SinTR/mic
JfaHELSTflNE
^_* W
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE REAL MALAY
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
BRITISH MALAYA: an Account of
the Origin and Progress of British
Influence in Malaya.
MALAY SKETCHES
UNADDRESSED LETTERS
ALSO AND PERHAPS
THE BODLEY HEAD
THE REAL MALAY
PEN PICTURES
BY
SIR FRANK tATHELSTANE
SWETTENHAM, K.C.M.G.
LONDON
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED
Third Edition
Printed in Great Britain
ly Tumlrull <Sr Shears, Edinburgh
2)5
TO THE READER
/~\NE sees, in newspapers, railway carriages,
^^ omnibuses, and throughout the meadows
of England, advertisements which proclaim the
innumerable uses, and absolute efficacy, of a host
of patent cures for every ill that flesh is heir to.
The specifics whether in the form of pills,
powders, potions, or plasters will heal every sore,
restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, hair
to the bald, or work any other miracle at an ex-
tremely moderate cost. Babies clamour for these
nostrums if you can believe the pictured stories
that meet your eye at every turn fat old women
simper at their recovered youth and slimness, after
a second dose, and consumptive youths smash
" try-your-strength " machines, in the vigour in-
spired by a single bottle of some famed elixir.
All this is very encouraging ; and while the
ri TO THE READER
pictures appeal to one's sense of the Beautiful in
Art, the modest enumeration of the manifold virtues
of the simples and the syrups brings us face to
face with Truth.
It may be that I have not read the newspapers
of widest circulation, have not travelled by the most
favoured railways, studied the really popular omni-
buses, or wandered through the best-advertised
meadows, for I have not met with a cheap, por-
table, and effective giver of sleep.
In the nerve-exhausting bustle and excitement
of an expiring century, what every one wants is
the power to command sleep at short notice. I
offer you this book, in the belief that, haply, you
may find in it that needed restfulness, which will
rapidly develop into blissful slumber. Unlike the
pills and the potions, you gain the effect without
losing the cause. There is no illustration, no
" won't-be-happy-till-he-gets-it," because sleep is
so generally unbecoming, to all but the very
young, that I prefer to leave the picture to your
imagination.
If my prescription fails ; if the unexpected
happens ; I am willing to take the consequences,
TO THE READER vii
and you can say, publicly or privately, that I
misled you. I shall not be offended. If, on the
other hand, my prescription produces the desired
result, you will have both capital and experience,
and I the reward of virtue.
The fair places of Malaya are as yet undese-
crated by the mammoth placard of forbidding
ugliness, but the Malays have their infallible cures,
which possess at least as many and potent quali-
ties as those so aggressively claimed for English
quackery. Indeed, I remember that, some years
ago, an epidemic of cholera broke out in a district
of a Malay State, and I went there to see what
could be done for the people. When I arrived,
I found there had been a good many deaths, but
the usual "scare" was absent. On inquiry, I
learned that a medicine-man had appeared, shortly
after the outbreak of the disease, and had sold,
to almost all the Malays, a cholera- specific, for
the very reasonable price of one dollar per charm.
Talking to a group of people, I asked to see the
charm, and they all held out their right hands,
and showed a small piece of thin string tied round
their wrists.
nu TO THE READER
" Is that all ? " I asked.
" That is all," they said.
" Where is the medicine-man ? " I inquired.
" He has left the district."
" How many people bought the prophylactic ? "
"About five hundred."
"The man has robbed you."
" Why ? "
" Because the thing he sold you is only a bit
of string, and useless."
" But we told him so, and he promised that if
any one who had bought the charm was attacked
by cholera, and died, he would, in every such case,
give back the dollar."
Needless to say, I made no further attempt to
shake so great a faith. The black death has a
way of attacking the fearful ; but the Destroying
Angel passes by the doors of those who sleep
in the happy confidence of security through the
possession of a bit of magic string.
One word more. I advise those who are not
interested in matters which send their countrymen
across the seas, and keep them there, life-long,
or life-short, exiles from their native land, to
TO THE READER ix
turn over the first fifty-one pages of this book and
begin their reading at that point.
For any who care to know by what insignifi-
cant means the outposts of the British Empire are
advanced, and guarded, and strengthened (often
against the wishes of her Majesty's advisers),
how enemies are persuaded to be friends, and
pathless jungles are opened to every form of
enterprise for them this first unvarnished picture
may possess a wider interest and a deeper signi-
ficance than any of the succeeding sketches.
F. A. S.
CARCOSA, MALAY PENINSULA,
May 1899.
CONTENTS
PAGE
A NEW METHOD I
A STORM EFFECT $2
A SILVER-POINT 63
A "GENRE" PICTURE 86
SOME LAST TOUCHES . . . . . . .105
A NOCTURNE 113
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 139
WOODCUTS 163
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 1 86
AN "OLD MASTER" 200
A LINE ENGRAVING 2IO
A SILHOUETTE 224
FAULTY COMPOSITION .232
LOCAL COLOUR 258
A MEZZOTINT 260
IN CHARCOAL 290
THE REAL MALAY
A NEW METHOD
OF all the momentous events of this fast-clos-
ing century, probably the most remarkable is
the forcing of China from that position of exclusive-
ness which she has maintained inviolate throughout
the ages. For many years the most intelligent and
best-informed Englishmen have realised the pos-
sibilities of the Chinese Empire. They have gauged
the value of that vast territory, with all its known
and unknown resources, and the possibly greater
value of a preponderating influence in a country
inhabited by four hundred millions of the hardest-
working, most easily governed race on earth. An
understanding with China, not many years ago,
might have saved the situation and benefited British
interests to a larger extent than an alliance with
any Western Power. The opportunity went with
the war between China and Japan, a war which
2 THE REAL MALAY
showed the world China's weakness, and gave
Russia an opening, of which she was not slow to
avail herself.
Japan triumphed; but, at Russia's instigation,
France and Germany aided the Northern Power
to prevent Japan acquiring all the territorial advan-
tages she expected as the result of her victory.
Then Germany occupied Kiau Chau, and Russia
possessed herself of Port Arthur and Talien Wan.
Great Britain replied by occupying Wei Hai Wei,
and, since then, China has been treated as a quan-
titt negligeable, while Western and Far- Western
nations have set the policy of the "open door"
against the policy of partition, and gone very near
to blows in advancing their rival claims, or defend-
ing their real or imaginary interests.
More recently, the war between Spain and
America has impressed not only the British public,
but foreign nations, with the value of coaling sta-
tions, docking facilities and bases of supply and
it is clear that England possesses, all over the
world, very special advantages in this respect.
Leaving the Mediterranean out of the question, we
have, in Aden, Colombo, Singapore, and Hongkong,
a chain of fortresses, of harbours of refuge, of docks
and workshops, coaling stores and victualling yards,
A NEW METHOD 3
that give the British navy and mercantile marine
an unrivalled position. It is just becoming known
to the British public that one of the best defended,
most important and most conveniently situated of
these stations is Singapore; and people are now
beginning to learn that Singapore is in the Straits
of Malacca, and that it was secured for England by
the foresight and determination of Sir Stamford
Raffles, one of the greatest, and least known or
appreciated, of the builders of the British Empire.
I call Singapore important and conveniently situ-
ated, because it is about equidistant between Ceylon
and Hongkong ; because it commands the entrance
to the China Sea by the route of the Straits of
Malacca ; and because if, with Singapore as a
centre, you describe a circle, with a radius of a
thousand miles, that circle will cut, or include, Siam,
Borneo, the edge of the Philippine group, the
French possessions in Cochin-China, and the Dutch
possessions in Java, Sumatra, and the Malay Archi-
pelago.
Moreover, though Singapore is a very small
island, it has the Malay Peninsula for hinterland;
it is the central market, or port of trans-shipment,
for all the countries I have named, except the first
two (Ceylon and Hongkong), which are themselves
4 THE REAL MALAY
British possessions ; it is a great distributing centre ;
it possesses immense stores of coal, and docking
facilities of a kind unrivalled in the farther East,
except in our own colony of Hongkong.
To understand the mercantile importance of Sin-
gapore, one should consult Colonel Howard Vin-
cent's statistical map of the world. I will only say
that ten million tons of shipping entered and left it
in 1898, and the value of the trade of the port for
that year was, approximately, three hundred and
fifty millions of dollars, about equal to ^35,000,000
sterling.
Singapore, which is just over one degree north
of the equator, and within twenty miles of the
southernmost point of Asia, was acquired in 1819,
and, up till 1867, it formed, with Penang, Malacca,
and the province of Wellesley, one of the Indian
Presidencies. In that year the Straits Settlements,
as the new colony was so unfortunately named, was
handed over to the Colonial Office, and the period
of its greater prosperity began.
Up till and beyond that date, the British Govern-
ment absolutely declined to interfere in the Malay
States of the Peninsula, though repeatedly pressed
to do so; but a long series of provocations, and
the advent of Major-General Sir Andrew Clarke as
A NEW METHOD 5
Governor, resulted, in 1874, in an entirely new
departure, namely, the protection of the southern
part of the Peninsula. Since then the colony's
revenue has increased threefold ; the port and har-
bour of Singapore have been put into a state of
defence; the garrison has been strengthened; and
the prosperity and importance of this possession
has grown, part passu, with the development of its
immediate hinterland, the Protected Malay States.
The history of the British Settlements on the
Straits of Malacca may be summarised in very few
words. Malacca was seized by Albuquerque in
1511. The place, then a very important emporium
of trade, was wrested from the Portuguese by the
Dutch in 1640, and they retained it till 1795, when
we took it from them. In 181 8 we restored it, in
conformity with the Treaty of Vienna ; but in 1 824
it again passed into British hands, and has remained
in our keeping ever since. The island of Penang,
which is about two hundred and sixty miles north-
west of Malacca, was occupied by the East India
Company in 1786, at the instance of a trader in the
Eastern Seas named Francis Light. The island and
a strip of mainland were purchased from the Raja
of Kedah, on terms which were afterwards repu-
diated by the East India Company, to their great
6 THE REAL MALAY
shame and our present loss. The island of Singa-
pore, which lies some one hundred and ten miles
south-east of Malacca, was acquired by Sir Stamford
Raffles in 1819, and he made his occupation sure
by settling, not only with the titular ruler, the
Sultan of Johore, but also with the chief in local
occupation, the Temenggong of Johore.
These three Settlements were secured with one
and the same object, to prevent the Dutch from
shutting the door on British enterprise in the Malay
Peninsula and Archipelago, and to obtain, as Mr.
Light put it, " a convenient magazine for Eastern
trade," on the highway between India and China.
For fifty years after the founding of Singapore
the Settlements were left very much to themselves,
and, by reason of their convenient situation, the
fact that they were free ports, and later, the con-
struction of admirable docks and workshops in
Singapore, they prospered amazingly. With insig-
nificant internal resources, a small area, and no real
customs duties, the three Settlements were, in 1874,
in receipt of a revenue of $1,458,872, which was
more than sufficient to defray all their expenses,
and they had then, and have now, no public debt.
So far the British Government had steadily de-
clined to interfere in the affairs of the neighbouring
A NEW METHOD 7
Malay States; and when appealed to by British
subjects, issued to them, and all concerned, the
following notice : " If persons, knowing the risks
they run, owing to the disturbed state of these
countries, choose to hazard their lives and proper-
ties for the sake of the large profits which accom-
pany successful trading, they must not expect the
British Government to be answerable if their specu-
lation proves unsuccessful."
That warning had its deterrent effect on the
British trader; but the hand of the Government
was forced, not by our too-enterprising country-
men, not by the more modern mission of adventure
and exploration, but by the inability of the Malay
rulers to administer their own States, or control
the Chinese, who had been attracted to them by the
richness of their mineral deposits.
In 1874, the ignorance of all Europeans in the
colony concerning their near neighbours in the
Malay Peninsula almost passes belief. They had
been warned off the ground, and had taken the
warning to heart. Mysterious Malaya was a terra
incognita to official and trader alike. There were
no reliable books on the subject, the whole country
was an absolute blank on every map; even the
names of the States and the titles of their rulers
8 THE REAL MALAY
were not known to more than half-a-dozen English-
men. Of the nature of the country, the character
of the people, their numbers, distribution, senti-
ments, or condition, there was an ignorance, pro-
found, absolute, and complete. An impression,
however, prevailed that some kind of internal
struggle for power, for place, or for the sheer
pleasure of fighting, was constantly going on. There
was also a strong belief that Malays were treacher-
ous by nature and pirates by trade, and that there
were no special inducements for a white man to
trust himself in such a barbarous country.
Still there were a very few men in the colony
who hankered after the Malay nettle, who desired
to grasp it for the pleasure of showing their ine-
radicable belief in the capacity of their nation to
deal with any untamed people, any specially thorny
and difficult business. These desired then, as
others do now, and as their successors will desire
throughout the coming century, to paint the unex-
plored Peninsula red on the maps, for the glory of
England and the envy of her rivals.
A small thing, as so often happens, changed the
policy of the British Government in regard to the
Malay States. Rather, I should say, a number of
small things, coming together, found the right man
A NEW METHOD 9
ready to seize the opportunity. British expansion,
in the East at all events, is a record of the doings
of courageous, capable, and masterful men. Oppor-
tunities may tear the cloaks from a thousand excel-
lent, hesitating, conscience-burdened theorists and
talkers, who never get beyond their good intentions ;
while one man of courage, determination, and action,
inspired by the fire of patriotism, will make oppor-
tunities for himself, to the profit of his country.
Such a man was Stamford Raffles, and to-day his
countrymen can gauge to a nicety England's gain
and his personal reward. No true patriot counts
either his present risk, or his prospective advantage,
when intent upon his country's interests ; the
greater so immeasurably overshadows the less. But
probably no true man can help a feeling of mortifi-
cation when the sacrifice of the best he has to offer
passes without acknowledgment. Raffles was a
great man, and stronger in individuality than most,
but neglect touched him, and embittered the closing
years of his life. The founder of Singapore, could
he have revisited that city in 1874, would have
rejoiced to see to what trade-importance his almost
uninhabited island had grown. Could he have
returned again, a quarter of a century later, to find
the place a great naval stronghold, one of the chain
io THE REAL MALAY
of fortresses, of coaling and refitting stations, be-
tween England and China, the centre of a vast circle
of trade and the market of the developed Malayan
hinterland, he would have forgotten his personal
slights in the knowledge of his country's gain, the
proof of his foresight, the justification of his policy,
and the fulfilment of his dearest hopes.
In 1873, Major-General Sir Andrew Clarke, R.E.,
was appointed Governor of the colony of the Straits
Settlements, and, as the Colonial Office had been
flooded with complaints concerning the evil state of
affairs in the Malay Peninsula, Sir Andrew came
armed with instructions to inquire into the state of
affairs, and to say whether he thought it might be
possible and advisable to interfere, and introduce
some such system of British Resident Advisers as
that which prevailed in the native States in India.
As though to greet the new Governor, reports of
internal dissensions in all the western States came
treading on each other's heels.
The Chinese, engaged in mining in Perak, got
completely out of hand, and fought each other with
a fury and carnage unknown to Malay warfare.
One party, driven towards the coast, deprived of
all food supplies, and utterly desperate, took to
piracy, and with fast-pulling boats preyed upon
A NEW METHOD u
every passing vessel, with complete impartiality.
The cargoes were looted, the crews murdered, and
the vessels burned. For months her Majesty's
ships had patrolled the Straits without securing a
single pirate ; and, at last, in an engagement within
the mouth of a Perak river, two naval officers were
seriously wounded. That brought about the de-
struction of the pirates' principal stronghold and the
interference of the Governor.
Between the Chinese factions the fight had de-
veloped into a war of secret societies, and, not
content with their operations in Perak, the leaders,
who were supported and directed by heads of
societies in Penang, attacked British posts beyond
the borders of Perak, and blew up the Penang
residence of a Perak chief, hoping thereby to gratify
their spite and get rid of his control. Lastly, one
of three rival claimants for the sultanship of Perak
wrote to the Governor, begging for his assistance
and the loan of a British officer to teach him the
mysteries of sound administration.
Sir Andrew Clarke did not wait to write a
report that might have led to nothing ; he seized
this opportunity to deal with the Chinese quarrel,
to summon the Perak chiefs to a meeting
whereat the claimant with the best title was re-
ii THE REAL MALAY
cognised as Sultan the Treaty of Pangkor was
concluded, and a British officer, Captain Speedy,
was temporarily appointed British Resident of
Perak. A commission of three British officers l
walked through the most disturbed parts of the
country; and, in one month, caused all forts and
stockades to be destroyed, settled the question of
disputed mining areas, and released from captivity
forty-five Chinese women, held in bondage by Malay
and Chinese captors. When the commissioners
left the State and made their report, all fighting had
ceased, every fortification had been destroyed, every
captive Chinese woman had been restored to liberty,
and there has never been a piracy in Perak waters
since. From that moment the Chinese have given
no serious trouble.
As to Malay matters, they were not so easily
settled. One Sultan had been recognised, but there
was another in existence, who declined to give way,
and a third aspirant, who was naturally dissatisfied.
The State of Perak covers nearly ten thousand
square miles, and one British officer, even two (for,
a few months later, Mr. J. W. W. Birch was
appointed Resident, with Capt. Speedy as his
1 Col. Dunlop, R.A., C.M.G., Mr. W. A. Pickering, C.M.G.,
and the writer.
A NEW METHOD 13
assistant), could not be everywhere at once, in
a roadless, jungle-covered country. Consequently,
difficulties arose, the acknowledged Sultan, who
had asked for a Resident, proved faithless, resented
advice, or any interference with the indulgence of
his own inclinations, and the Resident was assassi-
nated by a powerful chief, acting with the knowledge
and approval of both the rival kings.
The first small expedition sent to punish the
murderers met with disaster. A number of lives
were lost, and a second force, consisting of troops
from China and India, under Major-General Col-
borne and Brigadier-General John Ross, with a
naval brigade under Capt. Duller, R.N. (now
Admiral Sir A. Duller, K.C.D.), attacked and cap-
tured the enemy's strongholds, put those in arms
to flight, occupied various strategic points, and
while giving a very useful exhibition of England's
power, and the capacity of her soldiers and sailors
to reach any Malay fastness furnished to the
civil officers that material support which was neces-
sary to enforce respect for their advice in trying to
introduce a better form of government.
Within eighteen months of the murder of the
Resident every Dritish soldier had left the country.
It is also worth mentioning that Perak eventually
I 4 THE REAL MALAY
paid the entire cost of the military expedition ; and
every man, directly or indirectly concerned in Mr.
Birch's death, sooner or later had to pay a severe,
but merited, penalty for his share in the crime.
The geographical position of the three Settlements
of Singapore, Penang, and Malacca has been briefly
indicated ; and it will be useful here to say that the
Malay Peninsula stretches southwards from Siam
and Burmah in somewhat the shape of a footless
leg, the island of Singapore lying close to the
southern extremity. Johore is Singapore's nearest
neighbour, and, unlike any other State, it has one
coast-line in the Straits of Malacca and the other
in the China Sea. Immediately north of Johore is
Pahang, on the east coast, and, on the west, Negri
Sembilan, Selangor, and then Perak. These four
constitute the Federated Malay States. Johore
is also under British protection, but is not in the
Federation.
North of Pahang are the semi-independent States
of Trengganu and Kelantan, to which must be added
PatAni under Siamese protection. North of Perak
is Kedah, also under Siamese protection.
Very shortly after the conclusion of the Pangkor
Treaty, Sir Andrew Clarke took steps to establish
British influence in Selangor and in the neighbour-
A NEW METHOD 15
ing State of Sungei Ujong, one of the group of
small States round Malacca. These districts, nine
in all (whence the name Negri Sembilan), had once
been united, but the ties had grown weak, and, as
the result of constant quarrels, and the absence of
any strong central authority, they had drifted apart,
and each maintained an almost complete indepen-
dence of all the others. Successive Governors, at
different times in the last twenty-five years, have
succeeded in extending British influence to the
"Nine States," and, only last year, the union of
the provinces was re-established, and the various
chiefs formally acknowledged the Sultan (or Yang
di Pertuan, as he is more properly styled), of Negri
Sembilan as their titular ruler.
Pahang accepted a British Resident in 1889, but
not very willingly ; and, as in Perak, discontented
chiefs caused serious trouble, which was only put
down with the assistance of military forces, bor-
rowed from Perak and Selangor. Since 1894 there
has been no disturbance of any kind, and, judging
by past experience, it may safely be said that, with
ordinary care and a proper consideration of the
reasonable prejudices, wishes, and feelings of the
Malay population, no State in the Federation need
fear that any Malay chief will again attempt to take
16 THE REAL MALAY
up arms against the Government. The Malay
labouring classes, the raiyats, have no desire to
oppose a regime that has so greatly improved the
conditions of life for them.
To return to the earliest days of the residential
system. Into the midst of a war-hardened and
desperate population chiefly of Malays, but, in
Perak and Selangor, tempered, or ill-tempered, by a
strong admixture of Chinese individual British
officers had been thrown, as one might cast a dog
into the sea ; leaving it to the dog to find his way
out again, or drown. It would weary the reader
if I were to truthfully describe the state of affairs
and the conditions of life in the Malay States when
this interesting experiment was first undertaken. I
will not attempt it; but I will remind him of two
notable facts, first, that, up to this time, no white
man had, since the beginning of time, ever gone
into the Peninsula and tried to exercise authority
there ; secondly, that, for many years, all these
States had been in a condition of anarchy and strife,
so that the only law, known or recognised, was that
of "might," and, in its name, things were done that
had better remain untold.
Of minor, but still important, considerations, the
following must be mentioned. In Perak, the first
A NEW METHOD 17
British Resident, after a few months spent in the
country, had been assassinated. A military ex-
pedition had vindicated the prestige of a power
hitherto unfelt, and the existence of which was but
vaguely realised. Some of those who opposed this
power had been killed, others arrested, executed,
imprisoned, or deported. Their relatives and ad-
herents naturally resented these stringent but neces-
sary measures. Then every other chief found that
he was no longer a law to himself; that he could
not levy taxes as he pleased ; could not kill without
inquiry, ravish or rob without punishment, requisi-
tion the labour of the raiyats without payment. All
these chiefs, their relatives, friends, followers, and
sympathisers, were secretly, and sometimes openly,
the enemies and opponents of the representative of
that authority which had, in a sense, pulled their
house down about their ears.
The circumstances in Sungei Ujong were almost
identical, but the people concerned were infinitely
fewer in numbers, the area to be administered much
more circumscribed, and, therefore, the difficulties
less.
In Selangor, beyond a naval demonstration, the
shelling of some forts, and the execution of certain
reputed pirates, there had been no conflict with
i8 THE REAL MALAY
British forces, and no British troops were ever
employed to support the Resident's authority. But
the people were worn out by years of internal dis-
order; the Sultan possessed no real power; the
Chinese had joined in the struggle, and fought
manfully on the side of one or other of the Malay
leaders, and the misery of perpetual strife had
driven hundreds from their homes, their lands, and
their country, to seek peace abroad.
In all the States the ruling class, the men of
influence, and the natives of the soil were Muham-
madans; not bigoted, as Muhammadans go, but
still followers of the Prophet, to whom the profess-
ing Christian was anathema maranatha. Lastly,
these Malays were then, and are still (but in some
particulars to a less extent), a courageous, haughty,
and exclusive people, infinitely conservative, hating
change, full of strange prejudices, clinging to their
ancient customs, to the teachings of the men of old
time, and ready to die to uphold them, or simply in
obedience to the orders of their hereditary chiefs.
Among ancient institutions was the infamous
custom of debt slavery, with all its attendant
horrors ; and, for many reasons that need not be
explained here, this private corvee, this enslavement
of men and women, of boys and girls, free-born
A NEW METHOD 19
and free by the law of Muhammad, was the
practice most valued, most tenaciously clung to,
by every man of rank, of means, or influence in the
country.
If I seem to unduly insist upon the conditions of
Malay life into which the first British Residents
were thrown, it is not to accentuate the difficulties
of their task, but simply to prove a proposition,
which seems to me to be of considerable interest
and importance to all Western nations whose ambi-
tion or destiny brings them into direct contact with
coloured races. My object is to show that, when
the British Government at last consented to inter-
fere in Malay affairs, the conditions of the problem to
be solved were as complex as ingenuity could have
devised. Further, that the means employed to grapple
with this uninviting situation, and evolve order out
of chaos, were entirely novel. Finally, that the result
obtained has been strikingly satisfactory.
To Perak were appointed a Resident and As-
sistant-Resident. A few undisciplined Sikhs and
Pathans supplied a guard, which proved unreliable.
To Selangor was sent one British Resident, and to
Sungei Ujong a single British officer. In both
these last cases, the officers were accompanied by
guards of about twenty-five Malay Police, and they
to THE REAL MALAY
formed the original nucleus of the police forces
afterwards raised for those States.
I myself was accredited to the Sultan of Selangor,
and my place of abode was the City of Festivals. 1
I went in a gun-vessel H.M.S. Hart, as far as I
remember and later, another gun-vessel visited
me. The officers condoled with me on my forlorn
position and uninviting surroundings; but I may
say here (as I am never likely to return to the
subject again), that this sympathy was thrown away
upon me. I was delighted to go to that snake-
haunted, mosquito-breeding swamp, and, in the
twelve months that I spent in Selangor, without
the companionship of any other white man, I never
felt the dulness of my surroundings for a single
day. The environment, to look at, was abhorrent,
and depressing beyond description, but the people
were strange and interesting, and made the place
unusually exciting. My colleagues, in the States
on either side of me, were rather better situ-
ated, and felt themselves no more fit subjects for
pity than I did. We spent our time getting about
the country, as best we could, roughly mapping it,
seeking out the best points for villages, police sta-
tions, customs houses, and landing-stages, and we
1 See "A Silver-point."
A NEW METHOD 21
did what we could to meet, and make friends with,
all the influential people of the country. Then came
the real difficulties.
In the Pangkor Engagement are two clauses that
practically placed the whole administration in the
hands of the Resident. They are these :
" Clause VI. That the Sultan receive and pro-
vide a suitable residence for a British officer, to
be called Resident, who shall be accredited to his
Court, and whose advice must be asked and acted
upon in all questions other than those touching
Malay religion and custom."
" Clause X. That the collection and control of all
revenues and the general administration of the country
be regulated under the advice of these Residents."
It is evident that the collection and control of all
revenue, and the tendering of advice which must
be acted upon, cover all executive authority. In
August 1876, however, the Secretary of State's
instructions were sent to the Residents of Perak
and Selangor, and it was added, " you will observe
that in continuing the residential system her
Majesty's Government define the functions of the
Resident to be the giving of influential and respon-
sible advice to the ruler. . . . The Residents are
not to interfere more frequently or to a greater
21 THE REAL MALAY
extent than is necessary with the minor details of
government," &c., &c.
In May 1878, a further circular was despatched
to the Residents of the three then- Protected States
warning them that, " the Residents have been placed
in the native States as advisers, not as rulers, and,
if they take upon themselves to disregard this prin-
ciple, they will most assuredly be held responsible
if trouble springs out of their neglect of it."
The Secretary of State said the circular was
"both necessary and judicious in its terms," but
he also wrote : " I fully recognise the delicacy of
the task imposed on the Residents, and am aware
that much must be left to their discretion on occa-
sions when prompt and firm action is called for."
This, naturally, threw the entire responsibility on
the Resident, and whether he failed in character and
firmness, or whether he showed excessive zeal and
anxiety to remove abuses and advance the interests
of the State, he did so with the knowledge that he
could not run with the treaty and hold with the
instructions. Perak is the only State where these
special treaty powers were conferred on the Resi-
dent ; but, as every one knows, not only there, but
also in all the States, the Residents, by force of
circumstances, went beyond the instructions, and car-
A NEW METHOD 23
ried on the administration with a wider authority, but
much on the same lines as though the States had
formed an integral portion of a British colony.
In India, Residents in native States are the agents
of the Viceroy, the eyes and ears of the Government
of India, a position quite unlike that occupied by
British Residents in Malaya, where "the general
administration of the country" is regulated under
their advice. In Egypt the task set, and performed
with such marvellous success, was widely dissimi-
lar, though, in some respects, the same kind of
administrative machinery has been employed on a
vastly extended scale. The problem now offered for
solution in the Philippines more nearly resembles
the Malay case ; though, perhaps, it would be more
correct to say that while there are, even there, wide
differences in the circumstances, the same methods
might be equally successful, if the opportunity for
employing them has not already passed. 1
From the earliest days of protection, it was laid
down, and necessarily so, that the Malay States, in
their relations with the neighbouring colony, would
look to the Governor as the controlling authority
behind the Residents, and that, in all other respects,
1 This was written before the outbreak of hostilities between the
Americans and Philippines.
24 THE REAL MALAY
each native State would supply its own machinery
of government. In the gradual education of that
staff of officers which has grown up to assist the
Residents, the experience of the Straits Settlements
has been largely drawn upon for rules and orders
in the conduct of affairs. Similarly, colonial and
Indian laws have been adapted to deal with circum-
stances that had a parallel in those places; but in
the Malay States there are prevailing circumstances
utterly unknown elsewhere, and, to meet these, local
knowledge alone could safely be employed.
State Councils were early established, and in
these councils sit the Sultans, the most important
of the Malay chiefs, and some Chinese. They deal
with all legislation, and with the appointments of
all native headmen, with their allowances, and with
the civil list. They have been wonderful safety-
valves, and to be a member is considered a very
high privilege.
Slavery and debt slavery were both abolished
within a few years ; but, in making that simple and
apparently natural statement, no idea is conveyed
of the burning nature of this question, and the
exceedingly delicate handling that it required and
received.
In 1874, no Malay man was ever seen unarmed,
A NEW METHOD 15
The men usually carried from three to eight weapons,
and boys of a few years old two or three. The
carrying of arms was gradually forbidden, and is
now unknown. A kris } which used to be a Malay's
most prized possession, has now very little value.
Vexatious taxes were at once abandoned, and all
the ports of the Malay States are free. The ex-
clusive rights of retailing opium and spirits were
farmed on the same principles as in the neighbour-
ing colony, while the Malay Governments still per-
mitted public gambling, under rigorous control, for
reasons which seem all-sufficient to those who
realise the impossibility of suppressing the practice.
The Resident's guard developed into a highly-
disciplined regiment of Sikhs ; communications were
opened in every direction ; all most important ques-
tions land, mines, labour, &c. were dealt with ;
posts, telegraphs, railways established, and water-
works constructed, to supply all principal towns;
the country was divided into districts and divisions,
with all the usual administrative machinery; and
Courts of Justice were opened at every centre of
population.
Smallpox and cholera used to decimate the Malay
population, and the fear of these scourges amounted
to a bad form of panic. Vaccination, sanitation, and
26 THE REAL MALAY
the ministrations of qualified medical practitioners
have, however, altered all this ; but the Malay still
declines to become an in-patient of those excellent
hospitals which are found all over the States. Other
nationalities have no such scruples.
Then, of course, prisons were built ; very credit-
able institutions they are, and they will bear the
closest scrutiny. Education, too, received some of
the attention it deserved, and the results are pro-
mising. Little effort has been made to do more
than teach the three R's in the vernacular, and to
inculcate habits of order and regularity. In the
principal towns there are English schools, where
children of all nationalities can qualify themselves
for posts requiring a knowledge of that language ;
but the desire of the Malay Governments is rather
to supply technical and agricultural education than
the study of classics, science, and that higher educa-
tion which seems to denationalise the Eastern and
render him unfit for the work lying ready to his
hand, while it never really qualifies him to succeed
in careers which he comes to believe are the in-
heritance of those who have learned how to write,
or even pronounce, the longest English words,
without any just appreciation of their meaning.
All this sounds well enough, and any inquiring
A NEW METHOD 17
mind can, by personal observation, see that much
has been done, and well done. No greater mistake
could be made, however, than to suppose that the
result might not have been extremely different.
Our neighbours, the Dutch, have had, in Sumatra,
an experience as unpleasant as it has been costly.
Even now, to imagine that any native State can be
treated like a British colony is culpable ignorance.
I have spoken of the residential system, but in
reality there was no system; what there is now
has grown of experience gained in attempting the
untried. A British officer, acting under the instruc-
tions of a distant Governor, is sent to " advise " a
Malay ruler and his chiefs. The officer is told he
is responsible for everything, but he is not to inter-
fere in details. His advice must be followed, but
he must not attempt to enforce it, and so on. He
must keep the peace, see that justice is administered,
respect vested interests, abolish abuses, raise a
revenue, foster British interests, do his best for the
State, and obey the instructions he receives from
Singapore; and with it all he is, at his peril, to
remember that he is only the adviser of the Malay
ruler ! Out of that somewhat difficult position has
grown the present administration ; and the main
reason why success has been secured is twofold :
z8 THE REAL MALAY
first, because a succession of Governors trusted
their Residents and supported them ; and, secondly,
because of that very possession of large authority
which was at once the strength and the weakness
of the residential idea. Had the authority been
less, the results to-day would certainly have been
very far short of those achieved ; but for all that, it
may be safely affirmed that, whilst the power for
good was immense, the power for mistakes, for ex-
travagance, for favouritism, was greater than should
be placed in any single hand. This was the real
flaw, and it has been removed by federation.
The Federation of the four Protected States was
brought about in 1895. Without abrogating any
existing treaty, the new departure provided for ad-
ministrative federation and mutual assistance, with
men and money ; the more prosperous and wealthy
States agreeing to supply funds for the develop-
ment of the more backward. The arrangement also
sanctioned the appointment of a Resident-General, as
the agent and representative of the British Govern-
ment, under the High Commissioner, and the States
undertook to raise a force of Indian soldiers for
service in any part of the Peninsula, or, if required,
in the neighbouring British colony.
After a three years' trial it is possible to speak
A NEW METHOD 29
of United Malaya, with some degree of confidence.
The experiment has proved a distinct success, and
the difficulty is to refrain from saying all it has
accomplished. It has brought the Malay rulers
together and made them friends, and, while proving
the reality of a union that could otherwise have
never come home to them, it has given them an
increased. feeling of importance and pride, by reason
of their connection with a wider theatre of influence
and action. It has thereby proved to them that we
fulfil our promises, and desire to put the Malay
ruling classes forward, rather than set them aside.
As long as they are satisfied on this point, they
prefer to leave all matters of detail to the Residents.
Then federation has secured uniformity, and it
wanted federation to show how many and wide the
differences were, and how rapidly they were in-
creasing. It has certainly secured a higher standard
of administration in all departments. It has given
most of the senior officers of Government valuable
opportunities of official intercourse with their col-
leagues throughout the Federation. This is specially
the case as regards the Residents. It has given the
Malay States a Judge, a Legal Adviser, and a Secre-
tary for Chinese Affairs, whose services have already
been of the utmost value. It has enabled the re-
30 THE REAL MALAY
sponsible officers to agree to identical laws to deal
with lands, mines, civil and criminal procedure, and
many other matters of first-rate interest. It has
combined the civil services of all the States ; it has
produced a highly-disciplined regiment of Indian
soldiers, called the Malay States Guides, and re-
organised the police forces under the direction of
one Commissioner.
Lastly, the Federation has assumed responsibility
for all the money advanced by the Straits Colony to
Malay States, and the present Secretary of State for
the Colonies (Mr. Chamberlain), has conferred on
the union the greatest benefit that has ever yet
fallen to its lot, by sanctioning the raising of a small
loan to construct about 170 miles of railway, and so
complete the through line from a point on the main-
land opposite Penang, through Province Wellesley
(in British territory), Perak, and Selangor, to the
capital of the Negri Sembilan, whence there is already
an existing line to the coast at Port Dickson. This
extension should be completed in 1902, and, with
existing lines, will give the Malay States about 350
miles of metre-gauge railway. Had the Straits
Settlements and the Malay State of Johore, during
the last fifteen years, pursued the same policy as
that followed in Federated Malaya, the year 1902
A NEW METHOD 31
might have seen this main Peninsula line extended
to Singapore, with such a steam ferry connecting
Johore with Singapore Island, as will complete the
communication between Province Wellesley and the
Island of Penang.
I have often been asked what it is we do in the
Malay States. The answer is that we do everything
that has to be done in the administration and de-
velopment of twenty-five thousand square miles of
territory, inhabited by a population of over half a
million people, of different races, colours, religions,
characters, and pursuits.
If I have succeeded in giving anything like a
correct impression of the task that was undertaken
in 1874, when two or three English officers went,
with blind confidence, into an unknown country, to
teach an unknown people a difficult art, which they
had then no real desire to learn ; and, if the reader
has now a general idea of how far the British Re-
sidents, their successors and assistants, succeeded
in discharging what was described as " a delicate
task," this seems to be the place to briefly detail the
means by which the end has been obtained.
Having been given what, if you like, we will call
an opportunity not perhaps a very attractive one
how did we deal with it ? How did we treat the
3 THE REAL MALAY
people who invited us to send them a teacher, and
then, having obtained the real end they sought,
murdered their guest ?
It may fairly be said that my words convey a
suggestion which is incorrect. It was not the
Malay people who asked for the British official ; it
was a disappointed Malay Raja who, desiring British
recognition of a coveted position, offered the invita-
tion as a means to that end. He obtained the end
he sought, and he was properly held responsible for
what happened to the guest entrusted to his care.
The first requirement was to learn the language
of the people to be ruled. I mean, to speak it and
write it well. And the first use to make of this
knowledge was to learn as much as possible about
he people their customs, traditions, characters,
and idiosyncrasies. An officer who has his heart in
his work will certainly gain the sympathies of those
over whom he spends this trouble. In the Malay
States the Residents have always insisted upon
officers passing an examination in Malay, and the
standard is a high one.
The main care of those responsible for the ad-
ministration was to keep faith in any matters of
agreement, and to do everything possible to secure
justice for every class and every nationality, without
A NEW METHOD 33
fear or favour. To punish crime and redress wrong
is, probably, the greatest novelty that can be offered
to an Eastern, and, though he has been accustomed
to all forms of bribery, he very soon understands
and appreciates the change of regime, when to offer
a bribe is not only an insult, but will almost certainly
get the would-be briber into serious trouble.
It may be assumed that the leading motive of
government in an English Dependency is to spend,
for its advantage, all the revenues raised in it, never
seeking to make money out of a distant possession,
or exact any contribution towards Imperial funds.
The Malay States are not, of course, British
Colonies, and the rule I speak of has been very
carefully observed with them. This policy is one
which appeals specially to intelligent natives of the
East, and as long as these principles are maintained,
the spread of English rule can only be for good, and
no native race, Eastern or otherwise, will regret the
advent of English advice, as in Malaya, or English
control, as in India.
So much for what was done. It is almost as
important to bear in mind that those responsible
were careful to avoid any attempt to force English
views, even when English opinion seemed practically
unanimous on a subject, upon a people living under
34 THE REAL MALAY
utterly different conditions, and who, if their voice
is hard to hear, may still bitterly resent what they
think an intolerable interference.
In all the States there were three classes of
natives to be dealt with ; first the Malay chiefs,
the hitherto rulers of the country; second, the
Malay people ; third, the Chinese.
In a work styled " Navigation and Voyages of
Lewis Wertemanns of Rome," published in the year
1 503, there is the following passage : " When we
came to the City of Malacka (which some call
Meleka), we were incontinent commanded to come
to the Sultan, being a Mahomedan and subject to
the great Sultan of China, and payeth him tribute,
of which tribute the cause is, that more than eighty
years ago that city was builded by the Sultan of
China for none other cause than only for the com-
modity of the haven, being doubtless one of the
fairest in that ocean. The region is not every
where fruitful, yet hath it sufficient of wheat and
flesh and but little wood. They have plenty of
fowls as in Calicut, but the Popinjays are much
finer. There is also found Sandilium and Tin,
likewise elephants, horses, sheep, kyne, pardilles,
bufflos, peacocks, and many other beasts and fowls.
They have but few fruits. The people are of
A NEW METHOD 35
blackish ashe colour. They have very large fore-
heads, round eyes, and flat noses. It is dangerous
there to go abroad in the night, the inhabitants are
so given to rob and murder. The people are fierce,
of evil condition, and unruly, for they will obey to
no Governor, being altogether given to rob and
murder, and, therefore, say to their Governors that
they will forsake country if they strive to bind them
to order, which they say the more boldly, because,
they are near unto the sea and may easily depart to
other places."
The description is highly interesting, but must
not be accepted as altogether accurate. At any
rate the wheat and the horses could hardly have
been local products, while the reputed scarcity of
wood is at least curious; but no doubt the popin-
jays were there. Four centuries of Western domi-
nation have made the Malacca Malays the mildest,
least warlike of all their race. One statement in
the above account is still typical of Malay charac-
ter ; if the Government is not liked, the people not
only threaten to leave the country, they go; but
the cause cannot fairly be ascribed to a desire to
rob and murder without hindrance.
Another authority, Newhoff, writing in 1662,
says : " Whilst the Portuguese were in possession
36 THE REAL MALAY
of it, this city was very famous for its traffic and
riches in gold, precious stones, and all other varieties
of the Indies. Malacca being the key of China and
Japan trade, and of the Molucca islands and Sunda.
In short, Malacca was the richest city in the Indies,
next to Goa and Ormus."
Yet another, Dr. John Francis Gomelli Careri,
wrote: "The Port of Malacca is very safe, and has
a great commerce from east and west. . . . The
dominion of the Dutch reaches but three miles
round the city, because the natives being a wild
people, living like beasts, they will not easily sub-
mit to bear the Holland yoke."
The information given by the writers of those
days, and even by Valentyn and other Dutch
writers, is meagre enough, and cannot, I think,
claim to be the result of personal study at close
quarters. In any case the adventurous spirits, the
robbers and murderers, probably found the Portu-
guese and Dutch rule in Malacca uncongenial, and
went back into the jungle fastnesses of the Malay
States, where, for nearly four hundred years after
the occupation of Malacca, they remained unmolested
by the white man. Holland's struggle with Acheen,
a struggle of our own time, which has lasted for
twenty-five years and still finds the Malays unsub-
A NEW METHOD 37
dued, may perhaps suggest the cause of this im-
munity.
In the Malay sketches contained in this and a
previous volume, I have endeavoured to portray, as
exactly as I could, the Malay as he is in his own
country, against his own most picturesque and
fascinating background. I will not here make
further reference to him, beyond saying, broadly,
that he deeply resented our first coming, and has
lived to change his mind. His conversion has been
slow, as might be expected with one so constituted
and with such traditions, but still it is so genuine
that he will candidly confess both the original
feeling and the present recantation. The position
he occupies in the body politic is that of the heir
to the inheritance. The land is Malaya, and he is
the Malay. Let the infidel Chinese and the evil-
smelling Hindu from Southern India toil, but of
their work let some share of profit come to him.
They are strangers and unbelievers ; and while he
is quite willing to tolerate them, and to be amused,
rather than angered, by their strange forms of idola-
try, their vulgar speech in harsh tongues, and their
repulsive customs, he thinks it only fitting that they
should contribute to his comfort and be ready to
answer to his behests. The Malay hates labour,
j8 THE REAL MALAY
and contributes very little to the revenues in the
way of taxation. He cultivates his rice-fields, when
he is made to do so by stern necessity, or the
bidding of his headmen, and he is a skilful fisher-
man, because that is in the nature of sport. He
plays at trade sometimes, but almost invariably
fails to make a living out of it ; because, having
once invested his capital in a stock, he spends all
the money he receives for sales, and then finds he
has no means to continue his business. And yet,
he is a delightful companion, a polite and often an
interesting acquaintance, and an enemy who is not
to be despised. He has aspirations. He loves
power and place, and his soul hankers after titles
of honour. In all these desires his women-folk are
keenly interested. They apply the spur, and will
readily consent to become the man's mouthpiece,
when they think the good things of this world can
be got by judicious flattery or tearful pleading.
The Chinese have, under direction, made the Pro-
tected States what they are. They are the bees who
suck the honey from every profitable undertaking.
A thorough experience of Malays will not qualify
an official to deal with Chinese a separate educa-
tion is necessary for that, but it is a lesson more
easy to learn. It is almost hopeless to expect to
A NEW METHOD 39
make friends with a Chinaman, and it is, for a
Government officer, an object that is not very desir-
able to attain. The Chinese, at least that class of
them met with in Malaya, do not understand being
treated as equals ; they only realise two positions
the giving and the receiving of orders ; they are the
easiest people to govern in the East for a man of
determination, but they must know their master,
as he must know them. The Chinese admire and
respect determination of character in their rulers,
and hold that it is a characteristic as necessary as
the sense of justice. The man who possesses the
judicial mind, but is too weak to enforce his own
judgment, will never be successful in dealing with
Chinese.
Until Governor Sir Cecil Smith exorcised the
secret society demon, the Chinese made the Straits
Settlements the happy hunting-ground of all those
societies forbidden in their own country. But in
the Malay States it was different. From the very
first these guilds, these centres of crime and oppres-
sion, with powers of combination for revolt against
every form of government, were absolutely for-
bidden, and in Perak it was for many years a
capital offence to belong to any such organisation.
Under present conditions the Chinese are the bone
40 THE REAL MALAY
and sinew of the Malay States. They are the
labourers, the miners, the principal shopkeepers,
the contractors, the capitalists, the holders of the
revenue farms, the contributors of almost the whole
of the revenue ; we cannot do without them.
The Hindu, the Tamil, the native of Southern
India, is, by comparison, a poor thing ; oily in body,
cringing in demeanour, and maddening in speech.
But for all that he is very useful, whether as a
labourer on a plantation, a cattle keeper and cart
driver, a washerman, or a barber. The Malay
States would be glad to get more of these people ;
and they have this advantage over the Chinese, that
while the Indian women and children emigrate with
the men of the family, the Chinese do not. Out of
a population of, say, 200,000 Chinese, there are
only 3000 women.
The stewardship of British officers in the Malay
States has lasted for twenty-five years, and it may
be interesting to enumerate some of the visible
results of their " advice," which is now, with greater
candour, admitted to be control.
One hundred and seventy-five miles of railway
have been built and equipped with rolling-stock, out
of current revenues ; and extensions, aggregating
much the same mileage, are, as already stated, now
A NEW METHOD 41
under construction, and should be completed in
1902. This seems a small achievement, dawdling
and slow beyond belief; but neither the city of
London nor the War Office has taken any interest
worth speaking of in the Malay Peninsula, and, so
far, there has been a total absence of that rivalry
with foreign powers which seems to add a special
value to some remote countries, without any very
evident attractions of their own. Therefore the
Malay States have had to rely upon their own
resources, and, first, to provide funds to meet the
ordinary expenses of government, after satisfying
the reasonable demands of a number of native
chiefs; secondly, to construct roads, public build-
ings, and other necessary works; and, lastly, to
find a surplus from the annual revenues with which
to build railways. It is only now that a compara-
tively insignificant sum has been borrowed to push
on the railways a trifle more rapidly than would
otherwise have been possible. More than half the
cost of the present extensions must be supplied
from general revenues. More than 2000 miles of
excellent roads and 1000 miles of telegraphs have
been made and paid for out of revenue. Five im-
portant schemes of waterworks have been completed,
and much has been done for irrigation, on which it
42 THE REAL MALAY
is intended to spend about $700,000 in one district.
Lighthouses have been erected, wharves provided,
prisons, hospitals, schools, barracks, and handsome
public offices constructed. A trigonometrical survey
of the Western States is being pushed on, public
gardens have been laid out, and museums instituted.
A good deal has been spent on experimental agri-
culture, and the States are alive to the immense
importance of encouraging all forms of permanent
and profitable cultivation.
Some figures will best illustrate the rapid ad-
vancement and present importance of the States.
The first year of which it is possible to give any
statistics is 1875, and on the opposite page is the
record of revenue, at intervals of five years, down
to 1895, with tne actual returns for 1898.
The combined revenues of the four States
amounted, last year, to over $9,000,000, and for the
present year they will exceed $11,000,000, which
means that, in the time British Residents have
controlled the finances of the Protected States, they
have succeeded in increasing the revenues over
twenty-fold, and Ceylon is now the only English
Crown colony which can show higher figures. The
principal revenue is derived from an ad valorem
export duty on tin (five-sixths of the world's pro-
A NEW METHOD
43
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44 THE REAL MALAY
duce of that metal coming from the Malay States),
and an import duty on opium. Then there are the
excise farms; land rents, which give about half a
million dollars annually ; and the railway receipts,
amounting to one and a quarter million of dollars.
Stamps, court fees, and so on, make up the balance.
The trade of the Federated States is worth more
than sixty millions of dollars annually, and it is made
up of real imports consumed, and real exports pro-
duced, in the States. That is a fact which is of
some importance to the British manufacturer and
consumer.
One source of wealth and revenue is still unde-
veloped, but it may exceed all others in value, and
attract to the Malay Peninsula the European capital
and enterprise of which it has so far seen compara-
tively little. I allude to the mining of gold. The
industry is one which has been followed by natives
for centuries, but their rude methods were unable
to deal with deep mining in rock. For nearly ten
years a few companies have been at work in Pahang,
where they have had great difficulties to contend
against ; but, in some cases, these have been over-
come, and the reward of patience, skill, devotion,
and energy is in sight.
Planting on any considerable scale is in European
A NEW METHOD 45
hands, and every possible encouragement is given
to those willing to devote their money and abilities
to agricultural enterprises. But with this excep-
tion, and that of a very few mining ventures, the
development of the Malay States is the outcome of
native capital, native labour, and native energy,
fostered, directed, and encouraged by the officers of
Government. That is one of the peculiar features
of the administrative experiment I have tried to
describe. The success of that experiment is due,
in a very unusual degree, to the enthusiasm, energy,
ability, and devotion of the Government servants
throughout the Federation. It would, I believe, be
difficult to find anywhere a body of men who have
more fully given the best of all they had to the
service of their employer, and the Malay States have
been fortunate in securing men who have taken a
pride in their work, and while they had to " scorn
delights and live laborious days," were satisfied if
they could show that the district, the department,
the charge whatever it might be was developing,
in material progress or efficiency, while in their
hands. This applies to civil servants of all classes,
of all nationalities, and I am specially glad to think
how many Malays are included in that category. A
healthy rivalry, between the States and between
46 THE REAL MALAY
officers, undoubtedly gave the spur to many a man
depressed by isolation, harassed by the manifold
nature of his tasks, and wearied by the deadly
enervation of the climate. That was mainly in the
early days ; things are easier and life more comfort-
able now, though there are still some very solitary
stations. A good many of those who began the work
are dead, and a good many have gone invalided, or
to seek better prospects ; but, to speak collectively
of those who remain, there is amongst them the
same spirit, the same earnest desire to " make "
the Malay States, that ever there was ; and there is
a vast deal more experience and knowledge of how
the business of government ought to be carried on
in all its branches. Withal, I believe, there is just
as high a standard of honour and honesty amongst
the European officers of the Protected Malay States
as in any other society of English public servants.
There are two roads to possession and power,
there may be more, but there are two at least : one
is by force of arms and the " mailed hand," the
other is by force of character and the exercise of
certain qualities which compel respect and even
sometimes win affection. Of the two, any one
who has tried both knows which most appeals to
him. Conquest and physical mastery is, to most
A NEW METHOD 47
healthy-minded Englishmen, the finest game in all
the world, and, to those who have had the luck to
take part in it, a really good fight is the acme of
man's enjoyment. The grim excitement of war, the
thrill of battle, the quickening pride of race, the
inspiring traditions of heroism and sacrifice, the
shock of arms, and the ecstasy of victory, which
shouts in delirious joy lest it should choke with
unexpected tears appeal to instincts higher than
those of the mere savage. It is an experience to
live for, worth dying for; with reward, and fame,
and praise, following hard upon the heels of success.
The other, the more excellent way, lacks in bril-
liance, in scenic effect, in excitement, and often in
recognition, much of what the first possesses. The
history of successful conquest may be the record of
a day's decisive fight. British influence in Malaya,
the influence of the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, began with a military expedition which
attracted small attention, for it cost the country
little in blood and nothing in treasure. The ex-
pedition was punitive, and what was required was
done quickly and effectually. For what has been
achieved since, the qualities required were courage
and resource, combined with a tireless energy, sym-
pathy with the people of the land, their customs and
48 THE REAL MALAY
prejudices, and that enthusiasm for the work en-
trusted to them, that determination to compel
success, which is characteristic of the class which
sends its sons to the uttermost parts of the earth to
preach the gospel of freedom, justice, and British
methods of administration.
It is obvious that this is no place to mention the
names of officers who have been, or are now in the
service of the Malay Governments. Those who
know anything of the modern history of the States
will no more forget what was done for them by
Governors Sir Frederick Weld and Sir Cecil Smith,
than they will that Sir Andrew Clarke initiated the
whole policy of British protection, and that, both
federation and the railway loan were sanctioned dur-
ing the government of Sir Charles Mitchell, the first
High Commissioner for the Malay States. Of all
that has been done, and of all that will hereafter be
done, the greatest achievement of British influence
in Malaya is the enormous improvement in the con-
dition of the Malays themselves. They are freer,
healthier, wealthier, more independent, more en-
lightened happier by far than in the days of
Malay rule. Therein is cause for real satisfaction.
It is not only that the country has prospered under
British guidance, not only that it has roads and
A NEW METHOD 49
railways, telegraphs, hospitals, schools, and many
other signs of progress, but it is that, in bringing
about the marvellous change that has taken place,
the advisers have gained the real good-will of the
people of the land. The chiefs have been propitiated,
and proper allowances have been allotted to them
while they have shared, in a greater or less degree
in everything that has been done. The rulers and
their chiefs do not feel that they have been set aside
or ignored ; indeed, as a matter of fact, there are, at
this moment, a good many more Malays holding
high offices of State than there were in 1874. It is
not only an honour and distinction to be nominated
to such an office, but, besides a title, it gives the
holder a sense of power, of having a part in the
government of the country, and that is a Malay's
highest ambition. Moreover, every such office is
remunerated in accordance with ancient custom,
and, in the selection of those who shall hold these
posts, the ruler and his Malay advisers have practi-
cally a free hand. It is difficult to over-estimate
the value of thus securing the influence and good-
will of the Malay ruling class. The men chosen for
these offices are not always the most intelligent or
the most reputable members of the community, but
they always have claims and influence.
50 THE REAL MALAY
The Malay raiyats have gained the right to live,
to be free, to be as all other men in the sight of the
law. Their lands are their own ; their wives and
children are subject to no man's beck or call ; their
service can no longer be requisitioned without wage,
or the produce of their labour seized without pay-
ment. Not a single necessary of their lives is
taxed. The guiding principle of Malay life is,
" sufficient for the day," and improvidence is the
heritage of the people. Therefore, their cares are
fewer, and their enjoyment possibly greater, than is
the case with the same class in other countries. As
there is no longer anything to interfere with the
safe-keeping of all that they can gain, it is pos-
sible that they will begin to develop the spirit of
acquisitiveness.
Consideration for the Malays as the people of
the soil and the owners of the country has been
set before all other considerations, in the evolution
of the residential system. In impressing that rule
upon the minds of his officers, and insisting upon
its observance, no single individual was so earnest
as Sir Hugh Low, who for the twelve years, 1877-
1889, was British Resident in Perak. His advice,
control call it what you will was given at the
most critical period of the recent history of the most
A NEW METHOD 51
important of the Malay States. What Perak owes
to his administration, and the other States to his
example, is not likely to be soon forgotten.
The work that was begun by Sir Andrew Clarke,
and continued by his successors in office, while the
details were being worked out by Sir Hugh Low
and his fellow-Residents, is interesting enough in
itself interesting as any unique experiment must
be. But, behind it all, is the knowledge that those
who have done little or much in the cause, have
been working together to extend and consolidate the
scheme, planned by Stamford Raffles, to firmly
establish a great and free trading station in the
Straits of Malacca, and to extend British influence,
as far as it could be made to reach, in every direction,
from that point of vantage.
A STORM EFFECT
IN the Malay Peninsula, about the sixth parallel
of north latitude, there are some small States
nominally under the suzerainty of Siam. These
States are well in the Malay Peninsula, they are
governed by Malays, and I say they are nominally
under the suzerainty of Siam, because the Siamese
overran this part of the Peninsula about a century
ago, and do not seem to have done much since then,
either to establish their authority, to advance the
interests of these provinces, or to improve the moral
or material condition of their people. So far the
benefits derived from over a hundred years of
Siamese influence, in what used to be the Malay
State of Patani, but is now divided into a series of
small districts under petty chiefs, have been con-
fined to the very occasional visits of a Siamese
official, the interference of the Bangkok Government
whenever a European sought any mining or other
privilege, and the claim to deal with questions of
53
A STORM EFFECT 53
succession to the chief posts of authority. These
matters, it may be said, usually lead to the trans-
fer of sums of money, from persons interested
in the States to other persons interested in the
transfer.
Some years ago, an English company held a con-
cession to work galena in one of the States under
Siamese influence. The enterprise was carried on
for a considerable time, but ended in failure, for
reasons that need not to be entered into here. The
undertaking never assumed very large proportions,
or promised any great success; but the company
kept a number of Chinese labourers employed on
the works, with one or more Europeans to super-
intend the business. As usually happens, when
forest is first cleared in order to start some new
enterprise, the galena mines were not over healthy,
and a good many of the labourers (coolies, as they
are called here) died.
Every one knows that the Chinese are a peculiar
people, and a good deal might be written to illustrate
their peculiarities, in even such an insignificant case
as the working of a galena mine, under European
direction, in the Malay Peninsula. However, it may
be briefly stated, as a fact, that even so small an
undertaking as this one, employing not more than a
54 THE REAL MALAY
hundred and fifty Chinese in all, will probably have
amongst them men coming from two, three, or more
different districts in China, speaking different dialects
that amount to different languages, belonging to
different tribes and different secret societies ; ready
at the shortest notice, and for the smallest reason, to
beat each other into jelly, by individuals, or to enter,
in bodies, upon a war of extermination. The man
who is carpenter or blacksmith at a mine will have
nothing in common with the coolies, and none of
these will be able to understand the speech, or sym-
pathise with the aspirations, of the gardener or the
house servant : and yet all are Chinese.
These elementary facts are stated, merely to ex-
plain how it was that, at this particular galena mine,
the manager had made a contract, with a party of
Hok-kien Chinese, that they should bury every dead
Chinese coolie, at the uniform and moderate rate of
two and a half dollars (then about seven shillings
and sixpence) " per tail."
Chinese coolies live in parties of ten, twenty, forty,
fifty, a hundred, or even more, in a large and lofty
shed, the roof and walls of which are made of palm
leaves. The floor is of earth, there is no ceiling and,
usually, no windows. There are door spaces, but no
doors to close them. Sometimes the eaves come
A STORM EFFECT 55
down rather low, and there are no walls at all.
The roof is supported on posts, and the ground
within the shed is covered by very rough, wooden
bed-places, made to carry a mat. Over each of these
a thick mosquito curtain hangs, night and day, by
strings from the roof. A Chinese pillow and blanket
constitute the other trappings of this primitive bed.
When a coolie dies, the processes of laying out, of
conveyance to the burial ground, and planting in the
earth, are simplicity itself. Some one sleeping near
becomes alive to the fact that his neighbour is dead.
The headman of the shed is informed, and perhaps
he looks at the corpse. Then word is sent to the
burial contractor (where matters are arranged on
that footing), and he despatches three or five men to
dispose of the corpse.
The strings of the mosquito-net are cut, and the
curtain falls on the body. Then the mat is folded
over it, from one side and the other, the ends are
turned over, the whole is tied with a cord, and the
parcel is ready for removal. If the burial party con-
sists of five men, the shoulders or head of the corpse
are slung to one carrying stick, the feet to another.
The bearers walk two to each stick, and literally
run away with their burden ; the fifth man jogging
on in front with a lighted cholok, a slender stick of
56 THE REAL MALAY
incense, that smoulders under almost any conditions
of weather.
The galena mine was situated in rather low,
marshy land. The Chinese burial-ground was on a
neighbouring hill, reached by a wide cart track pass-
ing through rocky ground, clear of jungle. Along
this road, one day, a contract burial party was carry-
ing the body of one of the company's labourers. It
was about 2 P.M., and the morning had been exces-
sively hot with that heat which tells so clearly of an
atmosphere charged with electricity. As the party
came in sight, the air was stifling, and not a leaf
stirred. Half the sky was as molten brass, while
the other half was covered by a gigantic black rain-
cloud, which had appeared within the last half-hour.
Suddenly there was a blinding flash of lightning,
and a simultaneous clatter of deafening thunder,
followed, almost immediately, by a few enormous
splashes of rain. The burial party staggered for a
moment, but held on, rather increasing its pace.
The sunlight vanished, and a blast of wind suddenly
rushed down the road, tearing the leaves from the
trees, and whirling a cloud of dust before it. An-
other flash of lightning, which seemed to strike the
earth at their feet, another deafening peal of thunder,
and then a deluge of rain; a kind of water-spout
A STORM EFFECT 57
which hissed over the road, and beat on the sand
and gravel till they jumped several inches from the
ground. That was too much for the burial party,
in their exceedingly light clothing ; so, without cere-
mony, they dropped their burden in the middle of
the road, and rushed to the shelter of an over-
hanging rock, which stood a few yards away on
their left.
Whilst the bearers sit, smoking and chattering
under their rock, the storm wastes its fury on the
hillside. For ten minutes the sheet of rain is
rent by successive flashes of lightning that blind
the eyes, and the dazzling electric fluid plays,
close round the corpse, in vivid blue streams and
forks of fire, intensifying the gloom of those short
intervals made dark by the ceaseless downpour of
floods of water, which seem to be thrown viciously to
scourge the earth. The roar and rattle of thunder
is almost ceaseless ; while the lightning is so close
that its peculiar crackling sound is, every now and
then, distinctly heard. The road is a river. The
water beats angrily against the dead man's head,
divides into two streams, which swirl round his
sides, and, uniting below the obstruction, dash down
the road, tearing it into great holes, and sweeping
gravel, pebbles, and fair-sized boulders in their head-
58 THE REAL MALAY
long course rush down the hill to swell a neigh-
bouring torrent.
Gradually the fury of the elements abates ; there
are longer intervals between the flashes of lightning ;
the thunder is deeper, has more volume, and jrolls
into a re-echoing distance. The violence of the
rain decreases, it no longer whips the ground, and,
as the thick downpour diminishes, the curtain of
darkness rises somewhat, and gusts of wind blow
wisps of water in every direction. A glint of sun-
shine strikes across the hill, but disappears, as
fast-driven clouds again shut out the light. One
of these inky blacknesses, from which occasionally
darts a zigzag of blue flame, is moving away down
wind, and, in the now wider intervals between the
grumbling of the thunder, can be heard the hiss of
the retreating rain storm.
All this time perhaps half-an-hour or less the
dead man has lain where he was dropped, in the
middle of the road. There he is now, but something
extraordinary has happened to him, for, when the
coolies threw him down, in their haste to get to
shelter, his body lay straight and stiff enough,
rolled in its simple shroud of mosquito curtain, with
the thin grass mat for all its coffin. The bundle
has not only been exposed to the full violence of
A STORM EFFECT 59
the storm, but, for a considerable time, it lay in a
river of pitilessly cold rain-water. The corpse is in
the same place still ; but, by some miracle, instead
of lying out stark and straight, it seems to be sitting
up. For the half towards the hill, that is the upper
half of the body, is now at right angles to the lower
half, this attitude having been gained after many
ineffectual wriggles in the mud of the still streaming
road.
That black cloud is disappearing over a distant
jungle, and the sun is again flooding forest and hill-
side, rock and road, with an intense and blinding
glory; turning the scattered rearguard of the rain
storm into a shower of golden dew-drops. The
road literally blazes with light, in the surrounding
green, and, drawn by the sun's heat, a cloud of
steam is already rising from it. The wreaths of
vapour are caught by a faint breeze, and, as they
sweep across the road, are wafted lightly round that
half-bent mat, and absorbed into the shimmering
atmosphere.
The members of the burial party, having con-
sumed a large number of straw cigarettes, loaded
with infinitesimal quantities of Chinese tobacco,
having abused their masters, complained of the in-
sufficiency of their wages, and detailed their more
60 THE REAL MALAY
recent escapades, come forth from the rock with the
carrying sticks, to seek their burden, complete their
task, and earn the two and a half dollars, of which
very little more than half will fall to their share.
As the first man comes up, and realises that the
corpse has taken upon itself to assume an entirely
new attitude, he is for a moment speechless with
astonishment. Only for a moment, however; the bare
idea of a dead man, half-way to the burial ground,
sitting up, and as it were coming to life again, after
one has taken the trouble to set him so far on his
way, is a liberty not to be put up with for a moment.
Coolie number one exclaims : " Ah ! you miserable
son of a misguided mother ! you would, would you
take that!" Suiting the action to the word, he
swings the heavy carrying stick through the air,
and brings it down, with a resounding thud, on the
erect portion of the mat. Something like a groan
comes from the inside of the bundle, and the thing
sways over. To help it along, coolie number two
gives it another double-handed blow, screaming at
the top of his voice, "You would give us all that
trouble for nothing, would you, you accursed wretch ;
may pigs uproot your uncoffined body, and wild
dogs worry your bones."
The half of the bundle that was upright is now
A STORM EFFECT 61
on the ground, and, while all the members of the
party strain their vocabularies to find suitable terms
of abuse for so thoroughly abandoned a scoundrel
as this Cantonese-come-to-life, the sticks are kept
plying on the mat, and change hands several times
in the operation, in order that every one may have
an opportunity of showing his contempt for a thing
that would try to play such a scurvy trick on a
party of honest workmen.
The mat seems to give a convulsive wriggle or
two, but before the blows of the carrying sticks
cease, the bundle has, for all practical purposes,
resumed the shape and position it had before the
thunder storm worked its most inconvenient miracle.
When the coffin is once more slung, and the burial
party is ready to start afresh, the only real differ-
ence is, that there is a wet, red stain on the under
side of that end of the bundle which contains the
head of the corpse.
The odd man lights an incense taper and takes
his place at the head of the party; the bearers
settle their sticks comfortably on their shoulders,
and, an instant later, the five men are swinging
along the road, at that peculiar jog-trot, invariably
adopted by Chinese carrying a heavy load with a
stick.
62 THE REAL MALAY
After the storm, everything seems intensified.
The sun shines with superb brilliancy, the sky is
radiantly blue, the clouds are marvellously white.
The greens of the forest are deeper and of the grass
more intensely emerald ; the shadows of rock and
tree are sharper, the songs of the birds clearer, the
crickets scream more shrilly in the grass, the croak
of the frogs is hoarser than an hour ago. Nature
smiles, and the hearts of the burial party are glad
not because they are in sympathy with nature, but
because the burial-ground is in sight, and they have
almost earned their reward. If the road is stained,
at uncertain intervals, by crimson blood-clots that
sometimes dye the feet of the bearers, the fact does
not interfere with the certainty that the galena
mining company will pay two dollars and a half for
the contract burial.
A SILVER-POINT
WHEN Fate took me to Langat, in the Malay
State of Selangor, and left me to reside with
his Highness the Sultan of Selangor, I was sud-
denly thrust into a state of society so peculiar, that
I have never since met with anything that at all
resembled life in the tottering dwellings of Bandar
Termasa, the City of Festivals. 1 Though I have
referred to the place before, it merits a rather more
particular attention than I then gave it ; for it has
already ceased to exist, and there is no one but
myself to recall its peculiarities.
Imagine a long, winding river, rising in a distant
chain of mountains and hurrying towards the sea ;
but, when still twenty-five or thirty miles from its
mouth, and while flowing through a flat, jungle-
covered plain (uninhabited, except for a very few
tiny riverine hamlets at long distances apart), the
1 Not the rendering I should give, but the one supplied to me by
the Viceroy of the Sultan of Selangor.
63
64 THE REAL MALAY
river makes a wide bend towards the coast. Just
at the apex of the bend, a few years before the time
I write of, a narrow ditch, a couple of hundred yards
in length, had joined this river with a deep and wide
tidal inlet, seven miles in length. Up this inlet the
rising tide rushed with extraordinary violence, cut-
ting down the soft mud banks and sweeping great
jungle trees many feet into the stream. Reaching
the sea-end of the short ditch, the tide poured
through the narrow cutting into the wide river
channel beyond, where it had room enough to ex-
pend its strength, driving before it the waters of the
river, both up-stream and down. For an hour or
two, before the flood reached its highest, the tidal
influence became felt in the longer stream, and, by
both avenues, the waters of the sea were forced
into the upper reaches of the river. Then the tide
turned, and all the immense body of water sought
the shortest and easiest channel back to the Straits
of Malacca. A swirling, turbid mass of dark, eddy-
ing water raced back again to the sea, tearing wide
the narrow ditch, hurrying trees and logs and all
the varied jungle growth out to, and beyond, the
wide mud flats of the mangrove-bound coast. In a
very few years the connecting ditch had disappeared.
The short inlet joined the long river ; and, where
A SILVER-POINT 65
but recently had been dry land, a British gun-vessel
found water enough to carry it from the river,
through the inlet, out to sea. Ascending the long
Langat River, this somewhat curious fact would
then be noted that, having had the tide against
you for many miles, it would suddenly be found in
your favour, for perhaps three or four miles, until
the entrance to the short inlet was reached. But,
still continuing up the river, the tide would again
be against you, and running with increased violence,
in its hurry to get down the shorter channel. That
shorter channel is called the Jugra River, and in
the angle made by the meeting of the two streams
stood " the City of Festivals." A more hopelessly
desolate spot than Bandar Termasa could not, I
think, be found in all the Peninsula; and yet, it
was here that the Sultan of Selangor had chosen
to build himself a habitation of, for those days, a
somewhat pretentious order.
The house was raised from the muddy ground on
short brick pillars ; it was built of squared timbers,
and the roof was tiled. A portion of the surround-
ing ground, covered by rank grass and low bushes,
was enclosed by a stout fence, and a strong gate
barred the entrance to this enclosure. To right
and left of this house were a dozen or so of miser-
E
66 THE REAL MALAY
able hovels, dignified by the title of shops. Their
backs were towards the river, their fronts faced a
narrow, greasy path cut through the swamp. The
exact corner, made by the junction of the streams,
contained a few scattered huts in a grove of melan-
choly and diseased coco-nuts, and a long stockade,
with walls of timber and a palm-thatched roof, com-
manded the Langat River. The aforesaid path, the
only semblance of a road in the district, ran from
the Sultan's gate to the stockade. About fifty yards
back from that path was another plank house, on
wooden piles, with a thatched roof, and in that
house, which contained three rooms, I lived for
twelve months the only white man in Selangor.
My dwelling stood in a mud swamp, covered by
rank grass and low bushes. Twice in every twenty-
four hours the tide overflowed the ground, and I
tried, by cutting some ditches, to keep the water
from under the house. In the season I could, and
did, shoot snipe out of the window. My com-
panions were a young brok (the monkey which can
be trained to climb coco-nut trees and gather any
nut that is wanted) and a curious sea-bird that
stalked about the ditches, and when they did not
produce enough food to satisfy its insatiable hunger
hunted, caught, and ate my smallest chickens. I
A SILVER-POINT 67
did not altogether believe my cook, when he thus
accounted for the disappearance of my only live
stock; but one day, hearing a great commotion, I
looked out and saw the cook chasing the sea-bird
with a saucepan. The bird had long, yellow legs,
and was making the best use he could of them, but
the cook was gaining on him, when the bird rose at
a small hedge and cleared it. The effort, however,
was sufficient to make him open his bill and dis-
gorge a half-fledged chicken, which ran for a few
feet and then tumbled down dead. The robber
made good his escape, while the cook vainly tried
to resuscitate his unfortunate charge.
Close behind my house there was a good snipe
ground ; a swamp, where a man would sink to his
knees, in black mud, at every step. It was gene-
rally occupied by a herd of semi-wild buffaloes,
belonging to the Sultan, and, when out snipe-
shooting, it was wise to keep at least one eye on
the buffaloes. They dislike white people, and the
length and pointedness of their horns, the uncanny
way in which they lay them back, flat on their
shoulders, while they set their wet noses at the
stranger, roll their eyes and snort in a very alarm-
ing fashion, suggest the most gruesome eventu-
alities.
68 THE REAL MALAY
My nearest neighbour was a Raja, who, shortly
before my arrival, had constituted himself the
tracker, captor, accuser, and judge of three debt-
slaves, who had run away from the house of the
Sultan of the country. The system of debt-slavery
(a position of serfdom entailed by inability to pay a
real or imaginary debt to some powerful chief) used
to be a great institution in Malaya, and the tortures
suffered by the unhappy victims were almost in-
credible. Three so-called debt-slaves a boy and
two girls, all under twenty years of age had
escaped from the house and custody of the Sultan,
and run away. They were pursued and caught by
my neighbour, who brought them back to his own
hut on the river bank, a hundred yards above my
dwelling.
The boy was taken into a field and m-ed i.e.
stabbed to death with the national weapon, the
wavy, snake-like kris.
It was not the custom to kris girls, so my neigh-
bour's wife called the two runaways to accompany
her to the river, where she was going to bathe.
They did so, and followed her on to a log, which
stretched from the shore out into the stream.
There they were seized, and one was held, while a
retainer took the other by the hair, pushed her
A SILVER-POINT 69
into the river, and, still holding her hair, pressed
her head under water with his foot till she was
drowned. The other girl, a compulsory spectator of
the scene, was similarly treated, as soon as they had
time to attend to her. The corpses were left lying
on the muddy bank, for the refection or refusal
of crocodiles, till friends came and removed them.
I was told that my neighbour went to the Sultan,
and sought credit for his zeal, saying, " I have got rid
of those children who ran away." But the Sultan
expressed his displeasure, and my neighbour, a man
of rank and authority, in a fit of disgust and un-
wonted generosity, provided winding-sheets for the
corpses.
The immediate cause of my residence in the City
of Festivals was a piracy. A Malacca boat, trading
to the Jugra inlet, had been attacked by a party of
Langat Malays, who killed (as they thought) every
one on board, ransacked the vessel, and, after a
sufficient interval, were supposed to have visited
Malacca. One man had saved his life by jumping
overboard and clinging to the rudder, till darkness
enabled him to swim ashore and make his way back
to Malacca. There he reported the occurrence, and
when the Langat men arrived they were promptly
arrested. The British Admiral on the China Station
70 THE REAL MALAY
visited Jugra, with a portion of his fleet, and the
men who had been arrested were there and then
tried, condemned on the evidence of the sole sur-
vivor and duly executed at the mouth of the river,
in sight of the spot where the crime was committed.
The Sultan described the piracy as " boy's play,"
but sent his own kris to be used in carrying out
the death-sentence on the unhappy condemned.
I had not been very long in Langat before I
ascertained, without much doubt, that none of those
executed had had any hand in the piracy, but the
lesson was made thereby all the more forcible.
We all know that with people who have no
political institutions, there is nothing so impressive
as the incontinent execution of a few innocent per-
sons. It is a warning not only to the naughtily-
inclined, but also to the quite, quite good; to the
intriguer and the agitator, as well as to the thief.
At any rate that was the effect produced in Bandar
Termasa.
Another distinguishing feature oi the place was
the fashion of its love-making, which certainly
would have caused surprise in any other part of
Malaya. The girls made assignations with their
swains, and met them, but never alone, in the dead
of night, in the darkest and most inaccessible spots,
A SILVER-POINT 71
where a few minutes' conversation, a stolen caress,
would elsewhere have been thought a poor reward
for the risks run. And the risk was real enough,
for in those days the stroller by night in the City of
Festivals always carried a naked weapon, and, if he
met another man, was apt to strike first, and then
seek for explanations. The younger women re-
sorted to weapons for the settlement of their quarrels,
and a girl would stab a rival, or a faithless lover, as
soon as not. Indeed, there were but two things of
any account in unregenerate Langat courage and
money. It followed, naturally enough, that the
business of the place was piracy, its serious pleasure
love-making legitimate or otherwise, but mainly
otherwise and its lighter recreations gambling,
opium-smoking, and duelling. The impression left
on my memory is of mud, mosquitoes, and immo-
rality.
About two hundred yards on the sea side of the
Sultan's enclosure there lived a foreign Malay,
styled the Dato' Dagang that is to say, " the chief of
the foreigners " foreigner in this case meaning,
generally, Malays of Sumatra.
The Dato' Dagang was supposed to be a persona
gratissima with the Sultan, and he seemed to me to
lose no opportunity of ingratiating himself with His
72 THE REAL MALAY
Highness. He was a man of about thirty-five
years of age, with a manner not common to the
Malays of the Peninsula, and I soon found that he
was cordially disliked by the Langat community.
He had travelled, and seen white people, both
Dutch and English. He seemed so anxious to
flatter, to make himself pleasant, and to express his
unbounded admiration for Europeans, that he did
not inspire me with much confidence, and I shared
the dislike the people of the place felt for him. This
feeling was not lessened when I found that he was
always trying, behind my back, to persuade the
Sultan not to take my advice.
The Dato' Dagang had a satellite, whom I fancied
even less than the planet. This was a certain Haji,
from Malacca, a tall, thin old man, with a stereo-
typed smile, the language of what is known as a
" sea-lawyer," and an evident desire to be out of the
way when there was likely to be trouble.
Besides these two there were some curious people
in the place, both male and female, but they were
not concerned in the present story. I must, how-
ever, refer to one of them, an old gentleman called
Tuan Sheikh Mat Ali, a sainted person, skilled in
the Muhammadan doctrine, a teacher of young men,
and, when occasion required, a man of war of some
A SILVER-POINT 73
repute. This ancient warrior had attached himself
to me, for some reason or other, and was for the
time one of my followers, living in the stockade
with my police guard.
Though Tuan Sheikh was but little less than a
hundred years old, he had recently married the
daughter of the Dato' Bandar, of the neighbouring
State of Sungei Ujong, and as that old gentleman
had taken up arms against another chief who
enjoyed British protection, the Bandar's village had
been burned, and with it the house and consider-
able property belonging to my friend, his ancient
son-in-law.
These details are necessary for a proper under-
standing of my story. I am also obliged to explain
that the small State of Sungei Ujong was ruled by
two kings, of whom the Dato' Bandar was one, and a
chief called the Dato' Klana was the other. The
people called them the Water Chief and the Land
Chief respectively ; their offices were partly heredi-
tary, partly elective ; and they were supposed to
share between them the government of the State.
In his hopeless struggle against British troops
and blue-jackets, the Dato' Bandar had been assisted
by the most famous fighting man in all the Penin-
sula, a certain Raja Ilaji ; and when the old man
74 THE REAL MALAY
had fled, and his stronghold was no longer tenable,
Raja Haji followed his host to Bandar Termasa. I
had seen the old man once in his own village, and
as the relations between him and his fellow-king
were then very strained, the nature of my reception
was a matter of considerable doubt. I was the first
white man to seek him in his own home, whither I
was driven by hunger and weariness. British sym-
pathy was already committed to his rival, and I
had only two or three Malays with me. But the
old man was cynically friendly, though hardly
cordial, and I spent a night in a hut within his
stockade. Very shortly afterwards he was attacked,
compelled to fly, and his village was burned.
I had never seen Raja Haji, though his name
was almost as great a terror in the Peninsula as
once was that of the Black Douglas in the north.
When the Raja arrived in Langat, I sent a message
to him, and he came to see me. Then, and subse-
quently through messengers, I tried my best to
persuade him to accompany me to Singapore, and
give himself up to the Governor, promising that his
life should not be endangered thereby. I also sent
many messages to the Dato' Bandar with the same
intent, as it was of great importance to secure these
two men and prevent further trouble.
A SILVER-POINT 75
Whilst these negotiations were going on, and
success or failure depended almost on the turn of
a hair, the Dato' Dagang visited me, and said his
guest, the Dato' Bandar, was a very wicked, un-
grateful, and stingy old man, who neither recognised
the sacrifices made by his host nor the trouble I
was taking on his behalf. He added that, in spite
of the old man's bad heart and stubborn nature,
he hoped to bring him to a proper sense of his
obligations, and he would see me again. Shortly
afterwards the Dato' Dagang sought another inter-
view with me, and before he came my old friend
the Sheikh told me what he would say, and the
object of the visit.
When the Dato' arrived he explained that at last
his guest had, by his arguments, been convinced of
the error of his ways, and wished to see me and
thank me for all the trouble I had taken, and was
taking, on his behalf. He knew that, amongst other
things, I had walked thirty miles through the jungle
to try and save his village from attack, but I had
been just too late, and had my walk for nothing.
Now, he said, the old man was prepared to accom-
pany me to Singapore, but, first, I must see him
privately, as he had something important to say to
me. The Dato' proposed, therefore, that I should go
76 THE REAL MALAY
some miles down the river, to an uninhabited spot,
which he indicated, and there, he said, I should find
him and his guest. He impressed upon me the
necessity of going alone, and saying nothing about
the real object of the journey.
Knowing what was behind this proposal, knowing
also that I could not then afford to quarrel with the
man who could prevent his guest going with me to
Singapore, and desiring, above all, that he should
not be able to misrepresent me to the Dato' Bandar,
I consented to the proposal, on the single condition
that I should take Tuan Sheikh Mat Ali with me.
At first the Dato' Dagang objected, but when I
declined absolutely to meet him without a reliable
witness (though I did not give that as my reason
for taking the Sheikh), he reluctantly agreed.
I had a fast Malay rowing boat, manned by Sin-
gapore Malays whom I could trust, and in that
Tuan Sheikh and I made our way to the rendezvous
at 2 P.M. The spot chosen was a lonely reach of
the Jugra inlet, a melancholy stretch of water en-
closed by jungle-covered mud banks. Many of the
trees, having slipped into the dark, turbid waters of
the stream, were standing upright in the water, while
the branches swayed and rocked in the rushing tide.
As we rounded a bend we saw another boat
A SILVER-POINT
77
coming towards us, and this contained the Dato'
Dagang and his satellite, the Malacca Haji, with
the ancient Dato' Bandar sitting in the place of
honour. At their suggestion, we pulled in towards
the bank, and, as the two boats came close along-
side each other, our crews held on to the branches
of some half-submerged trees.
Once comfortably arranged, and the usual greet-
ings over, the Dato' D^gang cleared his throat, and
began a long harangue. He explained that his
friend and guest, the Dato' Bandar, had been look-
ing for a site on the river bank where he could build
himself a house, when, by my assistance, he returned
from Singapore. He then proceeded to enumerate
all the benefits I was supposed to have already
conferred on the old man, and all he hoped still to
obtain ; and he wound up a very long speech by
saying, that the Dato' wished to show his gratitude
for all the trouble I had taken in his behalf, by
giving me a thousand dollars, and that, if I could
obtain permission for him to return to Langat, he
would make it twenty thousand.
At this point two or three men lifted up a great
sack, which, by its weight, and the jangle it made
as they deposited it in my boat, evidently contained
silver coin.
78 THE REAL MALAY
The satellite wagged his head, and said, " Right,
right," and the refugee smiled a half imbecile, half
enigmatic smile, and said nothing.
Addressing the Dato' Bandar, I asked him
whether the speaker had correctly stated his wishes,
and he said, " Yes ; quite correctly."
" Is there a thousand dollars in that sack ? " I asked.
" Yes, sir," he replied.
" And you really wish to give it to me ? "
-"Certainly."
"And you will add another nineteen thousand
dollars, directly you come back, if you are allowed
to leave Singapore ? "
"Yes."
" Well," I said, " I knew all that before I came
here, but as I had not seen you, and only had it on
the authority of the Dato' Dagang, I wanted to hear
from you whether it was true or not. I also wished
to say something to you that might not reach you,
unless you heard it from me."
The smile had died on the lips of the old man,
but it seemed to be taking a permanent and rather
ugly form on the faces of the Dato' Dagang and his
friend as I continued.
" You are an old man," I said, " and I have seen
you once, and am probably the only white man you
A SILVER-POINT 79
ever met. You don't know our customs, and I can't
blame you for doing what seems to you something
quite natural. All the same, by whatever name you
call it, you are offering me a bribe, and that is an
insult to a white man, and I'm sure you won't repeat
it. With these two men it is different, because
they are quite accustomed to the ways of white men,
and they know that they have persuaded you to do
something that is entirely hateful to any honest
man. Lest they should afterwards lie about it, I
brought your son-in-law, Tuan Sheikh, to be a wit-
ness of what took place."
Then I said to my boatmen, " Put the sack back
again." With a will, and with grins that were
scarcely seemly, the boatmen seized the sack and
threw it back into the Date's boat, where it fell with
a great clatter.
Turning to the old man, I said, " I know it was
not your thought to do this thing, and, if you will
come with me to Singapore, I will do what I can for
you, and perhaps you will be allowed to return, but
of that I know nothing. Good-bye." Then we
pushed off, and without any salutation to my enemy
and his satellite, both of whom looked exceedingly
crestfallen, we set the nose of the boat up-stream,
and were soon out of their sight.
8o THE REAL MALAY
The old Sheikh had, so far, never opened his
mouth ; but, once out of ear-shot of the other party,
he remarked, " If that man were a good Muham-
madan he could not live after hearing what you
said." My boatmen were very facetious at the
expense of the Dato' and his Haji friend, and their
high spirits made them pull so well, that we re-
turned in half the time it had taken us to reach the
rendezvous.
That evening, about 7 P.M., and quite dark, I was
reading in my hut, when I heard a premonitory
cough, and the Dato' Dagang came slowly and care-
fully up the steps, across the veranda, and into the
room where I was sitting.
I confess I was surprised, and far from pleased
to see the Dato', and I gave him anything but a
cordial welcome, as I asked him to sit down and
tell me to what fortunate circumstance I owed this
visit.
He looked carefully round, as though to see if
there were any one concealed in the gloom of my
ill-lighted room, and then said, "You were quite
right to-day, and I was stupid. There were far too
many people present, and you could not do other-
wise than decline the Dato' Bandar's gift. But now
it is dark, there is no one here, and I have brought
A SILVER-POINT 81
the money. My servant has carried it, and he waits
at the foot of your steps." In the indifferent light
cast by the single lamp from out the room I could
dimly see the form of a man, with a sack on his
shoulder, standing at the foot of the steps.
This last move of my enemy was almost more
than could be borne, and I had the strongest desire
to run at him and send him headlong down the steps
to join his henchman. Fortunately, I did not follow
my inclination, for I never lost sight of my real
object, and the fact that this man would enjoy
nothing so much as my failure. As we were alone,
I did not pretend to conceal my anger, and I said,
"You are taking advantage of the fact that I am a
stranger in this country, and the guest of the Sultan.
But you also are a foreigner, and in the face of the
insult you have done me, there is no need for me to
pick my words. I wish never to see you in my house
again, and advise you to leave it while you may."
There was a table between us, and the Dato' was
next the door. It seemed to me that he was very
quickly outside, and I don't remember that he wished
me good-bye. He went out of the lamplight into
the darkness, followed by a shadowy form, bearing
on its shoulder a heavy sack, which, I had no
doubt, contained the thousand dollars.
82 THE REAL MALAY
That, of course, ought to be the end of my story,
but it is not.
The same evening, while I was at dinner, my
friend the. Sheikh came and told me the Dato'
Dagang had gone from my house to the stockade,
where the Sheikh lived, and had there truthfully
recounted what had taken place at my house. He
added that he was not going to take the money
back again a second time, and he offered it to
the Sheikh, who now asked me whether he might
receive it. I told him he must decide that himself,
but as the giver was his father-in-law, and he (the
Sheikh) had lost everything he possessed by reason
of the Dato' Bandar's rebellion (as it was called),
this might be a legitimate means of getting some of
it back again. The Sheikh left me with the impres-
sion that he meant to accept the money.
Two or three days later, it was arranged that the
Dato' Bandar and Raja Haji should accompany me
to Singapore, but, as ill luck would have it, my
steam launch, our only means of conveyance, broke
down, and I was in despair till I found an ingenious
Raja, who took out the broken bit of the engine,
made a model in wood, and cast a replica in silver,
from dollars I supplied for the purpose. The sub-
stitute was too heavy, and we had several stoppages
A SILVER-POINT 83
on the way, but we managed to reach Singapore
without further mishap.
On the way down I noticed, in the train of the old
Dato', a boy of surpassing ugliness, who attracted
my attention by the disproportionately-large size of
his head. It was shaven, and covered all over with
lines, so that you could not put your finger on it any-
where without touching one. I asked the meaning of
this curious phenomenon, and was told he was the
Date's debt-slave, and his master had " knotched" his
head with a chopper whenever the boy incurred his dis-
pleasure. As the child was not more than ten years
old, he must have got in the Date's way frequently.
The Dato' Bandar and Raja Haji were accom-
modated with residences, allowances were granted
to them, and they were told they must remain in
Singapore during the pleasure of the Governor.
The old man never left again, and died in Singa-
pore. But Raja Haji joined me in an expedition to
another State, where disturbances broke out, and,
in return for the services he then rendered, his
liberty was restored to him, and he was rewarded
by her Majesty's Government.
Sheikh Mat Ali accompanied the party to Singapore,
and told me that he had taken with him two hundred
of his father-in-law's dollars for expenses, leaving the
84 THE REAL MALAY
other eight hundred in a box in charge of the police,
who occupied the stockade at Bandar Termasa.
Two or three days after our arrival in Singapore,
the Sheikh informed me that news had come from
Langat, by some native channel, to tell him that the
eight hundred dollars left behind had been stolen, the
culprits being one of my police and a Langat Malay.
In due time we returned to Bandar Termasa, and
found that this was true. For the moment the police-
man got clear away, but was afterwards arrested. The
other man was taken, and he made full confession,
pointing out a spot in the jungle where he had buried
his share of the plunder, and that was recovered.
Again, that looks like finality ; but I cannot refrain
from relating the sequel, even though it contains a
moral.
Months passed, perhaps even a year or more, and
the Dato* Dagang, finding the tide setting strongly
against him, left Langat in disgust, and returned, I
suppose, to his own country. The audacious attempt
at bribery only remained in my mind as an amusing
incident, when there was forwarded to me, under
official cover, a letter from the Dato' Bandar to the
Colonial Secretary at Singapore, written in English,
saying that on a date named he had lent me a
thousand dollars, and would be glad if I could be
A SILVER-POINT 85
called upon to repay it ! When I had got over the
amazing effrontery of this statement and demand, it
occurred to me that, quite apart from any question
of principle, there may be unexpected risks attach-
ing to the acceptance of bribes, even when offered
under what look like safe conditions. I had reported
all the circumstances at the time they occurred,
and I did not think it necessary to do more than
refer to my official journal, wherein the circum-
stances were minutely described. Afterwards, I
was stationed for a time in Singapore, and the
old Dato' Bandar used to call on me monthly, and
I became accustomed to his complaints that the
Colonial Treasurer was robbing him. I also smiled
on his invariable custom of helping himself to two
cigars when he left my office. I knew he never
smoked, but he said he had friends who did, and
that was the same thing. Besides, he was about
eighty years old, and I knew he must die soon.
We were quite friendly before that happened, but
he never left Singapore. He sleeps there now, with
the faithful who have "gone home to the mercy of
God," and when he rises and has settled the long
account that stands against him, I feel sure he will
make an endeavour to secure some return for the ill-
advised investment of his thousand pieces of silver.
A "GENRE" PICTURE
THE other day, I had to move from the house
where I have lived for the last seven years,
and, in the consequent upheaval of accumulated
rubbish specially letters, papers, and books I
found a note, or to speak accurately two notes
written on one sheet of paper, which brought vividly
to my recollection an incident that occurred while I
was living with one of the writers, Captain Innes of
the corps of Royal Engineers.
Innes and I had taken a house in Penang, and
had just moved into it. The house stood at the
i unction of two roads ; it was surrounded by a large
but neglected garden, and the place altogether
resembled an Eastern Castle Rack-rent, an appear-
ance partly due to the fact that it had not been
occupied for some time. The garden was a veritable
jungle; but the house was large and roomy, ap-
proached by a rather imposing flight of steps, which
led into a great marble-paved hall, lighted by long,
86
A "GENRE" PICTURE 87
narrow windows, glazed with small panes of glass.
It was principally on this account that we named
our new habitation the Baronial Hall.
I remember that the stables contained but three
stalls, to accommodate Innes's one horse and my three
ponies. I thought I might claim two of the stalls,
but Innes's horsekeeper, a Sinhalese, in whom his
master had more confidence than I had, insisted that
his horse was of a very superior breed, and must
have one stall to stand in and another to sleep in, so
I accepted the position, and sent two of my ponies
to live elsewhere. I cannot say that I felt all the
compassion called for by the circumstances, when,
one night, some weeks later, as I was dressing for
dinner, I heard a peculiar noise in the direction of
the stable, and, looking out, I saw in the bright
moonlight the Sinhalese, face-downwards, on the
sand of the open space before the stable, while
my pony, a not too good-tempered beast at any
time, was apparently eating him, and enjoying the
process.
When we had rescued the horsekeeper, and sent
him to the hospital (where he remained a consider-
able time, and from which he returned happily
drunk), I pointed out to his master, that if the
wise old man understood the horse in his care,
88 THE REAL MALAY
he was less well informed about the habits of my
pony.
This incident, and the fact that Innes planted
what should have been the lawn with guinea-grass,
the favourite food of his too-pampered charger, are
the only facts of any importance that I can remem-
ber, till the coming of the tinka.
Unka is the Malay name for the tailless monkey,
called by Europeans a Wah-Wah. I do not know
where that name originated, but the creature makes
a noise like the soft and plaintive repetition of a
sound that can be fairly put into letters, thus Wu',
Wu'. When several dnka get together in the jungle,
in the early morning, they will sit in a high tree, in
a circle round one of their number, who pipes and
sings, and finally screams, a solo of many variations,
through which runs this simple motif, and, at a cer-
tain point, the others all join in, calling in loud and
rapid tones WU' WU' Wu' Wu' Wu' Wu' ; the
first two or three cries delivered shrilly and slowly,
the others tumbling on each other's heels in a de-
scending scale. And then da capo, until the sun gets
too hot, or they quarrel, or become too hungry or
thirsty to go on ; I cannot say for certain, for though
I have watched and listened to the concert for a
long time, I had not patience to wait till the end.
A "GENRE" PICTURE 89
The dnka is either black or fawn-coloured ; he
has extraordinarily long and strong arms and legs, a
face of never-changing sadness, which may on occa-
sion turn to an evil expression of vice and fury, and
somewhat formidable teeth. But, in the main, the
tinka is a gentle and docile creature, easily tamed,
and his only amusements seem to be to swing him-
self with great leaps along a bar, to sing the Wu'-
Wu' song, or to sit, in deep meditation, with his
toes turned in, his head between his knees, and both
hands clasped on the nape of his neck.
I was much shocked, one day, when I saw two
small dnka gambolling in a tree in front of the house
of a Malay head-man. There was nothing very
strange in the fact that these creatures should have
been where they were, but, what was unusual to me,
was to find that each was wearing a dress of cotton
print, one blue and the other pink, with their heads
appearing from the neck, their hands from the
sleeves, and their legs well, that was the worst of
it, they were hanging by their feet, and I went away.
As a rule, as I have already mentioned, they hang
by their arms, but then, with the exception of these
orphans, I have never seen any tinka in print gowns.
It only shows how unwise it is to try and clothe all
nationalities in the garments of Western civilisation.
90 THE REAL MALAY
Again, I remember an Anka I used to know very
well. He was a dissipated creature, and lived in a
box on the top of a pole. There was a hole in a
corner of the box, and into this used to be fixed a
corked bottle of whisky and water, which gave the
tinka a good deal of trouble to pull out, but, once
fairly in his hands, he made short work of the ex-
traction of the cork and the consumption of the
contents.
Then he used to be told to come down, and, when
he reached the ground, he would turn a succession of
somersaults with a grace and agility that would have
made a London street-arab green with envy. But
I confess it was the last act of the performance that
I most enjoyed ; it was called " the bath." An old
kerosine tin, one side of which had been cut away,
was filled with water, and the bath was placed on
the ground in a suitable spot. As soon as it was
ready, the tlnka, who had watched the preparations
with careful interest, walked slowly up to the bath
(by the way, they walk on their hind-legs usually,
and drink with their mouths, not from their hands),
and, standing at one end of the tin, gripped the sides
of the bath, at a convenient distance, with both
hands. Then slowly very, very slowly he went
head foremost into the water, turning, as he did so,
A "GENRE" PICTURE, 91
a complete somersault, his dripping, woebegone face,
appearing gradually from out the water, as he
arranged himself to sit comfortably, with his back
against the end of the tin, and his arms hanging
over the sides, exactly as a human being might sit
in a bath. The tinka would recline thus for about
half a minute, looking the picture of extreme suffer-
ing, and silent protest against the unfeeling laughter
of the spectators. Then he suddenly jumped up,
and, springing with both feet on to the edge of the
tin, gave a violent backward kick, that sent the water
streaming down the hill, and the bath rolling after it.
The tinka is fond of a kitten, a chicken, or a puppy,
and will cling to it, quite forgetful of the fact that the
little thing may be hungry, and tired of these en-
forced embraces. The creature is very easily affected
by cold, and that is probably the reason why it loves
to hug a kitten, and cries when the warmth is taken
away.
According to Perak tradition, the finka, and an-
other species of Simian called siamang, rather
blacker and more diabolical looking than the finka,
but otherwise not easily to be distinguished from
the latter, lived originally in mutual enjoyment of
the Perak jungles. Individuals of the two species
quarrelled about precedence at a Court Ball, or
92 THE REAL MALAY
a State Concert probably the latter. The quarrel
was espoused with great bitterness by all the dnka
and all the sidmang, till, at last, the other denizens
of the forest, worried beyond endurance, by the
constant bickerings, murders, and retaliations of
these creatures, issued an edict by which all the
Anka were compelled, for all time, to live on the
right of the Perak River and the sidmang on the
left neither being allowed to cross the river.
A friend of mine, who lived on the right bank of
the river, and wished to test the truth of this legend,
made pets of a very small sidmang and a rather
large Anka, for whom places were laid and chairs
put at every meal. They were not confined in any
way and their manners were indifferent, for, though
they were served with every course at each meal,
they seemed to take an impish delight in pulling
the dishes out of the hands of the servants who
passed within their reach.
As my friend was writing one day at a large
round table, on which a number of official letters
were lying awaiting his signature, I saw the sid-
mang climb, slowly and without attracting attention,
on to the table, where, for a time, he sat without
stirring, regarding my friend with earnest and sor-
rowful eyes. Then, by degrees, he gradually edged
A "GENRE" PICTURE 93
himself towards the inkstand, and, when quite close to
it, dipped his hand into the pot and carefully wiped
his inky fingers, in a sort of monkey-signature, on
each of the beautifully-prepared official despatches.
When, at last, my friend discovered what the std-
mang had done, and made as though to catch and
punish his tormentor, the small imp disappeared
over the side of the table, making piteous little cries,
and the Anka, who had been watching the proceed-
ings through the window, came in and hurried his
companion on to the roof, where they always retired
to concoct some new outrage.
In spite of these signs of original sin, the dnka,
concerning which I have made these casual refer-
ences, were, on the whole, of amiable dispositions.
My own experience was, alas ! to be with one of a
different type.
A Governor, whose term of office was up, had
arranged with a Malay Sultan to send him two Anka,
to take to England, but, at the moment of his
departure, as they had not then arrived, he asked
me to take charge of them and forward them to
London.
I consented, and one morning a Malay appeared
with a letter, and told me that the dnka had been
landed from the vessel in which he had brought
94 THE REAL MALAY
them from a northern State, and were at my disposal.
I was busy, and told the messenger to take them to
the Baronial Hall. As he was leaving, the man
said I should find that the smaller of the two had
lost his arm at the elbow, an accident which had
occurred on the voyage ; for the cages had been
placed within reach of each other, and the larger
monkey, who, as the man remarked, was rather
wicked, had induced his small companion to shake
hands with him, and then abused his confidence by
twisting his arm off at the elbow.
When I got home, in the evening, I found the
small finka looking very sick, and he died the next
day ; but his murderer was a very fine specimen of
the fawn-coloured dnka, about two feet high as he
sat on the ground, with an expression of countenance
that I did not altogether like. However, he was
allowed a certain length of cord, and lived in the
coach-house, where I often went to see and feed him,
and he received my advances, apparently, in good
part. One day, however, he escaped, and I had to
call in the services of two time-expired Indian con-
victs, to catch him. The servants declined to have
anything to do with him, and said he was very wicked
and tried to bite them, even when they gave him
food, so I determined to put him back in his cage.
A "GENRE" PICTURE 95
I anticipated no difficulty, but, as he hesitated to go
in, though everything had been done to make his
cage look attractive, I put my hand on his back and
applied a very gentle pressure. In an instant he
turned round and bit me badly, in return for which,
I gave him a good beating, and determined I would
not trouble about him any more. I gave up my
visits to him, but, whenever he saw me, at any dis-
tance, even if it were through the Venetians of a
window, he would turn his back on me, seize one
leg with both hands, and, looking through his legs,
make horrible faces in a way that I thought very
rude and ungrateful.
After a fortnight he got away again. I felt it was
more than likely that the servants had connived at
his escape, and I was inclined to say, with Mr.
Briggs, " Thank God, he's gone at last."
I said that the Baronial Hall stood in the angle of
two wide and much-frequented roads. The front
road bordered a picturesque bay of the sea, but
behind the house was a large coco-nut plantation,
and here the Anka took up his quarters and lived for
six months or more. Once, when I returned to the
house after a week's absence, I found a crowd of
half-caste boys throwing stones at the tinka } who
sat at the top of a coco-nut tree and regarded them
96 THE REAL MALAY
with far from friendly eyes. I sent the boys away,
but I realised that the owner of the plantation might
object to the linka, as he was probably doing, making
free with the fruit of this grove.
I saw no more of my charge, and left Penang on
a political mission to Perak, where I remained some
time.
Landing, on my return, I went to the quarters of
a friend, who was the head of the police force, and
he told me, amongst other news, that, only an hour
before my arrival, some Eurasian boys had brought
to him the tinka, dead, and tied on a stick, saying
that he had attacked them, and bitten one of their
number, very badly, in the hand, and they had been
compelled, in self-defence, to kill him. The Super-
intendent of Police said that this was evidently not
the whole truth of what had occurred, but the injured
boy talked of claiming compensation from me, though,
no doubt, the dnka had been made the victim of a
combined attack. Bearing in mind what I had seen
myself, some months before, I thought that was
extremely probable, and, having inspected the body
a piteous object tied to a long stick by the ankles,
while the arms had been pulled as far as possible
above the head and there fastened round the stick
by the wrists I went home, the Superintendent
A "GENRE" PICTURE 97
undertaking to get the tinka stuffed, in an attitude
of deep humility, with his formidable teeth carefully
concealed.
Early the next morning, a servant told me that
two Eurasians wanted to see me. I told him to ask
them in, and a boy and a man made their appearance.
The boy's hand was in a sling, but otherwise he
seemed well enough.
I said, "What can I do for you?"
The boy replied, " Your monkey has bitten me."
I remarked, "And you have killed the monkey."
There was a brief silence, and I said, " Tell me
how it happened."
" I was going home from school," said the be/,
" walking along the high-road in front of this house,
when the monkey, who was sitting up in a coco-nut
tree, caught sight of me and came down and bit me."
" What were you doing ? " I asked.
" Nothing."
" How did the monkey get into the road ? "
" He climbed through the hedge."
" Were you the only person on the road ? "
" Oh no, there were many others."
" Then why did he attack you ? "
No answer.
" Is that all you have to say about it ? "
98 THE REAL MALAY
"Yes."
"Then I wish you good morning."
Here the man broke in with, " What are you
going to give the boy ? "
To which I replied, " Nothing, in the face of such a
story as that ; but what have you to do with it ? "
" I have come as the boy's friend," he said, " and
if you don't pay him compensation, he will sue you
for damages."
" He must do what he thinks best," I said, " but
I would advise him to prepare a more probable story
than that he has just told me; monkeys do not come
down from the tops of coco-nut trees to bite inoffen-
sive little boys who are walking on the high-road."
Seeing there was nothing more to be got out of
me, my visitors departed, and I, forgetting the un-
spoken dislike of the dnka for myself, mourned his
loss, and felt satisfied he had been done to death by
the boys of the neighbourhood.
At that time, the judge of the Small Cause Court
was a magistrate who had had a great deal of Indian
experience before coming to Penang, and a few days
after my interview with the boy, this official called
at my office and said : " I want to have a few minutes'
conversation with you about a matter that concerns
you personally."
A "GENRE" PICTURE 99
I said, " Pray sit down ; I suppose the boy who
was bitten by the monkey has been to you ? "
" He has," said the magistrate, " and he wishes to
summon you for damages."
" He is quite at liberty to do so," I said ; " but I
can't imagine any one placing any credence in the
cock-and-bull story about the monkey coming down
out of the tree, and attacking him as he passed on
the high-road."
" Oh, but I assure you," said the man learned in
law, "that is not at all an improbable story. I
knew a road in the Province so infested by monkeys,
that they used to come out of the jungle and snatch
the baskets of fruit out of the hands of people going
to market. No woman could pass there alone, and
the men used to go in parties for mutual protection."
" Of course if you know that," I said, without
betraying the thoughts that were in me, " I have
nothing more to say, but I have heard the details of
what really occurred from an unbiassed spectator,
whom I can produce as a witness, and the boy's
story is very far from the truth."
"Then what is the true account?" said the
magistrate ; " for I shall not issue a summons with-
out good cause shown."
" I am told," I said, " that this boy and another
ioo THE REAL MALAY
were playing in the coco-nut plantation behind my
house (not their plantation, by the way ; they were
trespassers), and the monkey was sitting in a high
coco-nut tree hard by, watching the boys and
thinking about nothing at all. The boys, as boys
will, began to quarrel, and from abuse they soon
came to blows ; now," I said, " when the monkey
saw that, he came down the tree."
"Ah! he came down the tree," broke in my
friend.
" Yes," I said, " the man who saw it all says he
came down the tree, but the boys continued to fight,
and took no notice of him. Then the monkey, who
was a particularly intelligent beast, and had lived
with respectable people, felt he ought to interfere,
because he knew it was wrong of boys to fight, and
had seen them beaten for doing it. He, poor thing,
could not speak to them, but he walked up, waving
his hands like this " (here I suited the action to the
word), " as though he would say, ' Stop ! you must
not fight any more ! ' "
" What ! " interrupted the magistrate, " he went
like this ? " as he repeated my action.
"Yes," I said, "so I am told by the man who
saw it all. The monkey went close up to them in
his anxiety, and then, either the boys misunder-
A "GENRE" PICTURE 101
stood him, or what seems more likely, they were
really bad boys, and disliked the monkey's interfer-
ence, for one of them the boy who has been injured
slapped the monkey in the face."
" Slapped him in the face ! "
" Yes," I said, " so the man says who told me
the story ; and then, what could you expect ? The
monkey, finding his good intentions misinterpreted,
and himself made the subject of a cowardly assault,
bit his assailant bit him badly in the hand."
"Ah ! he bit him in the hand ? "
"Yes, and one must make some excuses for him,"
I said, " because, after all, one ought not to expect
too much from a monkey."
"That," said my friend, as he got up and took
his hat, " is an entirely different account to the one
I heard, and I wish you good morning."
" Of course, of course," I said, as I shook hands
with him, " I thought you would like to know the
facts." As I closed the door and resumed my seat,
I fell a-m using on the curious ways of the tinka,
and the advantages to be gained by a long experi-
ence of monkeys.
For months I heard nothing more about the boy
and his complaint, but some one told me that, when
he went again to my experienced friend, he had
102 THE REAL MALAY
been driven from the presence with what is called
" a flea in his ear."
Without my realising that the change meant any-
thing to me, a new judge of the Small Cause Court
arrived from England about this time, and replaced
the Indian officer. The new-comer, of course, knew
nothing about monkeys, and when, just as I was
starting on another expedition to the Malay States,
I was served with a summons, claiming damages for
the injury done to Master Fernandez by a dangerous
beast described as my property, I could only ask
Innes to put the case in the hands of counsel, and
trust to my advocate's skill and the harmless, even
pitiful, appearance of the stuffed dnka, whose coun-
terfeit presentment I suggested should be produced
in Court as a last resort.
My journeyings took me finally to Singapore,
where I told this veracious story, and consulted
both the Chief-Justice and Attorney-General, who
assured me that I had no legal responsibility in the
matter ; indeed, I did not quite understand how the
complainant was going to prove that he had been
bitten by my finka at all, or that I could be said to
own, or keep, a creature that for six months had
lived by his wits in a neighbouring plantation.
However, it is the unexpected which happens, and
A "GENRE" PICTURE 103
I tried to bear the news with fortitude, when I
received from Innes the following letter and its
enclosure. I never quite made out what became of
the stuffed dnka, but I suppose he is preserved with
the records of the case in the archives of the Penang
Court :
"PENANG, iyd September 18 .
" MY DEAR SWETTENHAM, You will gather
from the enclosure that the monkey case has gone
against us. I'm awfully sorry, and did my best in
the matter, I assure you. The judge counselled a
compromise, after hearing plaintiffs case and Bond's
reply, and I thought it safest to take the hint.
Bond, as you see, handsomely declines any fee. I
have thanked him on your behalf for his exertions,
and settled the bill, the amount whereof we can
adjust with other matters. I confess I couldn't
follow the judge's train of thought, for the story
didn't seem to me to tell well in the witness-box.
Yours truly, W. INNES."
" i8/A September 18 .
" MY DEAR INNES, As Swettenham's case was
compromised at the suggestion of the judge, I don't
intend to make any charge against him for the little
104 THE REAL MALAY
I did, so all he will have to pay will be $22.95, costs
and damages. Yours sincerely,
" I. S. BOND."
There must have been something peculiarly malig-
nant about this tinka ; the slightest connection with
him proved fatal to so many people. The Sultan
who gave him is dead, and the Governor who never
received him ; the Chief-Justice and the Attorney-
General who took a friendly interest in him ; the
magistrate who had such an experience of all his
kind ; the counsel who defended him ; my friend
who supported him ; and I had almost forgotten
the man who really saw what happened to him. It
is almost like the tale of the House that Jack Built
a glorified Eastern version.
SOME LAST TOUCHES
IN an earlier volume of Malay Sketches, I de-
scribed the appearance, and some characteristics,
of a Malay Sultan, who, since his death, has been
known as " the late Sultan, God-forgive-him." He
was afflicted, when about sixty years of age, with a
strange sickness, and after one successful bout with
his adversary, His Highness succumbed to a second
attack.
At the time of the first seizure, I was the Sultan's
political adviser, and when the serious nature of
the disease was reported to me, I sent for a skilled
European surgeon, in the hope that he would be
able to diagnose the complaint and relieve the
patient. The doctor propounded a theory, as re-
gards the disease, which may or may not have been
correct; but though he remained within call for a
week or ten days, and frequently saw the patient,
his services as a medical attendant were politely
declined, and he could claim no credit for the partial
105
io6 THE REAL MALAY
and temporary recovery made by the king. Be-
yond my desire to relieve the sick man, I was
interested in a case which seemed peculiar, and I
constantly visited the patient, to see for myself how
he was getting on, to offer any small assistance
possible, and to prevent the invalid being killed by
the practice of the black art. Besides these spon-
taneous visits of inquiry, I was, on several occasions,
hurriedly summoned to " the Palace " to witness the
expected death-struggle.
It was certainly curious to note how the charac-
teristics of the man dominated him in what appeared,
at the time, to be the last moments of his life ; and
there was something weirdly, yet pathetically un-
canny, in the gruesome pleasantries of the dying
king.
A powerful, loud-voiced, impatient tyrant, all
unused to any kind of ailment, I found him out-
wardly unchanged, but lying in the middle of the
floor flat on a mattress, with one low pillow sup-
porting his head, his sightless eyes fixed on the
ceiling. He was so weak that he could do nothing
for himself, and when he spoke at all, which was
seldom, he complained, in an almost inaudible voice,
of a consuming fever and unquenchable thirst. He
would hold out his hand for water, and when the
SOME LAST TOUCHES 107
cup was put in it, poured the contents on his chest,
or head, or on the pillow, as though he could not
find his mouth.
The most pitiful sight, however, was to see his
helpless face and body distorted by the fit, which
attacked him every few minutes, so that there was
hardly any respite ; and often I withdrew to some
corner, out of sight of his agony. The monotony
of exact repetition was dreadful. He would lie
there on his back, with his head turned slightly to
the right. Then, very gradually, his head would
begin to turn over towards the left, his face and
limbs twitching convulsively, till, as the head got
over to the left side, there would be a paroxysm of
struggles, the knees almost hitting the chin, and the
face convulsed out of recognition. Then the fit
seemed to wear itself out, the twitching ceased, the
limbs relaxed and fell into their usual attitudes,
while the lines of the face unbent, and the patient,
with a sigh of utter weariness, seemed to fall into
an uneasy slumber.
After an interval of seven to ten minutes, exactly
the same thing would occur again; and this went
on for hours and hours, till one wondered how even
that strong frame could bear the ceaseless strain.
The only means of giving any relief seemed to be
io8 THE REAL MALAY
to hold the patient's head, so that it could not turn
to the left ; but that led to such a struggle, that the
cure seemed more cruel than to let the demon of
disease have its way.
It was in the brief intervals between these attacks
that the king would, apparently, recover conscious-
ness and speak in his right mind. He knew that,
amongst the many notable Malays who had gathered
to his bedside, there was a very holy man, and he
also knew that, in the weeks of waiting, this man
had fallen ill, and now lay in the house a fellow-
sufferer with himself. From day to day the king
would ask how his guest was faring, and one even-
ing, when the report was worse than usual, His
Highness remarked, with a grim smile and no small
satisfaction, that, after all, the Raja Haji the royal
Pilgrim would probably go to the mercy of God
before his master.
Amongst those who had early felt it their duty
to attend upon their lord was a certain head-man, a
frequent companion of the king in his hunting expe-
ditions, and a reliable servant in matters requiring
tact and secrecy. Many years of such service had
met with little acknowledgment, and less reward, and
I will not say that this man's presence, at his chief's
bedside, might not have been fairly attributed to a
SOME LAST TOUCHES 109
motive kindred to the instinct which draws vultures
to the neighbourhood of the dying beast. At any
rate, the head-man's face betrayed a look of some-
thing less than grief, something alien to sympathy,
when, one night, the king bade him approach, as
he had something to say to him.
The head-man respectfully pulled himself across
the floor to a place near his master's pillow, where
he might hear the commands which came, slowly
and spasmodically, in a very weak and tired voice,
from the sore-stricken king.
" Come nearer," said the master, " I cannot tell
where you are."
"Thy servant is here, my lord," said the head-
man, edging himself a little closer.
"Nearer still," said the Sultan; "I cannot see
you. Ah ! but I am blind ; I can see nothing. Can
you hear me ? I would speak."
" Thy servant is quite close now, my lord," said
the head-man. " He can hear anything that falls
from his master's lips. Thy servant awaits the
order of his lord."
" Ismail," said the king, " you have been a
good servant, and I would reward you whilst I
may."
Ismail's eyes distinctly glistened at this encourag-
no THE REAL MALAY
ing testimony to his worth this promise of tardy
reward.
The king continued : " Ismail, you see this ring ? "
Here the Sultan touched a large and valuable dia-
mond ring which he wore on a finger of his right
hand. "Come nearer, Ismail; it is this diamond
ring that I would that I would like ." The
chief seemed to be struggling to get the ring off
his finger, while Ismail's eyes betrayed the satisfac-
tion he felt, and his fingers visibly itched to touch,
to grasp, to close over the gem, which had in its
journey already, though slowly, passed one joint of
the finger it had so long adorned.
"Ismail! you shall have ." But at that
instant the king's face twitched, his whole expres-
sion changed, he thrust the ring home on his finger,
and as his head began to roll slowly to the left, he
was seized by a violent spasm which convulsed his
limbs- and distorted his features. As the wife and
attendants sought to allay the patient's torments,
the discomfited Ismail dragged himself painfully
away to a place by the wall, and, even in that
presence, hands were raised to hide the faces of
those who found it difficult to entirely conceal their
amusement.
Malays (and possibly all Muhammadans) believe
SOME LAST TOUCHES in
that when the moment of dissolution arrives, the
faithful believer is blessed by a vision of the Arabic
letters tam-aliph thus ^ the initials, as it were,
of the Most High. That is, to them, the " writing
on the wall." One night, when I had been sum-
moned in all haste to witness the passing of the
king then believed to be imminent I entered
upon a scene to which I was no longer a stranger,
and made up my mind to a long vigil. The room
in which the sick man lay was crowded with people.
Every man, woman, and child of royal birth had
hurried to the deathbed of their relative and
Sultan, while as many of the people of the neigh-
bourhood as could gain admission had squeezed
into the room. Besides these, there were in the
house, and encamped around it, a heterogeneous
collection of priests, magicians, warlocks, native
doctors, male and female, and all their following
of minstrels and assistants.
The royal patient appeared to be very ill indeed y
and I could not but share the apprehension that was
written on every face, and expressed in the unusual
hush of expectancy which silenced the great crowd
of spectators. The tormenting fits, which had so
afflicted the king, came at rarer intervals, and he
lay utterly exhausted, with closed eyes and difficult
H2 THE REAL MALAY
breathing, past the help of leech or sorcerer. In-
deed, the whole clan of medicine-men had retired
to the outskirts of the crowd, and the priesthood was
at last in undisputed possession of the patient.
Towards morning, after a weary night of watch-
ing, the king suddenly opened his eyes, and made
a convulsive effort to sit up. As the priest at his
shoulder endeavoured to support the dying man's
head, the king murmured, " I fancy I see it the
lam-aliph!"
The priest, greatly excited, imparted this news to
the assembled spectators, and called upon them to
pray for the passing soul of their master, the priest
leading the prayer, and the multitude, with bent
heads and upturned palms, saying amtn, amfn, at
intervals.
After a few minutes the hushed monotone ceased.
There was a pause. Every eye turned on the patient,
who lay apparently insensible.
Then a faint smile began to dawn on the king's
face, and he murmured, " I am not dead after all ;
I must have made a mistake about the lam-aliph"
I concluded the patient was safe, for the moment
at any rate, and as I stumbled along the river bank in
the darkness, I thought I recognised some points of
resemblance between Louis XI. and the Malay king.
A NOCTURNE
ON the eastern shore of the narrow strait which
divides the island of Penang from the main-
land, there stands a small Malay village. It is like
many another in Province Wellesley and Malacca,
and a description of it will serve almost equally well
for all those that are similarly situated. A beach of
sand, the colour of pale burnt sienna, when seen close
to, fading to yellow and then to white as the eye of the
gazer becomes farther and farther removed, forms
a wide ribbon of light between the deep blue of the
sea and the dark mass of palms which rise from the
edge of high-water mark. The sandy soil goes
back inland for a width varying from two to four
hundred yards, and the whole of this slightly rising
ground ptrmdtang, as the Malays call it is thickly
planted with coco-nuts; while the picturesque Malay
huts are clustered, not close together, but within
easy sight and call of each other, under the shade
of the palms. Round each house, planted between
"3 H
ii 4 THE REAL MALAY
the coco-nuts, are usually a few fruit trees ; the
dark- leaved mangosteen, the ramdufatt, with its
striking red or yellow fruit, the coarse mango called
bachang, which blossoms into a perfect glory of
brilliant magenta, and the rambei, whose fruit re-
sembles nothing so much as exaggerated bunches
of pale-yellow grapes, without either the sheen or
the transparency of the wine-fruit. Often there
will be a few durian that tree of magnificent
dimensions and most gVaceful foliage, which from
a wonderful flower produces the great golden spike-
studded fruit, so worshipped by its votaries, so dis-
liked by those in whom the repulsive smell of the
thing induces nothing but loathing.
Not every house, but some at least in every
village, will have a little square patch of sireh
vines, trained to climb the rough posts on which
the parasite hangs ; and when it has reached the
summit, some ten feet or so from the ground,
spreads itself over and round the support till the
wood is hidden in a thick covering of those heart-
shaped leaves which the Malay is, or used to be, so
fond of chewing with his gambir, tobacco, and
areca-nut. I say " used to be," because the prac-
tice is now in many places becoming confined to the
old people. The teeth of the betel-chewer become
A NOCTURNE 115
black, and the "new woman" of Malaya has de-
termined that black teeth do not improve her ap-
pearance; while the Malay youth, who smokes
either the home-made or the foreign cigarette, has
no craving for the astringent flavour of the areca-
nut, and looks with less than admiration at
the crimson lips and blackened teeth of his old
folks.
Beyond the belt of coco-nuts, which fringe the
shore for miles and miles, lies an apparently end-
less field of rice ; brown when fallow, greener than
the greenest grass when half-grown, or golden
yellow when the grain hangs heavy in the ripe
ears. Behind this again another ptrmdtang, with
small valleys of rice running into the foot-hills, or
island-groves of palm and fruit trees, hiding the
cottages of the husbandmen and studding a great
sea, of level, waveless colour, whose farther shore
fades into the blue of distant mountains, rising
range behind range into the heart of the Peninsula.
From September to October or November, the
men of these villages clear the ground of a five or
six months' growth of weeds with a sort of short
scythe called a tdjak, plough it with buffaloes and
a rough wooden plough, and then, with the help of
their women and children, plant it, see that it is
ii6 THE REAL MALAY
carefully irrigated or drained throughout the various
stages of growth, guard it against the attacks of
rats and birds, and in due time reap and garner the
grain. During the months when the land lies fallow,
the men of a coast village often take to fishing, and,
when the tide is suitable, spend the whole night out
at their fishing-stakes, getting the "take" to the
nearest market by earliest dawn, and then return-
ing to their homes to eat and sleep.
In the village I have described, Perma'tang Jambu
by name, there lived some twenty or thirty years
ago a Malay called Samat. He owned a few coco-
nut trees and a strip of the adjoining rice land, and
his house was rather newer and better built than
that of his neighbours, for he had married, com-
paratively recently, a comely damsel, the report of
whose beauty had already gone beyond the limits
of the village. The padi season was over, and
Smat, like his neighbours, was able to congratu-
late himself on a more than usually abundant
harvest; but the money received from the sale of
his padi (that is, the unhusked rice), beyond what
was likely to be required in his house for the rest
of the year, or used for sowing in the coming plant-
ing season, had been almost all spent in the pur-
chase of a pair of gold bangles for the pretty young
A NOCTURNE 117
wife, Esah, and Samat had joined some of his friends
in putting up a fishing-stake, far out at sea, in com-
paratively deep water. With the profits of this
venture they hoped to be able to add some comforts
to the diet of rice, fruit, and vegetables, on which
they could rely till the next harvest.
Within ten miles of the village there lived, or
wandered, a Malay named Dris, of indifferent repu-
tation and no occupation, but with a certain devil-
may-care appearance and jaunty air, united to a
ready wit, a lithe young figure, and passably good
looks. Dris played at work sometimes, when the
spirit moved him, and he could do it in what he
thought good company ; but otherwise he lived on
his popularity with the unsteadier portion of the
youth of the neighbourhood, and his insinuating
manner with the ladies whose husbands happened,
for the moment, to be engaged on business that had
taken them from home. The gossips of the Pro-
vince said an unkind thing about Dris it was that
he had never been seen wearing a pair of trousers
but then gossips always say what is unkind, and
often what is not true ; and as Dris invariably wore
a sdrong or a kain pre, the gossips who knew what
was beneath these skirt-like garments knew too
much of Dris, or assumed to know what should not
n8 THE REAL MALAY
have concerned them. How far Dris was aware
of his reputation matters very little ; in any case
he appeared to be quite unconcerned, and pur-
sued the uneven tenor of his way, as though the
approbation or condemnation of the inquisitive
section of his neighbours were matters of no ac-
count. He must, however, have been in the way
of hearing gossip about others, if not about himself,
otherwise he could hardly have known that it was
worth while to make an excuse for visiting Perma-
tang Jambu, in the hope of catching a glimpse of
Samat's wife. Indeed several such visits were ne-
cessary, and usually they were made when Samat was
away, helping to put up the fishing-stake that was to
prove a little mine of wealth to him and his friends.
Dris was a confirmed wanderer, and no one took
much notice of his occasional visits to this secluded
spot, but it is possible that, if he always went with
the same object, he may have been noticed by the
person he came to see. It is hard to say what im-
pression, if any, he had been able to create, for,
before the voice of virtuous suspicion had had time
to formulate any definite charge, or concoct any
plausible story, something happened which put an
end to Dris's wanderings, and clothed him respect-
ably for the last, if not for the first, time.
A NOCTURNE 119
The fishing season had begun, and every even-
ing, ere sundown, the watchers left the long line of
straight shore, and pulling or sailing, north-west
or south-west, made for their own stakes, where
they tied their boats, and clambering up into the
tiny crow's nest, sat or lay the whole night through,
tending the red lamp which warned passing vessels
of the exact position of the stakes; from time to
time raising the great net, and scooping out the
fish with a long bamboo ladle, and, in between-
whiles, gossiping, singing, smoking, and dozing.
The stakes are driven into the sea-bed on the edge
of a bank, where there is a sudden drop into deep
water. For deep-sea nets, they are in about thirty-six
feet of water, at high tide, with six feet of their length
above water. They are round jungle poles, straight
and strong, with the bark unstripped ; they are
fixed in the form of a pair of compasses, opened
to include an angle of about forty degrees, the legs
of the compasses so laid that the rising tide sweeps
full into them. The stakes are bound securely to-
gether with rattans, and, at the hinge of the com-
passes, there is a submarine gate, the latticed doors
of which open into a small enclosure, also made of
stakes, but carefully encased, from sea-bed to high-
no THE REAL MALAY
water mark, with a latticed lining through which no
fish can escape. This enclosure is further strength-
ened by widely spaced cross-bars over the top, that
tie the whole structure together, and enable the
watchers to walk about over the great net, which
covers the enclosed space of water, and can be
raised or lowered at will by means of rattan ropes
and wooden pulleys. The tiny crow's nest, which
covers a small portion of the top of the enclosure,
is roofed with palm leaves, as a protection against
rain and sun, and the red lamp is a very necessary
prote'ction, not only for the stakes and watchers,
but also for passing vessels. The stakes are very
often on the edge of a bank, the deep water on the
other side of which forms the channel by which
small trading steamers and lesser craft approach
and leave the harbour. Though a steamer will
crash right through the stakes, breaking some and
tearing others out of the ground, there is a serious
danger to those on deck if any of the stakes get
canted, for in that position they will mow down most
things that come in their way. The effect is similar to
that which may be expected when a passenger train
meets a goods train, with a truck of iron rods which
have become displaced so as to project over the six
feet between metals and into the adjoining track.
A NOCTURNE 121
Just as the moonlit Eastern night revels and
exults in a superb radiance and a soul-satisfying
perfection of intense beauty, that no language can
convey to those who have not seen and felt its
extraordinary power and fascination, so the darkness
of the moonless, starless, night is profound, pene-
trating, and so nearly tangible as almost to induce
one to reach up his hands and attempt to tear the
veil asunder, in search of a ray of light. In the
forest, or under the cover of any grove of lofty trees,
that feeling will not diminish till the light of moon,
or stars, or dawn, comes to gladden the wayfarer ;
out at sea, or on a great open plain, or wide road,
the eye will, after a time, distinguish between
deeper and paler shades of gloom. These periods of
"outer darkness" are most intense in the hours before
the rise of the moon in her third and, still more, her
fourth quarter, and rather less so after she has set,
in the first few nights of a new moon; they are
therefore chosen by those whose objects need dark-
ness rather than light for safe accomplishment.
On the fourth day of the moon, just as the silver
sickle and her attendant planet were sinking into the
expectant sea, and all the island-hills and mainland-
shore lay basking in a grey-blue haze, a tiny cockle-
shell of a boat, paddled by one man, made its way
122 THE REAL MALAY
slowly up the eastern side of the straits, keeping a
fair distance from the shore. The solitary occupant
was apparently in no hurry, and he had time to
remark and muse upon the strange loveliness of his
surroundings. The shadows on the nearer shore
were deepening, the flickering lights of the kampongs
disappearing one by one, and it was evident that the
villagers of the Province were getting themselves to
bed. A few bonfires, at long intervals, showed
where the fallen palm branches and driftwood were
smouldering in the coco-nut groves, and, through the
stems of the trees, might be descried the tethered
buffaloes, standing or lying in the smoke to protect
their hides from the vicious attacks of mosquitoes.
The other side of the narrow strait was shut in by
the island of Penang, and on its northern headland
glittered the light of a great Pharos, throwing its
warning signal miles away to north and west ; a
beacon for the majestic ocean queens or the humble
little native craft. The island rises in its centre
(or rather to the north of it), in a great mass of
wooded mountain, 2500 feet in height, and the level
plain, which lies at the foot of this hill, runs out into
the strait in a flat promontory, covered for the last
two miles by closely-packed houses, while on the
point stands an ancient fort surrounded by a moat ;
A NOCTURNE 123
a picturesque feature, but now useless as a means of
defence. Close against the shore lie anchored scores
of small coasting steamers and native craft, of cargo-
boats and lighters, steam launches, Chinese sam-
pans, passenger-boats, and fishing-boats of every
conceivable form and rig. Farther out, in deep
water and the full rush of the tide, are the ocean-
going steamers and large sailing vessels. A lumin-
ous sheen hangs close over the town, while isolated
lights twinkle on all the hills and down the shore-
line to southward, far as the eye can see. The
mast-head lamps of the innumerable vessels riding
at anchor in the roads glimmer against the haze-
wrapped background, and the dark hulls of some of
the nearer ships loom unsubtantial and unreal, as
though barely resting on the surface of the water.
The solitary paddler in that absurd toy-boat takes
all this in at one glance, but it does not sensibly
affect him ; he has seen it all a thousand times before,
been born to it, and lived with it all his life ; and to
realise, to even the extent of his power of apprecia-
tion, the charm of his surroundings, he would have
to be deprived of them, and taken, for a while, to
some less outwardly-attractive corner of that world
of which he knows nothing beyond what he now
sees. He is not thinking of the scenery, but of
i4 THE REAL MALAY
some plan, for the development of which he seems to
depend on the moon, as his attention has, for a long
time, been divided between watching the progress
of her setting, and gazing with long, thoughtful
glances, in the direction of a point on the Province
shore.
The moon has set now, and though a few stars
give light enough to show the outlines of the island
opposite and the thick shadows of palms on the
neighbouring coast, the occupant of the boat is
evidently not yet satisfied, for while he wastes the
time which remains before midnight in paddling
very slowly and noiselessly towards the north
getting now quite close to the beach, from which, in
the gathering darkness, this frail diminutive speck
on the water can no longer be distinguished he
stops when he reaches a solitary stake standing in
the shallow water, and making his boat fast to it,
sits down, and listens to the lapping of the tide on
the all but invisible sand.
It happened that, many hours earlier, Samat,
whose fishing-stake lay north-west of his village,
had gone to share the night's labours with his
friends, but, with the coming of sundown, he had
been seized with so sudden an attack of fever, that
A NOCTURNE 125
one of the other men had taken him home, and
returned with the boat to the fishing-stake. Samat
had duly suffered from the attentions of the local
wiseacres, who had in turn prescribed for him.
Left alone, at last, with his own household, the door
had been barred, the primitive lamp extinguished,
and the master had fallen into a fitful slumber,
from which he awoke, from time to time, to slake a
devouring thirst.
As the fever-stricken man lay tossing restlessly
on his mat, not asleep yet not awake, he fancied he
heard a sound as of some one moving underneath
the floor of his room. The house consisted of this
one room, raised about five feet above the ground
on piles, with a narrow veranda running the length
of the room in front, a door leading from room to
veranda, and a ladder of round steps from the
veranda opposite the door to the sandy ground.
In the perfect stillness which enwrapped the village,
a stillness broken only by the gentle but monotonous
caress of the sea kissing the smooth beach, every
sound was audible to a listener whose sensibilities
were once fully aroused. Samat's faculties were
soon alive, in spite of his sickness, and he was now
convinced that some being, or some beast, was
moving cautiously under the house. At 2 or 3 A.M.
126 THE REAL MALAY
that sort of sound means usually no good, and
Samat forgot his fever in the sudden excitement of
possible danger. Rising quickly and silently, he
possessed himself of a Kedah lading that was
never far from his hand. It was a curious weapon,
or tool, one or other as you liked to regard it, but
generally supposed to be intended for cutting jungle
or padi weeds, or doing any clearing work. The
handle was of horn, and from it sprang a long rusty
blade, very narrow at the butt, but slightly curved
backwards, and widening to what would have been
the point, if it had not been a squared end instead.
The blade had a horribly sharp edge, and enough
weight in the back to make it a dangerous weapon
in the hands of a man who hit with determination.
Carrying the lading in his hand, Samat reached
the door, which he suddenly threw open, and strid-
ing with a single step across the veranda, stood at
the top of the ladder. There he paused, for though
he could see npthing in the inky night, he felt that
some one was standing on a lower step of the ladder
some one who, in the act of ascending, had paused
in the face of the man he heard and felt was close
above him. If either had the advantage as to sight, it
was not the man who had but a moment before been
tossing, half asleep, on his mat in the throes of fever.
A NOCTURNE 127
Smat said, once only, " Who is that ? " but
there was no answer, and without more ado or over-
long waiting, he struck down straight --and clean
with the lading at where he knew the danger must
be. He knew he had hit something, for a voice he
seemed to recognise said, " God ! God ! " and there
was a sound as though a man had fallen to the
ground. And yet, he thought, he could not have
done much harm, for the resistance was so slight,
when the weapon sped through the air, that he
could not have hit the man on head or body at all.
This thought flashed through his brain as, with a
cry of " Thieves ! thieves ! help ! my friends," he
leapt to the ground, prepared to strike another blow
at the would-be burglar.
A quiet voice, which he now recognised, said,
" Don't any more, Samat, you have cut off my hand."
At the same time Esah was heard, at the door above
them, calling, " What is the matter, Samat ? Who
is there ? " and one by one the doors of the nearest
houses opened, and the owners appeared with lights
and weapons, each in turn crying, " What is that ?
Where is the thief? We come, we come ! " In that
moment Samat was terribly perplexed. What had he
done ? and what was Dris (for he was the thief) doing
on the steps of his house at that time of night ?
128 THE REAL MALAY
Perhaps Dris, in spite of his lost hand, had had
time to think of this, for when Samat said, " What
are you doing here, Dris ? " the latter replied, " I
was out fishing with a line, but, as I had no luck,
I landed near here and was trying to make my way
through the kampong to the road. In the darkness
I blundered against your house, and you have cut
off my hand, for which God in His mercy requite
you ; " and he broke off into a torrent of wails for his
own misfortune, and complaints against Samat for
the injury done.
By this time the two men at the foot of the la Ider
were surrounded by neighbours bearing lights, old
men and young, and on the outskirts and in the
doorways a few women, as the throng gradually
increased. As soon as Samat could see Dris, he
caught hold of the bleeding stump of the latter's right
arm, from which the hand had been cleanly severed,
and was trying his utmost to quench the terrible
flow of blood that was rapidly making the victim so
weak that he needed support.
Then some one said, " Where is his hand ? Where
did it fall ? " And all those not otherwise engaged
began a search for the severed member. The in-
different light of a torch, a blazing fagot, and two
or three burning wicks swimming in coco-nut oil,
A NOCTURNE 129
soon led to the discovery of the bloody hand lying by
the steps. Some dark spots on the sand, and brighter
stains on the ladder, fairly indicated Dris's position
when he received the blow.
The hand was picked up, and showed that it had
been severed at the wrist, now covered with blood
and sand. A voice said, " Wipe it well ; " and the
thing was duly wiped with a strip of rag torn off an
old sdrong. The next and most natural operation,
in the minds of the bystanders, was to carry the
hand back to its owner and replace it, as nearly as
possible, in the position it originally occupied. The
skin looked rather pallid and the fingers somewhat
limp, but to refix the hand on the bleeding stump
seemed the simplest bit of surgery imaginable. At
any rate, when tied securely on, it would help to
stanch the bleeding, which was now but partially
held in check by a tight ligature of rag above the
wound, and the pressure of several fingers and
thumbs on the injured man's arm, in places where
the most officious thought there were likely to be
arteries.
Dris presented a very sorry spectacle as he sub-
mitted to the well-meant attentions of the crowd.
From the stump of his right arm had spouted a jet
of blood that made a broad red stain down his
I
rjo THE REAL MALAY
sArong ; the sleeve of his jacket was also deeply
dyed with the same colour, and his other hand and
sleeve showed unmistakable signs of his attempts
to stanch the crimson stream, which still fell, inter-
mittently, in thick, sticky splashes from the wound.
Samat, who was beginning to feel very uncom-
fortable as regards his share in the incident, looked
at Dris and said, " Why did you not speak ? " But
Dris appeared not to hear, and only opened and
closed his eyelids as though he were losing con-
sciousness. Some rough splints were produced
from somewhere, and a quantity of rags torn into
bandages, also some Chinese tobacco (the nearest
approach to a strong cobweb, and a famous thing
for stanching blood), and chewed leaves. Without
slackening the pressure on the arm, the hand was
now carefully fitted on to the stump, the ends of
skin drawn together, the splints adjusted, the tobacco
and leaves plastered thickly round the wound, and
the whole swathed tightly in the far from clean
bandages.
H
While this was going on, one of the surgeons
said, " Did you not see he was going to strike you ?
However dark it was you would realise that, for he
was between you and the sky ; why did you not
speak then ? " Dris evidently heard this, for he
A NOCTURNE 131
said in a weak voice, " There was no time ; I could
not see what he had in his hand, but I raised my arm
to guard my head, and this is what he did to me."
Doubtless the bystanders had ideas on the sub-
ject, but they did not express them. There was
evidently nothing to be gained by questioning Dris,
and after all it was not their business ; but some of
them glanced at Esah, who still stood in the door of
her cottage, where she had been joined by several of
her women neighbours, and it was they who had
supplied what was asked for in t>>e way of surgical
appliances.
The village head-man was now on the scene, and
he decided that Dris must be taken to the nearest
hospital, and Samat to the police station, where a
report of the circumstances would be made. The
nearest hospital was ten miles distant, and there
also was the principal police station ; so a pair of
bullocks were put into a covered cart, a mattress,
mats and pillows were arranged within it, and Dris
was supported to the vehicle and lifted in; great
care being taken to carry his wounded arm inde-
pendently, and make a steady and easy rest for it,
when once he was in the cart. Two women sat
beside the injured man, to make his journey as
comfortable as possible, to moisten his lips and fan
132 THE REAL MALAY
away the mosquitoes; while the head-man, Samat,
and some others, whose testimony as witnesses
might be useful, followed on foot.
As the little cortege disappeared in the darkness,
which as yet showed but small signs of approach-
ing dawn, it was an old man who said, " Strange
indeed are the ways of that Dris, but people say
that he never wears trousers."
Ten minutes later, all was still in the village, and,
beyond the blood-stains on Samat's stairs, there was
nothing to show that anything particular had hap-
pened. Inside the house, Esah sat thinking, and
wondering, and planning, till the grey light, the cold
breeze from the sea, the crowing of the cocks and
the noise of opening doors, roused her from her
reverie. As she went down to bathe at the well,
the one fixed idea in her mind was, that if Samat
did not return by the third hour of prayer she must
go and see what had happened to him, and then,
she might also hear something about Dris, and how
he was faring in the white man's sick-house.
It was nearly 6 A.M. when the cart arrived at the
hospital, and the resident apothecary having glanced
at his new patient, and been informed of the nature
of the injury, had Dris carried into the building and
A NOCTURNE 133
deposited on one of the trestle-beds in the clean,
cool ward. The head-man's principal anxiety being
relieved, by safely transferring the wounded man to
the care of the " Tuan Doctor," as he politely styled
the apothecary, he ordered the cartman to take out
his bullocks and let them graze on the roadside,
while he went, with Samat and the other men, to
make a report at the police station.
The case, as reported, seemed a serious one, and
it was hard to say, as yet, what it might develop
into. The Assistant-Superintendent, the head of
the Province police, was immediately informed, and
having questioned the head-man, told S^mat he must
be detained for a while, until a reliable authority
could be consulted as to the real extent of the
wounded man's injuries. The Assistant-Superin-
tendent then visited the hospital, looked at the sick
man, who seemed to be exhausted by loss of blood
and the trying journey in the cart but, as to his
hand having been cut off well, the policeman was
not a surgeon, but he supposed that was a bit of
native exaggeration. The state of the patient's
clothes showed, however, that there must be a very
serious wound, and the Assistant-Superintendent
decided to send at once to Penang for the surgeon,
as the case was probably beyond the skill of the
134 THE REAL MALAY
apothecary; an opinion with which the latter at
once concurred, glad enough to be spared the
responsibility of having to deal with a case that
would probably take him before the Supreme Court,
to be catechised as to the treatment employed.
It was 9 A.M. when the surgeon arrived at the
hospital and visited the wounded man, who had
been carefully tended in every way, except that no
attempt had been made to interfere with the Malay
surgery. Dris was now in clean hospital clothes,
his arm properly supported, and himself made other-
wise as comfortable as possible. He had eaten
food, and his temperature was being watched to
guard against any access of the fever which had
already declared itself. The Malay women who
accompanied him to the hospital had visited him,
and, their services being no longer required, they
had gone to look for a breakfast.
The surgeon listened while the apothecary re-
ported the facts of the case, as they had been told
to him, and smiled as he heard the story of the
severed hand : lost in the darkness, the search with
lights, the finding of the hand covered with blood
and sand, its cleansing, and finally the operation of
replacing it on the wrist from which it had been cut.
The surgeon smiled, for, as he sat there, he held in
A NOCTURNE 135
his own this so-called "severed hand," and though
it was not particularly clean, and the bandages were
very dirty, and partly saturated with blood, streaks
of which lay dry and cracking on both hand and
arm, yet, if he knew anything at all, he could both
see and feel that the hand was alive. Of course, if
the hand had really been cut clean off, it could not
have been stuck on again, least of all by a parcel of
stupid native villagers. Therefore it was clear that
the story had been exaggerated, and though, no
doubt, the wrist had been very nearly severed, quite
near enough for a Malay to say, " cut in two," of
course a complete severance of hand and arm had
never taken place ; otherwise, how was it that the
hand looked all right now ? How was it that \\.felt
warm, felt as though the blood was coursing through
it ? The fingers did not move of course that was
hardly to be expected; the sinews were probably
all cut, and the man had received a desperate gash
that might destroy the full use of his hand for all
time. But the idea of the member having been cut
off, dropped in the sand, hunted for with lights ! !
The surgeon laughed quietly, and looked at Dris
as he lay there. The man was evidently much
exhausted he must have lost a lot of blood and
that journey in the cart, that was bad, and no doubt
136 THE REAL MALAY
accounted for the high fever which was now declar-
ing itself, but still :
" Did you say your hand was cut off ? "
"Yes, Tuan."
" Truly ? "
"Truly, Tuan."
" But it is not possible ; your hand is right now ? "
"Yes, Tuan."
" How long was it off? "
" I don't know, Tuan."
" No, I don't think you do," remarked the surgeon
in English, as the patient closed his eyes, the effort
of talking seeming too much for him.
"Well," said the surgeon, turning to the apothe-
cary, " we must get off those horrible dirty bandages.
I'm rather surprised you did not remove them when
the patient came in."
" The Assistant-Superintendent of Police thought
I had better do nothing till you came, sir," said the
apothecary, "as the case seemed serious, and from
the information he has, he can't understand what it
means, and what this man was doing when the other
struck him."
"Oh, very well," said the surgeon; "get a basin
of water, bandages, lotion, and everything, and I'll
dress the wound."
A NOCTURNE 137
All the requisites were at once brought, and the
surgeon began, slowly and carefully, to unfold the
filthy blood-stained rags that had served as bandages.
As he came to the chewed leaves and Chinese
tobacco, now coagulated into a black-brown mass,
the touch of which dyed his fingers scarlet, he
muttered, " What horrible mess is this, enough in
itself to produce mortification ? " Then the splints ;
the poor, rough, ill-cut splints, once a dirty yellowish
white, but now a sort of red mahogany ; these he
carefully removed, one by one, after detaching the
narrow strip of rag which bound them.
The wounded man's arm and hand were being
supported while this operation went on, but as the
underlying splints were removed, the hand came
quietly but completely away from the arm, to the
great horror and astonishment of the surgeon.
A rush of blood, but not a very strong one, came
from the stump of the arm, and some fell also from
the hand.
One cannot wait to think or theorise in a crisis
like this, but, deeply impressed by what he had
seen, the operator again adjusted the hand to the
arm and bandaged the two together with all the
skill he possessed; determined to watch by his
patient until he obtained some certain result.
138 THE REAL MALAY
That certainty was gained without much waiting,
and it was only too evident, from the entirely
different appearance now taken by the member, that
Dris's hand had been not only completely severed
from the arm, but that it was now dead beyond all
hope of recovery. The second grafting was a
failure.
The hand was, of course, removed, and the stump
treated in accordance with the rules of scientific
surgery ; but the arm mortified, and the patient died
under the shock of amputation at the shoulder.
This unfortunate result may fairly be ascribed to
the ten miles' cart journey ; but that is not the view
they used to hold in S^mat's village, when he re-
turned there, after a nominal term of imprisonment
for causing the death of the Malay sans-culotte.
A STUDY IN SHADOWS
HE was not a very nice man, as Malay chiefs
go; he was certainly not popular in Malay
society, and if I were to faithfully describe his
character, as it appeared to me and others who
knew him, it would look very ill indeed. Then he
did not affect to be other than he was; and he
bluntly expressed his opinions of men, women, and
motives, in language that was no doubt sincere, but
distinctly unwise. He had a reputation, but not a
good one; and I don't think he was in any way
troubled by the fact. A Muhammadan by profession
and association, he observed no rule that ran counter
to his inclinations, and probably did not understand
the meaning of our word conscience. Still, he had
scruples, but with very pronounced limitations ; they
would have prevented him from robbing his neigh-
bour of money, but not from seducing his wife;
they would have made him scorn to hit a man in
139
i 4 o THE REAL MALAY
the dark, but encouraged him to assault and battery
in the daylight.
I dare say you will think the chief was a very bad
man, and if I were to tell you all I knew about him,
you would be sure of it. But he had some good
points, and it is difficult to judge any Eastern, espe-
cially one so far removed from outside teachings
and influences as a Malay, by Western standards.
This man was a gambler, and not over-generous ;
he was exceedingly jealous of his women-folk, and
selfishly declined to give them the liberty enjoyed
by the rest of their class. He was not even so
hospitable as others with smaller means; for be-
sides being a man of rank and position, he was
decidedly well off.
On the other hand, he was courageous, intelli-
gent, a sportsman, energetic, trustworthy in all the
affairs of men, a good friend, of even temper and
quick wit, with the sense of humour common to
almost all Malays of his class. The spirit of the
clan was strong in him, but he was very indepen-
dent in thought and speech, with a determination
that somewhat inclined to stubbornness.
At the time I speak of the chief was about thirty-
five years of age, short and thickset, plain in feature
but powerful in build, and the world had treated
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 141
him well. If he had not grown in favour with God
and man, he had prospered considerably; so that
he owned many acres and houses and wives (more,
so gossip said, than his Prophet allowed), elephants
and horses and carriages, men and maid servants,
and everything that the heart of Malay could desire.
He had had a few troubles, but only one of serious
consequence, and that was when he had beaten a
more favoured rival for the favours of a lady who
declined the chief's attentions.
For this assault the ruler of the country (who
was not altogether sorry to get this opportunity of
bringing the chief to book) summoned his vassal
into the presence, to hear his sentence. The delin-
quent duly attended, and with an attitude and bear-
ing required by the circumstances, listened to the
statement of his misdeeds, in the presence of a very
large company of fellow-chiefs and less important
people. When the Raja ended his harangue, by
informing his erring subject that he would have to
pay a fine of two thousand dollars (the extreme
penalty sanctioned by ancient usage), the chief
bowed his acknowledgments in silence, and as he
withdrew from the embarrassing position of solitary
penance in the middle of the hall of audience, to
a place at the side amongst his peers, it is said
i 4 a THE REAL MALAY
that he whispered, " I was afraid His Highness
would fine me fifty cents."
That indiscretion was already a matter of history,
when chiefs and people assembled, from far and
near, to join the ruler in a series of festivities in
honour of His Highness's birthday. Everything
had gone well; the function had delighted prince
and peasant, and the last day of the revels had
repeated and accentuated the success of its prede-
cessors. At the evening feasts, hosts and guests
were congratulating themselves on the brilliance
and harmony of the proceedings, when a rumour
spread, from bazaar to palace, that the trusted
accountant of the chief had been assaulted on a
lonely road, and was lying, grievously wounded, in
a house on the outskirts of the village.
On occasions of large public gatherings such as
this, Malays live in the hours of night. The
evening meal is eaten after dark, the weather is
usually fine, the plays and other attractions are
given in the open air, and the junketings continue
till nearly dawn. Amongst the higher classes,
every one knows every one else, and relationships
are recognised, even to what seems remote kinship.
The clan feeling is universal, and an insult or
injury to a relative, friend, or follower of a powerful
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 143
chief is strongly resented, and may, in a moment,
lead to very serious consequences. Every Malay
chief of importance has a considerable following,
both in his house and outside it. There is his
family often several families his servants and
hangers-on, his relatives, some of whom are sure
to live with him, and in return for food and cloth-
ing and other benefits, perform services of various
kinds, ranging from the care of his estates, invest-
ments, money, or valuables, to the veiled surveil-
lance of his wives and the running of messages.
When a chief travels, especially when he attends a
great function, it is his pride to take with him a
large following, as the visible proof of his wealth,
power, and importance.
The chief of whom I write had two principal
assistants ; one was his nephew, named Wan Hamid,
a youth who held a State office of responsibility on
his own account, and managed his uncle's property
as well. The other was an older, man, a very dis-
tant connection, who kept his master's keys and
books, carried on his correspondence, and performed
those confidential services which render such a man
invaluable to his employer. This last was Sleman,
and he it was who had been suddenly attacked and
beaten on the high-road, while the ruler of the
i 4 4 THE REAL MALAY
country, his chiefs and other guests, were feasting
and taking their pleasure, after the manner of their
forefathers, amid the perfume-laden gardens of the
picturesque riverine, a mile away.
A misfortune of this kind arouses instant sym-
pathy, and when it occurs on such an occasion,
the ruler's household, his officers and attendants,
as well as every guest, regard it as a personal
affront to their lord. On this occasion the feeling
was unusually strong, and the Raja himself went
at daylight to make inquiries. But I am antici-
pating, and will record the facts as they occurred.
The chief had been bidden, with others, to a
feast in the palace, and as he was then living in a
large but rather lonely house, on the opposite side
of the village, he sent his caretaker to find a woman
to companion his wife during his absence. The
chief's house was on a rising ground, with terraces
leading down to a piece of artificial water, and the
caretaker lived in a small hut across the pond. An
ancient female, called Maimunah, was bidden to
keep the wife company ; but the latter said that a
woman was company but not protection, and a man
must stay with them. The chief told Sleman to
stay behind, and whilst he and the old woman
were waiting in the caretaker's house, a message
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 145
was brought to the effect that the chief had such a
bad headache he could not attend the feast. There
was, therefore, no further need for the old woman,
and she said she would return home. The care-
taker was preparing to accompany her, when Sleman
said he need not disturb himself, as he would see
Maimunah home, and the pair accordingly started
to walk a few hundred yards, carrying a lamp, as it
was very dark. The caretaker's house was on the
side of the high-road, and Maimunah and Sleman
started on their journey as soon as the latter had
completed his toilette. To the others in the house
his preparations seemed needlessly elaborate, if the
only object was to escort an old woman through the
darkness for something less than a quarter of a
mile. The couple left the house, Maimunah carry-
ing the lamp and Sleman walking behind. They
had gone about a hundred yards, when the old
woman heard what she described as the sound of
" a breaking stick," and turning round saw Sleman,
on all fours in the road, with the blood streaming
from a deep cut over his ear. He was conscious,
and as she helped him up, said, "Some one has
struck me ; it is my fate, I could not see who did it."
The woman screamed for help, and that brought out
the caretaker and another man, with whose assist-
146 THE REAL MALAY
ance Sleman managed to walk back to the house.
There he lay down, telling the occupants to bar the
door, and say nothing. He had been waylaid; it
was fate ; but probably he had his own ideas as to
whom he owed his misfortune. He was plucky,
however, and thought the best thing for every one
was to say as little as possible about it.
The gash in Sleman's head bled horribly, in spite
of the well-meaning but clumsy surgery of Mai-
munah and the caretaker's wife, and in an hour or
two he began to vomit blood. Then he realised
the serious nature of the wound, and asked those
about him to send for the chief. His master soon
appeared, and was deeply distressed. He asked
Sleman who had done it, and the sufferer answered,
" It is my bad luck, but my chief can guess." He
seemed disinclined to say more, and if he had his
suspicions, or if he knew who his assailants were,
he also knew that to disclose their names could
only distress his master, and therefore he refused
to speak.
In a few minutes the wounded man began to
wander, and was no longer conscious of his sur-
roundings. Though medical aid was quickly pro-
cured, nothing could be done, and Sleman died
before the sun had fairly cleared the crests of the
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 147
forest-clad hills which bound the eastern side of the
river-vale.
Sleman's death was a cruel blow to his master,
whose determination to discover the murderers and
revenge his trusted servant was too deep for full
expression. His attitude and influence, joined to
that of the ruler, who was equally bent on tracking
the perpetrators of this ill-timed crime, were suffi-
cient to raise the country-side and set every head-
man on the trail.
Malay murders, when not the result of dmok or
robbery, are attributable, in ninety-nine cases out of
a hundred, to some trouble in connection with a
woman, and on the day of Sleman's death there
was only one opinion as to the cause. Dove la
donna would naturally be the first thought in every
mind, but here there was no need to seek the woman,
for every one who knew anything was aware that
the dead man had carried on a liaison with a married
woman, and it was her mother who carried the
lantern, by the light of which the murderer had seen
his victim so clearly that one blow had settled the
business. Suspicion, therefore, fell upon the out-
raged husband, and he was incontinently arrested.
Charged with the crime, this man was able to prove
his innocence, and as the lady was reputed to have
148 THE REAL MALAY
another lover, or at least another friend anxious to
occupy that position, the voice of gossip named him
as a likely cause of Sleman's undoing. The second
accused, however, cleared himself as easily as the
first, and then the knowing ones were at fault.
Meantime the influence and directions of ruler
and chiefs began to bear fruit, and, little by little,
the truth leaked out.
The caretaker of the chief's house managed to
remember that on the evening of the murder, when
he had fetched Maimunah to keep the chief's wife
company, and when they were just going to enter
his house, a man had called to him from the road,
and returning to see who it was, he found Wan
Hamid. Wan Hamid had asked him if Sleman was
then in his house, whether the chief was going to
the feast, whether Sleman would accompany him,
and had further inquired whether Sleman was wear-
ing any kind of weapon. Assured on all these points,
Wan Hamid had gone away, but not before the care-
taker had recognised two men who were with him.
Supposing that Wan Hamid was concerned in the
affair, the question to determine was whether he had
any grudge against Sleman, his fellow-worker and
assistant in the management of the chief's property
and money matters. The answer was that Wan
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 149
Hamid had undoubted cause to dislike Sleman, and
the reason was this. About a couple of months
earlier, Wan Hamid had discovered that certain
rents, supposed to have been collected by Sleman
from a Chinese tenant of the chief, did not appear
in Sleman's accounts, and the Chinese, being called
upon for the money due, declared that he had already
paid it, and took proceedings against Sleman.
When the chief heard of this he was very angry,
and told Wan Hamid to mind his own business,
and not to trouble about the loss of his (the chiefs)
money. The proceedings were therefore stayed,
and Sleman, enraged but triumphant, went to Wan
Hamid's house and accused him of instigating the
Chinese to take action. After an altercation with
the young fellow, Sleman left him, and in the pre-
sence of a number of people used very insulting
language in regard to his master's nephew. On the
following day Sleman's wife called on Wan Hamid
and begged him to forgive her husband for what he
had said ; but Hamid declined, with the remark,
" What Sleman has said and done to me would, in
the old days, have divided a man from his wife, a
son from his father."
Once the ball was set rolling, it was surprising
what a quantity of circumstantial evidence was forth-
150 THE REAL MALAY
coming, and in a very short time Wan Hamid
and two other men his uncle and a servant
were arrested, and charged with the murder of
Sleman.
To a European, the ways of Malays are exceed-
ingly peculiar that is, until you have shared their
inner life, and so learnt their code of honour, their
religious teaching, and the doctrines and customs of
the men of old time. Though great changes have
been effected in the last twenty years, ancient tradi-
tion is still one of the strongest rules of the true
Malay life of the Peninsula. Amongst the princi-
ples inculcated for generations, there are two which
still have wonderful force. They are these : the
obedience which is due to the governing classes, and
the sacredness of confidence. The power of the
latter injunction is specially noticeable, when a non-
Muhammadan seeks information likely to damage a
follower of the Prophet. Owing, in a great measure,
to the kind of dwellings in which Malays live, and
the circumstances of Malay society, there is practi-
cally no real privacy, and there are very few real
secrets ; but while every one acts and speaks in the
presence of witnesses, the traditions of centuries
forbid the disclosure of a deed or a word that would
compromise a relative or a feudal chief. When this
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 151
is once clearly understood, it explains a good deal in
Malay life that otherwise seems incomprehensible.
I do not wish to burden this tale with minute
details, nor yet to explain how all the information
was obtained. My purpose will be best served by
sparing the reader the methods and experiences of
the detectives, and by piecing together the chain of
evidence that, by one means and another, led to
the arrest of the accused, and was told from the
witness-box at their subsequent trial, before an
English judge and a mixed jury.
Wan Hamid, the nephew of the chief, had fol-
lowed his master from their usual abode, in another
district, to the scene of these festivities, and when
on his journey he reached the bank of the river,
five miles above the ruler's palace, he hired a boat,
and dropped down the stream to the immediate
vicinity of the Astana, as the Sultan's residence is
called. On the way down river, Wan Hamid bid
the owner of the boat stop at a spot where many
smooth, water-worn stones were lying on the edge
of the stream. There he selected six of these unin-
teresting specimens, and when the boatman asked
what they were for, Wan Hamid said, "To play
with."
The next day the boatman was ordered to take
15* THE REAL MALAY
the boat back, a mile up-stream, and fasten it at the
head of a small island, almost exactly opposite the
house of the lady who was known to be greatly
admired by Sleman. That house was about 250
yards from the cottage of the chief's caretaker.
At sundown, on the evening before Sleman was
attacked, a man called Dris, the uncle of Wan
Hamid, was walking towards the village where all
this happened, when he overtook an acquaintance,
and said, " Do you know Sleman ? " But the man
said, "No."
"Wan Hamid wishes to have him beaten; will
you help me to do it ? "
The man said, " I can't ; I have a bad foot."
"Ah well, never mind," said Dris, "we will go
and see the theatre." They visited the theatre, but
they also looked about for both Wan Hamid and
Sleman, and saw neither of them. About midnight
they returned, and on parting, Dris said, "Come
again to-morrow night, and we will look for Sleman
and beat him." But the man replied, " I will not
join you," and the next day went out of harm's
way.
On the following afternoon Dris, disappointed in
his first essay, was standing in the road in front of
his house, two or three miles above the village,
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 153
when two men passed. Dris knew them well, and
stopped them, saying, "Wan Hamid has a grudge
against a man called Sleman, and wants to have
him beaten. If you two will help me, Wan Hamid
will pay you thirty dollars." But the men declined,
and Dris remarked, " Very well, I will do it
myself."
About 7 P.M. that evening, Dris and his brother
Daud called at a house where great preparations were
being made for a wedding-feast, and while enjoying
the dinner which Malay hospitality immediately of-
fered them, it was noticed that Dris never let out of
his left hand a heavy-knotted stick he carried. The
meal over, the brothers walked down the road, and
turned in towards the bank of the stream where
Wan Hamid's boat was moored. He was on board,
and Dris held a whispered conversation with him.
Then Wan Hamid said to Daud, " Sleman has
made me angry, and put me to shame. He cheated
me of some money, and when I took him into Court
the chief stopped the case, so now I am going to
beat Sleman." Turning to Dris, Hamid said, " Shall
I take the stones ? "
Dris replied, " What is the use ? this is enough,"
and he showed the stick he held. Wan Hamid,
however, selected two stones, putting the other four
i 54 THE REAL MALAY
back under the deck-boards, and the three men left
the boat and went up the bank, where they were
joined by Wan Hamid's servant. When they
reached the high-road, Daud said he was going on
to the village, so the servant borrowed his stick, and
Daud went away to smoke a pipe of opium.
It was now quite dark, and the three men were
in the road by the caretaker's house at the moment
when he returned with the old woman, Maimunah.
Wan Hamid called the caretaker, and having ascer-
tained all he wished to know about Sleman, he said,
" If any one asks you what I wanted, say I only in-
quired whether the chief was going to the Sultan's
feast to-night."
Half-an-hour later the old woman carrying the
lantern was startled by what she described as " the
noise of a breaking stick." It was really the smash-
ing of a skull.
The deed done, Wan Hamid immediately went to
the palace, and there he was seen by the messenger
who carried the news of the attack and the request
for medical aid. Before that, however, Dris had
wandered towards the village, met his brother, told
him the beating had been duly administered, and
the two worthies wended their way homeward.
Thieving and murdering, like church-going, seems
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 155
to be hungry work, and when about midnight the
brothers reached the house where they had dined,
they looked in for supper, and were duly served, for
the women were still cooking. Whilst eating their
meal (and Dris is said to have been somewhat
excited over it), a man lying in an adjoining room,
awakened by the noise of these late arrivals, called
from his bed, " Well, have you done it ? " and Dris
replied, " Yes, we gave him one, and it sounded like
the cracking of a coco-nut."
The voice called again, " Did you do it ? " and
Dris answered, "Yes, I did it; Daud only looked
on."
One of the women then inquired, " Whom have
you beaten ? " But Dris said, " Never mind, one
of the villagers." She asked again, " Where did
you beat him ? " He answered, " Near the chief's
house." Shortly after, Dris and his brother took
their departure, making a deal of noise over it.
In the morning every one knew that Sleman was
dead. Those who also knew the culprits said to
each other, " Mind you say nothing, or you will get
into trouble ; Wan Hamid is a powerful man, and
the chief's nephew."
Moreover, with the advent of daylight, the care-
taker found two smooth, water-worn stones lying at
156 THE REAL MALAY
the very spot where Sleman had been struck, and
five days later, Dris returned with sixty dollars,
the price of blood, and asked his late entertainers
to keep it for his wife !
By-and-by the country-side learned that the chief
and his royal master had set every one to work to
discover the murderers, and in time it was under-
stood that the dead man was a greater favourite
with the chief than his own nephew who had killed
him.
When the wrong people had been arrested and
released, and the real perpetrators of the outrage
had been secured, there was great astonishment,
and much wailing and sympathy on the part of
Wan Hamid's family. But the die was cast ; the
chief had raised a cry for vengeance, and he seemed
likely to get it, in over-full measure.
I ought to have been present at the festivities in
honour of the 'Sultan's birthday, but circumstances
prevented my attendance, and I only reached the
State after the events above narrated. I had, how-
ever, heard the tale in outline, when I was told
that the mother of Wan Hamid, and the three lead-
ing ladies of Malay society in the district where the
chief lived, were anxious to see me. I met them
one afternoon, and in reply to their inquiries, told
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 157
them that, pending the hearing of the case, nothing
could be done. Like all Malay women under simi-
lar circumstances, they had no thought for any one
except their relative, Wan Hamid, and their one
idea was how to compass his release.
After some conversation, and listening to their
exceeding bitter cry on his behalf, it occurred to
me that I had heard of certain affectionate relations
between one of them and the dead man. So, ad-
dressing her, I said, " Your anxiety is very natural,
but what about the feelings of Sleman's people ?
Are they to be ignored ? " The lady at once re-
plied, "They have said nothing; why need you
trouble about them ? " It seemed to me that here,
as elsewhere, the living quickly learn to bury their
dead and to forget them. There could be no object
in pursuing that subject, so I said, " The case has
yet to be tried ; it will be time enough to discuss
eventualities when the guilt of the accused has
been established." They acquiesced, but said they
wanted to see Wan Hamid, who was in the prison
awaiting trial. I told them they could not all see
him (there were at least a dozen of them, including
their attendants); and the lady who, I thought,
might possibly feel some regret for the murdered
man, at once said, " It is no use my going ; the
1 58 THE REAL MALAY
mere sight of Hamid would bring the tears into my
eyes, and I should only make a fool of myself."
That was evident, for the mere thought of his evil
plight brought tears to her eyes, while the other
women wept in sympathy. I suggested that if
their anxiety was for the prisoner's feelings, the
visit they contemplated was not likely to help him,
and they eventually agreed that if his mother and
his wife might see him, the others had better stay
away.
A few days later the preliminary inquiry was
held, and I made it my business to find the chief
and express my sympathy. He was extremely
grateful, and I was struck by his fine old-fashioned
Malay manner of treating his misfortune. After
thanking me, he said, " It is my fate that this
should have happened, but what distresses me most
is that my nephew, after all the Sultan and the
Government have done for him, should think only
of himself and the gratification of his own wishes.
You gave him a position, and he forgets what is
due to it. The Sultan invited us all to rejoice with
him on his birthday, and that was the moment
which Hamid chose to disgrace himself and me. It
is the shame of it all which overwhelms me."
I said, " Yes, but you have lost your favourite
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 159
servant, and however this case turns out, you must
suffer still further. The offence hurts you person-
ally more than any one, and the punishment will
also fall directly and indirectly on you."
The chief replied, "That is nothing; I do not
count the cost or consider it; I can only think of
Hamid's disregard of every principle and every
custom which should have saved him and me from
this disgrace."
I could not help contrasting, in my own mind,
the attitude of the chief with the tearful pleadings
of the ladies, who were the relatives of himself as
well as of his nephew. I even gave way to the
temptation of telling him of their visit to me and
our conversation, and when I repeated the reply
to my inquiry about the feelings of the murdered
man's friends, the chief remarked, " His people are
poor and ignorant, but they have been to me. They
cannot afford to run about the country with their
troubles; why should they? They expect to get
justice."
Amongst the benefits conferred on the Malay
by British protection is the trial by jury; more
recently has been added the privilege of represen-
tation by counsel. Wan Hamid, his uncle a
renowned beater of men and the servant, were
i6o THE REAL MALAY
arraigned before a judge and jury, on the charge
of having deliberately planned and carried out the
murder of Sleman, in order to relieve Wan Hamid's
mind of the feeling of shame and insult put upon
him by the dead man.
Not a single link was missing in the chain of
evidence. All the witnesses for the prosecution
were reluctant to incriminate the chief's nephew.
Some of them were the near relatives and connec-
tions of the second prisoner Dris, therefore their
testimony was all the more damning. The issue
of the case was a foregone conclusion, and Malay
society was only concerned with the probable sen-
tence. Of the nature of the verdict no one had any
reasonable doubt.
The combined efforts of five European pleaders
and a jury of seven, only one of whom was a white
man, secured the unexpected. All the prisoners
were acquitted.
I have heard it said that the majority of the jurors
declined the responsibility of a verdict of guilty, lest
that should lead to hanging ; for they believed that
the ghosts of the hanged would haunt those who
condemned them.
I happened to travel in the same train with the
chief as he returned to his home after the trial. I
A STUDY IN SHADOWS 161
cannot say that he showed any great enthusiasm
over the success of his efforts to secure an acquittal.
It had been a costly business for him, as he had
to pay for the whole array of talent that had so
successfully defended the accused. And then, he
had been fond of Sleman, and the blow which had
killed the servant could not fail to strike the master,
who was the indirect cause of Wan Hamid's bitter
feelings. The chief said to me, " I will send Hamid
to Mecca. When he has been there two or
three years, and people have forgotten, he can
return."
The pilgrimage to Mecca is the cure for the
errors of the Muhammadan world. The lady whose
liaison has become public property; the man who
has seduced his sister-in-law, or, like Wan Hamid,
been too heavy-handed in beating his enemy ; these
perform the pilgrimage, and return with repaired
reputations and an odour of sanctity that enables
them to resume their places in society without loss
of caste.
As my friend the chief left the train at his own
station, and bowed me his adieux, it seemed to me
that the fates had been singularly unkind to him.
I did not ask him for his views on the jury system,
but the result of the trial reminded me of a Malay
162 THE REAL MALAY
proverb, which seemed to fit the situation very
nicely. It says :
Mdlang Pet si Kado'
Ayam-nya mZnang
Kampong-nya ttr-gddei.
" The misfortune of Father si Kado* ; who had to
mortgage his house and lands, though his game-
cock won the main."
WOODCUTS
MALAYAN woods are the haunt of many strange
beasts, of many wonderful birds, and of
reptiles and insects, legion in variety and countless
in number. The noblest beast, the creature which
shows most "quality," is the bison the magnificent
bull, great in stature and in courage, beautiful in
head and proportion ; with its large clear eye,
grand sharply-curved and pointed horns, its power-
ful body and smooth black hide, its fine limbs and
small feet. The bison is also the most difficult of
beasts to approach ; for it is always on the alert, is
quick to see, and has a marvellous sense of smell.
In the eyes of sportsmen, it is the most desirable
prize offered by Malay forests. The pursuit of this
splendid quarry is not without danger. I can re-
member two Malay head-men, who at different times
lost their lives by attempting to shoot bison with
indifferent fire-arms, while Mr. H. C. Syers, Com-
missioner of Police, and one of the best and most
163
164 THE REAL MALAY
successful sportsmen in the Peninsula, was killed,
only two years ago, by a wounded bison, which had
already received a number of shots, and did not live
to get away. In the case of one of the Malay head-
men, news of the accident was carried to his brother,
and he immediately went to the spot, found the
bison standing over his victim, and killed the beast
by a very lucky shot from a Snider rifle.
The bison is usually found in fairly open jungle,
where it is possible to track. He frequents undu-
lating country, in the neighbourhood of a clear moun-
tain stream of fair size, and in the early mornings
feeds in the grass land on its banks, and especially
in the vicinity of a sulphur spring.
The rhinoceros is at once the most hideous and
the rarest of Malayan big game ; but though he is
dangerous, especially when wounded, he is a great
lumbering brute, with a small eye and a thick hide ;
and while he is fond of a lair in a cave, or under an
overhanging rock, he takes his walks abroad in
some seasons at the tops of high mountains, and in
others in the most noisome swamps, where there is
no great attraction in following him.
Speaking generally, the elephant and the tiger are
the most interesting specimens of big game in the
Peninsula. They are plentiful, and they are con-
WOODCUTS 165
stantly in evidence; the elephant as a tame, intelligent,
useful, and even lovable beast, and the tiger as a
wild, destructive, hateful terror. There are black
leopards and honey-bears, tapir and deer, and the
rare Malayan antelope, but they occupy a position
somewhat different from that of the bison, the
elephant, the rhinoceros, and the tiger.
It is very little hardship to spend a night or
two watching for elephant in the Malay jungle.
Here is one method. High up in a great tree,
overhanging a small stream in the depths of a
forest, is built a tiny covered platform, and on
this platform two or three men can sit or lie and
watch in turns. In the stream is a bed of black
sulphurous mud, which seems to have a strange
attraction for all kinds of game. Below it is a
deep pool, convenient for bathing. One bank of
the stream is rather high, the other low and
sandy. The width of the water is clear of trees,
and makes an open avenue in the forest, through
which the moonlight streams, shedding a flood of
light on spaces of sand and ripple, while overhang-
ing bushes cast dark shadows over the deeper pools.
The place is singularly lovely under these conditions ;
the quiet murmur of the stream, the warm Eastern
night, the checkered moonlight, the strange jungle
166 THE REAL MALAY
noises, and the excitement of watching and expec-
tation, all lend attractions to the vigil, and discount
the annoyance of mosquitoes and sandflies and the
discomfort of a cramped position. As the night
wanes, the watcher may be rewarded by hearing the
slow approach of a heavy-footed beast, leisurely
feeding on the luxuriant vegetation through which
he forces his way to the stream. Then there will
be a sound of gentle splashing, and the eye may
discern, somewhat indistinctly, one or more huge
bodies bathing in a deep pool ; swaying from side
to side, dipping and rising, and evidently enjoying
their sedate sport in the cool water. Without
realising quite how or when it was done, the watcher
becomes aware of the fact that the splashing has
ceased. The game has gone, silently as it came,
and the ripple of the stream over the stones is the
only sound to break the stillness of the night.
Another long wait, and as the moon is setting,
and throws a brilliant bluish light on the stretch of
sand opposite the mudlick, there is a slight rustle
of leaves, a cracking of twigs, and a huge, dark
body emerges out of the misty cover into the open
stream-space. The watcher has only time to see the
moonlight glint on a white tusk, as the beast turns
up-stream, and after walking a few yards, finds deeper
WOODCUTS 167
water, and there drinks and bathes. Then, slowly
rising from the water, the elephant comes out of the
shadow, and walks back on his tracks straight to-
wards the gun. That is the opportunity for a steady
shot, and if it is not fatal, a result hardly to be
expected in that light and shooting from such an
elevation, it will, with good luck, be sufficient to make
the tusker's progress so slow that, with daylight, it
will be an easy matter to follow and despatch him.
Except in the case of a dangerous rogue, I doubt
whether there is any great satisfaction to be derived
from the shooting of elephants, and this is specially
the case when one has seen a good deal of them in
captivity. Even for a pair of tusks, it seems at least
wasteful to destroy so huge, and usually harmless, a
beast which might, otherwise, live for a hundred years,
and either become a useful beast of burden, or help to
propagate others for that purpose. Apart from this
view, I confess I like to know that these vast tracts of
jungle are tenanted by herds of elephants, and it is
a satisfaction to feel that they are preserved from
indiscriminate slaughter, either by sportsmen or
those who would hunt them for gain.
The Malays of Perak own a good many tame
elephants, which have been captured in kraals or
born in captivity. The method of capture and train-
i68 THE REAL MALAY
ing is similar to that employed in India and Siam,
and is sufficiently well known. Malay elephant-
drivers, in directing their beasts, use a kind of
elephant language, which comes from Siam, and
seems to be well understood by the animals. In-
stances of the intelligence of these beasts are com-
mon enough, and any number of cases might be
cited to prove it, but I may mention one of which I
was myself a witness.
A good many years ago I was travelling, with
two other Europeans, towards the Perak River.
We had nineteen elephants, only about a dozen of
them carrying burdens. The others were not
sufficiently trained for that purpose, or were too
young, and one of them was quite a baby, about a
year old, and not more than three feet high. We
had already been travelling for several days, when
one afternoon we crossed the pass dividing the
Larut and Perak River valleys, and descended a
steep incline into the latter. The small elephant
had been a constant source of amusement to us ; his
gambols were so quaint ; his naughtiness so varied
and engaging, that he kept the party in continual
laughter. If ever he found a log of wood lying
parallel to the path, he invariably tried to walk on
it, and though he repeatedly fell off, he would
WOODCUTS 169
always get up again and persevere to the end. So
enamoured was he of this amusement, that if he
saw a log a little way off, he would not miss it,
though it gave him great trouble to get at it. Then
he took a fiendish delight in chasing stray Chinese
woodcutters, charcoal-burners, and all the tribe of
burden-bearers. Chinese are not used to elephants,
don't like them, and avoid them as far as possible.
But for any one carrying two heavy loads on a stick,
it was impossible to avoid this irrepressible baby ;
and the invariable result was that, after a short
chase and a useless effort to distance his pursuer,
the coolie would drop his burden and dash into the
jungle, where the elephant, having accomplished his
purpose, disdained to follow the yellow man.
These constant alarums and excursions retarded
the baby's progress considerably. Though he was
often left behind for a few minutes, and would come
up to the party with a terrible rush, threading his
way between the legs of the older and more sedate
members of the transport train, his mother became
anxious if there was any long absence, and his nurse
would go back and look for him, driving the truant
before her. The mother was a carrier, and there-
fore not at liberty to give the necessary attention
to her erring offspring, but still, she declined to go
170 THE REAL MALAY
on without him, if she thought he had got too far
away. She had, however, delegated her duties to
another quite grown-up elephant, which was not
carrying any one or anything, so had plenty of time
at her disposal. This was the nurse.
We were travelling over a jungle track, which
necessitated walking in single file, and as we neared
the foot of the slope leading into the Perak Valley, we
came to a gigantic forest tree, which had fallen right
across the path. Exactly in the path, a great slice
of the tree had been sawn out and thrown on one
side, so that coolies carrying loads might pass with-
out having to get over the obstruction. All the
elephants went a little way along the tree, to where
the diameter was smaller, scrambled over, and then
waited in a bunch on the other side. We asked
the reason, and the drivers said they were waiting
for the baby, which had last been seen, higher up
the hill-side, chasing a Chinese coolie.
We tried to persuade the drivers to go on, but
either they could not or would not. They said the
elephants wanted to see the baby past the difficulty.
Suddenly there was a noise of scattering leaves and
rolling stones, and the baby ambled down the steep
decline at a really hazardous pace, made straight for
the cleft in the tree, dashed headlong into it, and
WOODCUTS 171
there stuck fast ! Then he squealed lustily, and his
mother thumped her trunk on the ground, trumpeted
in a very high-pitched voice, and moved about in
such an uneasy way that she nearly threw her
passengers off her back.
The baby was caught very fairly by his ribs. He
seemed to fit the aperture exactly ; his head out in
front, his tail behind, and his body held as in a vice.
We were very curious to see what would happen,
and we had not long to wait.
The nurse went to the tree, and clambered over
it, where she had passed before. Then she slowly
walked to the path, looking at the imprisoned culprit
out of the corner of her eye as she passed his tail.
She took a couple of steps up the path, and then,
lowering her head, ran at the baby, smote him in
the hinder parts with her forehead, and sent him
about ten feet down the path on the other side of
his house of detention. The ungrateful little beast
never even looked round, but, with the impetus given
him, started off on a quest for new opportunities of
mischief. The nurse rejoined the party with or so
it seemed to me a curious twinkle in her eye, as
though she had administered chastisement, while
apparently only discharging her duties in the most
orthodox fashion.
i?a THE REAL MALAY
The next day I saw the eighteen elephants take
the baby across the wide and (for him) deep Perak
River, and though, during the crossing, only the end
of his trunk was visible, waving about in the air in
vague and anguished protest, they managed to push
him safely across ; some of them always getting on
the down-stream side of him to prevent his being
carried away by the current. He crawled up the
opposite bank with some lack of energy, but in a
few minutes he was scouring the plain for goats
and Malay children, with all his accustomed eager-
ness and resolution.
I was once stationed, for a few months, in Pro-
vince Wellesley, the strip of British territory oppo-
site the island of Penang. Every week I used to
hold Court at two places, about ten miles apart, in
the south of the Province. Whilst sitting one after-
noon at the first of these places, I was informed
that two Malay constables had been attacked by a
tiger, on the road I had to traverse to reach the
other Court, where I always spent the night. As
soon as my work was finished, I borrowed a police
rifle, and drove off in the half-gharry, known locally
as a " shandry."
I had gone about seven miles, and it was past
WOODCUTS 173
6 P.M., when the pony suddenly shied across the
road and stopped. I got out, thinking I smelt tiger,
and examined the place. I was in the middle of a
very long length of straight, level road, running
through big forest On either side of the road was
a border of grass, with a wide but shallow ditch of
running water between it and the jungle. Just in
front of the spot where my pony had stopped, was
a curious mark on the hard road. It was a good-
sized circle, scratched on the surface of the road, as
by the feet of some beast careering round and round.
From this circle I followed the recent tracks of a
large tiger, across the ditch into the jungle. There I
stopped, for it was getting dark, and I had no desire
to pursue the investigation further ; so I persuaded
the pony to pass over the infected ground, and drove
on, another three miles, to the combined court-house
and police station, where I was to spend the night.
On arrival, I asked whether any one there had
seen a tiger, and, being answered in the affirmative,
I said I should like to hear about it. So, while I
was having my dinner, I sent for the heroes of the
adventure, and this is the story as it came to me.
I am responsible for what I have said of the state of
the road, and for exactly repeating what I was told ;
but that is all.
174 THE REAL MALAY
The two men ushered into my presence were
Malays. They were both constables one was tall
and lank, the other broad-shouldered, thick-set, and
powerful. The tall man I will call Panjang he was
rather a feeble specimen but the other was, I re-
member, named Mat ; he belonged to the Marine
Police, and a fine sturdy fellow at that.
I asked them kindly to tell me what had occurred,
and they did so ; first one and then the other taking
up the narrative, as to the facts of which there was
no difference of opinion. They had been white-
washing at the station where I held Court that
afternoon, and, their work done, they had started
about noon to walk home. Mat carried a long-
handled whitewashing brush, and Panjang a
Chinese umbrella. The journey was performed
without incident till they reached the spot where my
pony shied. There, without any warning, a tiger
sprang out of the jungle into the middle of the
road, right in front of them, barred their path, and
roared at them in a very terrifying way. They
confessed that they were stricken with a mortal
fear (at least Panjang had no hesitation in making
that admission), but, being Malays, they knew that
flight, while absolutely useless if the beast chose
to follow, would be almost certainly fatal. Under
WOODCUTS 175
such circumstances, Malay advice says, drop on one
knee, and if you have a spear, hold the point to-
wards the enemy and wait for his attack ; if you
have only a stick, make believe it is a spear, and
the tiger may not recognise the difference. Therefore
they both knelt down, Mat in front, holding the
whitewashing brush in rest, and Panjang, under
his wing, with the umbrella. The tiger advanced,
roaring and lashing his tail; but- Mat opposed a
firm front with the whitewashing brush, and as the
beast came close, progged at him so that he nearly
painted his whiskers. The tiger skipped round, to
take them in flank, but they turned on the pivot of
their feet, and the brush was always there. The
tiger evidently misdoubted this novel weapon, and
suddenly changed his tactics. He slewed com-
pletely round, and, with his hind-feet, scratched
furiously on the road, throwing a shower of sand
and gravel at the constables. No doubt this move-
ment was intended to blind and disconcert them, but
Panjang covered his companion and himself with
the umbrella, and though the tiger, in his endeavour
to get under their guard, described a complete
circle round them, the missiles thrown by his claws
rattled harmlessly on the stout paper shield. Then,
as suddenly as before, the beast faced round again,
176 THE REAL MALAY
only to find himself confronted by the long bristles
of the whitewashing brush.
The constables said this went on for about twenty
minutes (in my own mind I set it down at two or
three), during which the tiger made a regular circus
ring on the road, as he attacked alternately face
foremost and tail foremost. Apparently disgusted
with the stoutness and novel character of the re>
sistance opposed to him, he leaped across the ditch
and disappeared into the jungle as suddenly as he
had come.
The constables picked themselves up, with fer-
vent thanks to the Almighty, and quickly retreated
down the road till they had put a considerable
distance between themselves and the scene of their
encounter.
The road was, as I have said, straight and flat;
it was lonely and without habitation, and they were
still in full view of the circus ring, when a party of
eight or ten Chinese came in sight. The constables
waited for them, and when the Chinese joined them,
tried to explain that there was a tiger a few hundred
yards farther on, and it might be well, as they had
no weapon not even a stick or an umbrella, only
short trousers and wide Chinese hats to wait until
some one better equipped came along. The coolies
WOODCUTS 177
probably understood very little of what was said ;
anyhow they laughed and pursued their way, while
the Malays, satisfied with their own experience,
waited to see what would happen.
The Chinese, laughing and talking at the tops of
their voices, soon reached the enemy's position, and
in a moment the tiger sprang into the arena, creating
the greatest disorder. Several of the Chinese fell
into the ditches on either side of the road, while the
others yelled and screamed, and some even wagged
or threw their hats at the beast. This was too
much for his majesty, and again he disappeared
into the jungle; while the Chinese collected them-
selves and their scattered wits and proceeded on
their way.
By-and-by some people, coming from the opposite
direction, passed without molestation, and as the
afternoon was waning, Mat and Panjang, with
somewhat shaky knees, but relying on their proved
weapons, started again, passed the Valley of the
Shadow without hearing so much as a growl, and
reached the station in safety.
My theory is that the tiger had a kill, probably a
pig, in the jungle at the edge of the road. He was
annoyed at being disturbed, but was not in search
of food. Therefore he simply rushed out to com-
M
178 THE REAL MALAY
plain, and try to get a little peace while he made
his meal. Finding this impossible, especially if
parties of ten or a dozen Chinese might be expected
at any moment, he made a virtue of necessity and
took his dinner elsewhere.
There is a tiger story which is well known in
Malaya, but deserves all the publicity that can be
got for it. A few months ago a Malay, named Said,
went out to cut wood at a place called Kepong, in
the Malay State of Selangor. He took with him an
old muzzle-loading gun, charged with a bullet and
four buck-shot. He had not gone far into the
jungle when he saw a tiger in front of him, at a
distance of about twenty yards. Said raised his
gun, fired, and dropped the tiger. He then
cautiously approached, but as the beast did not
move, Said went right up to it, and then, to his
amazement, discovered that he had killed not one,
but two tigers a male and a female. Both these
beasts were taken into Kuala Lumpur (the chief
town of Selangor) to prove Said's claim to the
Government reward. The tigress measured 7 feet
IO inches in length, and 15^ inches round the fore-
arm ; while the male, a young one, measured 7 feet
3 1 inches in length. Mr. A. L. Butler, the Curator
of the Selangor Museum, carefully examined these
WOODCUTS 179
tigers, and wrote the following letter to the editor
of the local newspaper, the Malay Mail:
"DEAR SIR, The account which appeared in
your paper yesterday of the Malay at Kepong bag-
ging a brace of tigers at one shot is so extraordinary
that a few further particulars ought to interest some
of your readers.
" I made a post-mortem examination of these
tigers last night, and the shot which killed them
must indeed have been a marvellously lucky one.
" In one case a single buck-shot, no larger than a
pea I showed it to you last night, Mr. Editor had
struck the beast low down behind the shoulder, gone
through the centre of the heart, and lodged under the
skin on the other side. There was no other wound.
" The second tiger, too, had been killed by one of
these insignificant pellets, which entered under the
elbow, cut through the heart, and travelled on down
the body. A second slug had struck the animal on
the head, but this wound was only trifling. The
Malay said the tigers were feeding on a deer when
he came on them, and the truth of this was borne
out by their stomachs being full of pieces of sambur
flesh and hair. The tigress had also eaten a quantity
of grass, a habit which has been observed before
among the larger carnivora.
i8o THE REAL MALAY
" The man's story was told with every appearance
of truth; indeed, he seemed to see nothing sur-
prising in it at all."
I have heard a good many strange tiger stories,
but, I confess, I should have hesitated to repeat this
one had the evidence been less convincing.
At a place called Senggat, in Perak, there is a
small colony of foreign Malays ; they are planters,
and come from a place called Mandling, in Sumatra.
The settlement is out of the way; the people are
seldom brought into contact with Government
officers, and they know practically nothing of
Government regulations. When the necessity
arises, their affairs are managed by a head-man, one
Raja Mahmud, a man of their own tribe. Other-
wise they live apart, concerned only with the culti-
vation of their fields and orchards, and they have
few dealings with the Malays of the country, by
whom they are regarded as foreigners of a somewhat
uncivilised type.
Three years ago, two men of this settlement,
Ingonen and Jesuman, went out one morning in
search of deer. They made for a place called
Jerneh, at some distance from Senggat, and did not
arrive there till past noon. Ingonen carried an old
WOODCUTS 181
musket, and Jesuman a chopping knife. After
wandering about in a jungle of secondary growth,
Jesuman, then a few paces behind his companion,
saw a rhinoceros coming straight at Ingonen. The
latter fired, but the beast charged home, caught the
unfortunate man on its horn and went over him.
Jesuman heard his friend call out, "Allah! Allah!"
and having no means of rendering assistance, made
the best of his way to Jerneh, where he reported
what had happened. Two Malays immediately
returned with Jesuman, to the place where the
accident had happened, and found Ingonen lying on
his back, covered with blood and terribly wounded,
but still alive. The rhinoceros had moved away,
but could still be heard grunting, at no great dis-
tance. There was a great hole through the man's
chest, and deep wounds in the back of both his
thighs; he groaned ceaselessly, and said, "Take
me home." As they raised him, a thick stream of
blood welled up through the hole in his chest, and
while they carried him towards Jerneh, he could
only moan and feebly mutter, " Allah ! Allah ! "
Ingonen died before the bearers reached Jerneh.
The body was taken the same evening to Senggat,
and buried the next day, by order of the priest in
charge of the Mosque.
i8z THE REAL MALAY
A report of the accident was carried to the nearest
station, but a Malay detective threw suspicion on
the tale, suggested foul-play, and said there was a
rumour that the dead man had been shot by his
companion, Jesuman. The magistrate of the district,
therefore, directed a European officer to take an
apothecary, go to Senggat, exhume the body, and
examine it. Early in the morning after the day of
burial, this officer went to Senggat, to carry out his
instructions. He took with him a native apothe-
cary, a Tamil, and also the head-man of the division
the mukim, as the Malays call it.
After a walk of six miles along a main road, the
three turned into the jungle, and in a few minutes
came out on the edge of the valley of Senggat. The
village was hidden from general sight, but infinitely
picturesque and attractive to any one who can ap-
preciate Malay scenery. The first view of the place
was obtained from a rising ground, overlooking a
long, narrow valley, through which wound a small,
clear stream. The stream irrigated a fair stretch of
rice-land, then newly planted, and brilliant with
emerald tones. From the higher end of this field
rose a small hill, crowned by a quaintly-constructed
plank Mosque, and all the valley was shut in by un-
dulating country, covered with dark-green coffee
WOODCUTS 183
trees, orchards, and jungle. Through the rich
foliage of the palms and fruit trees were caught
glimpses of brown cottages, thatched with grass or
atap, and beyond all rose distant purple hills. It
was a glorious morning, and an Eastern sun flung
down light and colour from a cloudless sapphire sky.
The visitors were evidently expected, and as soon
as they appeared, some men, standing on the hill by
the temple, shouted a warning, and immediately
every house sent its quota of men, women, and
children, walking and running and scrambling up
to the Mosque.
The three strangers made their way down into
the valley, crossed the stream, and climbed the hill
to the Mosque, where they found the whole popula-
tion assembled. The local chief, Raja Mahmud, was
absent, but his agent, and the priest of the Mosque,
listened while the officer described his business and
the cause of it. Then they said that the grave
could not be opened. The burial had been properly
conducted, the sun would get on the corpse, and the
apothecary would certainly want to cut the body
up; these, they said, were all good reasons for
declining to do as they were desired.
Directly the women heard these objections raised
by the men, they, and the children, went in a body
184 THE REAL MALAY
and sat upon the newly-made grave, which was on
the hill, only a few feet in front of the Mosque.
There was a small bamboo platform in front of
the Mosque; the platform had a lean-to roof, and
here the English officer argued the case with the
village elders. But all to no purpose. The majo-
rity was inflexible, and the majority was numerous.
Meanwhile the women and children, about forty
strong, squatted close together on the grave, and
broke into a wild dirge, the burden of which seemed
to be a request to the officer not to disturb their
dead. The strange picturesqueness of the scene,
with all these quaintly-clad people, adding new
colour, life, and incident to an already striking pic-
ture, did not wholly compensate the officer for the
foiling of his purpose. Finding argument useless,
he stated his determination to remain there till the
grave was opened and the body exhumed ; but as
the chief objection seemed to be to the Tamil
apothecary, the officer agreed that he should not
touch the body. Even then the authority of the
Malay head-man had to be exercised before the
priest and the agent would send for spades. When
the implements arrived, the women and children
only huddled closer together, entirely covering the
grave, and continued to wail their lament in a higher
WOODCUTS 185
key. As the local authorities seemed nonplussed,
matters were again at a standstill, when the officer
had a happy inspiration.
" Is it true," he inquired, " that the Mandelings
are ruled by their women ? "
Raja Mahmud's agent, without replying to the
question, got up and drove the women away.
A scarlet cloth, with a broad white border, was
then fixed on four poles over the grave, to keep the
sun off the coffin, and three men began to dig out
the earth in a very half-hearted fashion. With
many halts and rests, the work was at last accom-
plished, and the poor body, with its ghastly wounds,
exposed to view. There was no doubt about the
cause of death, and the apothecary was not allowed
even to see the dead man. The officer, leaving the
villagers to the noisome task of reburial, returned to
his station, glad to get away from the vicinity of a
two-days-old corpse.
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS
IN Perak, and in other parts of the Malay Penin-
sula, there is a common belief in the existence
saving the word of an invisible tribe called the
drang bAnyi-an. That is, " the people who make
sounds," in distinction to those who can be seen.
This superstition is of ancient origin, and the
" sound-folk " are supposed to frequent certain
secluded places, usually streams or swamps in the
heart of the jungle, where they are heard, by wood-
cutters and other venturesome people, paddling their
phantom boats through the water, talking, singing,
but very rarely, if ever, disclosing themselves to
mortals. In Perak, it is stated, that one or other of
the sound-folk sometimes conceives a fancy for some
man or woman, and, by occult powers, gives valu-
able information or assistance. They are harmless,
and their power to remain invisible sometimes leads
to strange situations. If, on rare occasions, one of
them does appear, he or she assumes the guise of a
m
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 187
Malay, and the connection with the drang btinyi-an
is usually established by an excessive generosity
in money matters, and invariably after the stranger
has departed.
There is a small hill called Geliong, on the right
bank of the Perak River, about 1 50 miles from its
mouth. There is a tradition of a foundered treasure-
ship at this place, and the word Gtliong is, in all pro-
bability, a Malay corruption of galleon. Near this
hill there lived, some fifty years ago, a man called
Anjang Asin. He was a landowner, well to do,
dwelt in a good house, and amongst his retainers
was a young girl called S'mas (the Golden One), a
sort of maid-of-all-work and general drudge. The
master was a hard man, and not over-honest. The
maid was willing, and when not employed in the
house cooking, sewing, pounding rice, or carrying
water at every one's beck and call she was made
to work in the rice-fields ; hoeing, planting, reaping,
or gleaning, according to the season.
In spite of the many duties thrust upon S'mas, it
was noticed that her work was always done without
effort, and the family soon realised that this was the
result of supernatural agency. The work was done
for her by invisible hands, and a voice vox et
praterea nihil declared that the assistance was
i88 THE REAL MALAY
rendered by one of the sound-folk, a woman, who
called herself Sura Indra, but the Malays gave her
the title of Toh Moyang that is to say, the great-
great-grandmother. The voice of this spirit-presence
soon became well known in the house. It joined in
conversations, talked and sang to itself, or to S'mas,
and seemed to take a special delight in lecturing
Anjang Asin; a treat which he failed to relish,
but from which he did not know how to protect
himself.
Toh Moyang, taking the master to task, advised
him not to be deceitful on the weights ; not to use a
large measure when he bought, and a small one
when he sold. Further, she upbraided him with
inhospitality, and told him to be more liberal, saying
that he need not be afraid to spend, for she would
help him. Anjang Asin became enraged, and replied,
" What is the use of talking to me ? you don't help ;
you don't give me gold."
"You have gold/' said Toh Moyang, meaning, of
course, the girl S'mas.
One night thieves broke into the house of Anjang
Asin, and were just removing a box of valuables,
when Toh Moyang called out, " Thieves ! thieves ! "
The master jumped up, and the thieves fled, leaving
the box on the threshold.
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 189
The agency of Toh Moyang was specially noticed
when S'mas was ordered to plant out the padi.
For what is called wet padi, a small nursery is
planted, and the seed comes up like a thick crop of
intensely green grass. When the shoots are about
eighteen inches high, they are pulled up by the
roots, carried to the already prepared fields, and
planted out by the women. The seedlings are
usually planted out in the water-covered fields with
an iron prong, and a clever hand does the work very
rapidly. When S'mas went planting, any one could
see that for every rice-stalk which she planted, an
invisible hand put in at least twice as many more.
The sight of these seedlings walking out of the bundle
and sitting down, one by one, in the water and mud
of the irrigated field, excited great astonishment.
The strange doings of Toh Moyang, and especially
the scoldings from which he could not protect himself,
got on Anjang Asin's nerves, and he went round to
the district chief, and all his neighbours, complain-
ing of his unhappy fate, and asking if any one could
tell him how to get rid of the voice-woman.
One of the neighbours, a certain Che Manggek, at
once undertook the job, saying he knew the whole
art of dealing with spirits, and he would make the
necessary incantations, and relieve Anjang Asin of
190 THE REAL MALAY
the presence of Toh Moyang. Accordingly one day
Che Manggek went to the house, with a great posse
of his friends and admirers, but when he got to the
door, the voice of Toh Moyang called out to him,
" Welcome, Manggek ! You have come to exorcise
me ; to render me helpless and drive me away ;
well, try your best, I am waiting to see what you
can do." When he heard this, Manggek began, in
a loud voice, to declaim all his most famous incanta-
tions for the casting out of evil spirits ; but the
voice of Toh Moyang was heard above his voice,
abusing him and making fun of him, till the crowd
laughed, and Manggek ran away.
A famous priest, one Imam Dor^ni, hearing of
Che Manggek's adventure, said, " Manggek went
to exorcise this spirit with all his superstitious
rubbish, and of course he failed. I will go and cast
out this demon in the name of God."
Anjang Asin bade him come and do his best; but
before the Imam had even reached the door of the
house, the voice of Toh Moyang was heard, saying,
" Manggek came here with ten fingers, and thought
to drive me away. Now you have come with only
six fingers; do you think you can succeed where
he failed?"
DorAni, the priest, from his birth deformed in one
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 191
hand, was so disconcerted by this uncanny and out-
spoken knowledge on the part of the spirit he had
undertaken to lay, that he incontinently fled, and
Anjang Asin resigned himself to the tyranny of the
inevitable.
By this time, the doings and sayings of Toh
Moyang were the gossip of the country-side, and,
eventually, they came to the ears of the Raja Muda
(that is, the heir-apparent), who sent for Anjang
Asin, in order that he might hear all about this
supernatural manifestation. The Raja Muda was
then at a place called Bukit Gantang the Hill of
the Gallon-measure and Anjang Asin duly obeyed
the summons. Bukit Gantang is now a roadside
hamlet, the centre of an extensive rice-field, but a
poor place for all that. In those days it was the
residence of the most wealthy chief in Perak, the
home of his wives, the centre of his authority, a
half-way house where the most lavish hospitality
was dispensed to all comers, and the rendezvous of
most of the beauty, intelligence, and bravado of the
Perak ruling classes.
There was the hill, a slight elevation, planted
with palms and fruit trees, under the shade of which
were dotted about the dwellings of the chief, his
wives, and people. These houses and gardens and
I 9 2 THE REAL MALAY
orchards, occupying the whole of the rising ground,
were surrounded by a high brick wall, through
which gates and doors led, on one side to the main
road, and on another to a lake, the water lapping
the western base of the hill, from the road in front
right round to the back, where rose, sheer from the
plain, a range of lofty jungle-covered mountains.
It was worth a journey to see that stretch of water,
running out and in round the projections and in-
dentations of the low hill which sat, behind its
encircling wall, dreaming over the silent mere. Not
that there was anything wonderful about the lake
beyond its picturesque setting. The wonder was
that in it grew legions of lotus lilies, so that only
occasional spaces of water dazzling mirrors, reflect-
ing the sapphire sky and the fleecy white clouds
lay, like ever-changing pictures, amid their marvel-
lous framing. But the frames : the lotus leaves !
the lotus flowers ! the lotus fruit ! They were a
sight to see. It was a very jungle of lotuses. Great
circular leaves, spread flat on the surface of the
mere, with fat globules of water, like gigantic dew-
drops, sliding or resting on their green velvety faces.
Forests of stalks, short and long, bearing the glori-
ous wave-edged leaves, bending slightly over, and
gleaming with the marvellous bloom which gives to
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 193
their green softness an indescribable sheen of blue.
Then there were thousands of flowers; beds and
clusters and isolated stems, of buds and blossoms
in every shade, from deepest to palest pink, only
the full-blown flowers disclosing their yellow centres.
Scattered about in every direction, amidst these
leaves and blossoms, were hundreds of lotus fruit ;
the green pod, shaped like the rose of a watering-
can, with a yellow seed peeping through every eyelet.
As the fruit ripens, the stalk becomes black, the
curious pod takes hues of heliotrope and brown, the
eyelet holes open, and the seeds fall into the water,
sink, take root and shoot again.
Over the surface of the mere flitted myriads of
dragon-flies, scarlet and orange and turquoise-blue ;
they dipped their transparent wings in the water,
and, when tired of chasing each other, rested on the
leaves and flowers of the lotus.
A single tree stood in the middle of the lake,
where the lotus lilies grew thickest. It was quite
a small tree, but it held a dozen nests of the tailor-
bird, and more than half of them were perching-
places for the males. There was a ceaseless twitter-
ing from the tree, but the skilful weavers of these
elaborate houses seemed as fond of sitting on the
roofs as on the carefully protected perches. At
N
194 THE REAL MALAY
least that was the case with the male birds. No
inquisitive eye was permitted to intrude upon the
seclusion of the seamstresses.
Far away, where the mountain slope rose steeply
from the mere, and a stretch of open water blinked
under the scorching rays of the sun, there swam,
and dived, and fought, a flock of dark-plumaged
teal; shy birds which, at the slightest sound of
danger, would rise heavily from their cover. Then,
with much whistling and clatter of wings, they circled
round the lake at a safe height ; till, having selected
their point, they would stretch out into a long line,
and, flying high and strong, disappear into space.
Certainly the Hill of the Gallon-measure was a
place to see ; but it is doubtful whether its attrac-
tions appealed to Anjang Asin, when he arrived
there late one afternoon in obedience to a summons
from the Raja Muda, to satisfy that chief's curiosity
concerning the sound-woman.
The visitors were accommodated in the house of
one Pandak Leman, a house within the wall. As
soon as their arrival was known, the Raja Muda
sent a messenger to inquire whether they had
brought Toh Moyang. Anjang Asin replied that
he was quite unable to answer that question, but
he had brought the girl S'mas.
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 195
Round the side of the hill, opposite to that where
lay the lake, there wound a small clear rivulet, and
thither at sunset the strangers went to bathe, as is
the custom of all Malays. One of the girls of the
party, on seeing the brook, said, " I have heard a
deal of this place, of its wealth and its greatness,
and I expected to find a splendid river, far finer
than the sunbeam of our Perak Valley. Is this the
river of much-vaunted Bukit Gantang?" Then
a voice, which they all recognised as that of
Toh Moyang, answered mockingly, " River, indeed,
this miserable streamlet ! I could make a better
myself."
So, when the women returned to the house of
Pandak Leman, they told what had occurred, and
the news was carried to the Raja Muda that surely
Toh Moyang was there.
Shortly afterwards the visitors dined, and when
they had eaten their rice, the voice of Toh Moyang
asked for dates. A dish of the fruit was served,
and while the guests were eating it, every one saw
and heard date seeds fall on the floor, as though
thrown down from the ceiling. About this time a
message was brought from the Raja Muda, to say
that he would come to Pandak Leman's house to
talk with Toh Moyang. Before any one could make
196 THE REAL MALAY
any reply, Toh Moyang said, "The Raja Muda
come here to talk to me ! That would not be right.
I will go myself to his Highness." The messenger
accordingly returned to his master, and told what
he had heard. The girl S'mas was sent up to the
Raja Muda, and the large company assembled there
waited expectantly to hear the sound-woman. With
a perverseness only met with in bodiless females,
Toh Moyang declined to utter a word, and this
disappointing result was ascribed to the presence
of an unsympathetic person, who had derided the
popular belief in spirit-voices. As there was no
manifestation, S'mas was sent back to the house of
Pandak Leman, and a courtier from the suite of the
Raja Muda, one Che Lobih, came to try his own
fortune. He was reputed a very skilful talker, this
Che Lobih, and he made an earnest appeal to the
voice to let him hear her speak. To his great
delight, Toh Moyang said
"Well, I am here; what is it you want ? "
Che Lobih answered, " I have a request to make.
You are a very clever woman, and I want you to
give me knowledge."
" What would you know ? " asked the voice.
" I would know," said Che Lobih, " the secret of
winning a woman's heart."
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 197
" Why do you seek that ? " asked the voice ;
" always that, and only that."
" Never mind, then," replied the courtier. " But
tell me how I can win you, Toh Moyang, for it is
you I want."
But the great-great-grandmother only deigned to
speak the oracular words, "Asing dddok-nya?
Literally interpreted, this means, " It is some-
where else you wish to sit." The saying has be-
come proverbial, and, amongst the upper classes
in Perak, is commonly used as a polite way of
signifying doubt of the genuineness of an expressed
wish or intention.
When Che Lobih had retired to relate his experi-
ences to the Raja Muda, the house of Pandak Leman
was closed for the night. The master was lying sick
of a fever, and he asked for some one to massage
him. Immediately the voice of Toh Moyang said,
"I will massage you;" and at once the sick man
felt his limbs gently and deftly pinched and rubbed
by a cool soft hand. Pandak Leman, relieved and
delighted, said, "I thank you, Toh Moyang; I
have a great desire to feel your hand will you
allow me ? "
" Yes," said the voice ; " here is my arm, you can
feel it."
198 THE REAL MALAY
Pandak Leman put out his hand and touched a
smooth soft arm. Passing his fingers over the skin,
he suddenly tried to seize the wrist, but found he
held nothing. Then the voice said, "You must not
try to hold me ; you cannot. You did not ask for
that, and I should not have consented. I have
massaged you, and you must give me something for
my trouble. I want to buy things for S'mas."
Pandak Leman said, " Certainly, I will give
you something ; where is your hand ? " At the
same time he took out two silver dollars.
Toh Moyang replied, " My hand is ready ; drop
the dollars."
Pandak Leman dropped the dollars, and they
disappeared without ever reaching the floor.
The next day Anjang Asin, S'mas, and the rest
of the party returned to Bukit Geliong, and from
time to time Toh Moyang continued her admoni-
tions, which were persistently ignored by Anjang
Asin. At last a great disaster befell the man. The
building in which he kept stored the whole of the
season's rice crop took fire, and was utterly de-
stroyed. From that day the voice of Toh Moyang
was never heard by Anjang Asin or any of his
family.
The Sultan of Perak, speaking to me of this
AFTER THE IMPRESSIONISTS 199
superstition concerning the voice-people, and the
story of Anjang Asin's experiences, said, " Many
years afterwards, when Anjang Asin was an old
man, nearing death and afraid to lie, I asked him
whether Toh Moyang had really burned his padi
store. He answered, ' I dare not say Toh Moyang
burned it, for I did not see her do it ; but I had no
enemies, and from the day of the fire I never heard
her voice again.' "
AN "OLD MASTER"
BEFORE British influence was known in the
Malay States that is, before the year 1874
there lived in one of them a Malay chief who,
partly by reason of his rank, more by his
wealth, and most by his cunning, seemed destined
to play a conspicuous part in the affairs of his
country.
The State to which he belonged was one of the
largest, most populous, and important in the Penin-
sula, and when Wan Jafar was about five-and-
thirty years of age, he found himself the holder of
a high office, which carried with it a great title,
unlimited power within an extensive district, and a
rapidly-increasing revenue from the development of
vast stretches of country rich in minerals. He
owned several steamers, houses, and property within
and without the confines of what was, practically,
his own territory; and he had at his command a
small force of foreign mercenaries wherewith to
AN "OLD MASTER" 201
keep in order the Chinese miners on whose industry
he depended for his revenues. As I have said, he
was a dignitary of the State, and his father had held
the same office before him ; but for all that, he was
not a man of high birth, nor yet of pure Malay
blood. His wealth gave him a commanding position
in the country, and his astuteness (a quality which
he probably derived from his non-Malay ancestors)
enabled him to use it in a way that not only made
him acceptable to the ruler, but suggested schemes
of personal aggrandisement which contained good
promise of fulfilment. About this time the Sultan
of the country died, and, owing to a variety of cir-
cumstances which it is needless to go into here, the
rightful heir was set aside, and a foreign Raja, who
could only claim connection with the State through
his mother, was elected to the chief power. The
new Sultan was a great personal friend of Wan
Jafar, who was mainly responsible for his election,
and there is little doubt that the minister put for-
ward his nominee with the shrewd intention of
stepping into his shoes. Under ordinary circum-
stances the appointment of a state-officer a man
with no claim to royal blood to be the ruler of a
Malay country, would be outside the realm of possi-
bility. That had, however, happened elsewhere,
202 THE REAL MALAY
and if once ancient customs were set aside, and a
precedent established, Wan Jafar relied upon his
power, wealth, and intelligence to do the rest.
Granted that he could secure the acceptance, as
Sultan, of one who had no claim by birth, he
reflected that his friend, who was already an old
man, might in time be persuaded to retire in his
favour. Money and a supple tongue would draw
the waverers to his side.
The scheme was feasible, and for a time things
went well enough ; but the minister had left out of
his reckoning, or too easily discarded, two important
factors the rightful but disappointed claimant, and
the British Government. It was excusable that the
claimant should be treated as a quantity n^gligeable,
for, indeed, he was a poor thing, wanting in spirit
in money, and in friends. As for the British, they
had never concerned themselves with Malay affairs,
and there was no reason why they should do so now.
Of all the people in the country, none knew them so
well as Wan Jafar. That a combination of the
rejected heir and the British Government should
bring about his own discomfiture, and that partly
owing to the action of a section of his Chinese
miners, never occurred to him.
It was, however, that very combination, assisted
AN "OLD MASTER" 203
by subsequent events, which deposed Wan Jafar
from place and power, and sent him thousands of
miles away, to ruminate on his lost opportunities and
throttled ambitions. Hardest of all to bear, the
sentence passed upon him involved the breaking-up
of his home, and separation from his wives and
children, relatives and friends.
At the zenith of his prosperity, Wan Jafar had
married a girl of equal rank with himself and of
better family. I cannot say what she was like
then, but when I first saw her, she was certainly
a woman of remarkable appearance. I used to
imagine she might resemble Cleopatra, though that
was no great compliment to the Egyptian queen.
It was not, however, her undoubtedly striking face
which distinguished this lady from other Malay
women, so much as her uncompromising hostility to
the British Government, to its officers, and all their
works. Later I found that, in this attitude, she in-
cluded a good many of her own nationality as well,
and while it was mainly due to inherent pecu-
liarities of character, it was aggravated by circum-
stances of which she was the unfortunate victim.
As the principal wife of the wealthiest and most
powerful chief in the land, her every wish had been
gratified; and being a very determined, masterful,
204 THE REAL MALAY
and extravagant lady, her wishes were numerous
and expensive. I may say here that, with a Malay
woman, the test of real affection on the part of a
man, be he husband or lover, is the extent of his
generosity. The most extravagant protestations of
love, without gifts to prove their reality, are but as
siren-voices to the deaf. The sincerity and value of
the lover's vows are gauged by his liberality, in
trinkets and other costly trifles. I suppose this
discrimination is the result of generations of experi-
ence. It is not in any way resented by Malay men ;
on the contrary, they accept the position, and do
what they can to perpetuate it. There are excep-
tions ; of course, there always are, but in this respect
they are rare. If nothing of the kind is known in
more enlightened countries, the moral depravity of
these people must be ascribed to original sin and
the climate. Whatever the cause, the melancholy
fact remains, and if the position is rightly under-
stood, there will be some sympathy with Wan
Jafar's wife, when she suddenly found herself de-
prived of all that had helped to make her one of the
greatest ladies in the land. I may be doing her a
wrong, but it is possible that her feelings would
have been less bitter if she had, instead of losing
everything, received some material compensation for
AN "OLD MASTER" 205
the loss of her husband ; such, for instance, as rail-
way companies give in case of serious accidents.
Besides the principal wife to whom I have
already referred, Wan Jafar was the husband of
another lady, Che Dewi, renowned throughout the
country for the charm (well recognised by Malays)
which belongs to wit, intelligence, and the voice
which is "soft and low"; attractions which may
accompany good looks, but are oftener found apart
from them, lending to a face where there are no
striking features a beauty of its own.
As may easily be imagined, there was a very real
rivalry between these two wives. Both were young
(Che Dewi being little more than a girl); both, in
their different ways, the objects of admiration and
flattery ; both rich in all that a wealthy and power-
ful husband could give them, and both of widely
divergent characters.
When Wan Jafar fell from his high estate, lost
everything a man values, and was banished to a
distant island, he invited these two ladies to accom-
pany him in his exile. But they declined. Consider-
ing his circumstances, and the very small sum
allowed him to live upon, the refusal was probably a
blessing in disguise. I don't think that was the
light in which he regarded it, but he disappeared,
206 THE REAL MALAY
and for over twenty years Malay society only heard
of him through the post.
From the date of their husband's banishment, a
moderate allowance was allotted to the principal
wife, who had two sons, and a smaller sum to Che
Dewi, who had one. After some years, Che Dewi
lost her boy, and applied to her husband to release
her, but he declined. That was his revenge.
As time went on, she applied again and again, but
still the husband refused, until at last the Sultan of
the State took the matter up, and a divorce was duly
granted. Che Dewi at once married again, and the
other wife, her former rival, was full of scorn for
the backsliding of this weaker vessel But Time is
a great chastener, and, under his influence, others
besides the Psalmist learn to repent of the things said
in haste. Therefore it happened that, after ten or
twelve years, the smart, high-born wife also wrote
to her husband and asked for a divorce, pointing out
that the circumstances were very unusual, and there
was no prospect of his return. Wan Jafar, as to
the other, replied that there was nothing to prevent
her joining him, and therefore he declined to fall in
with her proposal. Further demands were met by
the same answer, and at last an appeal to the
Sultan who is head of the Church as well as of
AN "OLD MASTER" 207
the State resulted in a divorce for the principal
wife.
It was during, and subsequent to, these negotia-
tions that this lady used to honour me with a good
deal of her society. She always came with one or
more requests, and invariably backed them up with
the statement that, if not granted, she would leave
the State a contingency that she no doubt hoped
would fill me with dread, and, if carried into effect,
cover me with opprobrium. 1 If I remained inflex-
ible, she would hurl at me a more dire and porten-
tous threat, namely, that " she would be transported
to Bombay." I don't think she knew what, or where,
Bombay was ; but as she was more used to hectoring
than tearful appeals, this was her method of ap-
proaching the tyranny, which she felt was respon-
sible for the banishment of her husband and her own
fallen fortunes. We made friends at last, to such
an extent that, her own grievances settled, as far as
they were capable of settlement, she used to come
weekly, almost daily, as a sort of professional inter-
mediary, to give voice to the very bitter cries of the
legions of the aggrieved, who, in the East, believe
that there is somewhere a Fountain of Justice, with
whom redress is merely a matter of will.
1 See page 35.
208 THE REAL MALAY
After an exile of over twenty years, Wan Jafar
returned, not to his own country that was still
forbidden ground but to a place within easy reach
of it.
It is more than likely that, in what has been
written, I seem to have been wandering about over
quite uninteresting ground, with no definite purpose.
I cannot help it if that is the impression conveyed.
I have come to the purpose now, and in the light of
the sequel, the details will, I trust, be accepted as
suitably inconsequent.
For some years before her first husband's return
from exile, Che Dewi had been divorced from her
second husband. Moreover, she had made the
pilgrimage to Mecca, had returned with the title of
Haji, and a new name, which I need not mention.
As soon as she heard that Wan Jafar, now an old
and broken man, was within a few hundred miles,
she hastened to meet and welcome him. The result
of that journey was that, in a few weeks, it was
known that Che Dewi had been re-married to her
original husband.
The news of this event was accepted with equa-
nimity by every one except Wan Jafar's principal
wife, who, in all these years, had never got over her
jealousy of her rival and co-partner in the affections
AN "OLD MASTER" 209
of the once-powerful chief. Months passed, and
the lady meditated constantly on a visit to the
man from whom she had been so long separated,
but to whose position as husband she had accepted
no successor, though the possibility had no doubt
been contemplated. The knowledge that her rival
was re-installed kept Cleopatra away, but when
Wan Jafar came to visit a place within a few
hours' journey of his old home, she decided that
it was incumbent on her to go and see her former
husband, with whom she had never had any real
cause of quarrel. Accordingly, she went the last
of all the family to visit Wan Jafar. One who
was present described the meeting as strangely
pathetic ; she, a quite old woman, according to
Eastern notions, and he, a bent and infirm old
man, so blind that he could not see her till she
was in his arms. In a few days Wan Jafar
re-married this wife also.
The whole party then returned to Wan Jafar's
place of residence, where, within a few weeks, he
sickened and died. After his death the two
women rival wives and bitter enemies, divorcees,
re-married wives, and now joint-widows re-
turned together to their native country, to live in
the same house the closest of friends !
O
A LINE ENGRAVING
AFTER a long journey by sea and land, by
rail and road, I was again, for perhaps the
hundredth time, looking down on the Malay's earthly
paradise. The place recalled a crowd of incidents,
curious and varied enough to fill the longest day-
dream. But the actors were gone many buried,
some at the ends of the earth, others near, but out
of sight all were changed in a greater or less
degree. Only the stage was the same.
From the smooth green lawn where I stood, I
looked down a succession of terraces terraces con-
nected by a long flight of steep stone steps to a
great wide river. The water was shallow and clear,
running over a bed of sand. A picturesque village,
sheltered almost shut out from my sight by palms
and graceful evergreen trees, nestled low down on
the right bank. A large island, with gardens and a
few cottages, guarded its river front, while a smaller
island, grass-grown and solitary, lay farther out in
A LINE ENGRAVING 211
the stream. Many boats of quaint build, some hauled
up on shore, others fastened to poles driven into the
bed of the river, broke the shore-line by the village.
A group of cattle, standing knee-deep in the water,
and here and there a long, narrow dug-out, laden
with passengers being ferried across the river, gave
life to a picture which impressed one with a sense
of absolute peace and restfulness. On the far bank
stood a great forest tree, and I remembered how
plainly that tree, and its reflection mirrored in the
water, were visible from a mountain-top distant eight
miles as the crow flies. For the rest, the river ran
straight back in a four-mile reach, narrowing gradu-
ally with the distance till the sheen of water disap-
peared in the haze of forest. Directly behind that
spot, a range of sapphire hills lay, barrier-like,
across the river's track. Right and left, two other
higher ranges, jungle-clad from base to summit
shut in the valley drained by that broad, shining
stream.
Miles away westward, the sun was sinking behind
a great limestone rock, 2000 feet high, and as the
shadows lengthened, the hills were swept by waves
of momentarily changing colour, till every feature,
every spur and hollow, was defined, as by opal-
tinted shafts thrown from a heavenly search-light.
2i* THE REAL MALAY
As the light died, all colour faded into a grey same-
ness, and the land was shrouded in a winding-sheet
of river mist. The cool night wind, creeping from
out the jungle freshness, came rustling across the
stream, stirring the water into tiny wavelets, and
barring its surface with spaces of dancing silvery
light and smooth motionless shadow. Between the
fronds of lofty palms, infinitely graceful yet infinitely
sad their slightly bent heads black against the grey
background I saw the new moon ; a circle drawn
by a bow pen, charged with the essence of light,
and slightly pressed as it described a third of the
circumference. A curious effect ; for the circle was
undefined, except in that third, and there was no
apparent difference between the colour of the sky
within the ring and that surrounding it. It might
have been a sickle of pale gold, holding, cup-like, an
eclipsed moon ; and yet the eye could detect no out-
line to the eclipse, nor any variance in tone between
the round moon-space and its background.
The strange contrast between daylight and dark-
ness, between what had been a moment ago and
what was now, recalled a tale I had heard, and a
tragedy that had been enacted, years ago, on the
bank of this river-reach.
A British military expedition had been despatched
A LINE ENGRAVING 213
to this State, at a moment's notice, and the troops
engaged were divided into two forces ; one sent from
China, operating down-river, and the other, com-
posed of troops from India, encamped on the very
hill where I stood. I myself was with the first
force, and, for a time, all the fighting to be got was
theirs. That, of course, was very annoying to the
later arrivals, stationed here with nothing to do but
gaze on this Malay paradise, which I have no doubt
they regarded as a very indifferent compensation
for their hurried despatch from India the soldier's
paradise. Anyhow, they beat about for some means
of employment, and, failing anything better, it was
determined to capture a noted Malay brave, one Raja
Abas, who was said to be in the neighbourhood.
This Raja Abas, native of an upland State, had
once been arrested for a river piracy, and lodged in
prison in one of the neighbouring British Settle-
ments. Before he could be tried, he broke out of
jail, killed a guard at the gate, and made good his
escape. That had occurred some years before, and
at the time of the expedition he was said to be living
in hiding, at a hut on the bank of the river, about
four miles above the British camp.
To each of the two forces composing the expedi-
tion were attached civil commissioners, and with
*i 4 THE REAL MALAY
each was a naval brigade. So far, the fighting had
been down-river, and though the trees on the banks
of the long river-reach, seen from this hill, concealed
a scattered but populous village, inhabited by people
with a reputation for lawlessness second to none in
the country, they had, up to the time I write of,
kept out of the fray, and made no hostile demon-
stration. Meanwhile, the presence of Raja Abas in
the neighbourhood had been reported, and some
one, remembering his history, brought the facts to
the notice of the military authorities. That was
how matters stood when
All this flashed through my mind, and that was
the point at which I remembered that I might hear
the tale from an eye-witness. Within call, there
was a native who, I knew, could speak to the facts ;
though I also knew that his own part in the pro-
ceedings was not one of which to be proud. Perhaps
that was mainly the reason why he had never been
popular with the Malays of this district. However,
the only point of importance was, that I wanted to
hear the facts, and he could supply them. I sent
for him, and in a few minutes he arrived.
" You remember," I said, " the case of Raja Abas
and the other man ? "
" Certainly."
A LINE ENGRAVING 215
" You had something to do with it ? "
"Why, it was I who gave the information about
him, and when it was determined that he should be
arrested, I undertook to do it myself."
"Well?"
" You want to hear all about it ? "
"Yes, I do."
" I will tell you. I had known Raja Abas for
some time. We were great friends, he and I, and
he trusted me. He also knew two brothers, Pan-
jang Biru and Skola, who had a cottage up there,
where he often stayed. I knew them too; indeed,
we were all friends and comrades. When the
trouble came, and white soldiers occupied this hill,
I was employed by the civil officer, because I knew
every one in the neighbourhood, and could keep
him informed of all that was going on. That was
how I came to mention the fact that Raja Abas was
here; and, when invited to do so, I undertook to
arrest him.
" He was not a native of this country he was a
foreigner ; but he had a great reputation for valour
and resource, and every one said he was invulner-
able. For these reasons I had to be very careful
how I went about the business of catching him.
After several visits to Panjang Biru's cottage, where
i6 THE REAL MALAY
Raja Abas usually lodged, I determined to get him
away to the house of a relation of mine for his
evening meal, and to put into his rice some of the
seed of the malikien, which would make him sick,
and then, with some friends I had, I thought I could
overpower him. Unless I could make him sick, I
did not see how I could take him alive ; for every
one said he was afraid of no one, and that he was
invulnerable.
" First, then, I told Panjang Biru that I was going
to arrest Raja Abas, and I warned him that he must
on no account say anything about it. I promised
he should come to no harm, if he did not interfere.
I had to tell him, so that I might get Raja Abas
away, and I also wanted to prevent Biru siding
with the Raja if it came to a struggle. I arranged
it with him ; but I was not so sure of his brother, a
hot-headed fellow, and very devoted to Raja Abas,
so I said nothing to him. No doubt Panjang Biru
warned his brother that something was in the wind,
but I don't think he said anything till the evening
when I had arranged to carry out my plan.
"Everything went as I had hoped it would, and
in the afternoon I met Raja Abas and the brothers
in Panjang Biru's cottage, and persuaded the Raja
to come with me to a house, nearer this way, where
A LINE ENGRAVING 217
one of my relatives lived. Biru stayed at home, but
the brother accompanied us, and having told the
man who prepared our food what to do, we took the
evening meal.
" That stuff which makes you sick, that malikien
seed, is very bitter, and I think the man must have
put too much of it into Raja Abas's rice, for he said
there was something wrong, and, shortly after eating,
began to suffer pain, and I advised him to come
with me to an empty hut, hard by, where I thought
it would be easier to deal with him. At first he was
angry, and said, if he had been in any one else's
house he would have believed he was poisoned, and
known what to do; but with me, his friend, he
thought such treachery was impossible. At last I
got him away, and then left him with Skola. My
plan was to wait till the sickness had made him
weak, because he was such a valiant man I thought
we could not tackle him otherwise. I had arranged
with three or four men, friends of mine, to wait in
and near this empty house, and I promised to return
about 10 P.M., when I thought we could capture him
without much trouble.
" Whilst I was away, Skola told the Raja that I
had poisoned him, and meant to arrest him ; so he
got up in spite of his sickness seized his weapons
zi8 THE REAL MALAY
(he carried a very famous kris amongst other things),
and went away with Skola to Panjang Biru's cot-
tage. My men, who were lying in wait, saw him go ;
indeed, Raja Abas invited those in the hut, if they
thought to kill him, to come on ; but they dared not
do anything, because of his reputation and his kris,
which was said to make him invincible.
" When I returned, late at night, I found the whole
plan had failed, and of course there was then no chance
of taking Raja Abas quietly ; so I had to return here
and tell the white officers what had happened.
" I understood that a party would go up-river and
arrest Raja Abas, and it was arranged that they
should travel by boat, starting at night, so as to
reach Panjang Biru's hut at daylight. About twenty
blue-jackets formed the party, with an officer and
my master. I noticed that they took a long thick
rope with them, but I did not know what it was for.
" The boats went so slowly that it was broad day-
light long before we got to our destination, and it
must have been 9 A.M. when we reached Panjang
Biru's hut, and surrounded it. On examining the
place, we found it empty; but the rice for the morning
meal was all ready set out, and we knew that those
we sought could only lately have left the place.
"The cottage was near the river bank, and fresh
A LINE ENGRAVING 219
footmarks led straight inland. We followed them,
and passing through the belt of orchards, came out
on the long stretch of rice-fields which lie between
the village and the hills. As we came into the light,
we saw a man walking quickly by the fence which
divides the kampong from the grain-land. The
white men asked me, and I told them it was Pan-
jang Biru.
" The civil officer called him, and when he came,
said, ' Are you the man named Panjang Biru ? '
" He answered, ' I am he, sir.'
" ' Where are Raja Abas and your brother ? ' in-
quired the officer.
" 'They have gone,' replied Panjang Biru ; and he
added, * I can go after them and fetch them.'
" ' We cannot let you go,' said the officer ; ' you
are going to be hanged now.'
" ' You can send a man ' (and he named a villager)
' with me, and I will try to find them,' said Panjang
Biru; but they said they would hang him. So,
having disarmed him, and tied his hands behind him,
the sailors marched him off to a great Bungor tree
the tree with violet blossoms growing all along its
boughs which stood in the kampong, some little
distance back along the road we had come. When
he heard he was to be hanged, Panjang Biru said,
220 THE REAL MALAY
' I have done no wrong ; but of course you can hang
me if you wish. I have not eaten ; let me eat first.'
That was all I heard before they led him away.
" I waited where I was, for I did not rightly under-
stand what was going to happen. Then, from afar
off, I saw them throw one end of the rope over a
great branch of the Bungor tree, and having tied
Panjang Biru's head-kerchief over his face, they
fixed the other end round his neck. There was a
moment's pause, and then Biru raised his head, and
in a loud voice cried, three times, on the name of
God : ' Allah ! Alla-ah ! Alla-a-ah ! ' The last time
exceeding loud and long drawn out, as though he
were giving up the ghost with one supreme effort.
There was a silence, and when next I looked I saw
Panjang Biru's body swinging from the branch of
the tree.
" If I had known that they really meant to hang
him, I would have gone to his house and got him
some food, for it was all ready there, and he might
just as well have had it.
"We walked back to the boats, and, before we
pushed off, some people came and asked whether
they might cut the body down and bury it. The
officers said they might have the body, and we
returned to the camp."
A LINE ENGRAVING 221
"Had Panjang Biru done anything wrong?" 1
asked.
" Nothing, except that he gave shelter to Raja
Abas. Every one knew that Raja Abas was a bad
man, and I know that, while he lived here, Skola
was always with him, and joined him in whatever he
did ; but there was nothing against Panjang Biru,
and I don't know why they hanged him. It was
very hard not letting him have his breakfast, and I
could have got it quite easily, if they had only let me."
This set me thinking, and I remembered that, some
days before this happened, while I was down-river,
I received a letter asking me for the loan of a fast
shallow-draught steam launch which was in my
charge. I sent it, and in due time after a week or
ten days it returned, bringing me a note to say
that a force, sent up-river to disarm the village
opposite " the Bungor tree," had been attacked, and
a certain number of officers and men had been killed
and wounded. After reading the note, I went down
to the boat, which was manned by a Malay cockswain,
a man-of-war's engine-room artificer, and a blue-
jacket. I asked for particulars of the attack, and what
had led to it. One of the white men replied, " What
led to it ? Why, a day or two before, they went up-
river and hanged a man without ever judge or jury."
zai THE REAL MALAY
L At the time I had no means of ascertaining the
facts. A thousand other things claimed my atten-
tion, and all I knew was that the village where these
things occurred gave, for many years after, an in-
finity of trouble, and it was about as much as a man's
life was worth to attempt an arrest there. If my
informant's tale were true, that was not surprising ;
and there was no reason to doubt him, especially as
he painted his own share in the proceedings in such
hateful colours.
My curiosity was not quite satisfied ; I had still
a question to ask.
" What became of Raja Abas ? "
"In the fighting which ensued between the
villagers and the troops, Raja Abas joined the vil-
lagers, and they were very glad to have him, because
he was so stout a fighter. Some years later he was
killed."
"How?"
" Well, as I told you, he was a bad man, with a
very bad reputation, and I think he was concerned
in some local murders. Anyhow, a famous holy
man, who was also a great captain, undertook to
bring him in, alive or dead. He did what I failed to
do. He sent a man to join Raja Abas and make
friends with him, and when the emissary had done
AN ENGRAVING 123
that, and gained the Raja's confidence, he sought a
means of doing him to death. It was very difficult,
even then, because, as I told you, Raja Abas was
such a brave man, and they said he was invulnerable.
Besides, he always carried that famous kris. How-
ever, one day he was crossing a stream by a log
bridge, and the man who had undertaken the job
walked behind him. When Raja Abas was in the
middle of the log, the man took a good aim and shot
him in the back, shot him from close behind, and the
Raja fell into the stream. He was not invulnerable
after all, for the charge made a great hole in his back.
In spite of that, he climbed up the bank, and made
for the man, who ran away, not daring to face him.
Then the Raja sank down and died, and so the
people found him."
I was glad it was dark. The moon had set, and
I could see nothing but a reach of ghostly water
glimmering through the mist. My curiosity had
been gratified, and I must now pay the penalty ; for
whenever I stand here, and the sunlight streams
over forest and river, I shall see that body, the face
swathed in the kerchief, swinging from the violet
blossomed bough, and hear that last despairing cry
to the God of Justice and Mercy.
A SILHOUETTE
A MONGST Malays of the Peninsula, the most
*> picturesque figure is that of the Famous
Seyyid. He has come to see me, and as he stands
in the semi-darkness of this lofty room, with its
dead-white walls and the subdued light of a shaded
lamp centred on him, I am almost led to question
his reality. The stillness is so absolute, the shadows
so deep, yet vague, while the outlines of face and
form are so strong, the colours so rich and har-
monious, that the man might be imagination mate-
rialised, the embodiment of an Eastern dream. That
word explains the seeming unreality. Figure and
surroundings of the East Eastern, the Famous Seyyid
is the very type of a strange people ; the picture
exactly in harmony with its frame.
Outside, an all but full moon rides high in a cloud-
veiled sky. The clouds would be white, only that
there is a haze which tinges all the light with blue.
The country is very broken ; hill and vale, stretches
824
A SILHOUETTE 225
of jungle and undulating slopes of grass, with clumps
of trees and isolated forest giants dotted about at
uncertain intervals. In a long valley is a lake of
shining water. But it is all vague, soft, and myste-
rious. The woods and the grass are grey with an
underlying green, and the atmosphere is grey as
well as blue. The water is a still and level surface
of dark glass.
Through the wide-open doorways come visions
of the moonlit country, and these white-framed
pictures contrast strangely with the warm glow of
the room and the fascinating figure of the Famous
Seyyid.
He is a man of sixty-two ; tall and straight, with
a face so striking that it would attract attention
anywhere. His forehead is wide and high, his
dark eyes rather far apart, with drooping lids that
it seems almost an effort to raise. His nose is
aquiline and rather long, and his mouth is hidden
by a long and heavy grey moustache. The jaw is
massive and the chin square. The eyebrows black,
curved, and distinctly marked ; while the hair is short
and grey. He has a clear yellow complexion, and, in
spite of his age, there is hardly a line on his face.
The drooping eyelids and hooked nose, the dark
eyebrows, grey almost white moustache, with
226 THE REAL MALAY
ends curved upwards, and the massive jaw and chin,
are very remarkable. The elaborately quiet manner
of the man, the studied slowness of his ordinary
movements, and his voice so soft and low, it is an
effort to catch his words accentuate the strong
features of his face and fascinate the spectator, as
certain snakes are said to fascinate their victims.
Only, with the Famous Seyyid, the eyes attract
attention by the little there is to see of them.
His dress is scarcely less striking. A kerchief of
some thin black material, stiffened with a jungle
varnish which gives to the outer side a glossy sur-
face, is tied into a fantastic yet becoming head-dress.
The cloth is folded closely round the brow and over
the scalp, but two of the corners, overlapping, stand
up in a point, about ten inches high, on the left side
of the head, and balance the thick fold of the kerchief
which rests on the right ear. The cloth is hemmed
with a chain stitch, in white, all round its edges, and
these edges are made to show with great effect,
especially in the upstanding corners. On the glossy
side of this jet-black head-covering is painted, in
gold leaf, a deep border of scroll-work, and dotted
about, within the border, are conventional flowers,
also in gold. The effect is novel, becoming, and
striking in an unusual degree. Over a shirt of
A SILHOUETTE 227
soft, rich, yellow satin the Seyyid wears a jacket
of Malay-red silk dull of surface, but of strange
rich colour into which is woven a design which
resembles small chariot wheels in gold thread. The
jacket has an upright collar of the same material, is
fastened by one gold button at the throat, and dis-
closes a narrow gleam of the satin undershirt. The
sleeves are tight at the wrist, slashed, and fastened
by a long row of gold buttons. The costume is
completed by trousers of dead-black silk, the lower
eighteen inches interwoven with a quaint design in
silver thread. The trousers are made almost tight
round the ankles, while a gorgeous silk sarong^ or
skirt, hangs in graceful folds from the waist to the
knees. The sarong itself is a thing of beauty, the
finest work of the famed Trengganu looms. The
prevailing colours are soft tones of cunningly-blended
heliotrope and green, lined by faint gleams of gold
thread; but a wide length of Malay-red, ablaze
with gold, crosses the darker folds in flashes of
splendour.
He is a man of war, this Seyyid, and was one of
the most famous of the Malay fighting-chiefs in the
days that are no more. The stories of his prowess,
of his cunning, of his wickedness, are many, and
strange, and ghastly. He has enemies, and it is
i8 THE REAL MALAY
charitable to suppose that he has been maligned.
There is no need to refer to such tales here. He
has been a soldier of fortune, and he would be so
again. He does not pretend to many virtues, or any
accomplishments outside his profession as a captain
of men.
When I see him, we talk of war as it is under-
stood in Malaya and on that subject he can speak
with experience. This evening is no exception to
the rule, and he has related many curious experiences.
" It is very annoying," he remarks at last ; " you
know what Malays are; and as I walk in the
streets, men nudge each other and say, ' That is
the Famous Seyyid,' and they huddle together like
cowering curs, which always fall over each other in
their anxiety to reach a safe place. Of course there
is nothing to do now, and while the white men, the
officers of Government, talk nicely to me, they are
always suggesting that I should go away to some
other country. I am old, and I have no desire to go
elsewhere, and when the Government wanted help
they found me useful. You know that, for we are
old friends, and we have done the Government work
together."
I remind him that once, before those ancient days,
he had, by his own statement to me, only waited for
A SILHOUETTE 229
a signal to fall upon a considerable party of Euro-
peans, amongst whom my death was, perhaps, the
one most keenly desired.
The Seyyid will not discuss such an unprofitable
subject. He dismisses it with a reproachful glance,
a little deprecatory movement of his hand, and the
remark, " But the signal was never given ! "
It was unkind to recall this incident, and possibly
a trifle malicious, so I ask, " Is there some title you
would like ? "
"Ah, yes," he answers, "there is; but then, I
must not forget my old friends in arms, the men who
fought with me long ago. I would not have any-
thing which rightly belongs to one of them."
The Seyyid recently passed the fasting month
with the Sultan of Perak, who invited my attention
to the fact that " his brother, the Seyyid," had
become very devout, and never missed a prayer.
This craving for holy things and the better life is a
very encouraging sign ; and the Famous Seyyid is,
perhaps, not the first sinner who has turned to
religion for excitement when he found the world
slipping away from him. But in his case, at any
rate, the old Adam is hardly scotched, for, the con-
versation having turned to his recent visit, he says :
" I asked the Sultan of Perak whether he was friend
230 THE REAL MALAY
or foe to the State of Paiten, because I thought he
could not care for the Raja of that place, and I offered
to go and take it for him, if he wanted it."
" How did you mean to do it ? " I ask.
" Oh ! " he says, " I should go there with four or
five people and make friends with the Paiten folk
fight cocks, and gamble with them, and play at
anything they like and all the time my people
would be coming in, by twos and threes, and fours
and fives, and working towards the Raja's place,
where I should be. And when it was time ."
Then, for an instant, his drooping eyelids rise
a fraction of an inch ; he glances at me, and they
fall again.
" Mgng-amok ? " I suggest.
He does not answer ; but a very slow smile wanders
round the corners of his mouth, and, as his face
turns towards the ghostly pictures seen through
the open doorways, it seems to be instinct with the
vision of that sudden and furious night attack in
far Paiten.
"It would not be difficult," I say; "but Leng-
gang" naming another State "would be better
worth having."
" Ah ! " he answers, " I could not do that, it is a
very populous country ; but with quite a few men I
A SILHOUETTE
231
could take Paiten, and there would be some loot.
You see I must think of that. I am a poor man,
and if I could get some loot, I should like to go to
Mecca."
"You have been writing while I have talked,"
says the Seyyid ; " may I ask what you have written
about ? "
" I have been trying to make a silhouette of you."
" What is a silhouette ? "
"Roughly speaking, it is a profile portrait, in
black, on a white background."
" But where have you done this ? "
" Here," I say, showing him the paper on which
I am writing ; "and you see, I have only used black
and white."
" Ah ! " he says, " I understand ; it is the black
and the white of me. Do not make it too black.
A silhouette can only be true in outline."
"Very well," I reply; "I will put in the colours."
FAULTY COMPOSITION
IN the volume entitled " Malay Sketches," pub-
lished in 1895, I referred to the homicidal mania
which drives men of the Malay race to a form of
blind, reasonless murder, termed dmok on account
of the suddenness and fury with which the attack
is delivered Some interest has been aroused in
the minds of readers, and inquiries have been made
as to the cause of this special form of madness, If
that is a term which can properly be applied to
what seems to be a suddenly-awakened passion for
indiscriminate slaughter.
I have collected some further particulars on the
subject, and now offer them to the reader, who will,
doubtless, draw his own conclusions.
Mr. John Crawfurd, a well-known writer on
the Malay language, gave a lecture on Oriental
words adopted in English, before the British
Association at Birmingham, in the autumn of
1849, and in December of that year published a
3*
FAULTY COMPOSITION 233
paper from which I have taken the following ver-
batim extract :
" (Muck, a-mucK) Malay, amuk. The ' a ' which
precedes it in English is not the English indefinite
article, but part of the word itself, and should be
joined to it. There is no such word in Malay as
muk, and still less the word written with a super-
fluous ' c.' Amuk (the ' k ' at the end is mute) is
the radical, and means a desperate and furious
charge, or onset, either of an individual or body of
men. From this we have such derivatives as the
following Mangamuk, to make a furious charge,
or assault; Mngamukk&n, to charge some object
furiously; Baramuk-amukan, to charge furiously
and mutually; PAngamuk, one that makes a furious
charge. When the English infantry charged with
the bayonet at Waterloo, a Malay might with pro-
priety say the English ran a-muck ; when the
French charged over the bridge of Lodi, he might
say the same thing. Marshal Lannes would be
considered by a Malay as an illustrious Pangamuk,
and Sir Thomas Picton another. Dr. Johnson says
he 'knows not from what derivation is made to
mean to run madly, and attack all we meet.' He
might, however, have discovered it, if he had read
Dampier as carefully as Swift, who is said to have
234 THE REAL MALAY
made his style the model of some part of his Gulli-
ver's Travels. The Rev. Mr. Todd, in his edition
of the Dictionary, has a long explanation of small
value, running over nearly a whole quarto column.
His chief authority is Tavernier, whose account is
full of mistakes. In one place he writes the word
Mocca, and in another Moqua. He states the kris,
with which the muck is run, to be poisoned, which
I never heard to be the case. He says it is the
Muhammadans, on their return from the pilgrimage
to Mecca, who run a-muck ; but the natives of the
Eastern islands ran a-muck before they ever heard
of the Muhammadan religion, and the unconverted
natives at the present day equally run a-muck with
the converted. The Rev. Mr. Pegg is next quoted
by Mr. Todd out of the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' and
Mr. Pegg charges the practice to excess in cock-
fighting, and the loss of property, including wife
and children. When this crisis arrives, the loser,
according to Mr. Pegg, begins to chew a root, what
is called bang, which the reverend gentleman takes to
be the same thing as opium, and it is after that that
he runs a-muck. This is all a fable, and the great
probability is that no such case as that stated by
the reverend gentleman ever occurred. The truth
is, that running a-muck is the result of a sudden and
FAULTY COMPOSITION 235
violent emotion, wholly unpremeditated. There is,
therefore, no poisoning of daggers, no swallowing of
opium, which instead of rousing would set the party
asleep, and no eating of bang, which was unknown
to the islanders at the time in which Mr. Pegg wrote.
Moreover, bang and opium are not the same thing,
for the first is the produce of the common hemp-
plant, and the last of the white poppy. Finally,
Mr. Todd quotes a note of Malone to the prose
works of Dryden, in which he asserts that the word
a-muck, written as one word, is an adverb, equiva-
lent to ' killing,' which is even more wide of accu-
racy than the account of Mr. Pegg himself, and his
other authority, Tavernier. Warton, in a note to
Pope, repeats the same mistake about gaming, and
smoking opium, before running a-muck. Sir Walter
Scott's note in his edition of Dryden is little more
than a repetition of Malone's. He speaks of the loss
by gaming, of the intoxication with opium, and says
that ' Amocco ' means ' to kill.' ' He is, at last,' he
says, ' cut down, or shot like a mad dog,' which is
true. Of a very different character from the gossip
of Tavernier and the rest, is the account given of
the dmok by Dr. Oxley in this journal. I had not
the advantage of having perused it, when I read my
paper at Birmingham, or I should have quoted its
236 THE REAL MALAY
intelligent and authentic statement at length. The
Amok appears from it to be in many cases mere
instances of monomania, taking this mischievous
form, and, when they are not so, they are traced by
the writer to the true character of the islanders.
One fact stated in it I was not before aware of, that
the amok is most frequent among the Bugis. This
is also the case in Java, but then it has been ascribed
there to the ill-usage of this people in a state of
slavery. I should conceive that of all the islanders,
it would be found the least frequent among the
Javanese. Instances of it did certainly occur during
my six years' residence in that island, but they
were by no means frequent. Amongst the Javanese
of Singapore, it is probable that in thirty years no
example has occurred. Dryden first made the word
classic by using it in the third part of ' The Hind and
Panther,' the application being to Bishop Burnet
' Prompt to assail, and careless of defence
Invulnerable in his impudence,
He dares the world, and eager of a name
He thrusts about and jostles into fame,
Frontless, and satire-proof, he scours the streets
And runs an Indian muck at all he meets.'
" Pope followed him in the well-known lines,
which are evidently an imitation :
FAULTY COMPOSITION 237
' Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a-muck and tilt at all I meet,
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,
Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors.'
" The directors here referred to are those of the
famous South-Sea Bubble, and the supercargoes
probably the agents of the East India Company."
Dr. Oxley was a Government surgeon in Singa-
pore, and the account to which Mr. Crawfurd re-
ferred was published in an official medical report on
Singapore. Here it is :
"The character of the unsophisticated Malay is
remarkable for its simplicity and honesty. Having
no artificial wants, they are satisfied and content
with what would be considered positive destitution
by a Chinese ; they are consequently apathetic and
inactive, and will not, for any amount offered to them,
labour beyond their usual habits or customary
routine ; they have little, if any, speculative turn ;
they have a regard for truth, and may generally be
depended upon in their statements. What has so
often been written of their revengeful spirit is much
exaggerated; polite in the extreme according to
their own ideas, they never indulge in abuse one
towards the other, the only reply to any deviation
from this rule is the kris } for which they will watch
238 THE REAL MALAY
their opportunity, and most certainly not afford their
adversary any advantage it is in their power to
deprive him of. This is their code of honour, and
being fully aware of it amongst themselves, provo-
cation is seldom given, and satisfaction as seldom
required. When goaded, however, to the necessity,
they become perfectly reckless, and should discovery
attend the deed, they attempt no refutation, but sell
their lives at the utmost cost they can to the captors.
Too often have I known the officers of police com-
pelled to shoot them on these occasions. Such is
one species of Amok ; and how offenders of this
description are to be dealt with, can admit of but
little doubt; but there is another variety of the
' Orang Beramok ' vastly different, and by no means
the least frequent, which requires discrimination on
the part of the medical jurist, to prevent irrespon-
sible persons suffering the penalty of the injured
law. For instance, a man sitting quietly amongst
his friends and relatives will, without provocation,
suddenly start up, weapon in hand, and slay all
within his reach. I have known so many as eight
killed and wounded by a very feeble individual in
this manner. Next day, when interrogated whether
he was not sorry for the act he had committed, no one
could be more contrite. When asked, ' Why, then,
FAULTY COMPOSITION 239
did you do it ? ' the answer has invariably been, ' The
devil entered into me ; my eyes were darkened, I did
not know what I was about.' I have received this
same reply on at least twenty different occasions.
On examination of these monomaniacs, I have gene-
rally found them labouring under some gastric disease
or troublesome ulcer, and these fearful ebullitions
break out upon some exacerbation of the disorder.
Those about them have generally told me that they
appeared moping and melancholy a few days before
the outbreak. It is certainly much to be deplored
that monomania amongst the Malays almost invari-
ably takes this terrible form. The Bugis, whether
from revenge or disease, are by far the most addicted
to the Amok. I should think three-fourths of all
the cases I have seen have been by persons of this
nation."
Both these gentlemen were by their experience
entitled to speak on this subject, and so far as I can
see, there is little to criticise in their statements.
The Bugis (that is the name by which the natives of
the Celebes are known) are no doubt prone to the
habit of meng-dmok, and I should have said that the
Javanese are as likely to give way to it as the Malays
of the Peninsula. Both the Bugis and the Javanese
are of a more sombre, brooding, and revengeful tern-
2 4 o THE REAL MALAY
perament than the Malays. On the 8th July 1846,
Sunan, a respectable Malay house-builder in Penang,
ran dmok in the heart of the town, and " before he
was arrested, killed an old Hindu woman, a Kling, a
Chinese boy, and a Kling girl about three years old,
in the arms of its father, and wounded two Hindus,
three Klings, and two Chinese, of whom only two
survived. On his trial it appeared that he was
greatly afflicted by the recent loss of his wife and
child, which preyed upon his mind, and quite altered
his appearance. A person with whom he had lived
up to the 1 5th of June said further, ' He used to
bring his child to his work ; since its death he has
worked for me. He often said he could not work, as
he was afflicted by the loss of his child. I think he
was out of his mind ; he did not smoke or drink I
think he was mad.' On the morning of the dmok
this person met him, and asked him to work at his
boat. ' He replied that he could not, he was very
much afflicted.' ' He had his hands concealed under
his cloth ; he frequently exclaimed, Allah ! Allah ! '
' He daily complained of the loss of his wife and
child.' On the trial Sunan declared he did not know
what he was about, and persisted in this at the place
of execution, adding, ' As the gentlemen say I have
committed so many murders, I suppose it must be so.'
The dmok took place on the 8th, the trial on the I3th,
and the execution on the I5th July all within eight
days."
The murderer was tried before the Recorder of
Pinang, Sir William Norris, and in passing sentence
on the prisoner, the judge made these remarks :
" Sunan, you stand convicted on the clearest evi-
dence of the wilful murder of Pakir Sah on Wednes-
day last, and it appears that on the same occasion you
stabbed no less than ten other unfortunate persons,
only two of whom are at present surviving. It now
becomes my duty to pass upon you the last sentence
of the law. I can scarcely call it a painful duty, for
the blood of your innocent victims cries aloud for
vengeance, and both justice and humanity would be
shocked were you permitted to escape the infamy of
a public execution. God Almighty alone, the great
' searcher of hearts,' can tell precisely what passed
in that wretched heart of yours before and at the
time when you committed these atrocious deeds ; nor
is it necessary for the ends of justice that we should
perfectly comprehend the morbid views and turbulent
passions by which you must have been actuated. It
is enough for us to know that you, like all other
murderers, ' had not the fear of God before your
eyes,' and that you acted of ' malice aforethought
Q
24* THE REAL MALAY
and by the instigation of the devil ' himself, who was
' a murderer from the beginning.' But all the atro-
cities you have committed are of a peculiar character,
and such as are never perpetrated by Christians,
Hindoos, Chinese, or any other class than Muham-
madans, especially Malays, among whom they are
frightfully common, and may therefore be justly
branded by way of infamous distinction as Muham-
madan murders. I think it right, therefore, seeing
so great a concourse of Muhammadans in and about
the Court, to take this opportunity of endeavouring
to disabuse their minds and your own of any false
notions of courage, heroism, or self-devotion which
Muhammadans possibly, but Muhammadans alone of
all mankind, can ever attach to such base, cowardly,
and brutal murders; notions which none but the
devil himself, 'the father of lies,' could ever have
inspired. But if such false, execrable, and danger-
ous delusions really are entertained by any man or
body of men whatever, it may be as well to show
from the gloomy workings of your mind, so far as
circumstances have revealed them, that not a particle
of manly courage or heroism could have animated
you, or can ever animate any man who lifts his
cowardly hand against helpless women and children.
You had lately, it seems, been greatly afflicted by
FAULTY COMPOSITION 243
the sudden deaths of your wife and only child, and
God forbid that I should needlessly harrow up your
feelings by reverting to the subject. I do so merely
because it serves in some degree to explain the
dreadful tragedy for which you are now about to
answer with your life. Unable or unwilling to
submit with patience to the affliction with which it
had pleased God to visit you, you abandoned yourself
to discontent and despair, until shortly before the
bloody transaction, when you went to the mosque to
pray! ! to pray to whom, or to what? Not to sense-
less idols of wood or stone which Christians and
Muhammadans equally abominate but to the one
omniscient, almighty, and all-merciful God, in whom
alone Christians and Muhammadans profess to be-
lieve ! But in what spirit did you pray, if you prayed
at all ? Did you pray for resignation, or ability to
' humble yourself under the mighty hand of God ' ?
Impossible. You may have gone to curse in your
heart and gnash with your teeth, but certainly not
to pray, whatever unmeaning sentences of the Koran
may have issued from your lips. Doubtless you
entered the mosque with a heart full of haughty
pride, anger, and rebellion against your Maker, and
no wonder that you sallied forth again overflowing
with hatred and malice against your innocent fellow-
244 THE REAL MALAY
creatures; no wonder that, when thus abandoned to
the devil, you stabbed with equal cruelty, cowardice,
and ferocity unarmed and helpless men, women, and
children, who had never injured, never known, pro-
bably never seen you before.
" Such are the murders which Muhammadans
alone have been found capable of committing. Not
that I mean to brand Muhammadans in general as
worse than all other men, far from it ; I believe there
are many good men among them as good as men
can be who are ignorant of the only true religion.
I merely state the fact that such atrocities disgrace
no other creed, let the Muhammadans account for
the fact as they may. But whatever may be the true
explanation whether these fiendish excesses are the
result of fanaticism, superstition, over- weening pride,
or ungovernable rage, or, which is probable, of all
combined, public justice demands that the perpe-
trators should be visited with the severest and most
disgraceful punishment which the law can inflict.
" The sentence of the Court therefore is, that you,
Sunan, be remanded to the place from whence you
came, and that on the morning of Wednesday next
you be drawn from thence on a hurdle to the place
of execution, and there hanged by the neck until you
are dead. Your body will then be handed over to
FAULTY COMPOSITION 245
the surgeons for dissection, and your mangled limbs,
instead of being restored to your friends for decent
interment, will be cast into the sea, thrown into a
ditch, or scattered on the earth at the discretion of
the sheriff. And may God Almighty have mercy on
your miserable soul ! "
That judgment was delivered more than half a
century ago; but it is consoling to think that it
drew a dignified protest from Mr. James Richardson
Logan, a distinguished ethnologist and writer, who
knew the people of the Archipelago better than any
one of his time. Mr. Logan urged the Government
to suppress the piracy then rampant in Malay waters,
to organise a strong police force and afford real
protection to its subjects, and then to deprive the
Malays of the weapons they were obliged to carry
for their own defence. He also appealed to all
intelligent people to publish the results of their
observations on the tendency of Malays to m&ng-
amok, which he described as a " deeply interesting
subject." For himself he wrote :
"These Amoks result from an idiosyncracy or
peculiar temperament common amongst Malays, a
temperament which all who have had much inter-
course with them must have observed, although they
cannot account for or thoroughly understand. It
246 THE REAL MALAY
consists in a proneness to chronic disease of feeling,
resulting from a want of moral elasticity, which
leaves the mind a prey to the pain of grief, until it
is filled with a malignant gloom and despair, and the
whole horizon of existence is overcast with black-
ness. If the reader thinks we have sketched the
progress of a monomania, we answer that the great
majority of peng-dmoks are monomaniacs. Whatever
name we give the mental condition in which they
are, and whatever our views of their responsibility
for their acts, it is clear that such a condition of
mind is inconsistent with a regard for consequences.
The pleasures of life have no attractions, and its
pains no dread, for a man reduced to the gloomy
despair and inward rage of the pengamo'. A
government cannot medicine a mind diseased, but
it can confine the evil to the sufferer himself. The
Malay, compelled from boyhood to trust to his kris
for the protection of his person and his honour,
considers it as a part of his existence. A state of
society which requires every individual to be ready
at any time to use his kris is quite inconsistent
with a horror of shedding blood."
The Malays have been disarmed ; but if that be
a preventive of the disease, it certainly is not a cure.
Nothing is easier than to obtain a weapon of some
FAULTY COMPOSITION 247
sort, whenever it is really wanted, and as many
murders are committed, in this part of the world,
with a chopping-knife as with anything else. Only
the other day I read, in a local newspaper, the fol-
lowing account of an dmok in Perak. It is as bad
a case as can well be imagined :
" Particulars of the Bhota dmok case are just to
hand, and, as will be seen, they are very gruesome.
We are sorry to say the murderer still remains at
large, but this is not due to any want of endeavour
on the part of the police to capture him. District
Inspector McKeon, of Kuala Kangsar, has relieved
Mr. Conway in the hunt for this murderous brute,
and we hope soon to hear of his capture, if he is
not shot down like a dog, as he deserves to be.
The man's name is Ngah Gafur, and he is between
thirty-five and forty years old. He had not been
living on good terms with his wife for a year past,
and the latter, we believe, had been contemplating a
divorce. This news, apparently, has caused the man
to go off his head, and commit the horrible butchery
of his own flesh and blood. It appears on the after-
noon of the 1 4th instant he left his house, where he
has been living by himself, and went to his mother-
in-law's, whence he removed his two children, both
boys, aged seven and four, and took them to the
248 THE REAL MALAY
house occupied by his wife close by. There a dis-
pute took place between the husband and wife as to
the future custody of the poor things, and it ended
in the man seizing hold of one after another and
cutting them down most ruthlessly; he then went
for his wife, and, before the unfortunate creature
could realise what had happened, despatched her
after her children. The mother-in-law, who ran up
to the assistance of her daughter, however, escaped
with a deep cut on her shoulder ; whilst the grand-
mother-in-law, a poor ancient dame, who heedlessly
rushed shrieking to the scene, as fast as her tottering
legs could convey her, was silenced for ever with
two deep gashes on her neck. The blood he had
already shed appears to have given the dmoker only
zest to spill more, and his next victim was his
unhappy sister-in-law, a young girl of about nine
years or so. Having thus disposed of his relations,
he returned to his neighbours, attacking a poor lone
woman, and fatally stabbing her with a spear, he
inflicted no less than six wounds on different parts
of the body of this woman. He then proceeded
towards Tronok, and at about a mile and a half
from the scene of his first murders, and close to the
Tronok footpath, he came upon an old man, who
had taken up his residence in a solitary hut in the
FAULTY COMPOSITION 249
jungle, to gather the produce of a few durian trees
he owned there, and murdered him by stabbing
him in the back, and he then burnt down the hut.
He also set fire to the house in which his wife was
living. Gafur then, as reported in our last issue,
took to the wilds, and has, as stated above, so far
eluded a party of the police, at first headed by the
Assistant-Commissioner and Inspector Conway, and
now under charge of Mr. McKeon. He has, how-
ever, since burnt down two more houses, and
severely wounded one of the Dyak constables now
scouring the country for him. One of these asserts
he had a passing sight of him at about five hundred
yards, and this proves that the police are gaining
upon him, and that he will soon be cornered."
My friend the Sultan of Perak has recently sug-
gested the most intelligent explanation of the dmok
that I have yet heard. His Highness points out
that Malays have never been accustomed to take
any particular notice of people mentally affected,
unless they became so violent, or so indecent in
their conduct, that it was necessary to confine them.
Then they were usually shut up in some isolated
hut, where food was passed in to them, and they
were left there till death put an end to their miser-
able existences. Such cases were extremely rare,
z 5 o THE REAL MALAY
even in the days of Malay government. But there
must be, in any Malay State, a certain number of
people who, if they were carefully watched and
examined by capable medical men, would no doubt
be accounted lunatics and put under restraint. The
Sultan expresses his belief that the amok runners
invariably come from this class, that they are
afflicted with melancholia, and suddenly develop
homicidal tendencies; and that, in any western
country, their symptoms would have induced their
relatives to put them under professional control for
their own and the public safety.
Knowing the reluctance of Malays to consult
European medical men, to submit themselves to
European treatment, or follow any prescribed regime,
it is hardly surprising that they say as little as
possible about cases of suspected mania, where
those afflicted are their own relatives. It is, there-
fore, easy to understand that if a Malay shows signs
of mental derangement, and the relatives realise
their meaning, if there is also a family history point-
ing to hereditary insanity, it is extremely unlikely
that anything will be said or done to lead to an
inquiry by any European. The disease, therefore,
has time to develop until, on a day, some straw
turns the scale, and a madman, armed, irresponsible,
FAULTY COMPOSITION 251
reckless, and hungry to kill, is let loose on the com-
munity.
In support of this theory it would be possible to
cite a great many cases. I will only take one, which
occurred in Perak last year, and I quote it because
no one was killed the man who made the attack
not losing entire control over himself and because
some evidence was given by the parents of the p<*ng-
dmok, which would not have been available had they
been done to death. Briefly, a grown-up son, living
with his parents, had a dispute with his father about
a matter of no great importance, and went into
another room. The mother and a grandchild ran
out of the house. Shortly after, the son returned,
and, without the slightest warning, struck his father
three severe blows on the head, neck, and shoulder,
with a small chopper. Then, leaving the old man
lying in his blood, the son went to a police station
close by and complained that his father had taken
his money and he had struck him. When it was
suggested that the father might be dead, the son
said, " Perhaps he is ; I don't know."
At the trial the father said, in cross-examination :
"The prisoner has been subject at times to fits of
talking nonsense, when the moon is increasing to
the full. These fits have not been so frequent of
25* THE REAL MALAY
late, but he had one about eight days before he
attacked me. When he is seized with one of these
fits, he will declare, while eating his rice, that he has
no rice. He will also say that the house we are
living in is his own, and that he will not allow any
one but himself to live in it. He has never been in
this frame of mind for more than one day in one
month. Two days before he attacked me, he told
me that I had over a hundred dollars of his in my
possession, and that I had better leave the house.
When he said this, I supposed it to be the result of
unsoundness of mind, and paid no attention to it.
I have no money of his in my possession."
In reply to the prisoner, his father said, " Yes, it
is a fact that I and my wife and a man, about three
years ago, tied you up and put you in stocks for
about a month." And to the Court, "We put him
in stocks because we were afraid he was going
mad ; we gave him medicine. . . . The prisoner has
not been under any restraint since he was put in
the stocks three or four years ago." The mother,
after describing the quarrel, and how she and her
grandchild ran out of the house in their fear, stated
that she saw the attack, and called for help, when
the prisoner at once ran away. She said she was
frightened, because she heard the prisoner talking
FAULTY COMPOSITION 253
to himself in another room, and, in reply to the
Court, continued, " I remember that three or four
years ago the prisoner was put in the stocks by his
father and a friend, who said that he was deranged,
and undertook to give him medicine. . . . The
prisoner has often abused me and his father before.
He has struck and pushed me. He generally
behaves like that once when the moon is increasing
to the full, and once when it is on the wane."
In his judgment, delivered in 1846, Sir William
Norris described the amok as " frightfully common "
amongst Malays, and no doubt he referred to the only
Malays he knew, those in the Straits Settlements.
For many years such attacks have been exceedingly
rare there ; perhaps not more than three real cases in
the last fifteen years. The Malay population has in-
creased year by year, and yet, from being " frightfully
common " fifty years ago (a statement which is
certainly supported by Mr. Crawfurd and Mr. Logan),
the Amok in the colony has almost ceased. A
simple explanation is that, with hospitals, lunatic
asylums, and a certain familiarity with European
methods of treatment, the signs of insanity are
better understood, and those who show them are put
under restraint before they do serious damage.
If the asylums of Europe and America were closed,
z$4 THE REAL MALAY
and the inmates returned to their relatives, it is more
than probable that cases of what the Malay calls
dmok, would not be confined to natives of the
Peninsula and the islands of the Archipelago.
It will naturally be asked why men in other
eastern countries in China and Japan, for instance
do not mPng-dmok under the influence of mania or
passion. I think the answer is that the people are
of a different temperament from the Malays, and the
dmok is an ancient practice in Malaya. The Japanese
have their own peculiar method of suicide, and the
Chinese, seeking death as a means to reincarnation,
travel by the shortest road, without wasting time to
slaughter by the way.
For myself, if I venture to offer an opinion, it is
simply the result of observation and inquiry. I
believe that about sixty per cent, of the Malays who
m&ng-dmok are mentally diseased, usually from in-
herited causes. Of the rest, what happens is this :
some serious trouble overtakes a man, serious to
him that is. He is insulted by a man, jealous of,
scorned or rejected by, a woman and the times are
out of joint. He broods over his trouble and says,
" I shan't be able to put up with this, I must m2ng-
dmokr
This course suggests itself because it is the fashion,
FAULTY COMPOSITION 255
because he knows that when Malays are hard hit, as
he is, this is what they do. He thinks this is the
only dignified way of getting out of his trouble, the
only course sanctioned by ancient custom. There
will be a good deal of talk about him and his deeds,
and, if he does something very desperate, there will
be the approval of the boastful swaggerers, who will
speak of him with respect.
Therefore he hugs his real, or fancied, wrong, till
the idea^of m2ng-dmok becomes une idte fixe, domi-
nating his mind to the exclusion of all other things,
and the slighest incident is seized upon as his cue
to rush upon the stage and begin the acting of a
part he has so often rehearsed. The first step once
taken, the man loses control over himself, and pos-
sessed (by the devil, according to Sir W. Norris)
by his resolve, he " sees red," and blindly continues
his course, attacking friends and foes, old and young
alike. Whatever his family history, the man is, at
this stage, a homicidal maniac, dealing death and
seeking it. In this country he is regarded as an
unusually dangerous beast, and his fellows so treat
him. As a rule he is not taken alive ; but wounded,
half-starved, exhausted after a long chase, the fit
may, to some extent, wear itself out, and the police
may then effect a capture.
256 THE REAL MALAY
If Dryden was the first to make classic his own
rendering of the Malay word amok, he is perhaps
responsible for a host of imitators, the latest of whom
I may be pardoned for quoting. This unique address
is stated (but I cannot say on what authority) to
have been recently delivered by an Indian pleader in
the court of a magistrate at Barisal. It is a veritable
case of dmok on the English language :
" My learned friend with mere wind from a teapot
thinks to browbeat me from my legs. But this is
mere gorilla warfare. I stand under the shoes of
my client, and only seek to place my bone of conten-
tion clearly in your Honour's eye. My learned friend
vainly runs amuck upon the sheet-anchors of my case.
Your Honour will be pleased enough to observe that
my client is a widow a poor chap with one post-
mortem son. A widow of this country, your Honour
will be pleased enough to observe, is not like a widow
of your Honour's country. A widow of this country
is not able to eat more than one meal a day, or to
wear clean clothes, or to look after a man. So my
poor client has not such physic or mind as to be able
to assault the lusty complainant. Yet she has been
deprived of some of her more valuable leather the
leather of her nose. My learned friend has thrown
only an argument ad hominy upon my teeth that my
FAULTY COMPOSITION 257
client's witnesses are all her own relations. But
they are not near relations. Their relationship is
only homoeopathic. So the misty arguments of my
learned friend will not hold water. At least they
will not hold good water. Then my learned friend
has said that there is on the side of his client a
respectable witness namely, a pleader, and, since
this witness is independent, so he should be believed.
But your Honour, with your Honour's vast expe-
rience, is pleased enough to observe that truthfulness
is not so plentiful as blackberries in this country.
And I am sorry to say, though this witness is a man
of my own feathers, that there are in my profession
black sheep of every complexion, and some of them
do not always speak Gospel truth. Until the witness
explains what have become of my client's nose-leather
he cannot be believed. He cannot be allowed to raise
a castle in the air by beating upon a bush. So, trust-
ing in that administration of British justice on which
the sun never sits, I close my case."
LOCAL COLOUR
I TRUST no reader will suppose that, because I
have sketched the Malay in some of his darker
moods, it would be fair to him to imagine that he is
always, or even commonly, killing or trying to kill.
There was a time, not many years ago, when the
Malay Peninsula was a sealed book to white men.
The whole country was divided into eight or ten
States, and each State was despotically governed by
one man sultan, raja, or chief, as the case might
be. Under this hereditary ruler there were always
a number of more or less powerful chiefs, who nomi-
nally held their offices from the head of the State ;
but each of whom did pretty much as he pleased so
long as he professed allegiance to the ruler, did not
interfere with him or his relatives, and gave to him
some small portion of the taxes squeezed from Malay
raiyats and Chinese miners and traders. This con-
dition of affairs was due to a variety of reasons,
amongst the principal of which may be instanced
LOCAL COLOUR 259
the absence of roads and the immense difficulties of
communication ; the jealousies and rivalries of dif-
ferent aspirants to the supreme authority; and the
consequent failure of any individual to make his
power recognised throughout the State. Want of
funds, constitutional dilatoriness and weakness, and
the traditions of centuries of misrule, were also con-
tributory causes.
It was this burden of many masters, and no foun-
tain of justice or appeal, which made the lives of the
poor so unbearable, that in many places the Malay
population was dwindling at a rate to ensure the early
extinction of the race. Under such conditions, it is
not altogether surprising that the resources of the
country were neglected ; that strangers declined to
trust their persons and property to such unreliable
hosts ; that the exceeding bitter cry of serfdom and
slavery fell on deaf ears ; and that, in a society where
might was right, each man consulted his own in-
clinations, and those only, caring little by what
means he achieved his end, so long as the end was
gained.
A well-nigh perpetual state of strife was the
result. And, though it never reached more than
insignificant proportions, it was enough, with con-
stant visitations of pestilence, with the want entailed
6o THE REAL MALAY
by uncultivated fields, the dearth of money and the
absence of all paid labour, to decimate the people
and drive the poor remnant of them into the train
of the nearest chief, to rob or murder at his dic-
tation, or under his protection.
That was the despotism of the individual ; not so
much of the ruler as of each little district chief, each
village head-man ; while every sprig of nobility
with more ambition than means, every free-lance
with a stout heart, a good weapon, and a little
reckless enterprise, wandered about the country
seeking adventures, and making the most helpless
pay for his amusement.
Then came British intervention, and an entirely
new order of things. The idea of government
became a reality. Slavery, debt-bondage, and forced
labour were abolished. One central authority, and
one only, was recognised. Powers of life and
death, and punishment in all its forms, were reserved
for the ruler and those acting in his name. Every
complaint was heard, Courts of Justice (though per-
haps not of law) were instituted throughout the land,
and their doors were open to rich or poor, to ratyat
or to raja, without respect of persons. Roads, rail-
ways, and telegraphs were constructed in every
direction, and greatest innovation of all the land
LOCAL COLOUR 261
was made the absolute property of those who culti-
vated it. Work was plentiful, wages high, and the
labourers few; so all classes became rich, as the
resources of the country were exploited by Chinese
and other immigrants, who now flocked into the
States. Hospitals were built, the sick attended,
sanitation insisted upon, and epidemics of cholera
and smallpox the scourge and terror of the country
disappeared as by magic. The long-abandoned
fields were cultivated, and plentiful harvests added
to the comfort and prosperity of the labouring
classes, who saw their children educated in Govern-
ment schools, where reading, writing, and a simple
course of figures, all taught in Malay, were supple-
mented by the study of the Koran. The man who
used to walk about with three daggers in his belt,
two spears in his left hand, a sword under his right
arm, and a gun over his shoulder, now goes into the
jungle with only a chopping-knife ; and the boy of
tender years has given up his array of miniature
weapons for a slate and a bundle of books.
"The old order changeth," and, in the case of
the Malay, the change amounts to something like
regeneration. But the miracles that have been
wrought are all evident to eye and ear. The in-
crease of comfort, the better houses, better clothes,
a6i THE REAL MALAY
the cultivated fields and cared-for orchards signs
of freedom, prosperity, and safety these are but
the reflection of administrative progress ; of roads^
railways, canals, and waterworks ; of solid and even
handsome public buildings, populous well-ordered
towns, and beautiful parks and gardens. The out-
ward signs of the people's life have changed, as
the face of the country has changed and is changing ;
but at heart the Malay man and the Malay woman
are very much what they were. Circumstances
have provided prisons and punishment for the
wicked; peace, safety, freedom, and opportunities
of culture and expansion for the immense majority,
whose instincts are patriotic and self-respecting,
courageous, generous, homely, and compassionate,
if they cannot fairly be called noble or deeply reli-
gious, strictly upright or more than moderately
moral, according to Western standards of morality.
It is difficult to imagine any state of human
existence more typical of perfect peace, of idyllic
simplicity, of warmth and colour, and the plenty
bestowed by a superabundantly-fruitful Nature, than
that presented by a Malay riverine hamlet, when the
observer has time and inclination to note the details
of the picture. It is painted by nature, true to life,
in perfect proportion, full of atmosphere, of light
LOCAL COLOUR 263
and shade, of striking realities and subtle sugges-
tions; and it satisfies the artistic sense in a way
that seems peculiar to many phases of Eastern
scenery.
Any very beautiful sight almost instantly raises
a wish, in the heart of the beholder, that his joy
should be shared by those he loves, by those to
whom such a scene would appeal as it does to him.
If he can dabble in colours, or feebly outline a word
picture, he very probably tries to put on canvas, or
paper, some semblance of the beauty which has so
stirred his feelings. In either case the result can
be little more than a caricature of what he saw. If
the knowledge of certain failure to conjure up the
very scene is to deter him, then there is an end
of all effort; for no brush, no pen, can reproduce
nature, and yet either may, in even indifferent
hands, catch a faint semblance 01 the reality, and
give, sometimes pleasure, sometimes a grain of
instruction. The fact that the comparative exact-
ness of a photograph often conveys a poorer idea
of a scene than a very indifferently-painted sketch,
gives encouragement, and some justification, to an
accurate and truth-loving observer, who honestly
tries, with however little success, to share his
pleasant experiences with those who may never
264 THE REAL MALAY
have the opportunity of seeing with their own eyes
what he has seen.
I question whether it is any more possible to
exactly portray a real character than it is to de-
scribe a scene ; and the reason why we tire after a
page of the latter, but can wade through volumes of
the former, however unnatural or impossible, is
because our interest in the human being is im-
measurably greater than our interest in scenery.
That is curious, in a way ; because, when we seek
our own pleasure, it is far more commonly to view
a new land, a great building, a marvellous work of
art, than in the expectation, or even with the desire,
of meeting an interesting individuality. We like to
read about individuals who are so cleverly drawn
that they awaken our interest; but when we seek
them in life, we have to go through a good deal of
painful labour for each successful quest. And then
we cannot throw the tiresome experiences across the
room, directly we realise that we are wasting time and
temper with a disappointment of our own seeking.
Character has, however, one great attraction, as
compared with the visible beauties of nature and
art; it is hidden from sight. Moreover, the more
complex the character, the more difficult it is to
discover in all its workings, the more absorbing the
LOCAL COLOUR 265
study. Uncertainty always attracts, and experienced
intelligence knows that certainty, in regard to the
character of another, is a very difficult end to attain;
while the fact that traits have been revealed to us
(to our insight or for love of us) that are hidden
from the many, is very soothing to our self-esteem.
It is often said that a European cannot under-
stand the character of an Eastern, or follow the
curious workings of his brain. I doubt whether the
Eastern is any more difficult to understand than the
Western, when once you have taken the trouble to
study him, as you would prepare yourself for the
consideration of any other subject of which you did
not know the rudiments. One who is the outcome
of Western civilisation and Christian teaching, could
hardly expect to understand the peculiarities of an
Eastern character, the product of generations of
Muhammadan or Hindu ancestors. But if you live
in the East for years if you make yourself perfectly
familiar with the language, literature, customs, pre-
judices, and superstitions of the people ; if you lie
on the same floor with them, eat out of the same
dish with them, fight with them and against them,
join them in their ssorrows and their joys, and, at
last, win their confidence and regard then the
reading of their characters is no longer an impos-
266 THE REAL MALAY
sible task, and you will find that between one East-
ern and another there is a much greater similarity
than there is between two Westerns, even though
they be of the same nationality. There are good
and bad, energetic and lazy, but you will hardly
ever meet those complex products of Western civil-
isation whose characters are subordinated to the
state of their nerves, and those to the season of
the year, the surroundings of the moment, politics,
the money market, and a thousand things of which
the Eastern is blissfully unconscious. His mind
follows one bent, as his scenery beautiful, and
strange, and novel though it is to us follows one
type, repeating itself throughout the whole of a vast
area; so that, when the features of the country
change, the features of the people, their language,
manners, religion, and even their colour, will pro-
bably undergo as great a change.
I am only dealing here with a very small and very
remote corner of a hemisphere, but, to illustrate my
meaning, I will try to smudge in a tiny bit of local
colour, just as I saw it.
A Malay will always choose the bank of a navi-
gable stream for his dwelling, if he can. Round his
house he plants the palms and fruit trees which
give shade, aiid food, and profit. The river is the
LOCAL COLOUR 267
road on which he drives his boat, and it also sup-
plies him with all that he drinks, with his bath, with
sport, and the fish that reward his skill. From
Malay life it may be said that woman is never
absent ; and in the conversation of Malays, perhaps
the chief characteristic is the fashion of speaking in
parables, by innuendo, by the use of doubles entendres
and apparently meaningless suggestions, which are
as well understood by those for whom they are in-
tended as our plainer and more direct forms of
speech. This practice imparts to conversation a
zest and flavour as in some game where there is a
pleasurable sensation of risk, and a stimulating
challenge to the exercise of wit, intelligence, ready
comprehension and apt reply.
Now this is what I saw and heard as I stood in
a grove of coco-nuts on the bank of a great Malay
river. It was late afternoon, and the sun was cast-
ing shafts of hot light between the palms, across the
fern-carpeted ground, through the feathery fronds
of bamboos swaying gently on the river's bank, out
among the dancing ripples of the stream. Under
the trees was gathered a little group of men and
women. Dark, olive-skinned natives of the country,
clad in soft-toned silks ; the women wearing, besides
their skirts and jackets, gossamer veils, studded and
268 THE REAL MALAY
edged with gold embroidery not veils to hide the
face, only to frame it in a tenderly-artful setting,
whence the dark-lashed, dewy eyes might stir the
beholder's blood more easily.
Some naked children laughed and played within
the shallows of the crooning stream ; fought in the
shallows and fell into the silent pools of deeper
water, shadowed by branches hidden from the sun.
The picture caught my eye and held me dreamily
delighted.
Then a voice spoke, and it said this only not
this this in an Eastern tongue
" Strange that the nut should seem so fair, so full
of all that's good, and yet the squirrel's gnawed a
hole right through the shell and left it empty ! "
I turned and saw a man, his head thrown back,
gazing upwards towards a bunch of nuts in the top
of a lofty tree. At least so it seemed, but I realised
that, though his face was set that way, his eyes
looked inward, and on his lips was a scarcely-per-
ceptible sneer the shadow of that inner sight.
Beyond his face I saw another that of a girl,
young and comely, and on it was written death
death to be dealt out sudden and sure and her
eyes, for that instant, fell straight on the face of the
speaker. Then I understood.
A MEZZOTINT
A7TER many years' intimate acquaintance with
Malays of all classes, I have come to the con-
clusion that the scheme of a Malay woman's exist-
ence is so ordered that, while the sordid element
is usually there, the romantic not seldom, and the
tragic, perhaps oftener than among Western people,
it would still be difficult to set down, in black and
white, the life-story of any typical Malay woman
and invest the telling with interest to a Western
reader. The reason is that the Malay, like all
Eastern women, lives a life apart. As a girl she
mixes only with those of her own family, and, if
she ever sees men, it is practically never to speak
to them. Her intercourse with other girls is very
limited, and older women treat her as a child until
she marries. Her intellectual education is so slight
that one can only be surprised at the quite uncom-
mon intelligence shown by many of the better class,
when once they have attained the position which
rfg
270 THE REAL MALAY
allows them to be seen and heard. The Malay
passes straight from childhood to womanhood ;
for her there is practically no girlhood. In the
choice of a husband she has no part, and may
never have seen her suitor till he comes in the
character of a bridegroom, to claim his affianced
bride.
From our point of view, the traditions of her
country, the prejudices of her society, are very much
against her; but the Malay woman has feminine
instincts, qualities, and characteristics which do not
greatly differ from those common to others of her
sex more happily circumstanced. Only she has
very few opportunities of indulging in aspirations,
and she knows practically nothing of the " Rights
of Woman." To her, those rights are precisely
limited by the power and influence which she can
exercise over men, by reason of her personal attrac-
tions, her superior intelligence, or the possession of
wealth.
Ages of custom, and generations of law-giving,
cannot stifle natural impulses, though they may
control or punish their indulgence. It follows,
therefore, that, if the romance of girlhood is denied
to the Malay woman, the craving for adoration, for
the exercise of some freedom of choice, even the
A MEZZOTINT 271
desire to awaken affection in others, to gratify
curiosity, or measure the power of physical attrac-
tions, will find opportunities for indulgence at a later
period of life. Here again the field of adventure is
narrowed, by the ease with which divorce is secured
and re-marriage contracted. Still, passions run high
among a people living within shout of the equator,
and Malays are so constituted that neither custom,
nor law, nor the power of easy arrangement suffice
to prevent them giving way to some measure of
passionate madness, of blind stupidity, or of criminal
wickedness, in their social relations. That is per-
haps the more strange as there is no Malayan Mrs.
Grundy, and society never turns its back on any
man, or any woman, no matter how heinous their
offences in this regard. If morality is a question of
latitude, one form of it is, by Western standards
decidedly lax throughout a good many degrees north
and south of the equator.
So far I have referred only to the women gentle
and simple of Malay society; where there is no
admixture, or any but the most ceremonial inter-
course with Europeans, or with the people of any
other nationality. The stories of such lives would, I
repeat, make but dull reading for foreigners. There
will be occasional exceptions, tragic or pathetic
272 THE REAL MALAY
tales, which only reach the ears of Malays, or of
those few sympathetic and trusted Europeans from
whom nothing is hidden. Even in these cases, the
bare facts would supply a foundation so slender
that, to make it support a respectable edifice, the
builder would have to add materials which would
destroy the character of the structure. Malays
build with bamboo and palm-leaves, at best with
wood and thatch, and, in a way, the dwellings
formed of these flimsy materials are typical of the
inconsequent lives of those who inhabit them.
From what I have said, it might be thought that
a little education, a little emancipation, is what the
Malay woman chiefly needs. I doubt it. That
form of experiment, though full of interest to the
operator, is sometimes fatal to the patient. A little
learning is not so dangerous as to plant the seeds
of aspirations which can never grow to maturity. It
is easy for the teacher to make a child entirely
dissatisfied with all its old surroundings, to fill it
with a determination to have something better than
the old life, or to have nothing at all. But, when
the time comes to satisfy the cultivated taste of the
educated mind, the teacher is powerless to help, is
probably far out of reach, and the lonely soul of the
misdirected girl will find little comfort in her old
A MEZZOTINT 273
home and the society of her own unregenerate
people.
I have been drawn into these serious considera-
tions by the recollection of certain disjointed confi-
dences made to me, by one Edward Cathcart, of
whom I have something to say before I repeat his
story.
"When I first met Cathcart, he was about one-and-
twenty ; tall, dark, well made, lithe, and strong.
He was the son of a noted Indian civilian, but both
his parents were dead, and he had been brought up
by an indulgent aunt. The boy had been educated
at a great public school, where he had distinguished
himself as much by his intellectual gifts as by his
pre-eminence in all athletic sports. Unlike most
English boys, he was extremely musical, knew by
heart the works of many of the great composers,
most of the popular music of the day, and could
play by ear almost anything he heard. Besides
this, he had a manner of such charm that his popu-
larity, especially with men, was quite extraordinary ;
and more than once I have known men quarrel
because they thought he showed a preference for
one or other in the circle of his nearest friends
On the other hand, partly by character, and partly,
I think, by reason of the fact that he hardly remem-
274 THE REAL MALAY
bered either father or mother, he was self-willed and
self-indulgent, careless of his own interests and
thoughtless of those of others. The charm of his
manner and the fascination of his many gifts had,
doubtless, made those who surrounded him indulge
him as a boy and try to spoil him as a man. For
all that, there was nothing to show that he had been
affected by a worship that might easily have turned
a weaker head.
Cathcart left England, went eastward, and sought
a career in Malaya. There his ability at once at-
tracted attention, and his manner, his address (for
he was even then a man of the world), made him a
host of friends. A born linguist, he had no difficulty
in learning the language of the country, and every-
thing seemed to promise him a brilliant future.
For the rest, I can only try to repeat what he told
me. The story is vague and fragmentary, the inci-
dents few and of doubtful interest ; but I must leave
them to speak for themselves. If I tried to make a
finished picture of what he left with me, I should
only mar the outlines. The paper is too old, the
colours are too faded, to permit of any successful
redaubing now.
When Cathcart made his first acquaintance with
the East, there dwelt in one of the Malay States a
A MEZZOTINT 275
chief of Arab blood, not, perhaps, wholly unmixed
with Malay, but still pure enough to distinguish him
from the people of the land. He had married a
woman of his own class, but in her case the Malay
character and features were predominant. In all
the Malay States these so-called Arab families are
to be found, sprung originally from some wandering
Seyyid, who, recently or remotely, had visited Malaya
and taken a wife from the best of the people. The
descendants are regarded with the same respect and
addressed by the same titles as the children of a
Raja. The chief in question, a mild, intelligent, but
rather colourless man, had a large family of sons and
one daughter the Unku Sherifa when formally ad-
dressed, but " Long " to her relatives and intimates.
Unfortunately for her, this girl had nothing in
common with either her parents or her brothers.
Her mother, a sweet, gentle lady of middle age and
charming manners, might probably have been well-
favoured once, but there were only faint traces left
to give grounds for the assumption. The brothers,
with one exception, were decidedly plain, and none
of them was gifted with more than moderate intelli-
gence. The girl, on the contrary, was quite un-
usually attractive. Tall, slight, and graceful, very
fair in complexion, with the Arab cast of feature
276 THE REAL MALAY
the high forehead, straight nose, marvellous eyes,
eyebrows, and eyelashes. A mouth like Cupid's
bow and perfect teeth of dazzling whiteness ; an oval
face and dimpled chin ; the head, with its wealth of
jet-black hair, firm-set on a slender neck; small
delicate hands and feet, an unformed figure, and a
carriage which suggested pride of station, completed
my friend's description of Unku Sherifa when first
he met her.
Wide as was the difference in appearance between
the girl and her family, far greater was the intel-
lectual gulf which divided them. I seem to have
read somewhere : " It is a serious misfortune when
the solitary girl of a family has more intelligence
than parents or brothers." Whether or not my
memory betrays me for I cannot place the words
the dictum applied in this case ; for it no doubt bred
in the girl a certain contempt for her ovrn people,
and for the Malay neighbours who were even less
intelligent, while it drew her towards those of another
race and a higher education, with whom Fate chose
to throw her.
Whilst quite a child from the age of ten years
or so Unku Sherifa had paid long visits to a British
possession, where she had been taken up by the
wife of a high official, who had two girls of her own
A MEZZOTINT 277
of much the same age as this Arab-Malay. No doubt
the child's good looks and unusual intelligence first
led to this intimacy ; and her winning manner soon
made her the friend and constant companion of the
two bright English girls. Unku Sherifa's father, an
easy-going man, was probably flattered by the atten-
tion paid to his daughter, and feeling that she was
of finer clay than himself and his other children, he
was willing enough to see her in such good hands.
In the house of the English official, and in constant
companionship with his wife and daughters, Unku
Sherifa soon grew accustomed to meeting and speak-
ing with Europeans, and the shyness common to
native girls rapidly wore of. This life, this imper-
ceptible education, where the half-Arab girl found
herself an ever-welcome guest in the English house,
continued for some years, during which Unku Sherifa
acquired a taste, not only for the refined surround-
ings, but also for the companionship of those whose
ways and appearance were, to her quick eyes, so differ-
ent from those of her own home and her own people.
Then her friends left the East for ever ; and she
returned to her own country and her father's house,
with all her time leisure in which to draw compari-
sons between the past and the present, and to
speculate on the uninviting prospects of the future.
y8 THE REAL MALAY
Unku Sherifa found, on her return home, that an
English officer was stationed within a few miles of
her father's house, and as this officer had frequent
interviews with the chief, and the latter had, at once
and with some pride, introduced his daughter to the
white man, the girl soon struck up a friendship with
this stranger. She was fortunate, or unfortunate,
enough to find, in this new friend a chivalrous,
simple-minded gentleman, whose sympathies were
entirely with the people of the country, and whose
heart went out to this girl, who brightened the lone-
liness of his solitude.
Unku Sherifa, or " Long," as her new friend soon
learned to call her, had a girl companion of her own
rank and about her own age, and these two used to
visit the Englishman almost daily, and spend much
of their time in his house; driving down in the
morning and home in the evening. The chief and
his wife, very easy-going people as I have said, were
entirely satisfied with an arrangement which they
realised gave pleasure to a daughter, whose natural
intelligence and special opportunities had carried her
into a realm of knowledge beyond their old-fashioned
ideas and more limited capacity. Matters continued
on this footing till destiny sent Cathcart to this
remote country. With his coming, the girls found
A MEZZOTINT 279
an occasional companion more nearly of their own
age, and possessing greater attractions than the
friend, who was old enough to be the father of
either of them, and who had always treated them
like children.
The elder girl, when Cathcart first met her, was
sixteen or seventeen, and owing to the special cir-
cumstances of her social education, she possessed the
manners of a woman of her class and nationality
rather than a girl. By a very malignant trick of
fate, it happened that the chief and his family were
so immeasurably superior in intelligence, in birth,
and in what may be called education, to the other
Malays of the place, that the only two white men in
the country were drawn to their society, not only by
official relations, but by inclination, by their own
isolation, and by what seemed to them, in those
early days, the uninteresting character of their other
neighbours. The attraction, therefore, was mutual ;
and the chief himself helped to cement the bonds of
friendship by constantly consulting his daughter on
the affairs of his country, and by entrusting her with
messages to the Englishmen when he could not him-
self find time to visit them.
A year or two passed, and the girls, who were
cousins, had often found their way to Cathcart's
280 THE REAL MALAY
quarters, either accompanied by their white friend,
by Unku Long's mother, or simply without chaperon.
They would arrive in the afternoon, and laugh over
their unskilful attempts to play lawn-tennis, or they
would drive together to some place of interest, or
simply stroll about the house and garden till night
drove them home. The country people, seeing these
girls so constantly about with the white strangers,
were astonished, and hardly knew what to make of
it. At first they were inclined to gossip, but as there
were no developments, and their chief seemed entirely
satisfied, they accepted the situation as something
beyond the comprehension of ignorant villagers.
With two people like Cathcart and Unku Long,
constantly thrown into each other's society, and that
under such circumstances, it was perhaps not very
surprising that the man became greatly attracted by
the girl's beauty and intelligence, or that she realised
his admiration not less than his own personal charm.
In telling me this part of the story, he was neither
very explicit, nor did his manner invite me to ask
more than he chose to divulge. I gathered, however,
that one evening when the rest of the party were
amusing themselves indoors, and he found himself
alone with Long in the garden, he had been led by
the disturbing beauty of the Eastern night to declare
A MEZZOTINT 281
an insane love for the girl, and to ask her if she
would trust herself to him.
It did not seem to occur to her to show any
maidenly resentment against that proposal. She
only said, "I will not do what you ask; because if
I did, I should stay here always. How would you
like that ? "
That simple question robbed the night of all its
glamour, and, while it left Cathcart speechless, it
conjured up a vista of trouble that showed him he
had neither counted the cost nor was he prepared to
face it. Not only that, but he was suddenly and
bitterly conscious of the very unpleasant light in
which he now stood revealed to his companion and
his better self.
Then she said, very quietly, " When two people
love each other, one always loves best, and you are
not that one."
Cathcart's fury with himself was, for the instant,
forgotten in his astonishment at hearing these words
from a Malay girl's lips ; but he concluded that the
hearts of men and women speak but one language
all the world over, and he sought the first excuse he
could find to relieve the embarrassment of a situation
for which he could not sufficiently blame himself.
In the weeks and months which followed, Long's
282 THE REAL MALAY
manner towards Cathcart never changed ; she saw
always the same beautiful, self-possessed, perfectly
natural girl, the same bright, intelligent companion.
But Cathcart, very conscious of his own ill-doing,
rather avoided his former friends, and spent any
leisure he had in the usually fruitless pursuit of the
tiger, the bison, and other denizens of Malay jungles.
He was not even very grieved when circumstances
took him from a society he did not rightly under-
stand, and sent him to reside in a British Settlement.
A man does not easily forgive himself for making a
false step, especially when it leaves him with a sense
of his own unworthiness. He is, not uncommonly,
apt to visit some of his anger on those against whom
he has sinned, more especially if he is indebted to
them for past favours.
Time passed, and with it Unku Long's father and
earlier English friend. The Malay soil claimed their
bodies, but the spirits of both are still alive in the
land, which to one was an inheritance, and to the
other an adopted home. With the death of the chief,
Unku Long's family fell on evil days. Their means
were greatly restricted, and they were no longer the
greatest people in the place; for another king reigned,
who had no special sympathy for their troubles.
Worst of all, perhaps, their tried friend was " lost,"
A MEZZOTINT 283
as the Malays say, and his successor was more in-
terested in the reigning chief than concerned with
the fallen fortunes of a family that would grow
strong in importunity as it grew weak in power.
The widow, Unku Long's mother, a tender-hearted
lady of weak character, was not constituted to fight
against unkind circumstance, and amongst her
numerous sons, not one of whom had fairly reached
manhood, there was none fit to take his place as
head of the family. In this stress the old lady,
urged by tradition, by her relatives, and to some
extent by her sons, made up her wavering mind
that her daughter ought to be married. Acting on
this reluctantly accepted advice, the widow con-
sented to betroth Unku Long to the son of a neigh-
bouring potentate, who rejoiced in a great title and
very slender means. The youth in question was
the merest boy younger, if anything, than his
fiancee. In appearance he was insignificant, in
intelligence rather below the common standard of
youths of his class, and having lived almost entirely
in the interior, he was gauche and mannerless what
Malays slightingly term "a jungle-wallah."
Just at this juncture Cathcart, who had not been
in the State for at least two years, who knew noth-
ing of what was going on, and who had married
284 THE REAL MALAY
and was settled in Singapore, was compelled to pay
a flying visit to the scene of his former sojourn. To
emphasise the strange perversity of fate, Cathcart
found himself a soldier-friend his only companion
the tenant for three days of an isolated house
within stone's-throw of the old chief's dwelling.
On the afternoon of his arrival, Unku Long and
her mother drove over to this house, and, while the
girl said little, the old lady made no concealment of
her unfeigned pleasure at seeing Cathcart again.
There was much to say, and she spent an hour talk-
ing of the old days, of her husband, and their lost
friend the white man. In recalling his many
virtues and kindnesses, she could not restrain her
tears. By-and-by the soldier appeared, and was
duly presented. Almost as it seemed without in-
tention, Cathcart found himself walking through the
garden with Long, having left the mother trying to
make herself understood by the very much bored
officer, who did not in the least appreciate the
situation, or his own share in it.
There was not much time in which to waste words,
and the girl made no attempt either to recall the past
or dally with the present. Without preliminary or
hesitation, but looking Cathcart straight in the eyes,
she said, " I am to be married in two days."
A MEZZOTINT 285,
Then passionately : " I loathe it ; I will not consent
to it ; I cannot marry the man. I hate him. It is im-
possible. I don't want to marry any Malay. Oh ! take
me away, take me away with you back to Singapore."
" I am very sorry," said Cathcart ; " I had no idea
of anything of the kind, but I can't take you to
Singapore. What should I do with you ? "
" Whatever you like," she replied. " Oh ! have
pity on me, and take me away with you ; I cannot
stay here to be made to marry this man."
" I cannot," he said ; " indeed, it is impossible
I am married."
" I don't care," said Long, " I don't care ; take me
with you, and find me a house in Singapore, and I
will do anything you please. You know you can if
you wish. Ah ! for pity's sake, take me ; you
must not leave me here. I shall kill myself, or kill
him, or do something dreadful."
" I cannot, he said ; " you do not understand.
What you ask is impossible. But I will speak to
your mother, and see if something cannot be done
to prevent the marriage."
" Ah ! that is useless," she replied, in a hopeless
way; "if I stay here, nothing can prevent it, for it
is to be the night after to-morrow. Let us go back
to my mother."
286 THE REAL MALAY
Cathcart, deeply moved by the girl's distress, and
rebelling almost as much as she did against this
marriage which was being forced upon her, sought
the mother, and used all the arguments and per-
suasions he could think of to plead the daughter's
cause. He felt all the time that he had no right to
interfere, and that he would do no good, but for all
that he appealed to the old lady, and when he had
exhausted all other means, asked her what their
dead friend, the Englishman, would have thought of
forcing Long into this distasteful alliance. It hardly
wanted that to touch the widow, who was accus-
tomed rather to be led by her daughter than to
dictate to her. When she parted with Cathcart, she
was tearful, distracted, and full of regrets for her
own forlorn position ; without husband to relieve her
of responsibility, or adviser whom she could trust
and whose word would carry weight with her rela-
tives. She promised to see what could be done,
but said that as all the preparations for the cere-
mony had been made, she feared it was too
late to make any change in the arrangements, or
find excuses to satisfy the bridegroom and his
friends.
The girl said nothing. She had made a desperate
appeal to Cathcart, and it had failed. She knew
A MEZZOTINT 287
that nothing but death could save her. It was
Fate, she said, falling back on the Malay's last
word.
Under somewhat similar circumstances, Malay
girls occasionally say they will destroy themselves,
but they very, very rarely carry out the threat. It
is not because they fear death ; I am rather inclined
to believe that it is because suicide is not the custom.
Men, over-wrought and over-tried, seek and obtain
death by the blind onslaught on friends and foes,
which has gained for them an unenviable reputation.
Women do not meng-Amok ; they submit, outwardly,
while in their hearts they rebel passionately against
the cruelties of life, the necessities imposed by
custom and the rules of Muhammadan society.
Therefore, nothing further happened to interfere
with Unku Long's marriage, and the ceremony was
duly performed in a quiet way befitting people in
straitened circumstances. Two nights later Cath-
cart and his friend, the former much against the
grain, attended the final stage of the proceedings.
The girl's face of stony misery misery so hopeless
that she seemed to be unaware of what was going
on, and never by the slightest glance showed that
she recognised him or any of those about her
drove Cathcart from the house, with some lame
288 THE REAL MALAY
excuse for his apparent rudeness. He left the
State the next morning, and never saw Unku Long
again.
That is all of her ; at least all that I am prepared
to tell, beyond this brief statement. The marriage
was a failure a failure of the worst and in a few
weeks, or at least months, the girl was divorced
from her husband. The rest does not concern this
tale, and I did not hear it from Cathcart. Unku
Sherifa, the chief's daughter, fell on evil days, drank
of the dregs from the cup of life, and, after two or
three years' wandering with her poor old mother,
the girl died, and was buried in a foreign land, far
from her own people.
Ages afterwards the girl-friend of her childhood
told me, with tears in her eyes, the pitiful story of
Unku Long's death. As I looked at that plain
woman, with her courtly manners and all the evi-
dences of worldly contentment, I could not help
contrasting her lot with that of her long-dead cousin.
Yet it was the other who seemed to begin life with
all the advantages. Truly it is a dangerous thing
for white people to take up attractive native children,
and, while spoiling them for the life of their race
and inheritance, set their faces toward a road which
their unaccustomed feet can only tread with pain
A MEZZOTINT 289
and misery, while the bourne, more likely than not,
will be disaster.
As for Cathcart, it is curious that much the same
fate overtook him. He became reckless, almost
to the point of loss of principle, alienated his
friends, fell into difficulties, and incurred some
measure of disgrace. He left this country, and died
thousands of miles away, on the borders of yet
another of the many outposts of the world-embracing
British Empire.
As I was writing these last words, a beautiful
green cicada, with great eyes and long transparent
wings, flew into the room and dashed straight at a
lamp. In spite of several severe burns, and all my
efforts to save her, she has accomplished her own
destruction, and now lies dead and stark ; the victim
of a new light which excited her curiosity and
admiration, but the consuming power of which she
did not understand.
She would have been wiser to remain in the cool,
moonlit jungle, where, at least, she was at home
with those of her own kind; but the creatures of
the forest have not yet learned the danger of giving
way to natural instincts.
IN CHARCOAL
THE sun had just set I was wandering along
a level grey road, between stretches of emerald
grass, broken by clumps of palms and flowering
trees, groups of shrubs, with foliage of many brilliant
hues, and pools of clear, dark water glittering with
strange lights or sombre with deep reflections. The
plain was darkening momentarily, darkening with
the shadows of swiftly-approaching night ; but,
half a mile away, to the eastward, the valley was
bounded by the steep slopes of a great range of
forest-covered hills, rising to a height of five thou-
sand feet, and stretching away, to north and south,
out of the range of vision. Gradually these slopes
were suffused with an indescribable colour, that
rose-red effulgence which illumines the heavens in
the short aftermath of a far-eastern sunset. Under
this amazing glow, this deep conscious blush, which
seemed to grow from inward rather than to be
thrown upon them by any outward influence, every
390
IN CHARCOAL 291
ridge and every valley was defined with marvellous
clearness. One seemed to see into the heart of
those virgin forests ; while the stems and branches
of the great trees were so minutely delineated that
the spectacle produced a sense of unreality, which
was heightened by the rapid fading of both colour
and light. The whole effect lasted but a few
minutes, and then the hills became grey and indis-
tinct; a huge mass of jungle-covered mountain,
growing dim and mysterious under a purple-tinged
haze, from which every trace of warmth and colour
suddenly vanished.
I had stopped several times to watch these suc-
cessive changes ; but, when the light failed, 1 turned
away from the darkening hills and strolled home-
wards. As I came to a bridge, I saw, seated on the
parapet, a figure that at once arrested my attention.
It was a child ; a boy, with an unusually dark face,
wherein shone eyes whose gloom and pathos were
intensified by the startling contrast between the
sombre blackness of the iris and its weirdly-white
surrounding.
The child seemed scarcely more than eight years
old, and his haunting look compelled me to go and
sit by him. He did not move, and I said, " What
is the matter?" But he gave no answer. I
2 9 * THE REAL MALAY
repeated my question, but he only stared into
the distance.
I laid my hand gently on his small brown hand,
and I said, " Will you not speak to me ? where do
you live ? "
Then he turned slowly towards me, and gazed
for a long time into my face before he answered,
" Far away, over there, in the jungle."
" But what are you doing here ? " I inquired.
" Nothing," he replied.
That was evident, but his silence made me all the
more determined to learn why he was sitting there,
all alone, at such a time, and with that expression
of mute wretchedness, sad enough in the aged, but
uncanny in a child of his years.
"What is your name ?" I asked. His lips moved
as though to speak, but he said nothing, and I saw,
from the look in his face, that he had learned the
reluctance of all his race to tell their own names. I
did not press him, but said, " Have you no parents?"
He answered simply, " No." I was surprised, and
repeated my previous question, "Then what are you
doing here ? " This time he replied, " My grand-
mother brought me."
"But where is she?" I asked. "What is she
doing?"
IN CHARCOAL 293
" I don't know/' he said. " She went out, and I
came here."
" Have you no brothers or sisters ? " I said.
"No."
" Are you hungry ? "
"No."
" But what is the matter ? why do you look so
sad?"
" My father is dead."
" I am so sorry," I said ; " when did he die ? "
"This morning," answered the child.
"This morning! You poor boy; what was the
matter with him ? "
" He was hanged."
Even to a child, a very small and very dark-skinned
boy, it is hard to know what kind of comfort to offer
when he tells you that his father was hanged that
morning. The look of misery in those strange eyes
was no longer a mystery. The troubles of the world
had begun early for him, and had come to stay.
Surely some one ought to be comforting the child.
It was pitiful to find him sitting alone in the gather-
ing gloom, brooding over a trouble like this. His
mother ! But he had said he had no mother. Poor
little waif, fatherless and motherless, homeless, too,
for the moment, miles away from that jungle-hut
294 THE REAL MALAY
and his playmates; only an old woman to stand
between him and the reproach of his father's death,
the memory of the curse that would cling to him for
all time.
It seemed to me that I ought to remember the
crime for which this child's father had died only
that morning, the morning of a day which had gone
in a blaze of such colour, that the sight of it had
stirred one's senses to a feeling of intense delight
very closely akin to pain.
No ! I could not recollect anything about the case.
The man had paid the extreme penalty, and might
already be suffering a further punishment for his
sins. But what had he done, this obscure dweller
in the jungle, to cut him off from the society of men
and the care of this orphan child, who now mourned
him with dry eyes, more sad than tears ?
I put my arm round the boy and tried to win his
confidence by my sympathy, to comfort him with
such lame and halting words as I could think of to
appeal to his intelligence. I felt all the time the
hopelessness of the task, and the child's expression
of dejected preoccupation froze some of the words
on my lips. Once or twice the boy tried to repress
a sigh of pain, or shuddered with the torture of a
smothered sob ; otherwise he made no sign.
IN CHARCOAL 295
Little by little, I managed to coax him out of
himself and the thought of his own misery, and, as
I talked to him, I tried to think what could be done
for the poor little mite, whose face seemed already
to foreshadow the troubles that must come to him
by the fatal inheritance of blood. The child was
not shy, he was only supremely miserable ; lonely,
conscious, horribly conscious, of the suffering and
the grief that make so large a part of human life,
but from which children in their early youth are
protected. While my thoughts were divided be-
tween his present and his future, there suddenly
returned to me the question, which I had put aside
before, of what had sent his father to the gallows,
and I said, "What was it your father did ?"
The child replied, " He killed my m<5ther."
THE END
THIRD EDITION
The Real Malay
Pen Pictures
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Mr Stebbing established his reputation as an author
and as a "sportsman naturalist" in his books "Stalks
in the Himalayas" and "Jungle Byways," while his
" At the Serbian Front in Macedonia," and " From
Czar to Bolshevik," showed his ability to write books
of quite a different kind. In the present volume,
Mr Stebbing returns to his role of "sportsman
naturalist," and the many charming little sketches
which illustrate the book show that he is also an
artist. The book is illustrated as well with several
reproductions from excellent photographs. These fine
stories of big game hunting and other sport are made
vastly more engrossing by reason of Mr Stebbing's
great knowledge of the lives and habits of the various
animals and birds concerned.
"Dip where you may you will find none of the anecdotes
trivial or tiresome. To sportsmen this volume will be extremely
welcome." Punch.
" A book with more thrills than many a novel. One is entranced
with these tales of jungle adventure and jungle lore/' Daily
"We do : not remember a sporting book which gives a better
idea of what Indian jungles are to the sportsman than this.
Mr Stebbing has a vast experience of different Indian jungles."
New Statesman.
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LID., VIGO ST., W.i
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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