem- 
ber or believe that any pressure was put 
upon him to do so.' 

This sentence really confesses to the 



236 RESIGNATION. 



truth of everything that Mr. Innes had 
alleged. The * regulations ' here alluded to 
were those ordering him to sign these 
warrants. 

Sir F. Weld then quotes an extract from 
Mr. Innes's official diary, which he evi- 
dently supposes to contain Mr. Innes's real 
sentiments on the subject of slavery. But, 
as Mr. Innes explained in the London and 
China Express^ this extract was merely a 
memorandum of Mr. Low's sentiments, 
jotted down for future reference. 

The Governor, in one of his letters, also 
declares that the only case which has come 
to his knowledge of a European officer 
being accused of favouring slavery was 

when Mr. Innes himself was censured by 
the Resident of Selangor for allowing two 
boys to be handed over to a Selangor chief. 
This was an accusation too absurd for any- 
one to believe; and the Governor himself 



RESIGNATION. 237 

pooh-poohed it at the time. However, in 
the Blue- Book he brings it up as a serious 
argument. He seems conscious that to do 
so requires some apology, for he continues : 
' I admit that I considered the censure 
somewhat harsh, and as the boys wished to 
remain I allowed them to do so.^ Thereby- 
endorsing Mr. Innes's previous action in 
the matter. So that if Mr. Innes can be 
accused of * fostering slavery,' the Governor 
lies under the same charge. 

The real truth of this story was this: 
Raja Yakub, or Tunku Alang, a son of the 
Sultan's, called one day on us at Langat, 
bringing with him two boys, who seemed 
to be about eight and thirteen years old. 
He told us he had brought them, because 
they wished to live with him, all their rela- 
tions being dead ; but as he knew that the 
English Tuans were apt to make a fuss 
about that sort of thing, and to call it 



238 RESIGNATION. 



Blavery, he thought it best, before under- 
taking to keep the boys, to ask Mr. Innes 
whether lie was likely to get into trouble 
by doing so. He explained that he did not 
intend to consider the boys as slaves, but 
merely proposed that they should weed in 
his plantation, or do other light work suited 
to their age, in return for their keep. Mr. 
Innes said he really could not see any harm 
in this, if the boys clearly understood that 
they were not slaves, and might leave at 
any time. Accordingly he questioned the 
boys, and a man who accompanied them, 
who seemed to be a distant relation of 
theirs. The boys most distinctly declared 
they were verj' happy at the Tunku's (and 
they certainly looked it, for both were well- 
fed, high-spirited, intelligent lads), and that 
if he did not take pity on them and keep 
them, they did not know what would become 
of them, as all their near relations were 



RESIGNATION. 239 

dead. This being so, Mr. Innes told them, 
in the presence of Tunku Alang, and of the 
police, and a considerable crowd of specta- 
tors who had collected, that they were free, 
not slaves ; and a document was drawn up 
to that effect, signed by the boys, the 
Tunku, Mr. Innes, and other witnesses, of 
which one copy was deposited in the Go- 
vernment safe, 'while the other was given to 
the boys' relation. This transaction, re- 
ported in Mr. Innes's diary, was described 
by the Resident of Selangor as an en- 
couragement of slavery. 

After almost all the officials in turn have^ 
done their best, in the Blue-Book referred 
to, to make out that there was no slavery 
in Perak worth speaking about, it is rather 
astonishing to find (p. 8) the Governor 
talking of abolishing slavery in Perak, and 
Mr. Low declaring that * the State can now 
afford the necessary expense ' of doing so. 



240 RESIGNATION. 

It naturally occurs to one to ask, if the 
slavery did not exist, how could it be 
abolished ? 

One more remark in the Governor's letter 
(p. 5) I must quote. He says, ' Mr. Innes 
has had full opportunity, since my arrival, of 
bringing such matters under my notice, but 
he has never done so/ Now, as I have 
explained, Mr. Innes never had any op- 
portunity of bringing anything to the 
Governor's notice, until after he had re- 
signed, and was out of the service. His 
letters sent to the Resident of .Selangor 
were not answered ; his diary, as intended 
for the Governor's perusal, was objected to; 
and it was contrary to the rules of the ser- 
vice for him to write direct to the Governor. 

Sir Frederick Weld, moreover, was only 
Governor of Singapore during the two last 
years of our stay at Langat. The dispute 
between Mr. Innes and Mr. Low had taken 



RESIGNATION. 241 



place more than a year before Sir Frederick 
Weld's arrival ; therefore, even had it been 
possible for Mr. Innes to bring anything 
under the Governor's notice, he could not 
have brought that — an affair that had oc- 
curred in another country, that had been 
settled a year before, and that the Governor 
was supposed to know, since the official 
correspondence on the subject was all in his 

possession. 

I attended, some months ago, a lecture 
at St. James's Hall, delivered by Sir F* 
Weld, on Malaya, and was much amused 
to find that both he and Sir Hugh Low, 
who also spoke, took great credit to them- 
selves for the abolition of slavery in Perak. 
Not a word was mentioned of Mr. Innes's 
share in bringing this about. Mr. Innes 
himself was present, but did not think it 
worth while to speak. The truth is that 
slavery would never have been abolished 

VOL. II. 33 



242 RESIGNATION. 

in Perak had it not been for the letter to 
the London and China Express written by 
Mr. Innes; 

And now my recollections of Malaya are 
at an end. To those who have read Miss 
Bird's most interesting book, the * Grolden 
Chersonese' — a book that was specially 
delightful to Mr. Innes and myself, since 
we felt as if we had known personally 
every creature, every thing, and almost 
every mosquito she mentioned — it may 
seem curious that, notwithstanding the bril- 
liancy and attractiveness of her descriptions, 
and the dulness and gloom of mine, I can 
honestly say that her account is perfectly 
and literally true. So is mine. The ex- 
planation is that she and I saw the Malayan 
country under totally different circum- 
stances. 

Miss Bird was a celebrated person, and 
wherever she went was well introduced to 



RESIGN A TION, 243 



the highest officials in the land; Govern- 
ment vessels were placed at her disposal, 
and Government officers did their best to 
make themselves agreeable, knowing that 
she wielded in her right hand a little in- 
strument that might chastise or reward 
them as they deserved of her. Above all, 
she only stayed at each place a very short 
time, and knew that she was free to leave it 
whenever she liked. Of Lahgat, for in- 
stance, she took a passing glimpse, and 
admired it very much ; but would she have 
liked to vegetate there for years, without 
books, friends, or wholesome food, and with 
mosquitoes ? I trow not. My pages, as I 
have confessed, are dull and gloomy, but 
my excuse is that my life was dull and 
gloomy to a degree which can hardly be 
conceived even from this sketch of it. It 
unfortunately never occurred to me in those 
days that I might write an account of it all, 

33—2 



244 RESIGNATION. 



and print it. I used to write letters home, 
from which, if they had been all preserved, 
I might have compiled a far fuller and more 
interesting account of the natives and their 
ways ; but the greater part of them has 
been lost or destroyed. 

My relations, when I came home, were 
inclined to console me for all I had gone 
through, by saying, ^ At any rate, you have 
gained experience/ But it seems to me 
that there are some experiences — such as 
being half-murdered, for instance — ^that one 
is just as well without. 

In addition to all the other disagreeables 
of being buried alive in a place like Langat, 
one loses all one's old acquaintance and 
makes no new ones; so that when we at 
length awoke from our six years' nightmare, 
we found ourselves all but friendless, as 
well as all but penniless. In short, I do 
not recommend the Malay Native States 



RESIGNATION. 245 



Service to anyone who cannot begin, as 
some have begun, at the top, by being 
Resident. 

The only real advantage that I gained 
from all my ' experiences ' in the East is a 
great admiration for the English climate* 
No one has ever, since my return to it, 
heard me grumble at the weather. I prefer 
even a peasoup-fog in London to the finest 
day that ever grilled an unfortunate 
European in Malaya; I revel in an east 
wind, and delight in a hard frost. 

The only advantage that my husband has 
gained by being in her Majesty's service for 
six years is that he is now exempt from 
serving on common juries. That is no 
doubt something; but hardly worth all 
that it has cost. 

Before concluding, I wish to point out 
that almost all the miseries from which we 
suffered in the Far East were a conse- 



246 RESIGN A TION. 



quence, directly or indirectly, of the system 
of * Protection/ Had the Malay Native 
States been annexed, how diflFerent would 
have been our position ! Firstly, there 
would not have been the excuse for 
conniving at slavery that Raja Yusufs 
dominion (though only nominal) now 
aflfords. Secondly, the influx of European 
planters and traders that would have 
followed immediately on the heels of 
annexation would have resulted in the 
establishment of an independent society, 
whose opinion, freely and publicly ex- 
pressed, would have acted as a wholesome 
check on the Residents. Thirdly, the 
solitude and isolation which formed one of 
our greatest trials would have been 
modified, if not done away with altogether. 
Having for six years seen the system of 
* Protection ' at work in the Malay States, 
I am inclined to think that the only 



RESIGNATION. 247 

persons protected by it are H.B.M/s 
Residents. Everyone else in the country 
— ^native or European — is practically at 
their mercy. They alone are 'protected/ 
even from free criticism, by a combination 
of circumstances which I have already 
described. Rumours may reach the Singa- 
pore officials from time to time of their 
doings, and their characters may be 
thoroughly well known at headquarters j 
but such rumours, proceeding as they do 
from natives only, are of no avail. Natives 
cannot be induced to come forward and 
take active steps against any man, so long 
as he is in a high position. Let him first 
be degraded, and they will be all open- 
mouthed against him ; but while he is in 
authority, they may form secret plots for 
poisoning or stabbing him, but wiU not 
dare to prosecute him openly. The mouths 
of the only people who could give trust- 



248 RESIGNATION. 

worthy evidence — namely, the Assistant 
Residents, Collectors, and Superintendents 
— are carefully closed by etiquette. 

It may be doubted whether any human 
being is qualified to exercise with discretion 
and justice such unlimited power as this 
system bestows. Yet it works well enough 
when the Resident happens to be a wise, 
sober, moral, and just man (as men go). 
But if he should happen to be the reverse, 
immense mischief may ensue, and may 
go on for years without anyone's being 
able to check it. The best wish I can 
form for my countrymen now in the ranks 
of the Malay Native States Service is 
for speedy Annexation. To them it would 
really mean ' Protection,' of which in my 
opinion they stand, far more than the 
native, in need. 

Whether Annexation would be good for 
the Malays is another question. It would 



RESIGNATION. 249 

probably drive most of them into the 
neighbouring countries of Pahang and 
Kedah, which are still under real, un- 
* protected ' Malay rule. It has been shown 
by experience in Singapore and Penang 
that the Malay cannot stand before Chinese 
and Kling competition. A few years since, 
the majority of boats in the Singapore and 
Penang harbours were Malay-owned ; now 
there is hardly such a thinor as a Malay 
boat to be seen in them. There are many 
people, of whom I am one, who would 
regret the disappearance of the amiable, 
gentle-mannered Malay — idle and thrift- 
less though he be — from the Protected 
States ; but it is inevitable. He is no more 
fit to cope with the irrepressible Chinaman 
than coaches are with steam-engines. He 
belongs, with his patriarchal feudal system, 
his love of the dolce far niente^ and his 
determination to allow the brains of half 



250 RESIGNATION. 

his race (the feminine half) to lie for ever 
fallow, to the past ; he cannot move with 
the times ; and unless he moves out of the 
way (to Kedah or Pahang), he will cer- 
tainly be crushed beneath the wheels of the 
car of progress. 



THE END. 



BILLING AND SONS, PBJNTERR, GUILDFORD. 



IV