Full text of "Where the strange trails go down; Sulu, Borneo, Celebes, Bali, Java, Sumatra, Straits settlements, Malay states, Siam, Cambodia, Annam, Cochin-China"

LIBRARY

UNIVEi
CALIi

i SAN DIEGO .-

BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL

WHERE THE STRANGE TRAILS GO DOWN

THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM

THE ARMT BEHIND THE AliMT

THE LAST FRONTIER

GENTLEMEN ROVERS

THE END OF THE TRAIL,

FIGHTING IN FLANDERS

THE ROAD TO GLORT

VIVE LA FRANCE !

ITALY AT WAR

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

WHERE THE STRANGE TRAILS
GO DOWN

A real wild man of Borneo
A Dyak head-hunter using the sumpitan, or blow-gun, in the jungle of Central Borneo

WHERE

THE STRANGE TRAILS
GO DOWN

SULU, BORNEO, CELEBES, BALI, JAVA,

SUMATRA, STRAITS SETTLEMENTS,

MALAY STATES, SIAM, CAMBODIA,

ANNAM, COCHIN-CHINA

E. ALEXANDER POWELL

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1921

Published October, 1921

PRINTED AT

THE SCRIBNER PRESS

NEW YORK, U. S. A.

THE WINSOME WIDOW
MARGARET CAMPBELL McCUTCHEN
WHO, DESPITE COUNTLESS DISCOMFORTS,

ALWAYS KEPT SMILING

FOREWORD

IT is a curious thing, when you stop to think about
it, that, though of late the public has been deluged
with books on the South Seas, though the shelves of
the public libraries sag beneath the volumes devoted
to China, Japan, Korea, next to nothing has been writ-
ten, save by a handful of scientifically-minded explor-
ers, about those far-flung, gorgeous lands, stretching
from the southern marches of China to the edges of
Polynesia, which the ethnologists call Malaysia. Siam,
Cambodia, Annam, Cochin-China, the Malay States,
the Straits Settlements, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Celebes,
Borneo, Sulu . . . their very names are synonymous
with romance; the sound of them makes restless the
feet of all who love adventure. Sultans and rajahs
. . . pirates and head-hunters . . . sun-bronzed pio-
neers and white-helmeted legionnaires . . . blow-guns
with poisoned darts and curly-bladed krises . . . ele-
phants with gilded howdahs . . . tigers, crocodiles,
orang-utans . . . pagodas and palaces . . . shaven-
headed priests in yellow robes . . . flaming fire-trees
. . . the fragrance of frangipani . . . green jungle
and steaming tropic rivers . . . white moonlight on
the long white beaches . . . the throb of war-drums
and the tinkle of wind-blown temple-bells. . . .

But it is not for all of us to go down the strange

vii

viii FOREWORD

trails which lead to these magic places. The world's
work must be done. So, for those who are condemned
by circumstance to the prosaic existence of the office,
the factory, and the home, I have written this book.
I would have them feel the hot breath of the South.
I would convey to them something of the spell of the
tropics, the mystery of the jungle, the lure of the
little, palm-fringed islands which rise from peacock-
colored seas. I would introduce to them those pictur-
esque and hardy figures planters, constabulary of-
ficers, consuls, missionaries, colonial administrators
who are carrying civilization into these dark and dis-
tant corners of the earth. I would have them know
the fascination of leaning through those "magic case-
ments, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in faery
lands forlorn."

I had planned, therefore, that this should be a light-
hearted, care-free, casual narrative. And so, in parts,
it is. But more serious things have crept, almost im-
perceptibly, into its pages. The achievements of the
Dutch empire-builders in the Insulinde, the conditions
which prevail under the rule of the chartered company
in Borneo, the opening-up of Indo-China and the Malay
Peninsula, the regeneration of Siam, the epic strug-
gle between civilization and savagery which is in
progress in all these lands these are phases of Malay-
sian life which, if this book is to have any serious
value, I cannot ignore. That is why it is a melange
of the frivolous and the serious, the picturesque and
the prosaic, the superficial and the significant. If,

FOREWORD ix

when you lay it down, you have gained a better under-
standing of the dangers and difficulties which beset the
colonizing white man in the lands of the Malay, if you
realize that life in the eastern tropics consists of some-
thing more than sapphire seas and bamboo huts be-
neath the slanting palm trees and native maidens with
hibiscus blossoms in their dusky hair, if, in short, you
have been instructed as well as entertained, then I shall
feel that I have been justified in writing this book.

E. ALEXANDER POWELL.
York Harbor, Maine,

October first, 1921.

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

FOR the courtesies they showed me, and the assist-
ance they afforded me during the long journey which
is chronicled in this book, I am deeply indebted to
many persons in many lands. I welcome this oppor-
tunity of expressing my gratitude to the Hon. Francis
Burton Harrison, former Governor-General of the
Philippine Islands, and to the Hon. Manuel Quezon,
President of the Philippine Senate, for placing at my
disposal the coastguard cutter Negros, on which I
cruised upward of six thousand miles, as well as for
countless other courtesies. Brigadier-General Ralph W.
Jones, Warren H. Latimer, Esq., and Major Edwin
C. Bopp shamefully neglected their personal affairs
in order to make my journey comfortable and inter-
esting. Dr. Edward C. Ernst, of the United States
Quarantine Service at Manila, who served as volun-
teer surgeon of the expedition; John L. Hawkinson,
Esq., the man behind the camera; James Rockwell,
Esq., and Captain A. B. Galvez, commander of the
Negros, by their unfailing tactfulness and good
nature, did much to add to the success of the enter-
prise. I am likewise under the deepest obligations to
Colonel Ole Waloe, commanding the Philippine

xii AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Constabulary in Zamboanga; to the Hon. P. W.
Rogers, Governor of Jolo ; to Captain R. C. d'Oyley-
John, formerly Chief Police Officer of Sandakan,
British North Borneo; to M. de Haan, Resident
at Samarinda, Dutch Borneo; and to his colleagues
at Makassar, Singaradja, Kloeng-Kloeng, Surabaya,
Djokjakarta, and Surakarta; to the Hon. John F.
Jewell, American Consul-General at Batavia; to the
Hon. Edwin N. Gunsaulus, American Consul-General
at Singapore; to J. D. C. Rodgers, Esq., American
Charge d'Affaires at Bangkok; to his late Royal High-
ness the Crown Prince of Siam ; to his Serene Highness
Prince Traidos Prabandh, Siamese Under Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs; to his Serene Highness
Colonel Prince Amoradhat, Chief of Intelligence of the
Siamese Army, who constituted himself my guide and
cicerone during our stay in his country; to the French
Resident-Superior at Pnom-Penh; and to the other
French officials who aided me during my travels in Indo-
China. His Excellency J. J. Jusserand, French Am-
bassador at Washington and his Excellency Phya
Prabha Karavongse, Siamese Minister at Washington,
provided me with letters which obtained for me many
facilities in French Indo-China and in Siam. Nor am
I unappreciative of the many kindnesses shown me by
James R. Bray, Esq., of New York City; by Austin
Day Brixey, Esq., of Greenwich, Conn.; and by Dr.
Eldon R. James, General Adviser to the Siamese Gov-
ernment. I also wish to acknowledge my indebted-

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT xiii

ness to A. Cabaton, Esq., from whose extremely valu-
able study of Netherlands India I have drawn freely in
describing the Dutch system of administration in the
Insulinde. I have also obtained much valuable data
from "Java and Her Neighbors" by A. C. Walcott,
Esq., and from "The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe"
by Ernest Young, Esq.

E. ALEXANDER POWELL.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS i

II. OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 25

III. "WHERE THERE AIN'T No TEN COMMAND-

MENTS ' . . 50

IV. THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA .... 74
V. MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS .... 99

VI. IN BUGI LAND 126

VII. DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 143

VIII. THE GARDEN THAT Is JAVA 163

IX. PROSPECT RULERS AND COMIC OPERA COURTS 189

X. THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE TO ELE-
PHANT LAND 208

XI. To PNOM-PENH BY THE JUNGLE TRAIL . . 246

XII. EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS 270

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A real wild man of Borneo Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Hawkinson taking motion-pictures while descending the

rapids of the Pagsanjan River in Luzon .... 10

Members of Major Powell's party landing on the south

coast of Bali 10

The bull-fight at Parang 22

Dusun women 60

Dyak head-hunters of North Borneo 60

The Jalan Tiga, Sandakan 70

A patron of a Sandakan opium farm 70

Catching a man-eating crocodile in a Borneo river . . 112

Major Powell talking to the Regent of Koetei on the

steps at Tenggaroeng 124

State procession in the Kraton of the Sultan of Djok-
jakarta 124

Some strange subjects of Queen Wilhelmina . . . 130

The volcano of Bromo, Eastern Java, in eruption . . 170

A Dyak girl at Tenggaroeng, Dutch Borneo . . . 200

A Dyak head-hunter, Dutch Borneo 200

The captain of the body-guard of "The Spike of the

Universe" 200

A clown in the royal wedding procession at Djokjakarta 200

An elephant hunt in Siam 228

xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACIJTC FAG*

King Sisowath of Cambodia 234

Rama VI, King of Siam 234

Colorful ceremonies of Old Siam 238

Transportation in the Siamese jungle 248

The head of the pageant approaching the camera in

the palace at Pnom-Penh 266

Dancing girls belonging to the royal ballet of the King

of Cambodia . . . 268

MAP

Malaysia 28

WHERE THE STRANGE TRAILS
GO DOWN

WHERE THE STRANGE
TRAILS GO DOWN

CHAPTER I

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS

WHEN I was a small boy I spent my summers at
the quaint old fishing-village of Mattapoisett, on Buz-
zard's Bay. Next door to the house we occupied
stood a low-roofed, unpretentious dwelling, white as
an old-time clipper ship, with bright green blinds. I
can still catch the fragrance of the lilacs by the gate.
The fine old doorway, brass-knockered, arched by a
spray of crimson rambler, was flanked on one hand
by a great conch-shell, on the other by an enormous
specimen of branch-coral, thus subtly intimating to
passers-by that the owner of the house had been in
"foreign parts." A distinctly nautical atmosphere
was lent to the broad, deck-like verandah by a ship's
barometer, a chart of Cape Cod, and a highly polished
brass telescope mounted on a tripod so as to com-
mand the entire expanse of the bay. Here Cap'n
Bryant, a retired New Bedford whaling captain, was
wont to spend the sunny days in his big cane-seated
rocking-chair, puffing meditatively at his pipe and for
my boyish edification spinning yarns of adventure in

2 STRANGE TRAILS

far-distant seas and on islands with magic names
Tawi Tawi, Makassar Straits, the Dingdings, the
Little Paternosters, the Gulf of Boni, Thursday
Island, Java Head. Of cannibal feasts in New
Guinea, of head-hunters in Borneo, of strange dances
by dusky temple-girls in Bali, of up-country expedi-
tions with the White Rajah of Sarawak, of desperate
encounters with Dyak pirates in the Sulu Sea, he dis-
coursed at length and in fascinating detail, while I,
sprawled on the verandah steps, my knees clasped in
my hands, listened raptly and, when the veteran's flow
of reminiscence showed signs of slackening, clamored
insistently for more.

Then and there I determined that some day I would
myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my
own, that I would poke the nose of my craft up steam-
ing tropic rivers, that I would drop anchor off towns
whose names could not be found on ordinary maps,
and that I would go ashore in white linen and pipe-
clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin with sultans
and rajahs, and to barter beads and brass wire for
curios a curly-bladed Malay kris, carved cocoanuts,
a shark's-tooth necklace, a blow-gun with its poisoned
darts, a stuffed bird of paradise, and, of course, a
huge conch-shell and an enormous piece of branch-
coral which I would bring home and display to ad-
miring relatives and friends as convincing proofs of
where I had been.

But school and college had to be gotten through
with, and after them came wars in various parts of

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 3

the world and adventurings in many lands, so that
thirty years slipped by before an opportunity pre-
sented itself to realize the dream of my boyhood.
But when at last I set sail for those far-distant seas
it was on an enterprise which would have gladdened
the old sailor's soul an expedition whose object it
was to seek out the unusual, the curious, and the pic-
turesque, and to capture them on the ten miles of
celluloid film which we took with us, so that those who
are condemned by circumstance to the humdrum life
of the farm, the office, or the mill might themselves go
adventuring o'nights, from the safety and comfort of
red-plush seats, through the magic of the motion-
picture screen. When I set out on my long journey
the old whaling captain whose tales had kindled my
youthful imagination had been sleeping for a quarter
of a century in the Mattapoisett graveyard, but when
our anchor rumbled down off Tawi Tawi, when, steam-
ing across Makassar Straits, we picked up the Little
Paternosters, when our tiny vessel poked her bowsprit
up the steaming Koetei into the heart of the Borneo
jungle, I knew that, though invisible to human eyes,
he was standing beside me on the bridge.

Until I met the young-old man to whom those maga-
zines which devote themselves to the gossip of the film
world admiringly refer as "the Napoleon of the
movies," it had never occurred to me that adventure
has a definite market value. At least I had never
realized that there are people who stand ready to buy

4 STRANGE TRAILS

it by the foot, as one buys real estate or rope. I had
always supposed that the only way adventure could be
capitalized was as material for magazine articles and
books and for dinner-table stories.

"What we are after" the film magnate began ab-
ruptly, motioning me to a capacious leather chair and
pushing a box of cigars within my reach, "is some-
thing new in travel pictures. Like most of the big
producers, we furnish our exhibitors with complete
programmes a feature, a comedy, a topical review,
and a travel or educational picture. We make the
features and the comedies in our own studios; the
weeklies we buy from companies which specialize in
that sort of thing. But heretofore we have had to
pick up our travel stuff where we could get it from
free lances mostly and there is never enough really
good travel material to meet the demand. For quite
ordinary travel or educational films we have to pay a
minimum of two dollars a foot, while really unusual
pictures will bring almost any price that is asked for
them. The supply is so uncertain, however, and the
price is so high that we have decided to try the experi-
ment of taking our own. That is what I wanted to
talk to you about."

"Before the war," he continued, "there was almost
no demand in the United States for travel pictures. In
fact, when a manager wanted to clear his house for
the next show, he would put a travel picture on the
screen. But since the boys have been coming back
from France and Germany and Siberia and Russia the

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 5

public has begun to call for travel films again. They've
heard their sons and brothers and sweethearts tell
about the strange places they've been, and the strange
things they've seen, and I suppose it makes them want
to learn more about those parts of the world that lie
east of Battery Place and west of the Golden Gate.
But we don't want the old bromide stuff, mind you
mountain-climbing in Switzerland, cutting sugar-cane
in Cuba, picking cocoanuts in Ceylon. That sort of
thing goes well enough on the Chautauqua circuits,
but it's as dead as the corner saloon so far as the big
cities are concerned. What we are looking for are
unusual pictures tigers, elephants, pirates, brigands,
cannibals, Oriental temples and palaces, war-dances,
weird ceremonies, curious customs, natives with rings
in their noses and feathers in their hair, scenes that
are spectacular and exciting in short, what the maga-
zine editors call 'adventure stuff.' We want pic-
tures that will make 'em sit up in their seats and ex-
claim, 'Well, what d'ye know about that?' and that
will send them away to tell their friends about them.'.'

"Like the publisher," I suggested, "who remarked
that his idea of a good newspaper was one that would
cause its readers to exclaim when they opened it, 'My
God!'?"

"That's the idea," he agreed. "And if the pictures
are from places that most people have never heard of
before, so much the better. I'm told that you've spent
your life looking for queer places to write about. So
why can't you suggest some to take pictures of?"

6 STRANGE TRAILS

"But I've had no practical experience in taking
motion-pictures," I protested. "The only time I ever
touched a motion-picture camera was when I turned
the crank of Donald Thompson's for a few minutes
during the entry of the Germans into Antwerp in

1914."

"Were the pictures a success?" the Napoleon of
the Movies queried interestedly. "I don't recall hav-
ing seen them."

"No, you wouldn't," I hastened to explain. "You
see, it wasn't until the show was all over that Thomp-
son discovered that he had forgotten to take the cap
off the lens."

"Don't let that worry you," he assured me. "We'll
take care of the technical end. We'll provide you with
the best camera man to be had and the best equip-
ment. All you will have to do is to show him what to
photograph, arrange the action, decide on the settings,
obtain the permission of the authorities, the good-will
of the officials, the co-operation of the military, engage
interpreters and guides, reserve hotel accommodations,
arrange for motor-cars and boats and horses and spe-
cial trains, and keep everyone jollied up and feeling
good generally. Aside from that, there won't be any-
thing for you to do except to enjoy yourself."

"It certainly sounds alluring," I admitted. "The
trouble is that you are looking for something that
can't always be found. You don't find adventure
the way you find four-leaf clovers; it just happens to
you, like the measles or a blow-out. Still, if one has

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 7

the time and money to go after them, there are a lot
of curious things that might pass for adventure when
they are shown on the screen."

"Where are they?" the film magnate asked eagerly,
spreading upon his mahogany desk a map of the world.

It v/as a little disconcerting, this request to point
out those regions where adventure could be found,
very much as a visitor from the provinces might ask
a New York hotel clerk to tell him where he could
see the Bohemian life of which he had read in the
Sunday supplements.

"There's Russian Central Asia, of course," I sug-
gested tentatively. "Samarkand and Bokhara and
Tashkent, you know. But I'm afraid they're out of
the question on account of the Bolsheviki. Besides,
I'm not looking for the sort of adventure that ends
between a stone wall and a firing-party. Then there
are some queer emirates along the southern edge of
the Sahara : Sokoto and Kanem and Bornu and Wadai.
But it would take at least six months to obtain the
necessary permission from the French and British
colonial offices and to arrange the other details of the
expedition."

"But that doesn't exhaust the possibilities by any
means," I continued hastily, for nothing was farther
from my wish than to discourage so fascinating a plan.
"There ought to be some splendid picture material
among the Dyaks of Borneo they're head-hunters,
you know. From there we could jump across to the
Celebes and possibly to New Guinea. And I under-

8 STRANGE TRAILS

stand that they have some queer customs on the island
of Bali, over beyond Java ; in fact, I've been told that,
in spite of all the efforts of the Dutch to stop it, the
Balinese still practise suttee. A picture of a widow
being burned on her husband's funeral pyre would be
a bit out of the ordinary, wouldn't it? That reminds
me that I read somewhere the other day that next
spring there is to be a big royal wedding in Djokja-
karta, in middle Java, with all sorts of gorgeous fes-
tivities. At Batavia we would have no difficulty in
getting a steamer for Singapore, and from there we
could go overland by the new Federated Malay States
Railway, through Johore and Malacca and Kuala
Lumpur, to Siam, where the cats and the twins and the
white elephants come from. From Bangkok we might
take a short-cut through the Cambodian jungle, by
elephant, to Pnom-Penh and "

"Hold on!" the Movie King protested. "That's
plenty. Let me come up for air. Those names
you've been reeling off mean as much to me as
the dishes on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. But
that's what we're after. We want the people who see
the pictures to say: 'Where the dickens is that place?
I never heard of it before.' They get to arguing
about it, and when they get home they look it up in
the family atlas, and when they find how far away it
is, they feel that they've had their money's worth.
How soon can you be ready to start?"

"How soon," I countered, "can you have a letter of
credit ready?"

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 9

Owing to the urgent requirements of the European
governments, vessels of every description were, as I
discovered upon our arrival at Manila, few and far
between in Eastern seas; so, in spite of the assurance
that I was not to permit the question of expense to
curtail my itinerary, it is perfectly certain that we could
not have visited the remote and inaccessible places
which we did had it not been for the lively interest
taken in our enterprise by the Honorable Francis Bur-
ton Harrison, Governor-General of the Philippines,
and by the Honorable Manuel Quezon, President of
the Philippine Senate. When Governor-General Har-
rison learned that I wished to take pictures in the Sulu
Archipelago, he kindly offered, in order to facilitate
our movements from island to island, to place at my
disposal a coast-guard cutter, just as a friend might
offer one the use of his motor-car. There was at first
some question as to whether the Governor-General
had the authority to send a government vessel outside
of territorial waters, but Mr. Quezon, who, so far as
influence goes, is a Henry Cabot Lodge and a Boies
Penrose combined, unearthed a law which permitted
him to utilize the vessels of the coast-guard service for
the purpose of entertaining visitors to the islands in
such ways as the Government of the Philippines saw
fit. And, in a manner of speaking, Mr. Quezon is the
Government of the Philippines. Thus it came about
that on the last day of February, 1920, the coast-guard
cutter Negros, 150 tons and 150 feet over all with a
crew of sixty men, Captain A. B. Galvez commanding,

io STRANGE TRAILS

and having on board the Lovely Lady, who accom-
panies me on all my travels; the Winsome Widow,
who joined us in Seattle ; the Doctor, who is an officer
of the United States Health Service stationed at Ma-
nila; John L. Hawkinson, the efficient and imper-
turbable man behind the camera; three friends of the
Governor-General, who went along for the ride; and
myself steamed out of Manila Bay into the crimson
glory of a tropic sunset, and, when past Cavite and
Corregidor, laid her course due south toward those
magic isles and fairy seas which are so full of mystery
and romance, so packed with possibilities of high ad-
venture.

Governor-General Harrison believed, by methods
that are legitimate, in adding to the American public's
knowledge of the Philippines, and it was owing to his
broad-minded point of view and to the many cable-
grams which he sent ahead of us, that at each port in
the islands at which we touched we found the local
officials waiting on the pier-head to bid us welcome
and to assist us. At Jolo, which is the capital of the
Moro country, two lean, sun-tanned, youthful-looking
men came aboard to greet us : one was the Honorable
P. W. Rogers, Governor of the Department of Sulu;
the other was Captain Link, a former officer of con-
stabulary who is now the Provincial Treasurer. In
the first five minutes of our conversation I discovered
that they knew exactly the sort of picture material that

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS n

I wanted and that they would help me to the limit of
their ability to get it. For that matter, they themselves
personify adventure in its most exciting form.

Rogers, who was originally a soldier, went to the
Philippines as orderly for General Pershing long be-
fore the days when "Black Jack" was to win undying
fame on battlefields half the world away. The young
soldier showed such marked ability that, thanks to
Pershing's assistance, he obtained a post as stenog-
rapher under the civil government, thence rising by
rapid steps to the difficult post of Governor of Sulu.
A better selection could hardly have been made, for
there is no white man in the islands whom the Moros
more heartily respect and fear than their boyish-look-
ing governor. Mrs. Rogers is the daughter of a
German trader who lived in Jolo and died there with
his boots on. A year or so prior to her marriage she
was sitting with her parents at tiffin when a Moro,
with whom her father had had a trifling business dis-
agreement, knocked at the door and asked for a
moment's conversation. Telling the native that he
would talk with him after he had finished his meal,
the trader returned to the table. Scarcely had he
seated himself when the Moro, who had slipped unob-
served into the dining room, sprang like a panther, his
broad-bladed barong describing a glistening arc, and
the trader's head rolled among the dishes. Another
sweep of the terrible weapon and the mother's hand
was severed at the wrist, while the future Mrs. Rogers
owes her life to the fact that she fainted and slipped

12 STRANGE TRAILS

under the table. I relate this incident in order to give
you some idea of the local atmosphere.

A few weeks before our arrival at Jolo, Governor
Rogers, in compliance with instructions from Manila,
had ordered a census of the inhabitants. But the
Moros are a highly suspicious folk, so, when some one
started the rumor that the government was planning
to brand them, as it brands its mules and horses, it
promptly gained wide credence. By tactful explana-
tions the suspicions of most of the natives were al-
layed, but one Moro, notorious as a bad man, barri-
caded himself, together with five of his friends, three
women and a boy, in his house a nipa hut raised
above the ground on stilts and defied the Governor
to enumerate them. Now, if the Governor had per-
mitted such open defiance to pass unnoticed, the entire
population of Jolo, always ready for trouble, promptly
would have gotten out of hand. So, accompanied by
five troopers of the constabulary, he rode out to the
outlaw's house and attempted to reason with him. The
man obstinately refused to show himself, however,
even turning a deaf ear to the appeals of the village
imam. Thereupon Rogers ordered the constabulary
to open fire, their shots being answered by a fusillade
from the Moros barricaded in the house. In twenty
minutes the flimsy structure looked more like a sieve
than a dwelling. When the firing ceased a six-year-old
boy descended the ladder and, approaching the Gov-
ernor, remarked unconcernedly: "You can go in now.
They're all dead." Then Rogers called up the cen-

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 13

sus-taker and told him to go ahead with his enumera-
tion.

The provincial treasurer, Captain Link, is a lean,
lithe South Carolinian who has spent fifteen years in
Moroland. He is what is known in the cattle country
as a "go-gitter." It is told of him that he once nearly
lost his commission, while in the constabulary, by
sending to the Governor, as a Christmas present, a
package which, upon being opened, was found to con-
tain the head of a much-wanted outlaw.

"I knew he wanted that fellow's head more than
anything else in the world," Captain Link said naively,
in telling me the story, "so it struck me it would be
just the thing to send him for a Christmas present. I
spent a lot of time and trouble getting it too, for the
fellow sure was a bad hombre. It would have gotten
by all right, but the Governor's wife, thinking it was
a present for herself, had to go and open the package.
She went into hysterics when she saw what was inside
and the Governor was so mad he nearly fired me.
Some people have no sense of humor."

Atop of the bookcase in Captain Link's study the
bookcase, by the way, contains Burton's Thousand and
One Nights, the Discourses of Epictetus, and Presi-
dent Eliot's tabloid classics is the skull in question,
surmounted by a Moro fez. Across the front of the
fez is printed this significant legend:

THIS IS JOHN HENRY
JOHN HENRY DISOBEYED CAPTAIN LINK

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

i 4 STRANGE TRAILS

While we are on the subject, let me tell you about
another of these advance-guards of civilization who,
single-handed, transformed a worthless island in the
Sulu Sea into a veritable Garden of the Lord and its
inhabitants from warlike savages into peaceful and
prosperous farmers. In 1914 a short, bespectacled
Michigander named Warner was sent by the Philippine
Bureau of Education to Siassi, one of the islands of
the Sulu group, to teach its Moro inhabitants the rudi-
ments of American civilization. Warner's sole equip-
ment for the job consisted, as he candidly admitted, of
a medical education. He took with him a number of
Filipino assistants, but as they did not get along with
the Moros, he shipped them back to Manila and sent
for an Airedale dog. He also sent for all the works
on agriculture and gardening that were to be had in
the bookshops of the capital. For five years he re-
mained on Siassi, the only white man. As even the lit-
tle inter-island steamers rarely find their way there,
months sometimes passed without his hearing from the
outside world. But he was too busy to be lonely. His
jurisdiction extended over two islands, separated by a
narrow channel, but this he never crossed at night and
in the daytime only when he was compelled to, as the
narrow channel was the home of giant crocodiles which
not infrequently attacked and capsized the frail
native vintas, killing their occupants as they struggled
in the water.

Warner, who had spent four years among the
Visayans before going to Siassi, and who was, there-

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 15

fore, eminently qualified to compare the northern
islanders with the Moros, told me that the latter
possess a much higher type of intelligence than the
Filipinos and assimilate new ideas far more quickly.
He added that they have a highly developed sense of
humor; that they are quick to appreciate subtle stories,
which the Tagalogs and Visayans are not; and that
they are much more ready to accept advice on agricul-
tural and economic matters than the Christian Fili-
pinos, who have a life-sized opinion of their own abil-
ity. When the day's work was over, he said, he would
seat himself in the doorway of his hut, surrounded
by a group of Moros, and discuss crops and weather
prospects, swap jokes and tell stories, just as he might
have done with lighter skinned sons of toil around the
cracker-barrel of a cross-roads store in New England.
He added that he was sadly in need of some new
stories to tell his Moro proteges, as, after six years
on the island, his own fund was about exhausted. But
he was growing weary of life on Siassi, he told me;
he wanted action and excitement; so he was preparing
to move, with his Airedale, to Bohol, in the Visayas,
where, he had heard it rumored, there was another
white man.

Still another of the picturesque characters with
whom I foregathered nightly on the after-deck of the
Negros during our stay at Jolo was a former soldier,
John Jennings by name. He was an operative of the
Philippine Secret Service, being engaged at the time
in breaking up the running of opium from Borneo

1 6 STRANGE TRAILS

across the Sulu Sea to the Moro islands. Jennings is
a short, thickset, powerfully-built man, all nerve and
no nerves. Adventure is his middle name. He has
lived more stories than I could invent. Shortly before
our arrival at Jolo Jennings had learned from a native
in his pay that a son of the Flowery Kingdom, the
proprietor of a notorious gambling resort situated on
the quarter-mile-long ramshackle wharf known as the
Chinese pier, was driving a roaring trade in the for-
bidden drug. So one afternoon Jennings, his hands in
his pockets and in each pocket a service automatic,
sauntered carelessly along the pier and upon reaching
the reputed opium den, knocked briskly on the door.
The Chinese proprietor evidently suspected the pur-
pose of his visit, however, for he was unable to gain
admittance. So that night, wearing the huge straw
sun-hat and flapping garments of blue cotton of a
coolie, he tried again. This time in response to his
knock the heavy door swung open. Within all w^as
black and silent as the tomb. The lintel was low
and Jennings was compelled to stoop in order to enter.
As he cautiously set foot across the threshold there
was a sudden swish of steel in the darkness and the
blade of a barong whistled past his face, slicing off
the front of his hat and missing his head by the width
of an eyelash. As he sprang back the door slammed
in his face and he heard the bolts shot home, fol-
lowed by the sound of a weapon clattering on the
floor and the patter of naked feet. Realizing that the
men he was after were making their escape by another

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 17

exit, Jennings hurled himself against the door, an auto-
matic in either hand. It gave way before his as-
sault and he was precipitated headlong into the inky
blackness of the room. Taking no chances this time,
he raked it with a stream of lead from end to end.
Then, there being no further sound, he swept the
place with a beam from his electric torch. Stretched
on the floor were three dead Chinamen and beside
them was enough opium to have drugged everyone
on the island. That little episode, as Jennings re-
marked dryly, put quite a crimp in the opium traffic
in Jolo.

Cockfighting, which is as popular throughout the
Philippines as baseball is in the United States, finds its
most enthusiastic devotees among the Moros, every
community in the Sulu islands having its cockpit and its
fighting birds, on whose prowess the natives gamble
with reckless abandon. Gambling is, indeed, the
raison d'etre of cockfighting in Moroland, for, as the
birds are armed with four-inch spurs of razor sharp-
ness, and as one or both birds are usually killed within
a few minutes after they are tossed into the pit, very
little sport attaches to the contest. The villagers are
inordinately proud of their local fighting-cocks, boast-
ing of their prowess as a Bostonian boasts of the
Braves or a New Yorker of the Giants, and are always
ready to back them to the limit of their means.

Some years ago, according to a story that was told

18 STRANGE TRAILS

me in the islands for the truth of which I do not
vouch an American destroyer dropped anchor off
Cebu, the second largest city in the Philippines. That
night a shore party of bluejackets, wandering about
the town in quest of amusement, dropped in at a cock-
pit where a main was in progress. Noting the large
wagers laid by the excited natives on their favorite
birds, the sailors offered to back a "chicken" which
they had aboard the destroyer against all the cocks in
Cebu. The natives, smiling in their sleeves at the
prospect of taking money so easily from the Ameri-
canos, promptly accepted the challenge and some hun-
dreds of pesos were laid against the unknown bird.
At the hour set for the fight the grinning sailors ap-
peared at the cockpit with their "chicken," the mascot
of the destroyer a large American eagle! Ensued,
of course, a torrent of protest and remonstrance,
but the money was already up and the bluejackets
demanded action. So the eagle was anchored by a
chain in the center of the pit, where it sat motionless
and apathetic, head on one side, eyelids drooping,
apparently half asleep until a cock was tossed into
the pit. Then there was a lightning-like flash of the
mighty talons and all that was left of the Cebuan
champion was a heap of bloodied feathers. The
"match" was quickly over and the triumphant sailors,
collecting their bets, departed for their ship. Ever
since then there has been a proverb in Cebu "Never
match your cock against an American chicken."

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 19

Governor Rogers informed me that, in compliance
with a cablegram from the Governor-General, he had
arranged a "show" for us at a village called Parang,
on the other side of the island. The "show," I gath-
ered, was to consist of a stag-hunt, shark-fishing, war-
dances, and pony races, and was to conclude with a na-
tive bull-fight. One of the favorite sports of the
Moros is hunting the small native stag on horseback,
tiring it out, and killing it with spears. As it devel-
oped, however, that there was no certainty of being
able so to stage-manage the affair that either the hunt-
ers or the hunted would come within the range of the
camera, we regretfully decided to dispense with that
number of the programme.

When we arrived at Parang it looked as though the
entire population of the island had assembled for the
occasion. The native police were keeping clear a
circle in which the dances were to take place, while the
slanting trunks of the cocoanut-palms provided re-
served seats for scores of tan and chocolate and coffee-
colored youngsters. We were greeted by the Pang-
lima of Parang, the overlord of the district, who
explained, through Governor Rogers, that he had had
prepared a little repast of which he hoped that we
would deign to partake. Now, after you know some
of the secrets of Moro cooking and have had a glimpse
into a Moro kitchen, even the most robust appetite is
usually dampened. But the Governor whispered "The
old man has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this
show and if you refuse to eat his food he'll be mor-

20 STRANGE TRAILS

tally offended," so, purely in the interests of amity, we
seated ourselves at the table, which had been set under
the palms in the open. I don't know what we ate and
I don't care to know though I admit that I had some
uneasy suspicions but, with the uncompromising eye
of the old Panglima fixed sternly upon us, we did our
best to convince him that we appreciated his cuisine.
But the dancing which followed made us forget what
we had eaten. During the ensuing months we were
to see dances in many lands in Borneo and Bali and
Java and Siam and Cambodia but they were all char-
acterized by a certain monotony and sameness. These
Moro dancers, however, were in a class by themselves.
If they could be brought across the ocean and would
dance before an audience on Broadway with the same
savage abandon with which they danced before the
camera under the palm-trees of Parang, there would
be a line a block long in front of the box-office. One
of the dances was symbolical of a cock-fight, the cocks
being personified by a young woman and a boy. It
was sheer barbarism, of course, but it was fascinating.
And the curious thing about it was that the hundreds
of Moros who stood and squatted in a great circle,
and who had doubtless seen the same thing scores of
times before, were so engrossed in the movements of
the dance, each of which had its subtle shade of mean-
ing, that they became utterly oblivious to our pres-
ence or to Hawkinson's steady grinding of the camera.
In the war-dance the participants, who were Moro
fighting men, and were armed with spears, shields, and

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 21

the vicious, broad-bladed knives known as barongs,
gave a highly realistic representation of pinning an
enemy to the earth with a spear, and with the barong
decapitating him. The first part of the dance, before
the passions of the savages became aroused, was, how-
ever, monotonous and uninteresting.

"Can't you stir 'em up a little?" called Hawkinson,
who, like all camera men, demands constant action.
"Tell 'em that this film costs money and that we didn't
come here to take pictures of Loie Fuller stuff."

"I think it might be as well to let them take their
time about it," remarked Captain Link. "These
Moros always get very much worked up in their war-
dances, and occasionally they forget that it is all make-
believe and send a spear into a spectator. It's safer
to leave them alone. They're very temperamental."

"That would make a corking picture," said Hawkin-
son enthusiastically, "if I only knew which fellow was
going to be speared so that I could get the camera
focussed on him."

"The only trouble is," I remarked dryly, "that they
might possibly pick out you"

In Spanish bull-fights, after the banderillos and
picadores have tormented the bull until it is exhausted,
the matador flaunts a scarlet cloak in front of the
beast until it is bewildered and then despatches it
with a sword. In Moroland, however, the bulls, which
are bred and trained for the purpose, do their best to
kill each other, thus making the fight a much more

22 STRANGE TRAILS

sporting proposition. The bull-fight which was ar-
ranged for our benefit at Parang was staged in a field
of about two acres just outside the town, the spectators
being kept at a safe distance by a troop of Moro
horsemen under the direction of the old Panglima.
After Hawkinson had set up his camera on the edge
of this extemporized arena the bulls were brought in :
medium-sized but exceptionally powerful beasts, the
muscles rippling under their sleek brown coats, their
short horns filed to the sharpness of lance-tips. Each
animal was led by its owner, who was able to control
it to a limited degree during the fight by means of a
cord attached to the ring in its nose. When the
signal was given for the fight to begin, the bulls ap-
proached each other cautiously, snorting and pawing
the ground. They reminded me of two strange dogs
who cannot decide whether they wish to fight or be
friends. For ten minutes, regardless of the jeers of
the spectators and the proddings of their handlers,
the great brown beasts rubbed heads as amicably as a
yoke of oxen. Then, just as we had made up our
minds that it was a fiasco and that there would be no
bull-fight pictures, there was a sudden angry bellow,
the two great heads came together with a thud like a
pile-driver, and the fight was on. The next twenty
minutes Hawkinson and I spent in alternately setting
up his camera within range of the panting, straining
animals and in picking it up and running for our lives,
in order to avoid being trampled by the maddened
beasts in their furious and unexpected onslaughts.

PL,

MAGIC ISLES AND FAIRY SEAS 23

The men at the ends of the nose-ropes were as help-
less to control their infuriated charges as a trout fish-
erman who has hooked a shark. With horns inter-
locked and with blood and sweat dripping from their
massive necks and shoulders, they fought each other,
step by step, across the width of the arena, across
a cultivated field which lay beyond, burst through
a thorn hedge surrounding a native's patch of gar-
den, trampled the garden into mire, and narrowly
escaped bringing down on top of them the owner's
dwelling, which, like most Moro houses, was raised
above the ground on stilts. It looked for a time as
though the fight would continue over a considerable
portion of the island, but it was brought to an abrupt
conclusion when one of the bulls, withdrawing a few
yards, to gain momentum, charged like a tank attack-
ing the Hindenburg Line, driving one of its horns
deep into its adversary's eye-socket, whereupon the
wounded animal, half-blinded and mad with pain,
turned precipitately, jerked the nose-rope from its
owner's grasp, and stampeding the spectators in its
mad flight, disappeared in the depths of the jungle.

"That," announced the Governor, "concludes the
morning performance. This afternoon we will pre-
sent for your approval a programme consisting of pony
races, a carabao fight, a shark-fishing expedition, and,
if time permits, a visit to the pearl-fisheries to see the
divers at work. This evening we will call on the
Princess Fatimah, the daughter of the Sultan, and

24 STRANGE TRAILS

tomorrow I have arranged to take you to Tapul Island

to shoot wild carabao. After that "

"After that," I interrupted, "we go away from
here. If we stayed on in this quiet little island of
yours much longer, we shouldn't have any film left for
the other places."

CHAPTER II

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE

WE sailed at sunset out of Jolo and all through the
breathless tropic night the Negros forged ahead at
half-speed, her sharp prow cleaving the still bosom
of the Sulu Sea as silently as a gondola stealing down
the Canale Grande. So oppressive was the night that
sleep was out of the question, and I leaned upon the
rail of the bridge, the hot land breeze, laden with the
mysterious odors of the tropics, beating softly in my
face, and listlessly watched the phosphorescent ostrich
feathers curling from our bows. Behind me, in the
darkened chart-room, the Filipino quartermaster
gently swung the wheel from time to time in response
to the direction of the needle on the illuminated com-
pass-dial. So lifeless was the sea that our foremast
barely swayed against the stars. The smoke from our
funnel trailed across the purple canopy of the sky as
though smeared with an inky brush.

How long I stood there, lost in reverie, I have no
idea : hours no doubt. I must have fallen into a doze,
for I was awakened by the brisk, incisive strokes of
the ship's bell, echoed, a moment later, by eight fainter
strokes coming from the deck below. Then the soft
patter of bare feet which meant the changing of the

26 STRANGE TRAILS

watch. Though the velvety darkness into which we
were steadily ploughing had not perceptibly decreased,
it was now cut sharply across, from right to left,
by what looked like a tightly stretched wire of glow-
ing silver. Even as I looked this slender fissure
of illumination widened, almost imperceptibly at
first, then faster, faster, until at one burst came the
dawn. The sombre hangings of the night were swept
aside by an invisible hand as are drawn back the cur-
tains at a window. As you have seen from a hill the
winking lights of a city disappear at daybreak, so, one
by one, the stars went out. Masses of angry clouds
reared themselves in ominous, fantastic forms against
a sullen sky. The hot land breeze changed to a cold
wind which made me shiver. Suddenly the mounting
rampart of clouds, which seemed about to burst in a
tempest, was pierced by a hundred flaming lances com-
ing from beyond the horizon's rim. Before their on-
slaught the threatening cloud-wall crumbled, faded,
and abruptly dropped away to reveal the sun advanc-
ing in all that brazen effrontery which it assumes in
those lawless latitudes along the Line. Now the sky
was become a huge inverted bowl of flawless azure
porcelain, the surface of the Sulu Sea sparkled as
though strewn with a million diamonds, and, not a
league off our bows, rose the jungle-clothed shores of
Borneo.

Scattered along the fringes of the world are certain
places whose names ring in the ears of youth like
trumpet-calls. They are passwords to romance and

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 27

high adventure. Their very mention makes the feet
of the young men restless. They mark the places
where the strange trails go down. Of them all, the
one that most completely captivated my boyish imagi-
nation was Borneo. To me, as to millions of other
youngsters, its name had been made familiar by that
purveyor of entertainment to American boyhood,
Phineas T. Barnum, as the reputed home of the wild
man. In its jungles, through the magic of Marryat's
breathless pages, I fought the head-hunter and pur-
sued the boa-constrictor and the orang-utan. It was
then, a boyhood dream come true when I stood at
daybreak on the bridge of the Negros and through
my glasses watched the mysterious island, which I had
so often pictured in my imagination, rise with tanta-
lizing slowness from the sapphire sea.

We forged ahead cautiously, for our charts were
none too recent or reliable and we lacked the "Malay
Archipelago" volume of The Sailing Directions the
"Sailor's Bible," as the big, orange-covered book, full
of comforting detail, is known. As the morning mists
dissolved before the sun I could make out a pale ivory
beach, and back of the beach a band of green which
I knew for jungle, and back of that, in turn, a range
of purple mountains which culminated in a majestic,
cloud-wreathed peak. An off-shore breeze brought to
my nostrils the strange, sweet odors of the hot lands.
A Malay vinta with widespread bamboo outriggers
and twin sails of orange flitted by an enormous but-
terfly skimming the surface of the water. I was

28 STRANGE TRAILS

actually within sight of that grim island whose name
has ever been a synonym for savagery. For never
think that piracy, head-hunting, poisoned darts shot
from blow-guns are horrors extinct in Borneo today,
for they are not. Ask the mariners who sail these
waters; ask the keepers of the lonely lighthouses, the
officers who command the constabulary outposts in
the bush. They know Borneo, and not favorably.

You will picture Borneo, if you please, as a vast,
squat island the third largest in the world, in fact
half again as large as France, bordered by a sandy
littoral, moated by swamps reeking with putrid mias-
mata and pernicious vapors, covered with dense for-
ests and impenetrable jungles, ridged by mile-high
mountain ranges, seamed by mighty rivers, inhabited
by the most savage beasts and the most bestial savages
known to man. Lying squarely athwart the Line, the
sun beats down upon it like the blast from an open
furnace-door. The story is told in Borneo of a dis-
solute planter who died from sunstroke. The day
after the funeral a spirit message reached the widow
of the dear departed. "Please send down my blan-
kets" it said. But it is the terrible humidity which
makes the climate dangerous; a humidity due to the
innumerable swamps, the source of pestilence and
fever, and to the incredible rainfall, which averages
over six and a half feet a year. No wonder that in
the Indies Borneo is known as "The White Man's
Graveyard."

Imbedded in the northern coast of the island, like

MALAYSIA

SCALE OF MILES

100 Longitude East 110 .from Greenwich 120

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 29

a row of semi-precious stones set in a barbaric brooch,
are the states of British North Borneo, Brunei, and
Sarawak. Their back-doors open on the wilderness
of mountain, forest and jungle which marks the north-
ern boundary of Dutch Borneo; their front windows
look out upon the Sulu and the China Seas. Of these
three territories, the first is under the jurisdiction of
the British North Borneo Company, a private cor-
poration, which administers it under the terms of a
royal charter. The second is ruled by the Sultan of
Brunei, whose once vast dominions have steadily
dwindled through cession and conquest until they are
now no larger than Connecticut. On the throne of
the last sits one of the most romantic and picturesque
figures in the world, His Highness James Vyner
Brooke, a descendant of that Sir James Brooke who,
in the middle years of the last century, made himself
the "White Rajah" of Sarawak, and who might well
have been the original of The Man Who Would Be
King. Though all three governments are permitted
virtually a free hand so far as their domestic affairs
are concerned, they are under the protection of Great
Britain and their foreign affairs are controlled from
Westminster. The remaining three-quarters of Bor-
neo, which contains the richest mines, the finest for-
ests, the largest rivers, and, most important of all,
the great oil-fields of Balik-Papan, forms one of the
Outer Possessions, or Outposts, of Holland's East
Indian Empire.

30 STRANGE TRAILS

Long before the yellow ribbon of the coast, with
its fringe of palms, became visible we could make
out the towering outline of Kina Balu, the sacred
mountain, fourteen thousand feet high, which, seen
from the north, bears a rather striking resemblance in
its general contour to Gibraltar. The natives regard
Kina Balu with awe and veneration as the home of
departed spirits, believing that it exercises a powerful
influence on their lives. When a man is dying they
speak of him as ascending Kina Balu and in times of
drought they formerly practised a curious and hor-
rible custom, known as sumunguping, which the
authorities have now suppressed. When the crops
showed signs of failing the natives decided to despatch
a messenger direct to the spirits of their relatives and
friends in the other world entreating them to implore
relief from the gods who control the rains. The per-
son chosen to convey the message was usually a slave
or an enemy captured in battle. Binding their victim
to a post, the warriors of the tribe advanced, one by
one, and drove their spears into his body, shouting
with each thrust the messages which they wished con-
veyed to the spirits on the mountain.

With the coming of day we pushed ahead at full
speed. Soon we could make out the precipitous sand-
stone cliffs of Balhalla, the island which screens the
entrance to Sandakan harbor. But long before we
came abreast of the town signs of human habitation
became increasingly apparent: little clusters of nipa-
thatched huts built on stilts over the water; others

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 31

hidden away in the jungle and betraying themselves
only by spirals of smoke rising lazily above the
feathery tops of the palms. Sandakan itself straggles
up a steep wooded hill, the Chinese and native quar-
ters at its base wallowing amid a network of foul-
smelling and incredibly filthy sewers and canals or
built on rickety wooden platforms which extend for
half a mile or more along the harbor's edge. A little
higher up, fronting on a parade ground which looks
from the distance like a huge green rug spread in the
sun to air, are the government offices, low structures
of frame and plaster, designed so as to admit a maxi-
mum of air and a minimum of heat; the long, low
building of the Planters Club, encircled by deep, cool
verandahs; a Chinese joss-house, its facade enlivened
by grotesque and brilliantly colored carvings; and a
down-at-heels hotel. Close by are the churches erected
and maintained by the Protestant and Roman Catholic
missions the former the only stone building in the
protectorate. At the summit of the hill, reached by a
steeply winding carriage road, are the bungalows of
the Europeans, their white walls, smothered in crim-
son masses of bougainvillaea and shaded by stately
palms and blazing fire-trees, peeping out from a wil-
derness of tropic vegetation. Viewed from the har-
bor, Sandakan is one of the most enchanting places
that I have ever seen. It looks like a setting on a
stage and you have the feeling that at any moment
the curtain may descend and destroy the illusion. It
is not until you go ashore and wander in the native

32 STRANGE TRAILS

quarter, where vice in every form stalks naked and
unashamed, that you realize that the town is like a
beautiful harlot, whose loveliness of face and figure
belie the evil in her heart. Even after I came to
understand that the place is a sink of iniquity, I never
ceased to marvel at its beauty. It reminded me of
the exclamation of a young English girl, the wife of a
German merchant, as their steamer approached Hong
Kong and the superb panorama which culminates in
The Peak slowly unrolled.

"Look, Otto! Look!" she cried. "You must say
that it is beautiful even if it is English."

Of those lands which have not yet submitted to the
bit and bridle of civilization and they can be num-
bered on the fingers of one's two hands Borneo is the
most intractable. Of all the regions which the preda-
tory European has claimed for his own, it is the least
submissive, the least civilized, the least exploited and
the least known. Its interior remains as untamed as
before the first white man set foot on its shores four
hundred years ago. The exploits of those bold and
hardy spirits explorers, soldiers, missionaries, ad-
ministrators who have attempted to carry to the
natives of Borneo the Gospel of the Clean Shirt and
the Square Deal form one of the epics of coloniza-
tion. They have died with their boots on from fever,
plague and snake-bite, from poisoned dart and Dyak
spear. Though their lives would yield material for a
hundred books of adventure, their story, which is the

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 33

story of the white man's war for civilization through-
out Malaysia, is epitomized in the few lines graven
on the modest marble monument which stands at the
edge of Sandakan's sun-scorched parade ground:

Memory

Francis Xavier Witti

Killed near the Sibuco River

May, 1882

Frank Hatton

Accidentally shot at Segamah
March, 1883

of
Dr. D. Manson Fraser

and

Jemadhar Asa Singh

the two latter mortally wounded at Kopang
May, 1883

and of

Alfred Jones, Adjutant

Shere Singh, Regimental Sergeant-Major

of the British North Borneo Constabulary

Killed at Ranau 1897-98

and of

George Graham Warder

District Officer, Tindang Batu

Murdered at Marak Parak

a8th July 1903

This Monument Is Erected as a Mark of Respect
by their Brother Officers

Though Sandakan is the chief port of British North
Borneo, with a population of perhaps fifteen thou-
sand, it has barely a hundred European inhabitants,
of whom only a dozen are women. Girls marry al-

34 STRANGE TRAILS

most as fast as they arrive, and the incoming boats
are eagerly scanned by the bachelor population, much
in the same spirit as that in which a ticket-holder scans
the lists of winning numbers in a lottery, wondering
when his turn will come to draw something. If the
bulk of the men are confirmed misogynists and confine
themselves to the club bar and card-room it is only
because there are not enough women to go round.
The sacrifice of the women who, in order to be near
their husbands, consent to sicken and fade and grow
old before their time in such a spot, is very great.
With their children at school in England, they pass
their lonely lives in palm-thatched bungalows, raised
high above the ground on piles as a protection against
insects, snakes and floods, without amusements save
such as they can provide themselves, and in a climate
so humid that mushrooms will grow on one's boots in
a single night during the rains. They are as truly
empire-builders as the men and, though the parts they
play are less conspicuous, perhaps, they are as truly
deserving of honors and rewards.

There is no servant problem in Borneo. Cooks
jostle one another to cook for you. They will even
go to the length of poisoning each other in order to
step into a lucrative position, with a really big master
and a memsahib who does not give too much trouble.
But there are other features of domestic life for which
the plenitude of servants does not compensate. Be-
cause existence is made almost unendurable by mos-
quitoes and other insects, within each sleeping room is

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 35

constructed a rectangular framework, covered with
mosquito-netting and just large enough to contain a
bed, a dressing-table and an arm-chair. In these
insect-proof cells the Europeans spend all of their
sleeping and many of their waking hours. So aggres-
sive are the mosquitoes, particularly during the rains,
that, when one invites people in for dinner or bridge,
the servants hand the guests long sacks of netting
which are drawn over the feet and legs, the top being
tied about the waist with a draw-string. Were it not
for these mosquito-bags there would be neither bridge
nor table conversation. Everyone would be too busy
scratching.

The houses, as I have already mentioned, are raised
above the ground on brick piles or wooden stilts.
Though this arrangement serves the purpose of keep-
ing things which creep and crawl out of the house
itself, the custom of utilizing the open space beneath
the house as a hen-roost offers a standing invitation to
the reptiles with which Borneo abounds. While we
were in Sandakan a python invaded the chicken-house
beneath the dwelling of the local magistrate one night
and devoured half a dozen of the judge's imported
Leghorns. Gorged to repletion, the great reptile fell
asleep, being discovered by the servants the next morn-
ing. The magistrate put an end to its predatory career
with a shot-gun. It measured slightly over twenty
feet from nose to tail and in circumference was con-
siderably larger than an inflated fire-hose. Imagine

36 STRANGE TRAILS

finding such a thing coiled up at the foot of your cellar-
stairs after you had been indulging in home-brew I

One evening a party of us were seated on the
verandah of the Planters Club in Sandakan. The con-
versation, which had pretty much covered the world,
eventually turned to snakes.

"That reminds me," remarked a constabulary of-
ficer who had spent many years in Malaysia, "of a
queer thing that happened in a place where I was sta-
tioned once in the Straits Settlements. It was one of
those deadly dull places only a handful of white
women, no cinema, no race course, nothing. But the
Devil, you know, always finds mischief for idle hands
to do. One day a youngster a subaltern in the bat-
talion that was stationed there returned from a
leave spent in England. He brought back with him
a young English girl whom he had married while he
was at home. A slender, willowy thing she was, with
great masses of coppery-red hair and the loveliest pink-
and-white complexion. She quickly adapted herself
to the disagreeable features of life in the tropics with
one exception. The exception was that she could never
overcome her inherent and unreasoning fear of snakes.
The mere sight of one would send her into hysterics.

"One afternoon, while she was out at tea with some
friends, the Malay gardener brought to the house
the carcass of a hamadryad which he had killed in the
garden. The hamadryad, as you probably know, is
perhaps the deadliest of all Eastern reptiles. Its bite
usually causes death in a few minutes. Moreover, it is

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 37

one of the few snakes that will attack human beings
without provocation. The husband, with two other
chaps, both officers in his battalion, was sitting on the
verandah when the snake was brought in.

' 'I say,' suggested one of the officers, 'here's a
chance to break Madge of her fear of snakes. Why
not curl this fellow up on her bed? She'll get a jolly
good fright, of course, but when she discovers that
he's dead and that she's been panicky about nothing,
she'll get over her silly fear of the beggars. What
say, old chap?'

"To this insane suggestion, in spite of the protests
of the other officer, the husband assented. Probably
he had been having too many brandies and sodas. I
don't know. But in any event, they put the witless
idea into execution. Toward nightfall the young wife
returned. She had on a frock of some thin, slinky
stuff and a droopy garden hat with flowers on it and
carried a sunshade. She was awfully pretty. She
hadn't been out there long enough to lose her English
coloring, you see.

" 'Oh, I say, Madge,' called her husband, 'There's
a surprise for you in your bedroom.'

"With a little cry of'delighted anticipation she hur-
ried into the house. She thought her husband had
bought her a gift, I suppose. A moment later the
trio waiting on the verandah heard a piercing shriek.
The first shriek was followed by another and then
another. Pretty soon, though, the screams died
down to a whimper a sort of sobbing moan. Then

38 STRANGE TRAILS

silence. After a few minutes, as there was no further
sound from the bedroom and his wife did not reap-
pear, the husband became uneasy. He rose to enter
the house, but the chap who had suggested the scheme
pulled him back.

" 'She's all right,' he assured him. 'She sees it's a
joke and she's keeping quiet so as to frighten you. If
you go in there now the laugh will be on you. She'll
be out directly.'

"But as the minutes passed and she did not reap-
pear all three of the men became increasingly uneasy.

" 'We'd better have a look,' the one who had de-
murred suggested after a quarter of an hour had
passed, during which no further sound had come from
the bedroom. 'Madge is very high-strung. She may
have fainted from the shock. I told you fellows that
it was an idiotic thing to do.'

"When they opened the door they thought that she
had fainted, for she lay in an inert heap on the floor
at the foot of the bed. But a hasty examination
showed them, to their horror, that the girl was dead
heart failure, presumably. But when they raised
her from the floor they discovered the real cause of
her death, for a second hamadryad, which had been
concealed by her skirts, darted noiselessly under the
bed. It was the mate of the one that had been killed
for hamadryads always travel in pairs, you know
and had evidently entered the room in quest of its
companion."

"What happened to the husband and to the man

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 39

who suggested the plan?" I asked. "Were they pun-
ished?"

"They were punished right enough," the constabu-
lary officer said dryly. "The chap who suggested the
scheme tried to forget it in drink, was cashiered from
the army and died of delirium tremens. As for the
husband, he is still living in a madhouse."

Even in so far-distant a corner of the Empire as
Borneo, ten thousand miles from the lights of the res-
taurants in Piccadilly, the men religiously observe the
English ritual of dressing for dinner, for when the
mercury climbs to no, though the temptation is to go
about in pajamas, one's drenched body and drooping
spirits need to be bolstered up with a stiff shirt and a
white mess jacket. That the stiffest shirt-front is
wilted in an hour makes no difference : it reminds them
that they are still Englishmen. Nor, in view of the
appalling loneliness of the life, is it to be wondered
at that the Chinese bartenders at the club are kept
busy until far into the night, and that every month or
so the entire male white population goes on a terrific
spree. The government doctor in Sandakan assured
me very earnestly that, in order to stand the climate,
it is necessary to keep one's liver afloat in alcohol.
He had contributed to thus preserving the livers and
lives of his fellow exiles by the invention of two
drinks, of which he was inordinately proud. One he
had dubbed "Tarantula Juice;" the other he called
"Whisper of Death." He told me that the amateur

40 STRANGE TRAILS

who took three drinks of the latter would have no
further need for his services; the only person whose
Cervices he would require would be the undertaker.

There is something of the pathetic in the eagerness
with which the white men who dwell in exile along
these forgotten seaboards long for news from Home.
After dinner they would cluster about me on the club
verandah and clamor for those odds-and-ends of
English gossip which are not important enough for in-
clusion in the laconic cable despatches posted daily on
the club bulletin-board and which the two-months-old
newspapers seldom mention. They insisted that
I repeat the jokes which were being cracked by
the comedians at the Criterion and the Shaftes-
bury. They wanted to know if toppers and tail-
coats were again being worn in The Row. They
pleaded for the gossip of the clubs in Pall Mall and
Piccadilly. They begged me to tell them about the
latest books and plays and songs. But after a time I
persuaded them to do the talking, while I lounged in
a deep cane chair, a tall, thin glass, with ice tinkling in
it, at my elbow, and listened spellbound to strange
dramas of "the Islands" recited by men who had them-
selves played the leading roles. At first they were
shy, as well-bred English often are, but after much
urging an officer of constabulary, the glow from his
cigar lighting up his sun-bronzed face and the rows of
campaign ribbons on his white jacket, was persuaded
into telling how he had trailed a marauding band of
head-hunters right across Borneo, from coast to coast,

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 41

his only companions a handful of Dyak police, them-
selves but a degree removed in savagery from those
they were pursuing. A bespectacled, studious-looking
man, whom I had taken for a scientist or a college
professor, but who, I learned, had made a fortune
buying bird-of-paradise plumes for the European mar-
ket, described the strange and revolting customs prac-
tised by the cannibals of New Guinea. Then a broad-
shouldered, bearded Dutchman, a very Hercules of a
man, with a voice like a bass drum, told, between
meditative puffs at his pipe, of hair-raising adventures
in capturing wild animals, so that those smug and shel-
tered folk at home who visit the zoological gardens of
a Sunday afternoon might see for themselves the croco-
dile and the boa-constrictor, the orang-utan and the
clouded tiger. When, after the last tale had been told
and the last glass had been drained, we strolled out
into the fragrant tropic night, with the Cross swing-
ing low to the morn, I felt as though, in the space of
a single evening, I had lived through a whole library
of adventure.

I once wrote in The Last Frontier, if I remember
rightly that when the English occupy a country the
first thing they build is a custom-house ; the first thing
the Germans build is a barracks; the first thing the
French build is a railway. As a result of my observa-
tions in Malaysia, however, I am inclined to amend
this by saying that the first thing the English build is
a race course. Lord Cromer was fond of telling how,

42 STRANGE TRAILS

when he visited Perim, a miserable little island at the
foot of the Red Sea, inhabited by a few Arabs and
many snakes, his guide took him to the top of a hill
and pointed out the race course.

"But what do you want with a race course?" de-
manded the great proconsul. "I didn't suppose that
there was a four-footed animal on the island."

The guide reluctantly admitted that, though they
had no horses on the island at the moment, if some
were to come, why, there was the race course ready
for them. Though I don't recall having seen more
than a dozen horses in Borneo, the British have been
true to their traditions by building two race courses:
one at Sandakan and one at Jesselton. On the latter
is run annually the North Borneo Derby. It is the
most brilliant sporting and social event of the year, the
Europeans flocking into Jesselton from the little trad-
ing stations along the coast and from the lonely plan-
tations in the interior just as their friends back in
England flock to Goodwood and Newmarket and
Epsom. The Derby is always followed by the Hunt
Ball. In spite of the fact that there are at least
twenty men to every woman this is always a tremen-
dous success. It usually ends in everyone getting
gloriously drunk.

Almost the only other form of entertainment is
provided by a company of Malay players which makes
periodical visits to Sandakan and Jesselton. Though
the actors speak only Malay, this does not deter them
from including a number of Shakesperian plays in their

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 43

repertoire (imagine Macbeth being played by a com-
pany of piratical-looking Malays in a nipa hut on the
shores of the Sulu Sea!) but they attain their greatest
heights in AH Baba and the Forty Thieves. There are
no programmes, but, in order that the audience may not
be left in doubt as to the identity of the players, the
manager introduces the members of his company one
by one. "This is AH Baba," he announces, leading a
fat and greasy Oriental to the footlights. "This is
Fatimah." "These are the Forty Thieves." When
the latter announcement is made four actors stalk ten
times across the stage in naive simulation of the speci-
fied number. After the thieves have concealed them-
selves behind pasteboard silhouettes of jars, Ali Baba's
wife waddles on the stage bearing a Standard Oil tin
on her shoulder and with a dipper proceeds to ladle a
few drops of cocoanut oil on the head of each of the
robbers. While she is being introduced one of the
thieves seizes the opportunity to take a few whiffs from
a cigarette, the smoke being plainly visible to the
audience. Another, wearying of his cramped position,
incautiously shows his head, whereupon Mrs. Ali Baba
raps it sharply with her dipper, eliciting from the actor
an exclamation not in his lines. During the intermis-
sions the clown who accompanies the troupe convulses
the audience with side-splitting imitations of the pom-
pous and frigid Governor, who, as someone unkindly
remarked, "must have been born in an ice-chest," and
of the bemoustached and bemonocled officer who com-
mands the constabulary, locally referred to as the

44 STRANGE TRAILS

Galloping Major. Compared with the antics of these
Malay comedians, the efforts of our own professional
laugh-makers seem dull and forced. Until you have
seen them you have never really laughed.

His Highness Haji Mohamed Jamalulhiram, Sul-
tan of Sulu, was temporarily sojourning in Sandakan
when we were there, having come across from his
capital of Jolo for the purpose of collecting the
monthly subsidy of five hundred pesos paid him by the
British North Borneo Company for certain territorial
concessions. The company would have sent the money
to Jolo, of course, but the Sultan preferred to come to
Sandakan to collect it; there are better facilities for
gambling there.

Because I was curious to see the picturesque per-
sonage around whom George Ade wrote his famous
opera, The Sultan of Sulu, and because the Lovely
Lady and the Winsome Widow had read in a Sun-
day supplement that he made it a practise to present
those American women whom he met with pearls of
great price, upon our arrival at Sandakan I invited the
Sultan to dinner aboard the Negros. When I called
on him at his hotel to extend the invitation, I found
him clad in a very soiled pink kimono, a pair of red
velvet slippers, and a smile made somewhat gory by
the betel-nut he had been chewing, but when he came
aboard the Negros that evening he wore a red fez and
irreproachable dinner clothes of white linen. As the
crew of the cutter was entirely composed of Tagalogs

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 45

and Visayans, from the northern Philippines, who,
being Christians, regard the Mohammedan Moro with
contempt, not unmixed with fear, when I called for
side-boys to line the starboard rail when his High-
ness came aboard, there were distinctly mutinous
mutterings. Captain Galvez tactfully settled the mat-
ter, however, by explaining to the crew that the Sul-
tan was, after all, an American subject, which seemed
to mollify, even if it did not entirely satisfy them.
The armament of the Negros had been removed after
the armistice, so that we were without anything in the
nature of a saluting cannon, but, as we wished to
observe all the formalities of naval etiquette, the Doc-
tor and Hawkinson volunteered to fire a royal salute
with their automatic pistols as the Sultan came over
the side. That, in their enthusiasm, they lost count
and gave him about double the number of "guns"
prescribed for the President of the United States
caused Haji Mohamed no embarrassment; on the con-
trary, it seemed to please him immensely. (Donald
Thompson, who was my photographer in Belgium
during the early days of the war, always made it a
point to address every officer he met as "General."
He explained that it never did any harm and that it
always put the officer in good humor.)

When the cocktails were served the Sultan gravely
explained through the interpreter that, being a devout
Mohammedan and a Haji, he never permitted alcohol
to pass his lips, an assertion which he promptly pro-
ceeded to prove by taking four Martinis in rapid sue-

46 STRANGE TRAILS

cession. Now the chef of the Negros possessed the
faculty of camouflaging his dishes so successfully that
neither by taste, looks nor smell could one tell with
certainty what one was eating. So, when the meat,
smothered in thick brown gravy, was passed to the
Sultan, his Highness, who, like all True Believers,
abhors pork, regarded it dubiously. "Pig?" he de-
manded of the steward. "No, sare," was the fright-
ened answer. "Cow."

Over the coffee and cigarettes the Lovely Lady and
the Winsome Widow tactfully led the conversation
around to the subject of pearls, whereupon the Sultan
thrust his hand into his pocket and produced a round
pink box, evidently originally intended for pills. Re-
moving the lid, he displayed, imbedded in cotton, half
a dozen pearls of a size and quality such as one seldom
sees outside the window of a Fifth Avenue jeweler. I
could see that the Lovely Lady and the Winsome
Widow were mentally debating as to whether they
would have them set in brooches or rings. But when
they had been passed from hand to hand, accompanied
by the customary exclamations of envy and admiration,
back they went into the royal pocket again. "And to
think," one of the party remarked afterward, "that
we wasted two bottles of perfectly good gin and a
bottle of vermouth on him 1"

It was after midnight when our guest took his
departure, the ship's orchestra playing him over the
side with a selection from The Sultan of Sulu, which,
in view of my ignorance as to whether Sulu possessed

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 47

a national anthem, seemed highly appropriate to the
occasion. As the launch bearing the Sultan shot shore-
ward Hawkinson set off a couple of magnesium flares,
which he had brought along for the purpose of taking
pictures at night, making the whole harbor of Sanda-
kan as bright as day. I heard afterward that the
Sultan remarked that we were the only visitors since
the Taft party who really appreciated his importance.

Two hours steam off the towering promontory
which guards the entrance to Sandakan harbor lies
Baguian, a sandy islet covered with cocoanut-palms,
which is so small that it is not shown on ordinary
maps. Though the island is, for some unexplained
reason, under the jurisdiction of the British North
Borneo Company, it is a part of the Sulu Archipelago
and belongs to the United States. Baguian is famed
throughout those seas as a rookery for the giant tor-
toise testudo elephantopus. Toward nightfall the
mammoth chelonians some of them weigh upward
of half a ton come ashore in great numbers to lay
their eggs in nests made in the edge of the jungle
which fringes the beach, the old Chinaman and his
two assistants, who are the only inhabitants of the
island, frequently collecting as many as four thousand
eggs in a single morning. The eggs, which in size and
color exactly resemble ping-pong balls and are almost
as unbreakable, are collected once a fortnight by a
junk which takes them to China, where they are con-
sidered great delicacies and command high prices. As

48 STRANGE TRAILS

we had brought with us a supply of magnesium flares
for night photography, we decided to take the camera
ashore and attempt to obtain pictures of the turtles
on their nests.

As we were going ashore in the gig we caught sight
of a huge bull, as large as a hogshead, which was
floating on the surface. Ordering the sailors to row
quietly, we succeeded in getting within a hundred
yards before I let go with my .405, the soft-nosed
bullet tearing a great hole in the turtle's neck and
dyeing the water scarlet. Almost before the sound of
the shot had died away one of the Filipino boat's
crew went overboard with a rope, which he attempted
to attach to the monster before it could sink to the
bottom, but the turtle, though desperately wounded,
was still very much alive, giving the sailor a blow on
his head with its flapper which all but knocked him
senseless. By the time we had hauled the man into
the boat the turtle had disappeared into the depths.

Waiting until darkness had fallen, we sent parties
of sailors, armed with electric torches, along the beach
in both directions with orders to follow the tracks
made by the turtles in crossing the sand, and to notify
us by firing a revolver when they located one. We did
not have long to wait before we heard the signal
agreed upon, and, picking up the heavy camera, we
plunged across the sands to where the sailors were
awaiting us in the edge of the bush. While the blue-
jackets cut off the retreat of the hissing, snapping
monster, Hawkinson set up his camera and, when all

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE 49

was ready, some one touched off a flare, illuminating
the beach and jungle as though the search-light of a
warship had been turned upon them. In this manner
we obtained a series of motion-pictures which are, I
believe, from the zoological standpoint, unique. Be-
fore leaving the island we killed two tortoises for food
for the crew enough to keep them in turtle soup for
a month. The larger, which I shot with a revolver,
weighed slightly over five hundred pounds and lived
for several days with three .45 caliber bullets in its
brain-pan. Everything considered, it was a very in-
teresting expedition. The only person who did not
enjoy it was the old Chinese who held the concession
for collecting the turtle-eggs. Instead of recognizing
the great value of the service we were rendering to
science, he acted as though we were robbing his hen-
roost. He had a sordid mind.

CHAPTER III

"WHERE THERE AIN'T NO TEN COMMANDMENTS"

UNTIL I went to British North Borneo I had con-
sidered the British the best colonial administrators
in the world. And, generally speaking, I hold to that
opinion. But what I saw and heard in that remote
and neglected corner of the Empire disclosed a state
of affairs which I had not dreamed could exist in any
land over which flies the British flag. It was not the
iniquitous character of the administration which sur-
prised me, for I had seen the effects of bad colonial
administration in other distant lands in Mozam-
bique, for example, and in Germany's former African
possessions but rather that such an administration
should be carried on by Englishmen, by Anglo-Saxons.
Were you to read in your morning paper that an ignor-
ant alien had been arrested for brutally mistreating
one of his children you would not be particularly sur-
prised, because that is the sort of thing that might be
expected from such a man. But were you to read that
a neighbor, a man who went to the same church and
belonged to the same clubs, whom you had known and
respected all your life, had been arrested for mistreat-
ing one of his children, you would be shocked and
horrified.

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 51

Save on the charge of indifference and neglect,
neither the British people nor the British government
can be held responsible for the conditions existing in
North Borneo, for strictly speaking, the country is not
a British colony, but merely a British protectorate,
being owned and administered by a private trading
corporation, the British North Borneo Company,
which operates under a royal charter. But the idea
of turning over a great block of territory, with its
inhabitants, to a corporation whose sole aim is to earn
dividends for its absentee stockholders, is in itself
abhorrent to most Americans. What would we say,
I ask you, if Porto Rico, which is only one-tenth the
size of North Borneo, were to be handed over, lock,
stock and barrel, to the Standard Oil Company, with
full authorization for that company to make its own
laws, establish its own courts, appoint its own officials,
maintain its own army, and to wield the power of life
and death over the natives? And, conceiving such a
condition, what would we say if the Standard Oil
Company, in order to swell its revenues, not only per-
mitted but officially encouraged opium smoking and
gambling; if, in order to obtain labor for its planta-
tions, it imported large numbers of ignorant blacks
from Haiti and permitted the planters to hold those
laborers, through indenture and indebtedness, in a
form of servitude not far removed from slavery; if it
authorized the punishment of recalcitrant laborers by
flogging with the cat-o'nine-tails ; if it denied to the
natives as well as to the imported laborers a system

52 STRANGE TRAILS

of public education or a public health service or trial
by jury; and finally, if, in the event of insurrection,
it permitted its soldiery, largely recruited from savage
tribes, to decapitate their prisoners and to bring their
ghastly trophies into the capital and pile them in a
pyramid in the principal plaza? Yet that would be a
fairly close parallel to what the chartered company is
doing in British North Borneo. As I have already
remarked, North Borneo is a British protectorate.
And it is in more urgent need of protection from those
who are exploiting it than any country I know. But
the voices of the natives are very weak and West-
minster is far away.

With the exception of Rhodesia, and of certain ter-
ritories in Portuguese Africa, North Borneo is the
sole remaining region in the world which is owned and
administered by that political anachronism, a char-
tered company. It was in the age of Elizabeth that
the chartered company, in the modern sense of the
term, had its rise. The discovery of the New World
and the opening out of fresh trading routes to the
Indies gave a tremendous impetus to shipping, com-
mercial and industrial enterprises throughout western
Europe and it was in order to encourage these enter-
prises that the British, Dutch and French governments
granted charters to various trading associations. It
was the Russia Company, for example, which received
its first charter in 1554, which first brought England
into intercourse with an empire then unknown. The
Turkey Company later known as the Levant Com-

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 53

pany long maintained British prestige in the Otto-
man Empire and even paid the expenses of the embas-
sies sent out by the British Government to the Sublime
Porte. The Hudson's Bay Company, which still exists
as a purely commercial concern, was for nearly two
centuries the undisputed ruler of western Canada.
The extraordinary and picturesque career of the East
India Company is too well known to require com-
ment here. In fact, most of the thirteen British colo-
nies in North America were in their inception char-
tered companies very much in the modern acceptation
of the term. But, though these companies contributed
in no small degree to the commercial progress of the
states from which they held their charters, though
they gave colonies to the mother countries and an
impetus to the development of their fleets, they were
all too often characterized by misgovernment, incom-
petence, injustice and cruelty in their dealings with
the natives. Moreover, they were monopolies, and
therefore, obnoxious, and almost without exception the
colonies they founded became prosperous and well-
governed only when they had escaped from their yoke.
The existence of such companies today is justified if
at all only by certain political and economic reasons.
It may be desirable for a government to occupy a
certain territory, but political exigencies at home may
not permit it to incur the expense, or international
relations may make such an adventure inexpedient at
the time. In such circumstances, the formation of a
chartered company to take over the desired territory

54 STRANGE TRAILS

may be the easiest way out of the difficulty. But it
has been demonstrated again and again that a char-
tered company can never be anything but a transition
stage of colonization and that sooner or later the
home government must take over its powers and
privileges.

The story of the rise of the British North Borneo
Company provides an illuminating insight into the
methods by which that Empire On Which the Sun
Never Sets has acquired many of its far-flung pos-
sessions. Though the British had established trading
posts in northern Borneo as early as 1759, and had
obtained the cession of the whole northeastern pro-
montory from the Sultan of Sulu, who was its suzerain,
the hostility of the natives, who resented their transfer
to alien rule, was so pronounced that the treaty soon
became virtually a dead letter and by the end of the
century British influence in Borneo was to all intents
and purposes at an end. Nor was it resumed until
1838, when an adventurous Englishman, James
Brooke, landed at Kuching and eventually made him-
self the "White Rajah" of Sarawak. In 1848 the
island of Labuan, off the northwestern coast of Bor-
neo, was occupied by the British as a crown colony
and some years later the Labuan Trading Company
established a trading post at Sandakan. In an at-
tempt to open up the country and to start plantations
the company imported a considerable number of
Chinese laborers, but it did not prosper and its finan-
cial affairs steadily went from bad to worse. As

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 55

long as the company kept its representative in Sanda-
kan supplied with funds he managed to maintain a
certain authority among the natives. But one day he
received a letter bearing the London postmark from
the company's chairman. It read:

"Sir: We are sorry to inform you that we cannot
send you further funds, but you should not let this
prevent you from keeping up your dignity."

To which the agent replied :

"Sir: I have on a pair of trousers and a flannel
shirt all I possess in the world. I think my dignity
is about played out."

Another syndicate for the exploitation of North
Borneo was formed in England in 1878, however, to
which the Sultan of Sulu was induced to transfer all
his rights in that region, of which he had been from
time immemorial the overlord. Four years later this
syndicate, now known as the British North Borneo
Company, took over all the sovereign and diplo-
matic rights ceded by the original grants and pro-
ceeded to organize and administer the territory. In
1886 North Borneo was made a British protectorate,
but its administration remained entirely in the hands
of the company, the Crown reserving only control of
its foreign relations, though it was also agreed that
governors appointed by the company should receive
the formal sanction of the British Colonial Secretary.
To quote the chairman of the board of directors : "We
are not a trading company. We are a government,

56 STRANGE TRAILS

an administration. The Colonial Office leaves us
alone as long as we behave ourselves."

The government is vested primarily in a board of
directors who sit in London and few of whom have
ever set foot in the country which they rule. The
supreme authority in Borneo is the governor, under
whom are the residents of the three chief districts, who
occupy positions analogous to that of collector or
magistrate. The six less important districts are ad-
ministered by district magistrates, who also collect the
taxes. Though there is a council, upon which the
principal heads of departments and one unofficial mem-
ber have seats, it meets irregularly and its functions
are largely ornamental, the governor exercising vir-
tually autocratic power. Unfortunately, there is no
imperial official, as in Rhodesia, to supervise the com-
pany's activities. As was the case with the East India
Company, the minor posts in the North Borneo serv-
ice are filled by cadets nominated by the board of
directors, a system which provides a considerable num-
ber of positions for younger sons, poor relations and
titled ne'er-do-wells. Most of the officials go out to
Borneo as cadets, serve a long and arduous appren-
ticeship in one of the most trying climates in the world,
are miserably paid (I knew one official who held five
posts at the same time, including those of assistant
magistrate and assistant protector of labor and who
received for his services the equivalent of $100. a
month), and eventually retire, broken in health, on a
pension which permits them to live in a Bloomsbury

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 57

lodging-house, to ride on a tuppenny'bus, and to occa-
sionally visit the cinema.

There is no trial by jury in North Borneo, all cases
being decided by the magistrates, who are appointed
by the company and who must be qualified barristers.
Nor are there mixed courts, as in Egypt and other
Oriental countries, though in the more important cases
five or six assessors, either native or Chinese, accord-
ing to the nationality of those involved, are permitted
to listen to the evidence and to submit recommenda-
tions, which the magistrate may follow or not, as he
sees fit. Neither is there a court of appeal, the only
recourse from the decision of a magistrate being an
appeal to the governor, whose decision is final.

The country is policed by a force of constabulary
numbering some six hundred men, comprising Sikhs,
Pathans, Punjabi Mohammedans, Malays, and Dyaks,
officered by a handful of Europeans. Curiously
enough, the tall, dignified, deeply religious Sikhs and
the little, nervous, high-strung Dyak pagans get on
very well together, eating, sleeping and drilling in
perfect harmony. Though the Dyak members of the
constabulary are recruited from the wild tribes of the
interior, most of them having indulged in the national
pastime of head-hunting until they donned the com-
pany's uniform, they make excellent soldiers, courage-
ous, untiring, and remarkably loyal. Upon King
Edward's accession to the throne a small contingent
of Dyak police was sent to England to march in the
coronation procession. When, owing to the serious

58 STRANGE TRAILS

illness of the king, the coronation was indefinitely
postponed and it was proposed to send the Dyaks
home, the little brown fighters stubbornly refused to
go, asserting that they would not dare to show their
faces in Borneo without having seen the king. They
did not wish to put the company to any expense, they
explained, so they would give up their uniforms and
live in the woods on what they could pick up if they
were permitted to remain until they could see their
ruler.

Though the Dyaks make excellent soldiers, as I
have said, they are always savages at heart. In fact,
when they are used in operations against rebellious
natives, their officers permit and sometimes actively
encourage their relapse into the barbarous custom of
taking heads. An official who was stationed in San-
dakan during the insurrection of 1908 told me that
for days the police came swaggering into town with
dripping heads hanging from their belts and that they
piled these grisly trophies in a pyramid eight feet high
on the parade ground in front of the government
buildings. Imagine, if you please, the storm of indig-
nation and disgust which would have swept the United
States had American officers permitted the Maccabebe
Scouts, who served with our troops against the in-
surgents in the Aguinaldo insurrection, to decapitate
their Filipino prisoners and to bring the heads into
Manila and pile them in a pyramid on the Luneta I

Though the term Dyak is often carelessly applied
to all the natives of North Borneo, as a matter of

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 59

fact the Dyaks form only a small minority of the
population, the bulk of the inhabitants being Bajows,
Dusuns and Muruts. The Bajows, who are Mo-
hammedans and first cousins of the Moros of the
southern Philippines, are found mainly along the east
coast of Borneo. They are a dark-skinned, wild, sea-
gipsy race, rovers, smugglers and river thieves.
Though, thanks to the stern measures adopted by the
British and the Americans, they no longer indulge in
piracy, which was long their favorite occupation, they
still find profit and excitement in running arms and
opium across the Sulu Sea to the Moro Islands, in
attacking lonely light-houses, or in looting stranded
merchantmen. It is the last coast in the world that I
would choose to be shipwrecked on.

The Dusuns and the Muruts, who are generally
found in widely scattered villages in the jungles of
the interior, represent a very low stage of civilization,
being unspeakably filthy in their habits and frequently
becoming disgustingly intoxicated on a liquor of their
own manufacture the Bornean equivalent of home
brew. A Murut or Dusun village usually consists of
a single long hut divided into a great number of small
rooms, one for each family a jungle apartment
house, as it were. These rooms open out into a com-
mon gallery or verandah along which the heads taken
by the warriors of the tribe are festooned. It is as
though the tenants of a New York apartment house
had the heads of the landlord and the rent-collector
and the janitor swinging over the front entrance. I

6o STRANGE TRAILS

should add, perhaps, that the practise of head-hunt-
ing of which I shall speak at greater length when
we reach Dutch Borneo is fostered and encouraged
by the unmarried women, for every self-respecting
Bornean girl demands that her suitor shall establish his
social position in the tribe by acquiring a respectable
number of heads, just as an American girl insists that
the man she marries must provide her with a solitaire,
a flat and a flivver.

Though the chartered company has ruled in North
Borneo for more than forty years, it has only nibbled
at the edges of the country. The interior is still un-
civilized and largely unexplored, the home of savage
animals and still more savage men. Though a rail-
way has been pushed up-country from Jesselton for
something over a hundred miles, both road and roll-
ing-stock leave much to be desired, the little tin-pot
locomotives net infrequently leaving the rails alto-
gether and landing in the river. Some years ago an
attempt was made to build a highway across the pro-
tectorate, from coast to coast, but after sixty miles
had been completed the project was abandoned. It
was known as the Sketchley Road and ran through a
rank and miasmatic jungle, it being said that every
hundred yards of construction cost the life of a Chinese
laborer and that those who were left died at the end.
Today it is only a memory, having long since been
swallowed up by the fast-growing vegetation.

The company has taken no steps toward establishing
a system of public schools, as we have done in the

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 61

Philippines, for it holds to the outworn theory that,
so far as the natives are concerned, a little learning
is a dangerous thing. Perhaps the company is right.
Were the natives to acquire a little learning it might
prove dangerous for the company. There are a few
schools in North Borneo, but they are maintained by
the Protestant and Roman Catholic missions and are
attended mainly by Chinese. Whether they have
proved as potent an influence in the propagation of
the Christian faith as their founders anticipated is
open to doubt. When I was in Sandakan I made
some purchases in the bazaars from a Chinese lad who
addressed me quite fluently in my own tongue.

"How does it happen that you speak such good Eng-
lish?" I asked him.

"Go to school," he grunted, none too amiably.

"Where? To a public school ?"

"No public school. Church school."

"So you're a good Christian now, I suppose?" I
remarked.

"To hell with Clistianity," he retorted. "Me go
to school to learn English."

The chartered company maintains no public health
service, nor, so far as I was able to discover, has it
adopted the most rudimentary sanitary or quarantine
precautions. It is, indeed, so notoriously lax in this
respect that when we touched at ports in Dutch Bor-
neo, the Celebes, and Java, the mere fact that we had
come from British North Borneo caused the health

62 STRANGE TRAILS

officers to view us with grave suspicion. When we
were in Sandakan the town was undergoing a periodic
visitation of that deadliest and most terrifying of all
Oriental diseases, bubonic plague. As it is transmitted
by the fleas on plague-infested rats, we took the pre-
caution, when we went ashore, of wearing boots and
breeches or of tying the bottoms of our trousers about
our ankles with string, so as to prevent the fleas from
biting us. It being necessary to go alongside the coal-
wharves in order to replenish the bunkers of the
Negros, orders were given that rat-guards circular
pieces of tin about the size of a barrel-top should
be fixed to our hawsers, thus making it difficult, if not
impossible, for rats to invade the ship by that route,
while sailors armed with clubs were posted along the
landward rail to despatch any rodents that might suc-
ceed in gaining the deck. As the native and Chinese
laborers had fled in terror from the wharves, where
the dreaded disease had first manifested itself through
the deaths of several stevedores, the authorities of-
fered their freedom to those prisoners in the local jail
who would volunteer for the hazardous work of clean-
ing up the wharves and warehouses and sprinkling
them with petroleum. Six prisoners volunteered, but
they might better have served out their terms, for the
next day four of them were dead. Though the stout
Cockney, harbormaster, known as "Pinkie" because
of his rosy complexion, was pallid with fear, the other
European residents of Sandakan seemed utterly indif-
ferent to the danger to which they were exposed. But

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 63

life in a land like Borneo breeds fatalism. As an
official remarked, with a shrug of his shoulders, "After
you have spent a few years out here you don't much
care how you die, or how soon. Plague is as conven-
ient a way of going out as any other."

The greatest obstacle to the successful development
of Borneo's enormous natural resources is the labor
problem. The truth of the matter is that life in these
tropical islands is too easy for the natives' own good.
In a land where a man has no need for clothing, being,
indeed, more comfortable without it; where he can
pick his food from the trees or catch it with small
effort in the sea ; and where bamboos and nipa are all
the materials required for a perfectly satisfactory
dwelling, there is no incentive for work. It being im-
possible, therefore, to depend on native labor, the com-
pany has been forced to import large numbers of
coolies from China. These coolies, whom the labor
agents attract with promises of high wages, a delight-
ful climate, unlimited opium, and other things dear to
the Chinese heart, are employed under an indenture
system, the duration of their contracts being limited
by law to three hundred days. That sounds, on the
face of it, like a safeguard against peonage. The
trouble is, however, that it is easily circumvented.
Here is the way it works in practise. Shortly after
the laborer reaches the plantation where he is to be
employed he is given an advance on his pay, frequently
amounting to thirty Singapore dollars, which he is en-

64 STRANGE TRAILS

couraged to dissipate in the opium dens and gambling
houses maintained on the plantation. Any one who
has any knowledge of the Chinese coolie will realize
how temperamentally incapable he is of resistance
where opium and gambling are concerned. This
pernicious system of advances has the effect, as
it is intended to have, of chaining the laborer to the
plantation by debt. For the first advance is usually
followed by a second, and sometimes by a third, and
to this debit column are added the charges made for
food, for medical attendance, for opium, and for pur-
chases made at the plantation store, so that, upon the
expiration of his three-hundred-day contract, the la-
borer almost invariably owes his employer a debt which
he is quite unable to pay. As he cannot obtain employ-
ment elsewhere in the colony under these conditions,
he is faced with the alternative of being shipped back
to China a pauper or of signing another contract.
There is no breaking of the law by the planter, you see :
the laborer is perfectly free to leave when his con-
tract has expired as free as any man can be who is
absolutely penniless.

Let me quote from a letter from the former As-
sistant Protector of Labor of British North Borneo.
From the very nature of his duties he knows whereof
he speaks:

"One sees a large number of healthy, able-bodied
Chinese coming into the country as laborers and,
at the end of a year or two, instead of going back to
their homes with money in their pockets and healthy

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 65

with outdoor work, they go back as broken beggars,
pitifully saturated with disease or confirmed drug
fiends. It is really sad to see some of them return
home after a struggle of four or five years to save
money a struggle not only against themselves and
their acquired opium habit, but against the numerous
parasites which always fatten on laborers."

During the term of his indenture the laborer is to all
intents and purposes a prisoner, his only appeal against
any injustices practised on the plantation being to the
Protector of Labor, who is supposed to visit each
estate once a month. In theory this system is admir-
able, but in practise it does not afford the laborer the
protection which the law intends, for it frequently
happens that laborers who have been brutally mis-
treated have been coerced into silence by the plantation
managers by threats of what will happen to them if
they dare to lay a complaint before the inspecting
official. Moreover, many of the plantations are so
remotely situated, so far removed from civilization,
that a manager can treat his laborers as he pleases
with little fear of detection or punishment. If negroes
are held in peonage, flogged, and even murdered on
plantations in our own South, within rifle-shot of court-
houses and sheriffs' offices and churches, is it to be won-
dered at that similar conditions can and do exist in the
world-distant jungles of Borneo. Mind you, I do not
say that such conditions exist on all or most of the
estates in British North Borneo, but I have the best

66 STRANGE TRAILS

of reasons for believing that they exist on some of
them.

One of the most serious defects in the labor laws of
North Borneo is that trivial actions or omissions on
the part of ignorant coolies, such as misconduct, neglect
of work, or absence from the estate without leave, are
punishable by imprisonment. As a result, the illiterate
and incoherent coolie does not know where he stands.
He can never be sure that some trivial action on his
part, no matter how innocent his intent, will not bring
him within reach of the criminal law. He is, more-
over, denied the right of trial by jury, his case usually
being decided off-hand by a bored and unsympathetic
magistrate who has no knowledge of the defendant's
tongue. Moreover, the company's laws permit the
punishment of unruly laborers by flogging, with a maxi-
mum of twelve lashes. In view of the remoteness of
most of the estates, it is scarcely necessary for me to
point out that this is a form of punishment open to
the gravest abuse.

Although, as I have shown, the British North Bor-
neo Company permits the existence of a system not far
removed from slavery, a far more serious indictment
of the company's administration lies in its systematic
debauchery of its laborers by encouraging them to
indulge in opium smoking and gambling for the pur-
pose of swelling its revenues. Nor does its heartless
exploitation of the laborer end there, for when a
coolie has dissipated all his earnings in the opium
dens and gaming houses, which are run under govern-

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 67

ment concessions, he can usually realize a little more
money for the same purpose by pawning his few poor
belongings at one of the pawnshops controlled by the
company. In other words, from the day a laborer sets
foot in Borneo until the day he departs, he is system-
atically separated from his earnings, which are di-
verted, through the channels provided by the opium
dens, the gambling houses and the pawn shops, into a
stream which eventually empties into the company's
coffers. For, mark you, the chartered company did not
go to North Borneo from any altruistic motives. It is
animated by no desire to ameliorate the condition of
the natives or to increase the well-being and happi-
ness of its imported laborers. It is there with one ob-
ject in view/ and one alone to pay dividends to its
stockholders. As the chairman of the company said
at a recent North Borneo dinner in London: "They
have acted the parts of Empire makers and yet they
are filling their own pockets, for the golden rain is
beginning to fall."

Let me show you where this "golden rain" comes
from. The two principal sources of revenue of the
British North Borneo Company are opium and gam-
bling. Suppose that you come with me for a stroll
down the Jalan Tiga in Sandakan and see the gaming
houses and the opium dens for yourself. Jalan Tiga
(literally "Number Two Street") is a moderately
broad thoroughfare, perhaps a quarter of a mile in
length, which is solidly lined on both sides with gam-
bling houses, or, as they are called in Borneo, gambling

68 STRANGE TRAILS

farms, the term being due to the fact that the gambling
privileges are farmed out by the government. There
may be wickeder streets somewhere in the East
than the Jalan Tiga, but I do not recall having
seen them. It, and the thoroughfares immedi-
ately adjoining, in which are situated the opium
dens and the houses of prostitution, form a district
which represents the very quintessence of Oriental
vice. Over virtually every door are signs in Chi-
nese, Malay and English announcing that games of
chance are played within. Such resorts are not cam-
ouflaged in Borneo. They are as open as a railway
station or a public library in the United States. From
afternoon until sunrise these resorts are crowded to
the doors with half-naked, perspiring humanity, brown
skins and yellow being in about equal proportions, for
the Malay is as inveterate a gambler as the Chinese.
The downstairs rooms, which are frequented by the
lower classes, are thickly sprinkled with low tables
covered with mats divided into four sections, each of
which bears a number. A dice under a square brass
cup is shaken on the table and the cup slowly raised.
Those players who have been lucky enough to place
their bets on the square whose number corresponds
to the number uppermost on the dice have their money
doubled, the others see their earnings swept into the
lap of the croupier, a fat and greasy Chinaman, usually
stripped to the waist. In this system the chances
against the player are enormous. The play is very
rapid, the dice being shaken, the cup raised, the win-

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS"- 69

ners paid and the wagers of the losers raked in too
quickly for the untrained eye to follow. The players
seldom quit as long as they have any money left to
wager, but as soon as one drops out there is another
ready to take his place. The upstairs rooms, which
are usually handsomely decorated and luxuriously fur-
nished, are reserved for the wealthier patrons, it being
by no means uncommon for a player to lose several
thousand dollars in a single night. Here cards are
generally used instead of dice to separate the players
from their money, fan-tan being the favorite game. I
was told that the monthly subsidy paid by the British
North Borneo Company to the Sultan of Sulu, who
comes over from Jolo with great regularity to collect
it, never leaves the country, as he invariably loses it
over a Sandakan gaming-table. Gambling is a gov-
ernment monopoly in Borneo, the company fanning
out the privilege each year to the highest bidder. In
1919 the gambling rights for the entire protectorate
were sold for approximately $144,000.

Crossing the Jalan Tiga at right angles and run-
ning from the heart of the town down to the edge of
the harbor is the street of the prostitutes. It is easy
to recognize the houses of ill-fame by their scarlet
blinds and by the scarlet numbers over their doors.
Should you stroll down the street during the day you
will find the sullen-eyed inmates seated in the door-
ways, brushing their long and lustrous blue-black hair
or painting their faces in white and vermillion prepa-
ratory to the evening's entertainment. Probably four-

70 STRANGE TRAILS

fifths of the piles de joie in Sandakan are Chinese, the
others are products of Nippon quaint, dainty, doll-
like little women with faces so heavily enameled that
they would be cracked by a smile. When a Chinese
merchant wants a wife he usually visits a house of pros-
titution, selects one of the inmates, drives a hard bar-
gain with the hard-eyed mistress of the establishment,
and, the transaction concluded, brusquely tells the girl
to pack her belongings and accompany him to his home.
I might add that the girls thus chosen invariably make
good wives and remain faithful to their husbands.

Running parallel to the Jalan Tiga is another street
I do not recall its name in which are the opium
farms. Far from being veiled in secrecy, they are
operated as openly as American soda fountains. A
typical opium farm consists of a two-story wooden
house, one of a long row of similar buildings, contain-
ing a number of small, ill-lighted rooms which reek
with the sickly sweet fumes of the drug. The furni-
ture consists of a number of so-called beds, which in
reality are wooden platforms or tables, their tops,
which are raised about three feet above the floor, pro-
viding space on which two smokers can recline. Each
smoker is provided with a block of wood which serves
as a pillow and a small lamp for heating his "pill."
The number of patrons who may be accommodated
at one time is prescribed by law and rigidly enforced,
signs denoting the authorized capacity of the house
being posted at the door, like the signs in elevators
and on ferry-boats in America. For example, the door

The Jalan Tiga, Sandakan
A moderately broad thoroughfare, lined on both sides with gambling-houses

A patron of a Sandakan opium farm
Each smoker is provided with a lamp for heating his "pill" and a wooden head-rest

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 71

of one farm that I visited bore the notice "Only fifteen
beds. Room for thirty persons." Over-crowding is
forbidden by the authorities, not, as in the case of ele-
vators and ferry-boats, for reasons of safety, but for
financial reasons. The more opium farms there are,
you see, the greater the company's profits.

The opium is purchased by the chartered company
from the Government of the Straits Settlements for
$1.20 a tael (about one-tenth of a pound troy) and,
after being adulterated with various substances, is sold
to the opium farmers, nearly all of whom are Chinese,
for $8.50 a tael, the company thus making a very com-
fortable margin of profit on the transaction. The
opium farmers either keep opium dens themselves or
sell the drug to anyone wishing to buy it, just as a to-
bacconist sells cigars and cigarettes. The sale of the
opium privilege in Sandakan alone nets the govern-
ment, so I was informed, something over $500,000
annually.

Now, iniquitous and deplorable as such a traffic is,
the British North Borneo administration is not the
only government engaged in the sale of opium. But
it is the only government, so far as I am aware, which
virtually forces the drug on its people by insisting that
it shall be purchasable in localities which might other-
wise escape its malign influence. A planter who,
actuated either by moral scruples or by a desire to
maintain the efficiency of his laborers, opposes the
opening of an opium farm on his estate, might as well
sell out and leave Borneo, for the company will

72 STRANGE TRAILS

promptly retaliate for such interference with its reve-
nues by cutting off his supply of labor. It will defend
its action by naively asserting that, as the coolies would
contrive to obtain the drug any way, the planter, in
refusing to permit the opening of an opium farm
on his property, is guilty of conniving at the illegal
use of the drug I

The British North Borneo Company professes to
find justification for engaging in the opium traffic by
insisting that, as the Chinese will certainly obtain
opium clandestinely if they cannot obtain it openly, it is
better for everyone concerned that its sale and use
should be kept under government control. The fact
remains, however, that China, decadent though she
may be and desperately in need of increased revenues,
has succeeded, in spite of the powerful opposition of
the British-owned Opium Ring, in putting an end to the
traffic within her borders, while Siam, likewise under
Oriental rule, is about to do the same. It is a curious
commentary on European civilization that this vice,
which the so-called "backward" races are vigorously
attempting to stamp out, should be not only permitted
but encouraged in a country over which flies the flag
of England. Its effects on the population are summed
up in this sentence from a letter written me by a former
high official of the chartered company : "Fifty per cent
of the thefts and robberies committed during the
period that I was magistrate in that territory can be
directly traced to opium and gambling."

"NO TEN COMMANDMENTS" 73

"There is held each year, at one of the great Lon-
don hotels, the North Borneo Dinner. It is one of
the most brilliant affairs of the season. At the head
of the long table, banked with flowers and gleaming
with glass and silver, sits the chairman of the char-
tered company, flanked by cabinet ministers, arch-
bishops, ambassadors, admirals, field marshals. The
speakers work the audience into a fervor of patriotic
pride by their sonorous word-pictures of England's
services to humanity in bearing the white man's bur-
den, and of the spread of enlightenment and progress
under the Union Jack. But the heartiest applause in-
variably greets the announcement that the North Bor-
neo Company has declared a dividend. Whence the
money to pay the dividend was derived is tactfully left
unsaid. The dinner always concludes with the singing
of the anthem Land of Hope and Glory. Yet they say
that the English have no sense of humor !

CHAPTER IV

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA

IN Singapore stands one of the most significant
statues in the world. From the centre of its sun-
scorched Esplanade rises the bronze figure of a youth-
ful, slender, clean-cut, keen-eyed man, clad in the high-
collared coat and knee-breeches of a century ago, who,
from his lofty pedestal, peers southward, beyond the
shipping in the busy harbor, beyond the palm-fringed
straits, toward those mysterious, alluring islands which
ring the Java Sea. Though his name, Thomas Stam-
ford Raffles, doubtless holds for you but scanty mean-
ing, and though he died when only forty-five, his last
years shadowed by the ingratitude of the country whose
commercial supremacy in the East he had secured and
to which he had offered a vast, new field for colonial
expansion, he was one of the greatest architects of
empire that ever lived. He combined the vision and
administrative genius of Clive and Hastings with the
audacity and energy of Hawkins and Drake. It was
his dream, to use his own words, "to make Java the
center of an Eastern insular empire" ruled "not only
without fear but without reproach" ; an empire to con-
sist of that great archipelago Sumatra, Java, Borneo,
the Celebes, New Guinea, and the lesser islands

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 75

which sweeps southward and eastward from the Asian
mainland to the edges of Australasia. Though this
splendid colonial structure was erected according to
the plans that Raffles drew, by curious circumstance
the flag that flies over it today is not his flag, 'not the
flag of England, for, instead of being governed from
Westminster, as he had dreamed, it is governed from
The Hague, the ruler of its fifty million brown inhabi-
tants being the stout, rosy-cheeked young woman who
dwells in the Palace of Het Loo.

Though in area Queen Wilhelmina's colonial pos-
sessions are exceeded by those of Britain and France,
she is the sovereign of the second largest colonial em-
pire, in point of population, in the world. But, be-
cause it lies beyond the beaten paths of tourist travel,
because it has been so little advertised by plagues and
famines and rebellions, and because it has been so ad-
mirably and unobtrusively governed, it has largely es-
caped public attention a fact, I imagine, with which
the Dutch are not ill-pleased. Did you realize, I won-
der, that the Insulinde, as Netherlands India is some-
times called, is as large, or very nearly as large, as all
that portion of the United States lying east of the Mis-
sissippi ? Did you know that in the third largest island
of the archipelago, Sumatra, the State of California
could be set down and still leave a comfortable margin
all around? Or that the fugitive from justice who
turns the prow of his canoe westward from New
Guinea must sail as far as from Vancouver to Yoko-

76 STRANGE TRAILS

hama before he finds himself beyond the shadow of the
Dutch flag and the arm of Dutch law?

Until the closing years of the sixteenth century,
European trade with the Far East was an absolute
monopoly in the hands of Spain and Portugal. In-
credible as it may seem, the two Iberian nations alone
possessed the secret of the routes to the East, which
they guarded with jealous care. In 1492, Columbus,
bearing a letter from the King of Spain to the Khan of
Tartary, whose power and wealth* had become legend-
ary in Europe through the tales of Marco Polo and
other overland travelers, sailed westward from Cadiz
in search of Asia, discovering the islands which came
to be known as the West Indies. Five years later a
Portuguese sea-adventurer, Vasco da Gama, turned
the prow of his caravel south from the mouth of the
Tagus, skirted the coast of Africa, rounded the Cape
of Good Hope, crossed the Indian Ocean, and dropped
his anchor in the harbor of Calicut the first European
to reach the beckoning East by sea. For a quarter of a
century the Portuguese were the only people in Europe
who knew the way to the East, and their secret gave
them a monopoly of the Eastern trade. Lisbon be-
came the richest port of Europe. Portugal was mis-
tress of the seas. But in 1519 another Portuguese
seafarer, Hernando de Maghallanes we call him
Ferdinand Magellan who, resenting his treatment by
the King of Portgual, had shifted his allegiance to
Spain, sailed southwestward across the Atlantic,
rounded the southern extremity of America by the

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 77

straits which bear his name, crossed the unknown Pa-
cific, and raised the flag of Spain over the islands which
came in time to be called the Philippines. Spain had
reached the Indies by sailing west, as Portugal had
reached them by sailing east.

Though the fabulous wealth of the lands thus dis-
covered was discussed around every council table and
camp-fire in Europe, the routes by which that wealth
might be attained were guarded by Portugal and Spain
as secrets of state. The charts showing the routes
were not intrusted to the captains of vessels in the
Eastern trade until the moment of departure, and they
were taken up immediately upon their return; the
silence of officers and crews was insured by every oath
that the church could frame and every penalty that the
state could devise. For more than three-quarters of a
century, indeed, the two Iberian nations succeeded in
keeping the secret of the sea roads to the East, its
betrayal being punishable by death. In 1580, how-
ever, the English freebooter, Francis Drake, nick-
named "The Master Thief of the Unknown World,"
duplicated the voyage of Magellan's expedition of
threescore years before, thus discovering the route to
the Indies used by Spain.

At this period the Dutch, "the waggoners of the
sea," possessed, as middlemen, a large interest in the
spice trade, for the Portuguese, having no direct access
to the markets of northern Europe, had made a prac-
tise of sending their Eastern merchandise to the
Netherlands in Dutch bottoms for distribution by way

78 STRANGE TRAILS

of the Rhine and the Scheldt. As a result, the enor-
mous carrying trade of Holland was wholly depend-
ent upon Lisbon. But when Spain unceremoniously
annexed Portugal in 1580, the first act of Philip, upon
becoming master of Lisbon, was to close the Tagus to
the Dutch, his one-time subjects, who had revolted
eight years before. As a result of the revenge thus
taken by the Spanish tyrant, the Dutch were faced by
the necessity of themselves going in quest of the Indies
if their flag was not to disappear from the seas. Their
opportunity came a dozen years later when a venture-
some Hollander, Cornelius Houtman, who was risking
imprisonment and even death by trading surrepti-
tiously in the forbidden city on the Tagus, succeeded
in obtaining through bribery a copy of one of the secret
charts. The Spanish authorities scarcely could have
been aware that he had learned a secret of such im-
mense importance, or his silence would have been
insured by the headsman. As it was, he was thrown
into prison for illegal trading, where he was held for
heavy ransom. But he managed to get word to Am-
sterdam of the priceless information which had come
into his possession, whereupon the merchants of that
city promptly formed a syndicate, subscribed the
money for his ransom, and obtained his release. Thus
it came about that shortly after his return to Holland
there was organized the Company of Distant Lands,
a title as vague, grandiose and alluring as the plans
of those who founded it. In 1595, then, nearly a
century after da Gama had shown the way, four car a-

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 79

vels under the command of Houtman, the banner of
the Netherlands flaunting from their towering sterns,
sailed grandly out of the Texel, slipped past the white
chalk cliffs of Dover, sped southward before the
trades, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and laid
their course across the Indian Ocean for the Spice
Islands. When the adventurers returned, two years
later, they brought back tales of islands richer than
anything of which the Dutch burghers had ever
dreamed, and produced cargoes of Eastern merchan-
dise to back their stories up.

The return of Houtman' s expedition was the signal
for a great outburst of commercial enterprise in the
Low Countries, seekers after fortune or adventure
flocking to the Indies as, centuries later, other fortune-
seekers, other adventurers, flocked to the gold-diggings
of the Sierras, the Yukon, and the Rand. On those
distant seas, however, the adventurers were beyond
the reach of any law, the same lawless conditions pre-
vailing in the Indies at the beginning of the seven-
teenth century which characterized Californian life in
the days of '49 The Dutch warred on the natives
and on the Portuguese, and, when there was no one
else to offer them resistance, they fought among them-
selves. By 1602 conditions had become so intolerable
that the government of Holland, in order to tran-
quillize the Indies, and to stabilize the spice market
at home, decided to amalgamate the various trading
enterprises into one great corporation, the Dutch East
India Company, which was authorized to exercise the

8o STRANGE TRAILS

functions of government in those remote seas and to
prosecute the war against Spain. When Philip shut
the Dutch out of Lisbon, he made a formidable enemy
for himself, for, though the burghers went to the East
primarily in order to save their commerce from extinc-
tion, they were animated in a scarcely less degree by a
determination to even their score with Spain.

The history of the Dutch East India Company is
not a savory one. It was a powerful instrument for
extracting the wealth of the Indies, and, so long as
the wealth was forthcoming, the stockholders at home
in Holland did not inquire too closely as to how the
instrument was used. The story of the company from
its formation in 1602 until its dissolution nearly two
centuries later is a record of intrigue, cruelty and
oppression. It exercised virtually sovereign powers.
It made and enforced its own laws, it maintained its
own fleet and army, it negotiated treaties with Japan
and China, it dethroned sultans and rajahs, it estab-
lished trading-posts and factories at the Cape of Good
Hope, in the Persian Gulf, on the coasts of Malabar
and Coromandel, and in Bengal ; it waged war against
the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the English in turn.
When at the summit of its power, in 1669, the com-
pany possessed forty warships and one hundred and
fifty merchantmen, maintained an army of ten thou-
sand men, and paid a forty per cent dividend.

Meanwhile a formidable rival to the Dutch com-
pany, the English East India Company, had arisen,
but the accession of a Dutchman, William, Prince of

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 81

Orange, to the throne of England in 1688 turned the
rivals into allies, the trade of the eastern seas being
divided between them. But toward the close of the
eighteenth century there came another change in the
status quo, for the Dutch, by allying themselves with
the French, became the enemies of England. By this
time Great Britain had become the greatest sea power
in the world, so that within a few months after the
outbreak of hostilities in 1795 the British flag had
replaced that of the Netherlands over Ceylon, Ma-
lacca, and other stations on the highway to the Insu-
linde. When the Netherlands were annexed to the
French Empire by Napoleon in 1810 the British
seized the excuse thus provided to occupy Java,
Thomas Stamford Raffles, the brilliant young English-
man who was then the agent of the British East India
Company at Malacca, in the Malay States, being sent
to Java as lieutenant-governor. Urgent as were his
appeals that Java should be retained by Britain as a
jewel in her crown of empire, the readjustment of the
territories of the great European powers which was
effected at the Congress of Vienna, in 1816, after the
fall of Napoleon, resulted in the restoration to the
Dutch of those islands of the Insulinde, including Java,
which the British had seized. But, though Raffles
ruled in Java for barely four and a half years, his
spirit goes marching on, the system of colonial govern-
ment which he instituted having been continued by the
Dutch, in its main outlines, to this day. He won the
confidence and friendship of the powerful native

82 STRANGE TRAILS

princes, revolutionized the entire legal system, revived
the system of village or communal government, re-
formed the land-tenure, abolished the abominable sys-
tem of forcing the natives to deliver all their crops,
and gave to the Javanese a rule of honesty, justice and
wisdom with which, up to that time, they had not had
even a bowing acquaintance. As a result of the les-
sons learned from Stamford Raffles, the Dutch pos-
sessions in the East are today more wisely and justly
administered than those of any other European nation.
The Dutch had not seen the last of Raffles, how-
ever, for in 1817 he returned from England, where
he had been knighted by the Prince Regent, to take
the post of lieutenant-governor of Sumatra, to which
the British did not finally relinquish their claims until
half a century later. His administration of that great
island was characterized by the same breadth of vision,
tact, and energy which had marked his rule in Java.
It was during this period that Raffles rendered his
greatest service to the empire. The Dutch, upon re-
gaining Java, attempted to obtain complete control of
all the islands of the archipelago, which would have
resulted in seriously hampering, if not actually ending,
British trade east of Malacca. But Raffles, recogniz-
ing the menace to British interests, defeated the Dutch
scheme in January, 1819, by a sudden coup d'etat,
when he seized the little island at the tip of the Malay
Peninsula which commands the Malacca Straits and
the entrance to the China seas, and founded Singa-
pore, thereby giving Britain control of the gateway

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 83

to the Farther East and ending forever the Dutch
dream of making of those waters a mare clausum a
Dutch lake.

The thousands of islands, islets, and atolls which
comprise Netherlands India the proper etymological
name of the archipelago is Austronesia are scat-
tered over forty-six degrees of longitude, on both sides
of the equator. Although in point of area Java holds
only fifth place, Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea and
the Celebes being much larger, it nevertheless contains
three-fourths of the population and yields four-fifths
of the produce of the entire archipelago. Though
scarcely larger than Cuba, it has more inhabitants than
all the Atlantic Coast States, from Maine to Florida,
combined. This, added to the strategic importance of
its situation, the richness of its soil, the variety of its
products, the intelligence, activity and civilization of
its inhabitants, and the fact that it is the seat of the
colonial government, makes Java by far the most
important unit of the Insulinde. Because of its over-
whelming importance in the matters of position, prod-
ucts and population, it is administered as a distinct
political entity, the other portions of the Dutch Indies
being officially designated as the Outposts or the Outer
Possessions.

Westernmost and by far the most important of the
Outposts is Sumatra, an island four-fifths the size of
France, as potentially rich in mineral and agricultural
wealth as Java, but with a sparse and intractable popu-
lation, certain of the tribes, notably the Achinese, who

84 STRANGE TRAILS

inhabit the northern districts, still defying Dutch rule
in spite of the long and costly series of wars which
have resulted from Holland's attempt to subjugate
them. The unmapped interior of Sumatra affords an
almost virgin field for the explorer, the sportsman and
the scientist. It has ninety volcanoes, twelve of which
are active (the world has not forgotten the eruption,
in 1883, of Krakatu, an island volcano off the Su-
matran coast, which resulted in the loss of forty
thousand human lives) ; the jungles of the interior are
roamed by elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, panthers
and occasional orang-utans, while in the scattered vil-
lages, with their straw-thatched, highly decorated
houses, dwell barbarous brown men practising customs
so incredibly eerie and fantastic that a sober narration
of them is more likely than not to be greeted with a
shrug of amused disbelief. One who has no first-
hand knowledge of the Sumatran tribes finds it dif-
ficult to accept at their face value the accounts of the
customs practised by the Bataks of Tapanuli, for ex-
ample, who, when their relatives become too old and
infirm to be of further use, give them a pious inter-
ment by eating them. When the local Doctor Osiers
have decided that a man has reached the age when
his place at the family table is preferable to his com-
pany, the aged victim climbs a lemon-tree, beneath
which his relatives stand in a circle, wailing the death-
song, the weird, monotonous chant being continued
until the condemned one summons the courage to
throw himself to the ground, whereupon the members

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 85

of his family promptly despatch him with clubs, cut
up his body, roast the meat, and eat it. Thus every
stomach in the tribe becdmes, in effect, a sort of family
burial-plot. I was unable to ascertain why the victim
is compelled to throw himself from a lemon-tree. It
struck me that some taller tree, like a palm, would
better accomplish the desired result. A matter of cus-
tom, doubtless. Perhaps that explains why we dub
persons who are passe "lemons." Then there are
the Achinese, whose women frequently marry when
eight years old, and are considered as well along
in life when they reach their teens; and the Niassais,
who are in deadly fear of albino children and who
kill all twins as soon as they are born. Or the Me-
nangkabaus, whose tribal government is a matriarchy:
lands, houses, crops and children belonging solely to
the wife, who may, and sometimes does, sell her hus-
band as a slave in order to pay her debts.

Trailing from the eastern end of Java in a twelve-
hundred-mile-long chain, like the wisps of paper which
form the tail of a kite, and separated by straits so nar-
row that artillery can fire across them, are the Lesser
Sundas Bali, noted for its superb scenery and its
alluring women; Lombok, the northernmost island
whose flora and fauna are Australian; Sumbawa,
where the sandalwood comes from; Flores, whose in-
habitants consider the earth so holy that they will not
desecrate it by digging wells or cultivation; Timor,
the northeastern half of which, together with Goa in
India and Macao in China, forms the last remnant of

86 STRANGE TRAILS

Portugal's once enormous Eastern empire; Rotti, Kei,
and Aroo, the great chain thus formed linking New
Guinea, the largest island in the world, barring Aus-
tralia, with the mainland of Asia. Of the last-named
island, the entire western half belongs to Holland, the
remaining half being about equally divided between
British Papua, in the southeast, and in the northeast
the former German colony of Kaiser Wilhelm Land,
now administered by Australia under a mandate from
the League of Nations.

The population of Dutch New Guinea is estimated
at a quarter of a million, but the predilection of its
puff-ball-headed inhabitants for human flesh has dis-
couraged the Dutch census-takers from making an
accurate enumeration, as the Papuan cannibal does not
hesitate to sacrifice the needs of science to those of the
cooking-pot. Though New Guinea is believed to be
enormously rich in natural resources, and has many
excellent harbors, the secrets of its mysterious interior
can only be conjectured. The natives are as degraded
as any in the world ; their principal vocation is hunting
birds of paradise, whose plumes command high prices
in the European markets; their chief avocation in re-
cent years has been staging imitation cannibal feasts
for the benefit of motion-picture expeditions. But,
unknown and unproductive as it is at present, I would
stake my life that New Guinea will be a great colony
some day.

To the west of New Guinea and to the south of
the Philippines lie the Moluccas Ceram, Amboin,

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 87

Ternate, Halmahera, and the rest the Spice Islands
of the old-time voyagers, the scented tropic isles of
which Camoens sang. Amboin, owing to the fact that
Europeans have been established there for centuries on
account of its trade in spices, is characterized by a
much higher degree of civilization than the rest of
the Moluccas, a considerable proportion of its in-
habitants professing to be Christians. The flower of
the colonial army is recruited from the Amboinese,
who regard themselves not as vassals of the Dutch
but as their allies and equals, a distinction which they
emphasize by wearing shoes, all other native troops
going barefoot. Beyond the Moluccas, across the
Banda Sea, sprawls the Celebes,* familiar from our
school-days because of its fantastic outline, the plural
form of its name being due to the supposition of the
early explorers that it was a group of islands instead
of one. And finally, crossing Makassar Straits, we
come to Borneo, the habitat of the head-hunter and
the orang-utan. Though Borneo is a treasure-house
for the naturalist, the botanist, and the ethnologist, the
Dutch, as in New Guinea, have merely scratched its
surface, almost no attempt having thus far been made
to exploit its enormous natural resources. Thus I
have arrayed for your cursory inspection the con-
geries of curious and colorful islands which constitute
Netherlands India in order that you may comprehend
the problems of civilization and administration which

* Pronounced as though it were spelled Cel-lay-bees, with the
accent on the second syllable.

88 STRANGE TRAILS

Holland has had to solve in those distant seas, and
that you may be better qualified to judge the results
she has achieved.

The Insulinde has eight times the population and
sixty times the area of the mother country, from which
it is separated by ten thousand miles of sea, yet the
sovereignty of Queen Wilhelmina is upheld among
the cannibals of New Guinea, the head-hunters of Bor-
neo, and the savages of Achin, no less than among
the docile millions of Java, by less than ten thousand
European soldiers. That a territory so vast and with
so enormous a population, should be so admirably
administered, everything considered, by so small a
number of white men, is in itself proof of the Dutch
genius for ruling subject races.

From the day when Holland determined to organize
her colonial empire for the benefit of the natives them-
selves, instead of exploiting it for the benefit of a
handful of Dutch traders and settlers, as she had
previously done, she has employed in her colonial
service only thoroughly trained officials of proved
ability and irreproachable character. The Dutch of-
ficials whom I met in Java and the Outposts impressed
me, indeed, as being men of altogether exceptional
capacity and attainments, better educated and quali-
fied, as a whole, than those whom I have encountered
in the British and French colonial possessions. Since
the war, owing to the difficulty of obtaining men of
sufficient caliber and experience to fill the minor posts,

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 89

which are not particularly well paid, Holland has given
employment in her colonial service to a considerable
number of Germans, most of whom had been trained
in colonial administration in Germany's African and
Pacific possessions, but they are appointed, of course,
only to posts of relative unimportance.

Every year the Minister of the Colonies ascertains
the number of vacancies in the East Indian service,
and every year the Grand Examination of Officials is
held simultaneously in The Hague and Batavia, the
results of this examination determining the eligibility
of candidates for admission to the colonial service and
the fitness of officials already in the service for pro-
motion. With the exception of the Governor-General
and two or three other high officials, who are ap-
pointed by the crown, no official can evade this exami-
nation, to pass which requires not only an intimate
knowledge of East Indian languages, politics and cus-
toms, but real scholarship as well. The names of those
candidates who pass this examination are certified to
the Minister of the Colonies, who thereupon directs
them to report to the Governor-General at Batavia
and provides them with funds for the voyage. Upon
their arrival in the Indies the Governor-General ap-
points them to the grade of controleur and tests their
capacity by sending them to difficult and trying posts
in Sumatra, Borneo, the Celebes, or New Guinea,
where they must conclusively prove their ability before
they can hope for promotion to the grades of assistant
resident and resident, and the relative comfort of of-

90 STRANGE TRAILS

ficial life in Java. In the Outposts they at once come
face to face with innumerable difficulties and respon-
sibilities, for the controleur is responsible, though
within narrower limits than the resident, for every-
thing: justice, police, agriculture, education, public
works, the protection of the natives, and the require-
ments of the settlers in such matters as labor and
irrigation. He is, in short, an administrator, a police
official, a judge, a diplomatist, and an adviser on al-
most every subject connected with the government of
tropical dependencies. The officials in the Outposts
are given more authority and greater latitude of action
than their colleagues in Java, for they have greater
difficulties to cope with, while the intractability, if not
the open hostility of the natives whom they are called
upon to rule demands greater tact and diplomacy than
are required in Java, where the officials are inclined to
become spoiled by their easy-going life and the semi-
royal state which they maintain.

Though Holland demands much of those who up-
hold her authority in the Indies, she is generous in her
rewards. The Governor-General draws a salary of
seventy thousand dollars together with liberal allow-
ances for entertaining, and is provided with palaces
at Batavia and Buitenzorg, while at Tjipanas, on one
of the spurs of the Gedei, nearly six thousand feet
above the sea, he has a country house set in a great
English park. Wherever he is in residence he main-
tains a degree of state scarcely inferior to that of the
sovereign herself. The residents are paid from five

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 91

thousand dollars to nine thousand dollars according to
their grades, the assistant residents from three thou-
sand five hundred dollars to five thousand dollars, and
the controleurs from one thousand eight hundred dol-
lars to two thousand four hundred dollars. Though
officials are permitted leaves of absence only once in
ten years, those who complete twenty-five years' serv-
ice in the Insulinde may retire on half-pay. Even at
such salaries, however, and in a land where living is
cheap as compared with Europe, it is almost impossible
for the officials to save money, for they are expected
to entertain lavishly and to live in a fashion which
will impress the natives, who would be quick to seize
on any evidence of economy as a sign of weakness.

Netherlands India is ruled by a dual system of
administration European and native. By miracles of
patience, tact, and diplomacy, the Dutch have suc-
ceeded in building up in the Indies a gigantic colonial
empire, which, however, they could not hope to hold
by force were there to be a concerted rising of the
natives. Realizing this, Holland instead of attempt-
ing to overawe the natives by a display of military
strength, as England has done in Egypt and India, and
France in Algeria and Morocco has succeeded, by
keeping the native princes on their thrones and accord-
ing them a shadowy suzerainty, in hoodwinking the
ignorant brown mass of the people into the belief that
they are still governed by their own rulers. Though
at first the princes, as was to be expected, bitterly
resented the curtailment of their prerogatives and

92 STRANGE TRAILS

powers, they decided that they might better remain
on their thrones, even though the powers remaining
to them were merely nominal, and accept the titles,
honors and generous pensions which the Dutch offered
them, than to resist and be ruthlessly crushed. In
pursuance of this shrewd policy, every province in the
Indies has as its nominal head a native puppet ruler,
known as a regent, usually a member of the house
which reigned in that particular territory before the
white man came. Though the regents are appointed,
paid, and at need dismissed by the government, and
though they are obliged to accept the advice and obey
the orders of the Dutch residents, they remain the
highest personages in the native world and the inter-
mediaries through whom Holland transmits her wishes
and orders to the native population.

In order to lend color to the fiction that the natives
are still ruled by their own princes, the regents are
provided with the means to keep up a considerable de-
gree of ceremony and pomp; they have their opera-
bouffe courts, their gorgeously uniformed body-guards,
their gilded carriages and golden parasols, and some of
the more important ones maintain enormous house-
holds. But, though they preside at assemblies, sign de-
crees, and possess all the other external attributes of
power, in reality they only go through the motions of
governing, for always behind their gorgeous thrones
sits a shrewd and silent Dutchman who pulls the
strings. Though this system of dual government has
the obvious disadvantage of being both cumbersome

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 93

and expensive, it is, everything considered, perhaps the
best that could have been devised to meet the existing
conditions, for nothing is more certain than that,
should the Dutch attempt to do away with the native
princes, there would be a revolt which would shake the
Insulinde to its foundations and would gravely imperil
Dutch domination in the islands.

The most interesting examples of this system of
dual administration are found in the Forstenlanden, or
"Lands of the Princes," of Surakarta and Djokja-
karta, in Middle Java. These two principalities,
which once comprised the great empire of Mataram,
are nominally independent, being ostensibly ruled by
their own princes : the Susuhunan of Surakarta and the
Sultan of Djokjakarta, who are, however, despite their
high-sounding titles and their dazzling courts, but
mouthpieces for the Dutch residents. The series of
episodes which culminated in the Dutch acquiring com-
plete political ascendency in the Forstenlanden form
one of the most picturesque and significant chapters
in the history of Dutch rule in the East. Until the
last century these territories were undivided, forming
the kingdom of the Susuhunan of Surakarta, who,
being threatened by a revolt of the Chinese who had
settled in his dominions, called in the Dutch to aid
him in suppressing it. They came promptly, helped
to crush the rebellion, and so completely won the con-
fidence of the Susuhunan that he begged their arbitra-
tion in a dispute with one of his brothers, who had
launched an insurrection in an attempt to place himself

94 STRANGE TRAILS

on the throne. Certain historians assert, and prob-
ably with truth, that this insurrection was instigated
and encouraged by the Dutch themselves, who foresaw
that it would be easier to subjugate two weak states
than a single strong one. In pursuance of this policy,
they suggested that, in order to avoid a fratricidal and
bloody war, the kingdom be divided, two-thirds of it,
with Surakarta as the capital, to remain under the rule
of the Susuhunan; the remaining third to be handed
over to the pretender, who would assume the title of
Sultan and establish his court at Djokjakarta. This
settlement was reluctantly accepted by the Susuhunan
because he realized that he could hope for nothing
better and by his brother because he recognized that
he might do much worse.

In principle, at least, the Sultan remained the vassal
of the Susuhunan, in token of which he paid him public
homage once each year at Ngawen, near Djokjakarta,
where, in the presence of an immense concourse of
natives, he was obliged to prostrate himself before the
Susuhunan's throne as a public acknowledgment of his
vassalage. But as the years passed the breach thus
created between the Susuhunan and the Sultan showed
signs of healing, which was the last thing desired by
the Dutch, who believed in the maxim Divide ut
imperes. So, before the next ceremony of homage
came around, they sent for the Sultan, pointed out to
him the humiliation which he incurred in kneeling be-
fore the Susuhunan, and offered to provide him with
a means of escaping this abasement. Their offer was

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 95

as simple as it was ingenious permission to wear the
uniform of a Dutch official. This was by no means
as empty an honor as it seemed, as the Sultan was
quick to recognize, for one of the tenets of Holland's
rule in the Indies is that no one who wears the Dutch
uniform, whether European or native, shall impair the
prestige of that uniform by kneeling in homage. The
Sultan, needless to say, eagerly seized the opportunity
thus offered, and, when the date for the next ceremony
fell due he arrived at Ngawen arrayed in the blue and
gold panoply of a Dutch official, but, instead of pros-
trating himself before the Susuhunan in the grovelling
dodok, he coolly remained seated, as befitted a Dutch
official and an independent prince.

The animosity thus ingeniously revived between the
princely houses lasted for many years, which was ex-
actly what the Dutch had foreseen. But, though the
Susuhunan and the Sultan had been goaded into hating
each other with true Oriental fervor, they hated the
Dutch even more. In order to divert this hostility
toward themselves into safer channels, the Dutch
evolved still another scheme, which consisted in in-
stalling at the court of the Susuhunan, as at that of the
Sultan, a counter-irritant in the person of a rival
prince, who, though theoretically a vassal, was in re-
ality as independent as the titular ruler. And, as a
final touch, the Dutch decreed that the cost of main-
taining the elaborate establishments of these hated
rivals must be defrayed from the privy purses of the
Susuhunan and the Sultan. The "independent" prince

96 STRANGE TRAILS

at Surakarta is known as the Pangeran Adipati Mang-
ku Negoro; the one at Djokjakarta as the Pangeran
Adipati Paku Alam. Both of these princes have re-
ceived military educations in Holland, hold honorary
commissions in the Dutch army, and wear the Dutch
uniform; their handsome palaces stand in close prox-
imity to those of the Susuhunan and the Sultan, and
both are permitted to maintain small but well-drilled
private armies, armed with modern weapons and or-
ganized on European lines. The "army" of Mangku
Negoro consists of about a thousand men, and is a
far more efficient fighting force than the fantastically
uniformed rabble maintained by his suzerain, the Susu-
hunan. In certain respects this arrangement resembles
the plan which is followed at West Point and Annap-
olis, where, if the appointee fails to meet the entrance
requirements, the appointment goes to an alternate,
who has been designated with just such a contingency
in view. Both the Susuhunan and the Sultan are per-
fectly aware that the first sign of disloyalty to the
Dutch on their part would result in their being
promptly dethroned and the "independent" princes
being appointed in their stead. So, as they like their
jobs, which are well paid and by no means onerous
the Susuhunan receives an annual pension from the
Dutch Government of some three hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and has in addition one million dol-
lars worth of revenues to squander each year their
conduct is marked by exemplary obedience and cir-
cumspection.

THE EMERALDS OF WILHELMINA 97

Ever since the DIpo Negoro rebellion of 1825,
which was caused by the insulting behavior of an in-
competent and tactless resident toward a native prince,
to suppress which cost Holland five years of warfare
and the lives of fifteen thousand soldiers, the Dutch
Government has come more and more to realize that
most of the disaffection and revolts in their Eastern
possessions have been directly traceable to tactlessness
on the part of Dutch officials, who either ignored or
were indifferent to the customs, traditions, and sus-
ceptibilities of the natives. It is the recognition and
application of this principle that has been primarily
responsible for the peace, progress, and prosperity
which, in recent years, have characterized the rule of
Holland in the Indies. When a nation with a quarter
the area of New York State, and less than two-thirds
its population, with a small army and no navy worthy
of the name, can successfully rule fifty million people
of alien race and religion, half the world away, and
keep them loyal and contented, that nation has, it
seems to me, a positive genius for colonial
administration.

Some one has described the Dutch East Indies as a
necklace of emeralds strung on the equator. To those
who are familiar only with colder, less gorgeous lands,
that simile may sound unduly fanciful, but to those
who have seen these great, rich islands, festooned
across four thousand miles of sea, green and scintil-
lating under the tropic sun, the description will not

98 STRANGE TRAILS

appear as far-fetched as it seems. A necklace of
emeralds I The more I ponder over that description
the better I like it. Indeed, I think that that is what
I will call this chapter The Emeralds of Wilhelmina.

CHAPTER V

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS

THERE is no name between the covers of the atlas
which so smacks of romance and adventure as Borneo.
Show me the red-blooded boy who, when he sees that
magic name over the wild man's cage in the circus
sideshow or over the orang-utan's cage in the zoo,
does not secretly long to go adventuring in the jun-
gles of its mysterious interior. So, because there is
still in me a good deal of the boy, thank Heaven, I
ordered the course of the Negros laid for Samarinda,
which, if the charts were to be believed, was the prin-
cipal gateway to the hinterland of Eastern Borneo.
There are no roads in Borneo, you understand, only
narrow foot-trails through the steaming jungle, so that
the only practicable means of penetrating the interior
is by ascending one of the great rivers. The Koetei,
which has its nativity somewhere in the mysterious
Kapuas Mountains, winds its way across four hun-
dred miles of unmapped wilderness, and, a score of
miles below Samarinda, empties into Makassar
Straits, answered my requirements admirably, provid-
ing a highroad to the country of my boyish dreams.
Though I told the others that I was going up the
Koetei in order to see the strange tribes who dwell

ioo STRANGE TRAILS

along its upper reaches, I admitted to myself that I
had one object in view and one alone to see the Wild
Man.

Viewed from the deck of the Negros, Samarinda,
which is the capital of the Residency of Koetei,
was entirely satisfying. It corresponded in every re-
spect to the mental picture which I had drawn of a
Bornean town. It straggles for two miles or more
along a dusty road shaded by a double row of flaming
fire-trees. Facing on the road are a few-score miser-
able shops kept by Chinese and Arabs ami the some-
what more pretentious buildings which house the offices
of the European trading companies. Further out, at
the edge of the town, are the dwellings of the Dutch
officials and traders comfortable-looking, one-story,
whitewashed houses with deep verandahs, peering
coyly out from the midst of fragrant, blazing gardens.
The Residency, the Custom House, the Police Barracks
and the Koetei Club can readily be distinguished by the
Dutch flags that droop above them. The river-bank
itself is one interminable street. Here dwells the
brown-skinned population Malays, Bugis, Makas-
sars, and a sprinkling of Sea Dyaks. Sometimes the
flimsy, cane-walled, leaf-thatched huts, perched aloft
on bamboo stilts, stand, like flocks of storks, in clus-
ters. Again they stray a little apart, seeking pro-
tection from the pitiless sun beneath clumps of
palms. Malays in short, tight jackets and long,
tight breeches of kaleidoscopic colors were saun-
tering along the yellow road, oblivious of the sun.

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 101

On the shelving beach naked brown men were mending
their nets or pottering about their dwellings. Now
and then I caught a glimpse of a European, cool and
comfortable in topee and white linen. It was all
exactly as I had expected. It was, indeed, almost too
story-booky to be true. Here, at last, was a green and
lovely land, unspoiled by noisy, prying tourists, where
one could lounge the lazy days away beneath the palm-
trees or stroll with dusky beauties on a beach silvered
by the tropic moon. I was impatient to go ashore.

Changing from pajamas to whites, I ordered the
launch to the gangway and went ashore to pay my
respects to the Resident. To leave your card on the
local representative of Queen Wilhelmina is the first
rule of etiquette to be observed by the foreigner travel-
ing in the Outer Possessions. In Java, which is more
highly civilized, it is not so necessary. Unlike the
Latin races, the Dutch are not by nature a suspicious
people, but political unrest is prevalent throughout
the East, and with Bolshevists, Chinese agitators and
other fomenters of disaffection surreptitiously at work
among the natives, it is the part of prudence to estab-
lish your respectability at the start. To gain a friendly
footing with the authorities is to save yourself from
possible annoyance later on.

As I approached the shore the glamor lent by dis-
tance disappeared. The river-bank, which had
looked so alluring from the cutter's deck, proved on
closer inspection to be as squalid as the back-yard of
a Neapolitan tenement. It was littered with dead cats

102 STRANGE TRAILS

and fowls and fish and castaway vegetables and rotten
fruit and tin cans and greasy ashes and refuse from
fishing nets and decaying cocoanuts by the million and
sodden rags. This stewing garbage was strewn ankle-
deep upon the sand or was floating on the surface of
the river, not drifting seaward, as one would expect,
but languidly following the tide up and down, forever
lolling along the bank. Above this putrefying feast
swarmed myriads of flies, their buzzing combining in
a drone like that of an electric fan. The sun struck
viciously down upon the yellow foreshore, its glare
reflected by the hard-packed sands as by a sheet of
brass; the heat-waves danced and flickered. Sending
the launch back to the cutter, I picked my way across
this noisome place to the shelter of the trees along the
road. But the shade that had appeared so inviting
from the river proved as illusory as everything else.
Grass? There was none. The earth was baked to
the hardness of asphalt.

To make matters worse, I found that I had landed
too far down the beach. The building that I had as-
sumed was the Residency proved to be the Custom
House. The Harbor Master, whom I encountered
there, seized the opportunity to present me with a bill
for a hundred guilders something over forty dollars
for port dues. It seemed a high price to pay for the
privilege of lying in the stream, a quarter-mile off-
shore. In all the Dutch ports at which we touched I
noted this same disposition on the part of the authori-
ties to charge all that the traffic would bear and then

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 103

some. Foreign vessels are rarely seen at Samarinda,
and one would suppose that they would be welcomed
accordingly, but the Dutch are a business people and
do not permit sentiment to interfere with a chance to
make a few honest guilders.

The Residency, I found upon inquiry, was two miles
away, in the outskirts of the town. And, as there are
neither rickshaws nor carriages for hire in Samarinda,
I was compelled to walk. It was really too hot to
move. In five minutes my clothes were as wet as
though I had fallen in the river. The green silk
lining of my sun-hat crocked and ran down my face in
emerald rivulets. When I had covered half the dis-
tance I paused beneath a waringin tree to rest. A
breath of breeze from the river, sighing through the
palms, brought to my streaming cheeks a hint of cool-
ness and to my nostrils more than a hint of the gar-
bage broiling on the beach. Anyone who could be ro-
mantic in Borneo must be in love.

The Assistant Resident, Monsieur de Haan, was
as glad to see me as a banker away from home is to see
a copy of The Wall Street Journal. I brought him a
whiff of that great outside world from which he was
an exile, with whose doings he kept in touch only
through the meager despatches in the papers brought
by the fortnightly mail-boat from Java, or through
occasional travelers like myself. Dutch officials in
the Indies can obtain leave only once in ten years and
Monsieur de Haan had not visited the mother coun-
try for nearly a decade, so that when he learned I

104 STRANGE TRAILS

had recently been in Holland he was pathetically
eager to hear the gossip of the homeland. For an
hour I lounged in a Cantonese chair beneath the
leisurely swinging punkah the motive power for
the punkah being provided by a native on the
verandah outside, who mechanically pulled the
cord even while he slept and chatted of homely
things: of a restaurant which we both knew on the
Dam in Amsterdam, of bathing on the sands of Schev-
iningen, of band concerts on summer evenings in the
Haagsche Bosch. Only when his long-pent curiosity
as to happenings in Europe had been appeased did I
find an opportunity to mention the reasons which had
brought me to Samarinda. I wished to go up country,
I explained. I wanted to see the real jungle and the
strange tribes which dwell in it; particularly I wished
to see the head-hunters. Now in this I was fully pre-
pared for discouragement and dissuasion, for head-
hunters are not assets to a country; to a visitor they
are not displayed with pride. When, in the Philip-
pines, I wished to see the head-hunting Igorots; when
I asked the Japanese for permission to visit the head-
hunters of Formosa, I met only with excuses and eva-
sions. At my taste the officials pretended to be sur-
prised and grieved. But Monsieur de Haan, doubt-
less because he had lived so long in the wilds that head-
hunters were to him a commonplace, not only made
no objection, he even offered to accompany me.

"We can go up the Koetei on your cutter," he
suggested. "It is navigable as far as Long Iram, two

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 105

hundred miles up-country, which is the farthest point
inland that one of our garrisons is stationed. Thus
you will be able to see the Dyak country as com-
fortably as you could see Holland from the deck of a
canal boat. On our way we might pay a visit to the
Sultan of Koetei, who has a palace at Tenggaroeng.
Though he has no real power to speak of, he exer-
cises considerable influence among the wild tribes, of
which he is the hereditary ruler. He's the very man
to put you in touch with the head-hunters."

The suggestion sounded fine. Moreover, in visit-
ing savages as temperamental as the Dyaks, there
would be a certain comfort in having the head of the
government along. So, as Monsieur de Haan did not
appear to be pressed with business, we arranged to
start up-river the following morning.

It was late afternoon when I returned to the
Negros. I was completely wilted by the terrible
humidity, and, as the river looked cool and inviting in
the twilight, I decided to refresh my body and my
spirits by a swim. But when I suggested to the Doc-
tor that he join me he shook his head gloomily.

"Nothing doing," he said. "I've been wanting to
go in all day but the port surgeon tells me that I'd be
committing suicide."

"But why?" I demanded irritably, for I was ill-
tempered from the heat. "It's perfectly clean out here
in mid-stream and there is no danger from sharks here,
as there was at Zamboanga and Jolo."

By way of replying he pointed to a black object,

io6 STRANGE TRAILS

which I took to be a log, that was floating on the
surface of the river, perhaps fifty yards off the cutter's
gangway.

"That's why," he said dryly.

As he spoke a dugout, driven by half-a-dozen
paddles in the hands of lusty natives, came racing down
stream. As the canoe drew abreast of us, the paddlers
chanting a barbaric chorus, there was a sudden swirl
in the water and the object which I had taken for a
log abruptly dropped out of sight.

"A crocodile!" I ejaculated, a little shiver chasing
itself up and down my spine.

The Doctor nodded.

"The river is alive with them," he said. "Man-
eaters, too. The port surgeon told me that they get
a native or so every day."

"I've changed my mind about wanting a swim," I
remarked, heading for the ship's shower-bath.

(Dusk is settling on the great river and the palm
fronds are gently stirring before the breeze that comes
with nightfall on the Line. If you have nothing better
to do, suppose you sit down beside me in a deck-chair
and let me tell you something about these cruel and
cunning monsters and the curious methods by which
they are captured. Boy! Pass the cheroots and bring
us something cold to drink.)

Though crocodiles are found everywhere in Malay-
sia, they attain their greatest size and ferocity in the

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 107

rivers of Borneo, it being no uncommon thing for them
to attack and capsize the frail native canoes, killing
their occupants as they flounder in the water. I sup-
pose that the crocodile of Borneo more nearly ap-
proaches the giant saurians of prehistoric times than
anything alive to-day. Imagine, if you please, a crea-
ture as large as a ship's launch, with the swiftness and
ferocity of a man-eating shark, the cunning of a snake,
a body so heavily armored with scales that it is impervi-
ous to everything save the most high-powered bullets, a
tail that is capable of knocking down an ox, and a pair
of jaws that can cut a man in two at a single snap. How
would you like to encounter that sort of thing when
you were having a pleasant swim, I ask you? Com-
pared to the crocodile of Malaysia, the Florida alli-
gator is about as formidable as a lizard. One was
captured while we were at Sandakan which measured
slightly over twenty-eight feet from the end of his ugly
snout to the tip of his vicious tail. Before you raise
your eyebrows incredulously you might take a look at
the accompanying photograph of this monster. Nor
was this a record crocodile, for, shortly before our
arrival at Samarinda, one was caught in the Koetei
which measured ten metres, or within a few inches of
thirty-three feet.

The crocodile obtains its meals by the simple ex-
pedient of lying motionless just beneath the surface of
a pool where the natives are accustomed to bathe or
where they go for water. The unsuspecting brown
girl trips jauntily down to the river-bank to fill her

io8 STRANGE TRAILS

amphora usually a battered Standard Oil tin. As
she bends over the stream there comes without the
slightest warning the lightning swish of a scaly tail, a
scream, the crunch of monster jaws, a widening eddy,
a scarlet stain overspreading the surface of the water
and there is one less inhabitant of Borneo. But in-
stead of proceeding to devour its victim then and there,
the crocodile carries the body up a convenient creek,
where it has the self-control to leave it until it is suffi-
ciently gamey to satisfy its palate. For the crocodile,
like the hunter, does not like freshly killed meat.
Hence, a crocodile swimming up-stream with a native
in its mouth is by no means an uncommon sight on Bor-
ne an rivers.

"But it is a quick death," as an Englishman whom I
met in Borneo philosophically observed. "They don't
play with you as a cat plays with a mouse they just
hold you under the water until you are drowned."

Yet, in spite of the hundreds who fall victim to the
terrible jaws each year, the natives seem incapable of
observing the slightest precautions. For superstitious
reasons they will not disturb the crocodile until it has
shown itself to be a man-eater. If the crocodile will
live at peace with him the native has no wish to start
a quarrel. But the day usually comes when a native
who has gone down to the river fails to return. In
America, under such circumstances, the relatives of
the missing man would send for grappling irons and an
undertaker. But in Borneo they summon a profes-
sional crocodile hunter. The idea of this is not so

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 109

much to obtain revenge as to recover the brass orna-
ments which the dear departed was wearing at the
moment of his taking off, for, though human life is
the cheapest thing there is in Borneo, brass is extremely
dear.

The professional crocodile hunters are usually
Malays. One of the best known and most successful
in Borneo is an old man who runs a ferry across the
Barito at Bandjermasin. He has capitalized his skill
and cunning by organizing himself into a sort of croco-
dile liability company, as it were. Anyone may secure
a policy in this company by paying him a weekly pre-
mium of 2^ Dutch cents. When one of his policy
holders is overtaken by death in the form of a pair of
four-foot jaws the old man turns the ferry over to one
of his children and sets out to fulfill the terms of his
contract by capturing the offending saurian, recovering
from its stomach the weighty bracelets, anklets and
earrings worn by the deceased, and restoring them to
the next of kin. In order to make good he sometimes
has to kill a number of crocodiles, but he keeps on
until he gets the right one. This is not as difficult as
it sounds, for the big man-eaters usually have their
recognized haunts in certain deep pools in the rivers,
many of them, indeed, being known to the natives by
name. The old ferryman at Bandjermasin has been
so successful in the conduct of his curious avocation
that, so the Dutch Resident assured me, he has several
hundred policy holders who pay him their premiums

i io STRANGE TRAILS

with punctilious regularity, thereby giving him a very
comfortable income.

The method pursued by the crocodile hunters of
Borneo is as effective as it is ingenious. Their fishing
tackle consists of a hook, which is a straight piece of
hard wood, about the size of a twelve-inch ruler, sharp-
ened at both ends ; a ten-foot leader, woven from the
tough, stringy bark of the baru tree; and a single
length of rattan or cane, fifty feet or so in length,
which serves as a line. One end of the leader is at-
tached to a shallow notch cut in the piece of wood,
the other end is fastened to the rattan. With a few
turns of cotton one end of the stick is then lightly
bound to the leader, thus bringing the two into a
straight line. Then comes the bait, which must be
chosen with discrimination. Though the body of a
dog or pig will usually answer, the morsel that most
infallibly tempts a crocodile is the carcass of a monkey.
But it must not be a freshly killed monkey, mind you.
A crocodile will only swallow meat that is in an ad-
vanced stage of decomposition, the more overpowering
its stench the greater the likelihood of the bait being
taken. The bait is securely lashed to the pointed
stick, though anyone but a Malay would require a
gas-mask to perform this part of the operation.

Everything now being ready, the bait is suspended
from the bough of a tree overhanging the pool which
the crocodile is known to frequent, being so arranged
that the carcass swings a foot or so above the surface
of the stream at high water level, the end of the rattan

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS in

being planted in the bank. Lured by the smell of the
bait, which in that torrid climate quickly acquires a
bouquet which can be detected a mile to leeward, the
crocodile is certain sooner or later to thrust its long
snout out of the water and snap at the odoriferous
bundle dangling so temptingly overhead, the slack line
offering no resistance until the bait has been swallowed
and the brute starts to make off. Then the man-eater
gets the surprise of its long and checkered life, for the
planted end of the rattan holds sufficiently to snap the
threads which bind the pointed stick to the leader. The
stick, thus caused to resume its original position at
right angles to the line, becomes jammed across the
crocodile's belly, the pointed ends burying themselves
in the tender abdominal lining.

The next morning the hunter finds bait and tackle
missing, but a brief search usually reveals the coils of
rattan floating on the surface of some deep pool at
no great distance from the spot where the bait was
taken. At the bottom of the pool Mr. Crocodile is
writhing in the throes of acute indigestion. Taking
the end of the line ashore, the hunter summons assist-
ance. A score of jubilant natives lay hold on the rat-
tan. Then ensues a struggle that makes tarpon fishing
as tame in comparison as catching shiners. At first the
monster tries to resist the straining line, its tail flail-
ing the water into foam. The great jaws close on the
leader like a bear-trap, but the loosely braided strands
of baru fiber slip between the pointed teeth. The
leader holds. The natives haul at the line as sailors

ii2 STRANGE TRAILS

haul at a halliard. Soon there emerges from the
churning waters a long and incredibly ugly snout, fol-
lowed by a low, reptilian head, with venomous, heavy-
lidded, scarlet eyes, a body as broad as a row-boat
and armored with horny scales, and finally a tremen-
dous tail, twice as long as an elephant's trunk and twice
as powerful, that spells death for any human being
that comes within its reach. Sometimes it happens that
the hunters momentarily become the hunted, for the
infuriated beast, catching sight of its enemies, may
come at them with a rush and a bellow, but more often
it has to be dragged to land, fighting every inch of
the way.

Now comes the most hazardous part of the whole
proceeding the securing of the monster. By means
of a noose, deftly thrown, the great jaws are rendered
harmless. Another noose encircles the lashing tail
and binds it securely to a tree. The front legs are next
lashed behind the back and the hind legs treated in
the same fashion. Thus deprived of the support of
its legs, the crocodile is helpless and it is safe to release
its tail. A stout bamboo is then passed between the
bound legs and a score of sweating natives bear the
captive in triumph to the nearest government station,
where the bounty is claimed. The crocodile is then
killed, the stomach cut open and its contents examined,
any brassware or other ornaments worn by its victim
at the time of his demise being handed over to the
heirs.

The method of fishing pursued by the Dyaks of

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 113

Borneo is quite as curious, in its way, as their manner
of catching crocodiles. Instead of netting the fish, or
catching them with hook and line, they asphyxiate
them, using for the purpose a poison obtained from
the tuba root, known to scientists as Cocculus indicus.
When a Dyak village is in need of food the entire
community, men, women and children, repairs to a
stream in which fish are known to be plentiful. Across
the stream a sort of picket fence is erected by planting
bamboos close together. In the center of this fence is
a narrow opening leading into an enclosure like a
corral, the walls of which are made in the same fash-
ion. When this part of the preparations has been
completed a party of natives proceeds up-stream by
canoe for a dozen, or more miles, taking with them
a plentiful supply of tuba root. Early the next morn-
ing the canoes are filled with water, in which the tuba
root is beaten until the water is as white and frothy
as soapsuds. When a sufficient quantity of this highly
toxic liquid has thus been obtained, it is emptied into
the stream and, after a brief wait, the canoes are again
launched and the fishermen drift slowly down the cur-
rent in the wake of the poison. Many of the fish are
stupefied by the tuba and, as they rise struggling to the
surface, are speared by the Dyaks. Other, seeking to
escape the poisonous wave, dart down-stream and,
when halted by the barrier, pour through the opening
into the corral, where they are captured by the thou-
sands. I might add that the tuba does not affect the
flesh of the fish, which can be eaten with safety. As a

ii 4 STRANGE TRAILS

means of obtaining food in wholesale quantities fishing
with tuba is perhaps justified. As a sport it is in the
same class with shooting duck from airplanes with ma-
chine-guns.

Monsieur de Haan, wearing the brass-buttoned
white uniform and gold-laced conductor's cap which
is the garb prescribed for Dutch colonial officials, came
abroad the Negros shortly after breakfast. The gang-
way was hoisted, Captain Galvez gave brisk orders
from the bridge, there was a jangle of bells in the
engine-room, and we were off up the Koetei, into the
mysterious heart of Borneo. Above Samarinda the
great river flows between solid walls of vegetation.
The density of the Bornean jungle is indeed almost un-
believable. It is a savage tangle of bamboos, palms,
banyans, mangroves, and countless varieties of shrubs
and giant ferns, the whole laced together by trailers
and creepers. Contrary to popular belief, there is
little color to relieve the somber monotony of dark
brown trunks and dark green foliage. It is as gloomy
as the nave of a cathedral at twilight. Here and there
may be seen some vine with scarlet berries and many
orchids swing from the higher branches like incandes-
cent globes of colored glass. But it is usually impos-
sible for one on the ground to see the finest blooms,
which turn their faces to the sunlight above the canopy
of green. Gray apes chatter in the tree-tops; strange
tropic birds of gorgeous plumage flit from bough to
bough, monstrous reptiles slip silently through the

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 115

undergrowth ; insects buzz in swarms above the putrid
swamps; occasionally the jungle crashes beneath
the tread of some heavy animal a rhinoceros, per-
haps, or a wild bull, or an orang-utan. (I might
mention, parenthetically, that orang-utan means, in
the Malay language, "man of the forest," while
orang-outang, the name which we incorrectly apply to
the great red-haired anthropoid, means "man in
debt.") The Bornean jungle is a place of indescrib-
able dismalness and dread, its gloom seldom dissipated
by the sun, its awesome silence broken only by the
stirrings of the unseen creatures which lurk underfoot
and overhead and all around.

The palace of the Sultan of Koetei stands in the
edge of the jungle at a horseshoe bend in the river.
You come on it with startling abruptness miles and
miles of primeval wilderness and then, quite unex-
pectedly, a bit of civilization. In no respect does its
exterior come up to what you would expect the palace
of an Oriental ruler to be. It is a great barn of a place,
two stories in height, painted a bright pink, with the
arms of Koetei emblazoned above the entrance. It re-
minded me of a Coney Island dance hall or one of
the tabernacles built foi; Billy Sunday.

A broad flight of white marble steps leads to a
wide, covered terrace of the same incongruous ma-
terial. This terrace opens directly into the great
throne-hall, a lofty apartment of impressive propor-
tions, though its furnishings are a bizarre mixture of
Oriental taste and Occidental tawdriness. Its marble

n6 STRANGE TRAILS

floor is strewn with splendid rugs and tiger-skins; hang-
ing from the ceiling are enormous cut-glass chandeliers;
set in the walls, on either side of the scarlet-and-gold
throne, are life-size portraits of the present Sultan's
father and grandfather done in glazed Delft tiles,
which seem more appropriate for a bathroom than a
throne-hall. From each end of the apartment scarlet-
carpeted staircases, with gilt balustrades, lead to the
second floor. Under one of these staircases is a sort of
closet, with glass doors, which looks for all the world
like a large edition of a telephone booth in an American
hotel. The doors were sealed with strips of paper
affixed by means of wax wafers, but, peering through
the glass, I could made out a large table piled high
with trays of precious stones, ingots of virgin gold
and silver, vessels, utensils and images of the same
precious metals. It was the state treasure of Koetei
and was worth, so the Resident told me, upward of a
million dollars.

When I was at Tenggaroeng the young Sultan, an
anaemic-looking youth in the early twenties, had not
yet been permitted by the Dutch authorities to ascend
the throne, the country being ruled by his uncle, the
Regent, an elderly, affable gentleman who, in his white
drill suit and round white cap, was the image of a
Chinese cook employed by a Californian friend of
mine. Upon the formal accession of the young Sul-
tan the seals of the treasury would be broken, I was
told, and the treasure would be his to spend as he saw
fit. I rather imagine, however, that the Dutch con-

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 117

troleur attached to his court in the capacity of adviser
will have something to say should the youthful mon-
arch show a disposition to squander his inheritance.

Up-stairs we were shown through a series of apart-
ments filled to overflowing with the loot of European
shops ornate brass beds, inlaid bureaus and chiffon-
iers, toilet-sets of tortoise-shell and ivory, washbowls
and pitchers of Sevres, Dresden and Limoges, garnish
vases, statuettes, music-boxes, mechanical toys, models
of all ships and engines, and a thousand other useless
and inappropriate articles, for, when the late Sultan
paid his periodic visits to Europe, the shopkeepers of
Paris, Amsterdam and The Hague seized the oppor-
tunity to unload on him, at exorbitant prices, their cost-
liest and most unsalable wares. Opening a marquetry
wardrobe, the Regent displayed with great pride his
collection of uniforms and ceremonial costumes, most
of which, the Resident told me, had been copied from
pictures which had caught his fancy in books and maga-
zines. That wardrobe would have delighted the heart
of a motion-picture company's property-man, for it con-
tained everything from a Dutch court dress, complete
with sword and feathered hat, to a state costume of
sky-blue broadcloth edged with white fur and trimmed
with diamond buttons. I expressed a desire to see the
royal crown, for I had noticed that the pictures of for-
mer sultans, which I had seen in the throne-room,
showed them wearing crowns of a peculiar design, strik-
ingly similar to those worn by the Emperors of Abys-
sinia. My request resulted in a whispered colloquy be-

n8 STRANGE TRAILS

tween the Resident, the Controleur, the Regent and the
young Sultan. After a brief discussion the Resident ex-
plained that the Controleur kept the crown locked up in
his safe, but that he would get it if I wished to see it.
To the obvious relief of everyone except the young Sul-
tan I assured them that it did not matter. He seemed
distinctly disappointed. I imagine that he would have
liked to have gotten his hands on it.

Outside the palace just below its windows, in fact
is a long, low, dirt-floored, wooden-roofed shed,
such as American farmers build to keep their wagons
and farm machinery under. This was the royal ceme-
tery. Beneath it the former rulers of Koetei lie buried,
their resting-places being marked by a most curious
assortment of fantastically carved tombs and head-
stones. Some of the tombs hold the ashes of men
who sat on the throne of Koetei when it was one of the
great kingdoms of the East, long before the coming
of the white man.

Lady luck was kind to me, for shortly after our ar-
rival at Tenggaroeng a delegation of Dyaks from one
of the tribes of the far interior appeared at the palace
to lay some tribal dispute before the Regent for his
adjudication. There were about a score of them, in-
cluding a rather comely young woman, whose comeli-
ness was somewhat marred, however, according to
European standards at least, by the lobes of her ears
being stretched until they touched her shoulders by the
great weight of the brass earrings which depended
from them. The warriors were the finest physical

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 119

specimens of manhood that I saw in all Malaysia tall,
slim, muscular, magnificently developed fellows, with
bright, rather intelligent faces. They had the broad
shoulders and small hips of Roman athletes and when
the sun struck on their oiled brown skins they looked
like the bronzes in a museum. Unlike the natives we
had seen along the coast, whose garments made a slight
concession to the prejudices of civilization, these chil-
dren of the wild "wore nothing much before and rather
less than 'arf o' that be'ind." Several of them were
armed with the sumpitan, or blow-gun, which is the na-
tional weapon of the Dyaks, and each of them carried
at his waist a parang-Hang, the terrible long-bladed
knife which the head-hunter uses to kill and decapitate
his victims.

Monsieur de Haan, as well as the other Dutch offi-
cials whom I questioned on the subject, attributed the
prevalence of head-hunting in Borneo to the vanity of
the Dyak women. He explained that, just as Ameri-
can girls expect candy and flowers from the young men
who are attentive to them, so Dyak maidens expect
freshly severed human heads. The warrior who re-
fused to present his lady-love with such grisly evidences
of his devotion would be rejected by her and ostracized
by his tribe. Nor does head-hunting end with marriage,
for the standing of both the man and his wife in the
community depends upon the number of grinning skulls
which swing from the ridgepole of their hut. Heads
are to a Dyak what money is to a man in civilized
countries the more he has, the greater his importance.

120 STRANGE TRAILS

The Controleur at Tenggaroeng assured me very ear-
nestly that his Dyak charges were by no means fero-
cious or bloodthirsty by nature and that they practised
head-hunting less from pleasure than from force of cus-
tom. But I am compelled to accept such an estimate of
the Dyak character with reservations. From all that I
could learn, head-hunting is a sport, like fox-hunting in
England. Nor does it, as a rule, involve any great risk
to the hunters, for the head-hunting raids are usually
mere butcheries of defenceless people, the Dyaks either
stalking their victim in the bush and killing him from
behind, or attacking a village when the warriors are
absent and slaughtering everyone whom they find in it
old, men, women, and children. The head of an
orang-utan, by the way, is as highly prized in many
of the Dyak tribes as that of a human being. Nor is
this surprising, for the warrior who single-handed can
kill one of the mighty anthropoids is deserving of the
trophy.

During my stay in Borneo I heard many theories ad-
vanced in explanation of head-hunting. Some authori-
ties claimed that it is the Dyak's way of establishing
a reputation for prowess. Others asserted that he
takes heads merely to gratify the vanity of his women.
There are still others who hold the opinion that the
Dyak believes that he inherits the courage and cun-
ning of those he kills. In certain of the Dyak tribes the
heads are treated with profound reverence, being
wreathed with flowers, offered the choicest morsels of
food, and sometimes being given a place at the table,

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 121

while in other tribes they are hung from the ridgepole
and displayed as trophies of the chase. My own opin-
ion is that, though prestige and vanity and supersti-
tion all contribute to the prevalence of head-hunting,
in the inherent savagery of the Dyak is found the true
explanation of the custom.

I have already made passing mention of that charac-
teristic weapon of the Dyaks, the sumpitan, or, as it is
called by foreigners, the blow-gun. The sumpitan is
a piece of hard wood, from six to eight feet in length
and in circumference slightly larger than the handle
of a broom. Running through it lengthwise is a hole
about the size of a lead-pencil. A broad spear-blade is
usually lashed to one end of the sumpitan, like a bayo-
net, thus providing a weapon for use at close quarters.
The dart is made from a sliver of bamboo, or from a
palm-frond, scraped to the size of a steel knitting-
needle. One end of the dart is imbedded in a cork-
shaped piece of pith which fits the hole in the sumpitan
as a cartridge fits the bore of a rifle; the other end,
which is of needle-sharpness, is smeared with a paste
made from the milky sap of the upas tree dissolved in
a juice extracted from the root of the tuba. With
the possible exception of curare, this is the deadliest
poison known, the slightest scratch from a dart thus
poisoned paralyzing the respiratory center and causing
almost instant death. The dart is expelled from the
sumpitan by a quick, sharp exhalation of the breath.
In fact, M. de Haan told me that among certain of
the Dyak tribes virtually all of the men suffer from

122 STRANGE TRAILS

rupture as a result of the constant use of the blow-
gun. Though I have heard those who have never
seen the sumpitan in use sneer at it as a toy, it is, at
short distances, one of the most accurate weapons in
existence and, when its darts are poisoned, one of the
deadliest. In order to show me what could be done
with the sumpitan, the Regent stuck in the earth a
bamboo no larger than a woman's little finger, and a
Dyak, taking up his position at a distance of thirty
paces which I stepped off myself, hit the almost indis-
tinguishable mark with his darts twelve times running.
That, as the late Colonel Cody would have put it, "is
some shooting."

In Borneo the use of the blow-gun is not confined to
the Dyaks. They are also used by fish! That is to
say, by a certain species of fish. This fish, which is re-
markable neither in size nor color, seldom being larger
than our domestic goldfish, is known to the natives as
ikan sumpit (literally "fish with a sumpitan") and to
science as Toxodes jaculator. But it is unique among
the finny tribe in possessing the curious power, on corn-
ing to the surface, of being able to squirt from its
mouth a tiny jet of water. This it uses with unerring
aim against insects, such as flies, grasshoppers and
spiders, resting on plants along the edge of the streams,
causing them to fall into the water, where they be-
come an easy prey to these Dyaks of the deep. It was
lucky for us that the crocodiles were not armed with
blow-guns I

When Latins engage in a serious quarrel they are

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 123

prone to decide it with the stiletto, or, if they belong
to the class which subscribes to the code, they meet
on the field of honor with rapiers or pistols; Anglo-
Saxons are accustomed to settle their disputes in a
court of law or with their fists; but when Dyaks be-
come involved in a controversy which cannot be ad-
justed by the tribal council, they have recourse to the
s'lam ayer, or trial by water. This curious method of
deciding disputes is conducted with great formality,
according to the rules of an established code. For
example, should two husky young head-hunters become
involved in a lovers' quarrel over a village belle the
lobes of whose ears are probably pulled down to her
shoulders by the weight of her brass earrings they
adjourn, with their seconds and their friends, to what
might appropriately be called the pool of honor. Al-
most any place where there are four or five feet of wa-
ter will do. Into the bottom of the pool the seconds
drive two stout bamboo poles, a few yards apart. The
rivals then wade out into the water and take up their
positions, each grasping a pole. At a signal from the
chief who is acting as umpire they plunge beneath the
water, each duelist keeping his nostrils closed with one
hand while with the other he clings to the pole so as to
keep his head below the surface. As both of them
would drown themselves rather than acknowledge de-
feat by coming to the surface voluntarily, at the first
sign either of the two gives of being asphyxiated, the
seconds, who are watching their principals closely, drag
the rivals from the water. They are then held up by

I2 4 STRANGE TRAILS

the heels, head downward, in order to drain off the
water they have swallowed, the one who first recovers
consciousness being declared the victor and awarded
the hand of the lady fair. It is a quaint custom.

As I have no desire to strain your credulity to the
breaking-point, I will touch on only one more Dyak
custom the disposal of the dead. It seems a fitting
subject with which to bring this account of the wild
men to a close. Certain of the Dyak tribes expose
their dead in trees, some burn them, while still others
bury them until the flesh has disappeared, when they
exhume the skeletons, disarticulate them, and seal the
bones in the huge jars of Chinese porcelain which are
a Dyak's most prized possession. Sometimes these
burial-jars are kept in the family dwelling a rather
gruesome article of furniture to the European
mind but more often they are deposited in a
grave-house, a small, fantastically decorated hut or
shed which serves as a family vault. But I doubt if
any people on the face of the globe have so weird a
custom of disposing of their dead as the Kapuas of
Central Borneo, who hollow out the trunk of a grow-
ing tree and in the space thus prepared insert the corpse
of the departed. The bark is carefully replaced over
the opening and the tree continues to grow and flourish
literally a living tomb.

Noticing that I was interested in the equipment of
the Dyaks, the Regent of Koetei called up their chief
and, without so much as a by-your-leave, presented me
with his sumpitan and the quiver of poisoned darts, his

Major Powell talking to the Regent of Koetei on the steps of the
palace at Tenggaroeng

From left to right: the regent, Major Powell, the prime minister, the Sultan of Koetei (who has
since ascended the throne), and the Dutch resident, M. de Haan

State procession in the Kraton of the Sultan of Djokjakarta

MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS 125

wooden shield a long, narrow buckler of some light
wood, tastily trimmed with seventy-two tufts of human
hair, mementoes of that number of enemies slain on
head-hunting expeditions a peculiar coat of mail, com-
posed of overlapping pieces of bark, capable of turn-
ing an arrow, and his imposing head-dress, which con-
sisted of a cap formed from a leopard's head, with a
sort of visor made from the beak of a hornbill, the
whole surmounted by a bunch of yard-long tail-feathers
from some bright-plumaged bird. When the presen-
tation was concluded all the chieftain had left was his
breech-clout. He did not share in my enthusiasm.
From the murderous glance which he shot at me when
the Regent was not looking, I judged that if he ever
met me alone in the jungle he would get his shield back,
with another scalp to add to his collection. And I
could guess whose head that scalp would come from.

CHAPTER VI

IN BUGI LAND

THE Negros was not fast thirteen knots was
about the best she could do so that it took us two
days to cross from Samarinda, in Borneo, to Makas-
sar, the capital of the Celebes. Our course took us
within sight of "the Little Paternosters, as you come
to the Union Bank," where, as you may remember,
Sir Anthony Gloster, of Kipling's ballad of The Mary
Gloster, was buried beside his wife. Before our
hawsers had fairly been made fast to the wharf at
Makassar it became evident that among the natives
our arrival had created a distinct sensation. The
wharf was crowded with Bugis, as the natives of the
southern Celebes are known, who tried in vain to make
themselves understood by our Filipino crew. Instead
of the boisterous curiosity which had marked the atti-
tude of the natives at the other ports, the Bugis ap-
peared to be laboring under a suppressed but none the
less evident excitement. When I went ashore to call
on the American Consul they made way for me with a
respect which verged on reverence. This curious atti-
tude was explained by the Consul.

"Your coming has revived among the natives a very
curious and ancient legend," he told me. "When the

126

IN BUGI LAND 127

Dutch established their rule in the Celebes, something
over three centuries ago, the King of the Bugis mys-
teriously disappeared. Whether he fled or was killed
in battle, no one knows. In any event, from his dis-
appearance arose a tradition that he had founded
another kingdom in some islands far to the north, but
that, when the time was propitious, he would return to
free his people from foreign domination. Thus he
came in time to be regarded as a divinity, a sort of
Messiah. Curiously enough, the natives refer to him
by a name which, translated into English, means 'the!
King of Manila.' Some months ago it was reported
in the Makassar papers that the Governor-General of
the Philippines expected to visit the Celebes upon his
way to Australia, whereupon the rumor spread among
the Bugis like wild-fire that 'the King of Manila' was
about to return to his ancient kingdom, but the excite-
ment gradually subsided when the Governor-General
failed to appear. But when the Negros entered the
harbor this morning, and it was reported that she was
from Manila and had on board a white man who had
some mysterious mission in the interior of the island,
the excitement flamed up again. The natives, you see,
who are as simple and credulous as children, believe
that you are the Messiah of their legend and that you
have come to liberate them from Dutch rule." *

* Owing to my ignorance of Dutch and Buginese, I was unable
to obtain a dependable account of this curious legend, but the
several versions which I heard agreed in the main with that given
above.

128 STRANGE TRAILS

"But look here," said I, annoyance in my tone, "this
isn't as funny as it seems. Tying me up to this fool
tradition may result in spoiling my plans for taking
pictures in the Celebes. Of course the Dutch authori-
ties know perfectly well that I haven't come here to
start a revolution, but, on the other hand, they may
not want a person whom the natives regard as a Mes-
siah to go wandering about in the interior, where
Dutch rule is none too firmly established anyway, for
fear that my presence might be used as an excuse for
an insurrection."

"Don't let that worry you," the Consul reassured
me. "I'll take you over now to call on the Governor.
He's a good sort and he'll do everything he can to help
you. Then I'll send the editors of the vernacular
papers around to the Negros this afternoon to call on
you. You can explain that you're here to get motion-
pictures to illustrate the progress and prosperity of the
Celebes, and it might be a good idea to tell them that
some of your ancestors were Dutch. That will help to
make you solid with the authorities. The interview
will appear in the papers tomorrow and in twenty-
four hours the news will have spread among the Bugis
that you're not their Messiah after all."

"But I'm not Dutch," I protested. "All my people
were Welsh and English. The only connection I have
with Holland is that the house in which I was born is
on a street that has a Dutch name."

"Fine!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Born on
Van Rensselaer street, you say? Be sure and tell 'em

IN BUGI LAND 129

that. That's the next best thing to having been born
in Holland."

"I know now," I said, "how it feels to refuse a
throne."

At tiffin that noon on the Negros I told the story to
the others. "So you see," I concluded, "if I had been
willing to take a chance, I might have been King of
the Bugis."

"They wouldn't have called you that at home," the
Lovely Lady said unkindly. "There they would have
called you the King of the Bugs."

Nature must have created Celebes in a capricious
moment, such a medley of bold promontories, jutting
peninsulas, deep gulfs and curving bays does its outline
present. Indeed, its coast line is so irregular and so
deeply indented by the three great gulfs or bays of
Tomini, Tolo, and Boni that it is small wonder that
the first European explorers assumed it was a group
of islands and gave it the name of plural form which
still perpetuates the very natural mistake. Its length
is roughly about five hundred miles but its width is
so varying that while it is over a hundred miles across
the northern part of the island at the middle it is a
scant twenty miles from coast to coast.

Though the census of 1905 gave the population of
the island as less than nine hundred thousand, the latest
official estimate places it at about three millions. The
actual number of inhabitants is probably midway be-
tween these figures. But, to tell the truth, the tempera-

130 STRANGE TRAILS

ment of the savages who inhabit the interior is not con-
ducive to an accurate enumeration, the Dutch census-
takers being greeted with about the same degree of
cordiality that the moonshiners of the Kentucky moun-
tains extend to United States revenue agents.

The three most important peoples of Celebes are
the Bugis, the Makassars, and the Mandars. The
medley of more or less savage tribes dwelling in the
island are known as Alfuros literally "wild" which
is the term applied by the Malays to all the uncivilized
non-Mohammedan peoples in the eastern part of the
archipelago. For the Bugis to refer to the tribes of
the interior as wild is like the pot calling the kettle
black. The Bugis, a passionate, half-savage, ex-
tremely revengeful people, originally occupied only the
kingdom of Boni, in the southwestern peninsula, but
from this district they have spread over the whole of
Celebes and have founded settlements on many of the
adjacent islands. They are the seamen of the archi-
pelago, the greatest navigators and the most enter-
prising tradesmen, and were, in times gone by, the
greatest pirates as well. In fact, the harbor master at
Makassar told us that the crews of many of the rakish
looking sailing craft which were anchored in close
proximity to the Negros were reformed buccaneers.
Certainly they looked it. They may have reformed,
but that did not prevent Captain Galvez from doubling
the deck-watch at night while we were in Celebes
waters. He believed in safety first.

The Winsome Widow had been very enthusiastic

Some strange subjects of Queen Wilhelmina
Native women of the interior of Dutch Borneo

IN BUGI LAND 131

about going to the Celebes because Makassar is the
greatest market in the world for those ornaments so
dear to the feminine heart bird-of-paradise plumes. I
explained to her that it vas against the law to bring
them into the United States, but no matter, she wanted
to buy some. To visit Makassar without buying bird-
of-paradise plumes, she said, would be like visiting Ja-
pan without buying a kimono. The bird is usually sold
entire, the prices ranging from twenty-five to thirty
dollars, according to size and condition, though, owing
to the ruthless slaughter of the birds to meet the de-
mands of the European market, prices are steadily ad-
vancing. The Winsome Widow bought four of the
finest birds I have ever seen gorgeous, flame-colored
things with plumes nearly two feet long. How she pro-
posed getting them into the United States she did not
tell me, and I thought it as well not to ask her. She
had them carefully packed in a wooden box made for
the purpose which she did not open until nearly
two months later, when we were steaming down the
coast of Siam on a cargo boat, long after I had sent the
Negros back to Manila. Imagine her feelings when,
upon opening the box to feast her eyes on her contra-
band treasures, she found it to contain nothing but
waste paper! I suspect that the sweetheart of one of
our Filipino cabin-boys is now wearing a hat fairly
smothered in bird-of-paradise plumes.

The Bugis' love of the sea has given them almost a
monopoly of the trade around Celebes. Despite their
fierce and warlike dispositions they are industrious and

I 3 2 STRANGE TRAILS

ingenious qualities which usually do not go together;
they practise agriculture more than the neighboring
tribes and manufacture cotton cloth not only for their
own use but for export. They also drive a thriving
trade in such romantic commodities as gold dust, tor-
toise shell, pearls, nutmegs, camphor, and bird-of-
paradise plumes. They dwell for the most part in
walled enclosures known as kampongs, in flimsy houses
built of bamboo and thatched with grass or leaves.
But as diagonal struts are not used the walls soon lean
over from the force of the wind, giving to the villages
a curiously inebriated appearance. In several of the
eight petty states which comprise the confederation of
Boni the ruler is not infrequently a woman, the female
line having precedence over the male line in succession
to the throne. The women rulers of the Bugis have
invariably shown themselves as astute, capable and
warlike as the men, the princess who ruled in Boni
during the middle of the last century having defeated
three powerful military expeditions which the Dutch
sent against her. Everything considered, the Bugis
are perhaps the most interesting race in the entire
archipelago.

The Bugis are said to be more predisposed toward
"running amok" than any other Malayan people.
Having been warned of this unpleasant idiosyncrasy,
I took the precaution, when among them, of carrying
in the right-hand pocket of my jacket a service auto-
matic, loaded and ready for instant action. For when
a Bugi runs amok he will almost certainly get you

IN BUGI LAND 133

unless you get him first. Running amok, I should
explain, is the native term for the homicidal mania
which attacks Malays. Without the slightest warn-
ing, and apparently without reason, a Malay, armed
with a kris or other weapon, will rush into the street
and slash at everybody, friends and strangers alike,
until he is killed. These frenzies were formerly re-
garded as due to sudden insanity, but it is now believed
that the typical amok is the result of excitement due
to circumstances, such as domestic jealousy or gamb-
ling losses, which render the man desperate and weary
of life. It is, in fact, the Malay equivalent of suicide.
Though so intimately associated with the Malay, there
are good grounds for believing the word to have an
Indian origin. Certainly the act is far from unknown
in Indian history. In Malabar, for example, it was
long the custom for the zamorin or king of Calicut to
cut his throat in public after he had reigned twelve
years. But in the seventeenth century there was inaug-
urated a variation in this custom. After a great feast
lasting for nearly a fortnight the ruler, surrounded by
his bodyguard, had to take his seat at a national as-
sembly, on which occasion it was lawful for anyone to
attack him, and, if he succeeded in killing him the
murderer himself assumed the crown. In the year
1600, it is recorded, thirty men who would be king were
killed while thus attempting to gain the throne. These
men were called Amar-khan, and it has been suggested
that their action was "running amok" in the true sense
of the term. From this it would appear that a king of

134 STRANGE TRAILS

Calicut was about as good an insurance risk as a
president of Haiti.

The act of running amok is probably due to causes
over which the culprit has some measure of control, as
the custom has now virtually died out in the Philip-
pines and in the British possessions in Malaysia, owing
to the drastic measures adopted by the authorities.
Among the Mohammedans of the southern Philip-
pines, where the custom is known as juramentado, it
was discouraged by burying the carcass of a pig an
animal abhorred by all Moslems in the grave with
the body of the assassin. When I was in Jolo the
governor told me of a novel and highly effective
method which had been adopted by the officer com-
manding the American forces in that island for dis-
couraging the custom. A number of American sol-
diers had been killed by Moros running amok. The
American commander took up the matter with the
local priests but they only shrugged their shoulders
with true Oriental stoicism, saying that when a man
went juramentado it was the will of Allah and that
nothing could be done. The next day an American
soldier, a revolver in either hand, burst into a Moro
village, notorious for its juramentados, firing at every-
one whom he saw and yelling like a mad man. The ter-
rified villagers took to the bush, where they remained
in fear and trembling until the crazy Americano had
taken his departure. That evening the village priests
appeared at headquarters to complain to the American
commander.

IN BUGI LAND 135

"But Americans have just as much right to go
juramentado as the Moros," said the general. "I can
do nothing. The man is not responsible. It is the
will of Allah." That was the end of juramentado in
Jolo.

The wharves and godowns which line Makassar's
water-front form an unattractive screen to a pic-
turesque and charming town. Though, owing to its
commercial importance as a half-way station on the
road from Asia to Australia, Makassar promises to
become a second Singapore, it has as yet neither an
electric lighting, gas, nor water system. It is, however,
very beautifully laid out, the streets, which are broad
and well-kept, being lined by double rows of mag-
nificent canarium trees or tamarinds, whose branches
interlace high overhead in a canopy of green. The
European life of Makassar centers in the great grass-
covered pletn, or common, where band concerts, re-
views, horse races, festivals, and similar events are
held. Facing on the plein is the palace of the Gover-
nor of the Celebes, a one-story, porticoed building
with white walls and green blinds, in the Dutch colo-
nial style, a type of architecture which is admirably
adapted to the tropics. Next to the palace is the
Oranje Hotel, a well-kept and comfortable hostelry
as hotels go in Malaysia. On its terrace the home-
sick Europeans gather toward twilight to sip advo-
cat a drink which is a first cousin to the egg-nogg

i 3 6 STRANGE TRAILS

of pre-Volstead days, very popular in the Indies and
to listen to the military band playing on the plein.

Diagonally across the plein rise the massive walls
of Fort Rotterdam, erected by one of the native rulers,
the King of Goa, with the assistance of the Portuguese,
when the seventeenth century was still in its infancy
and when the settlement on the lower end of Manhat-
tan Island was still called Nieuw Amsterdam. The
capture of the fort by the Dutch in 1667 signalized the
passing of Portuguese power in Asia. Pass the sloven-
ly native sentry at the outer gate, cross the creaking
drawbridge, and, were it not for the tropical vegeta-
tion and the oppressive heat, you might think yourself
in the Low Countries instead of a few degrees below
the Line, for the crenelated ramparts, the shaded,
gravelled paths, the ancient garrison church, the of-
ficers' quarters with their steep-pitched, red-tiled roofs,
make the interior a veritable bit of Holland, trans-
planted to a tropic island half the world away.

Makassar has a population of about fifty thousand,
including something over a thousand Europeans and
some five thousand Chinese, but as most of the natives
live in their walled kampongs in the environs, the city
appears much smaller than it really is. The retail
trade is almost wholly in the hands of the Chinese,
many of whom are men of great wealth and influ-
ence. There was also a small colony of Japanese,
but, as a result of the boycott which the Chinese
had instituted against them in reprisal for Japan's
refusal to evacuate Shantung, they were unable to

IN BUGI LAND 13?

find markets for their wares or to obtain employ-
ment and, in consequence, were being forced to leave
the island. The only American in the Celebes when
we were there was the representative of the Standard
Oil Company a desperately homesick youngster from
Missouri who had been a lieutenant of aviation. He
introduced himself to us on the terrace of the Oranje
Hotel, begged the privilege of buying the drinks, and
pleaded with an eagerness that was almost pathetic
for the latest news from God's Country. At almost
every place of importance which we visited in Malaysia
we found these agents of Standard Oil alert and
clean-cut young fellows, who, far from home and
friends, are helping to build up a commercial empire for
America oversea.

The native soldiery, who form the bulk of the Ma-
kassar garrison, are quartered, with their families, in
long, stone barracks ten couples to a room. For every
soldier of the colonial forces, whether European or
native, is permitted to keep a woman in the barracks
with him. If she is the soldier's wife, well and good,
but the authorities do not frown if the couple have
omitted the formality of standing up before a clergy-
man. The rooms in which the soldiers and their fami-
lies live have no partitions, to each couple being as-
signed a space about eight feet square, which is chalk-
marked on the floor. The only article of furniture in
each of these "apartments" is a bed, which is really_ a
broad, low platform covered with a grass-mat, for in a
land where the mercury not infrequently climbs to 1 20

138 STRANGE TRAILS

in the shade, there is no need for bedding. Here they
eat and sleep and make their toilets, the women prepar-
ing the meals for their men and for themselves in ovens
out-of-doors. At night the beds may be separated by
drawing the flimsiest of cotton curtains the only con-
cession to privacy that I could discover. As Malays
invariably have large families, the barrack room
usually has the appearance of a day nursery, with
naked brown youngsters crawling everywhere, but at
night they are disposed of in fiber hammocks which
are slung over the parents' heads. The colonel in
command at Fort Rotterdam told me that in the new
type of barracks which were being built in Java each
family would be assigned a separate room, but he
seemed to regard such provisions for privacy as wholly
unnecessary and a shameful waste of money.

The military authorities not only permit, but
encourage the Dutch soldiers to contract alliances
of a temporary character with native women dur-
ing their term of service in the Insulinde, with the
idea, no doubt, of making them more contented. Dur-
ing operations in the field the women and children,
instead of remaining behind in barracks, accompany
the troops almost to the firing-line, a custom which,
apparently, does not interfere with efficiency or disci-
pline. Indeed, there are few forces of equal size in
the world which have seen as much active service as
the army of Netherlands India, for in the extension of
Dutch dominion throughout the archipelago the native
rulers rarely have surrendered their authority without

IN BUGI LAND 139

fighting. Though the newspapers seldom mention it,
Holland is almost constantly engaged in some little war
in some remote corner of her Indian empire, in cer-
tain districts of Sumatra, for example, fighting having
been almost continuous these many years.

Though the flag of Holland was first hoisted over
the Celebes more than three centuries ago, Dutch com-
mercial interests are still virtually confined to the four
chief towns Makassar, ' Menado, Gorontalo, and
Tondano and this in spite of the fact that the interior
of the island is known to be immensely rich in natural
resources. In the native states Dutch authority is little
more than nominal, the repeated attempts which have
been made to subjugate them invariably having met
with discouragement and not infrequently with disas-
ter. Hence the island is still without railways, though
it is being slowly opened up by means of roads, some
of which are practicable for motor-cars. Most of the
roads in the Celebes were originally built by means of
the Corvee, or forced labor, the natives being com-
pelled to spend one month out of the twelve in road
construction. But, though they were taken for this
work at a season when they could best be spared from
their fields, it was an enormous tax to impose upon an
agricultural population, resulting in grave discontent
and in seriously retarding the development of the
island. For, ever since Marshal Daendels, "the Iron
Marshal," who ruled the Indies under Napoleon,
utilized forced labor to build the splendid eight-hun-
dred-mile-long highway which runs from one end of

i 4 o STRANGE TRAILS

Java to the other, the corvee has been a synonym for
unspeakable cruelty and oppression throughout the
Insulinde. Each dessa, or district, through which the
great trans-Java highway runs was forced to construct,
within an allotted period, a certain section of the road,
the natives working without pay while their crops rot-
ted in the fields and their families starved. As a final
touch of tyranny, the grim old Marshal gave orders
that if a dessa did not complete its section of the road
within the allotted time the chiefs of that district were
to be taken out and hung.

When the Dutch determined to open up Celebes by
the construction of a highway system they realized
the wisdom of obtaining the cooperation of the native
rulers. But when they outlined their scheme to the
King of Goa, the most powerful chieftain in the south-
ern part of the island, they encountered, if not open
opposition, at least profound indifference. This was
scarcely a matter for surprise, however, for the King
quite obviously had no use for roads, first, because when
he had occasion to journey through his dominions he
either rode on horseback or was carried in a palanquin
along the narrow jungle trails ; secondly, because he was
perfectly well aware that by aiding in the construction
of roads he would be undermining his own power, for
roads would mean white men. To attempt to build a
road across Goa in the face of the King's opposition,
would, as the Dutch realized, probably precipitate a
native uprising, for, without his cooperation, it would

IN BUGI LAND 141

be necessary to make use of the corvee to obtain
laborers.

But the Governor of the Celebes had been trained
in a different school from the Iron Marshal. He
believed that with an ignorant and suspicious native,
such as the King of Goa, tact could accomplish more
than threats. So, instead of attempting to build the
road by forced labor, he sent to Batavia for a fine
European horse and a luxurious carriage, gaudily
painted, which he presented to the King as a token
of the government's esteem and friendship. Now the
King of Goa, as the governor was perfectly aware,
had about as much use for a wheeled vehicle in his
roadless dominions as a Bedouin of the Sahara has
for a sailboat. But the King did precisely what the
governor anticipated that he would do: in order that
he might display his new possession he promptly
ordered his subjects to build him a carriage road from
his capital to Makassar. Thus the government of the
Celebes obtained a perfectly good highway for the
price of a horse and carriage, and won the friendship
of the most powerful of the native rulers into the
bargain. After some years, however, the road began
to fall into disrepair, but as by this time the novelty
of the horse and carriage had worn off, the King
took little interest in its improvement. So the
governor again had recourse to diplomacy to gain
his ends, this time presenting his Goanese Majesty with
a motor-car, gorgeous with scarlet paint and polished
brass. And, in order that the King might be brought

1 42 STRANGE TRAILS

to realize that the roads were not in a condition con-
ducive to comfortable motoring, a young Dutch officer
took him for his first motor ride. That ride evidently
jolted the memory as well as the body of the dusky
monarch, for the next day a royal edict was issued
summoning hundreds of natives to put the road in
good repair. And, as the King quickly acquired a
taste for speeding, in good repair it has remained
ever since.

I have related this episode not because it is in itself
of any great importance, but because it serves to illus-
trate the methods used by the Dutch officials in handling
recalcitrant or stubborn natives. Though Holland
rules her fifty million brown subjects with an iron
hand, she has long since learned the wisdom of wearing
over the iron a velvet glove.

CHAPTER VII

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN

I WENT to Bali, which is an island two-thirds the
size of Porto Rico, off the eastern extremity of Java,
because I wished to see for myself if the accounts I
had heard of the surpassing beauty of its women were
really true. The Dutch officials whom I had met in
Samarinda and Makassar had depicted the obscure
little isle as a flaming, fragrant garden, overrun with
flowers, a sort of unspoiled island Eden, where bronze-
brown Eves with faces and figures of surpassing love-
liness disported themselves on the long white beaches,
or loitered the lazy days away beneath the palms. But
I went there skeptical at heart, for, ever since I jour-
neyed six thousand miles to see the women for whom
Circassia has long been undeservedly famous, I have
listened with doubt and distrust to the tales told by
returned travelers of the nymphs whom they had
found, leading an Arcadian existence, on distant tropic
isles.

Yet I must admit that, when the anchor of the
Negros splashed into the blue waters off Boeleleng, on
the northern coast of the island, and a boat's crew of
white-clad Filipinos rowed me ashore, I half expected
to find a Balinese edition of the Ziegfeld Follies chorus

143

144 STRANGE TRAILS

waiting to greet me with demonstrations of welcome
and garlands of flowers. What I did find on the wharf
was a surly Dutch harbor-master, who, judging from
his breath and disposition, had been on a prolonged
carouse. Of the women whose beauty I had heard
chanted in so many ports, or, indeed, of a native
Balinese of any kind, there was no sign. Barring the
harbor-master and a handful of Chinese, Boeleleng,
which is a place of some size, appeared to be deserted.
Yet, as I strolled along its waterfront, I had the un-
comfortable feeling that I was being watched by many
pairs of unseen eyes.

"Where has everyone gone?" I demanded of the
impassive Chinese steward who served me liquid re-
freshment at the Concordia Club. (Every town in the
Insulinde has its Concordia Club, just as every Swiss
town has its Grand Hotel.)

"Menjepee," he answered mystically, shrugging his
shoulders. "Evlyone stay in house."

"Menjepee, eh?" I repeated. "Never heard of it.
Some sort of disease, I suppose, like cholera or plague.
If that's why everyone has run away I think that I'd
better be leaving."

A ghost of a smile flitted across the Celestial's
impassive countenance.

"No clolra. No pleg," he assured me. "Menjepee
make by pliest."

Before I could elucidate this curious statement there
entered the club a young Hollander immaculate in
pipe-clayed topee and freshly starched white linen.

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 145

"It's not a disease; it's a religious observance," he
explained in perfect English, overhearing my last
words. "They call it Menjepee, which, literally trans-
lated, means 'silence.' The Balinese are Hindus, you
know about the only ones left in the Islands and
they observe the Hindu festivals very strictly. Their
priests raise the very devil with them if they don't.
During Menjepee, which lasts twenty-four hours, no
native is permitted to set foot outside the wall of his
kampong except for the most urgent reasons, and even
then he has to get permission from his priest. If he
is caught outside his kampong without permission he
is heavily fined, to say nothing of being given the
cold shoulder by his neighbors."

"I was told in Samarinda," I remarked carelessly,
by way of introducing the topic in which I was most
interested, "that some of the native girls here in Bali
are remarkably good looking."

"I thought you'd be asking about them," the Hol-
lander commented dryly. "That's usually the first
question asked by everyone who comes to Bali. But
you won't find them on this side of the island. If you
want to see them you'll have to cross over to the south
side. The prettiest girls are to be found in the vicinity
of Den Pasar and Kloeng Kloeng."

"So I had heard," I told him. "I am going to cross
the island by motor and have my boat pick me up on
the other side. How far is it to Den Pasar?"

"Only about sixty miles and you'll have a tolerably

1 4 6 STRANGE TRAILS

good mountain road all the way. But you can't go
today."

"Why not?"

"Menjepee," was the laconic answer. "You won't
be able to get anyone to take you. There are only
four or five motor cars in Boeleleng and their drivers
are all Hindus."

I smothered an expletive of annoyance, for my time
was limited and the Negros had already sailed.

"Surely you don't mean to tell me that there is no
way in which I can get across the island today?" I
demanded. "This Menjepee business is as infernal a
nuisance as a taxicab strike in New York."

"Perhaps the Resident might be able to do some-
thing for you," my acquaintance suggested after a
moment's consideration. "He's a good sort and he's
always glad to meet visitors. We don't have many of
them here, heaven knows. Look here. I've a sado
outside. Suppose you hop in and I'll drive you up to
the Residency and you can ask the Resident to help
you out."

As we rattled in a sort of governess-cart, called
sado, up the broad, palm-lined avenue which leads
from Boeleleng to Singaradja, the seat of govern-
ment, three miles away, I caught fleeting glimpses of
natives peering at me furtively over the mud walls
which surround their kampongs, but the instant they
saw that they were observed they disappeared from
view. The Resident I found to be a man of charm and
culture who had twice crossed the United States on his

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 147

way to and from Holland. At first he was dubious
whether anything could be done for me, explaining
that Menjepee is as devoutly observed by the Hindus
of Bali as the fasting month of Ramadan is by the
Mohammedans of Turkey, and that the Dutch officials
make it a rule never to interfere with the religious
observances of the natives. He finally consented, how-
ever, to send for the chief priest and see if he could
persuade him, in view of my limited time, to grant a
special dispensation to a native who could drive a car.
I don't know what arguments he used, but they must
have been effective, for within the hour we heard the
honk of a motor-horn at the Residency gate.

"We have no hotels in Bali," the Resident remarked
as I was taking my departure, "but I'll telephone over
to the Assistant Resident at Den Pasar to have a room
ready for you at the passangrahan that's the govern-
ment rest-house, you know. And I'll also send word to
the Controleur at Kloeng Kloeng that you are coming
and ask him to arrange some native dances for you.
He's very keen about that sort of thing and knows
where to get the best dancers in the island."

"Tell me," I queried, as I was about to enter the
car, "are these girls I've heard so much about really
pretty?"

The Resident smiled cynically.

"Well," he replied, and I thought that I could de-
tect a note of homesickness in his voice, "it depends
upon the point of view. When you first arrive in Bali
you swear that they are the prettiest brown-skinned

i 4 8 STRANGE TRAILS

women in the world. But after you have been here a
year or so you get so tired of everything connected
with the tropics that you don't give the best of them
a second glance. For my part, give me a plain, whole-
some-looking Dutch girl with a lusty figure and corn-
colored hair and cheeks like apples in preference to
all the cafe-au-lait beauties in Bali."

"Au revoir," I called, as I signaled to the driver
and the car leaped forward. "If I listen to you any
longer I shall have no illusions left."

Save only its western end, which is covered with
dense jungle inhabited by tigers and boa-constrictors,
Bali is a vast garden, ablaze with the most gorgeous
flowers that you can imagine and criss-crossed by a
net-work of hard, white roads which alternately wind
through huge cocoanut plantations or skirt intermin-
able paddy fields. From the coast the ground rises
steadily to a ridge formed by a central range of moun-
tains, which culminate in the imposing, cloud-wreathed
Peak of Bali, two miles high. Streams rushing down
from the mountains have cut the rich brown loam of
the lowlands into deep ravines, down which the brawl-
ing torrents make their way to the sea between high
banks smothered in tropical vegetation. The most
remarkable feature of the landscape, however, are the
rice terraces, built by hand at an incredible cost of
time and labor, which climb the slopes of the moun-
tains, tier on tier, like the seats in a Roman ampi-
theatre, sometimes to a height of three thousand feet

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 149

or more, constituting one of the engineering marvels
of the world.

The southern slope of the divide appeared to be
much more thickly peopled than the northern, for, as
we sped down the steep grades with brakes a-squeal,
villages of mud-walled, straw-thatched huts became in-
creasingly frequent, nor did the natives appear to be
observing Menjepee as strictly as in the vicinity of
Boeleleng, for they stood in the gateways of their
kampongs and waved at us as we whirled past, and
more than once we saw groups of them squatting in a
circle beside the road, engaged in the national pastime
of cock-fighting. Now we began to encounter the
women whose beauty is famous throughout Malaysia :
glorious, up-standing creatures with great masses of
blue-black hair, a faint couleur de rose diffusing itself
through their skins of brown satin. They were taller
than any other women I saw in Malaysia, lithe and
supple as Ruth St. Denis, and bearing themselves with
a quiet dignity and lissome grace. From waist to
ankle they were tightly wrapped in kains of brilliant
batik, which defined, without revealing, every line and
contour of their hips and lower limbs, but from the
waist up they were entirely nude, barring the flame-
colored flowers in their dusky hair.

Unlike most Malays, the eyes of the Balinese, in-
stead of being oblique, are set straight in the head.
The nose, which frequently mars what would other-
wise be well-nigh perfect features, is generally small
and flat, with too-wide nostrils, though I saw a num-

150 STRANGE TRAILS

her of Balinese women with noses which were dis-
tinctly aquiline the result of a strain of European
blood, perhaps. The lips are thick, yet well formed;
the teeth are naturally regular and white but are all
too often stained scarlet with betel-nut, which is to the
Balinese girl what chewing-gum is to her sister of
Broadway. The complexion ranges from a deep but
rosy brown to a nuance no darker than that of a Euro-
pean brunette, but in the eyes of the Balinese them-
selves a golden-yellow complexion, the color of weak
tea, is the perfection of female beauty. But the chief
charm of these island Eves is found, after all, not in
their faces but in their figures slender, rounded,
willowy, deep-bosomed, such as Botticelli loved (to
paint.

Despite the alluring tales brought back by South
Sea travelers of the radiant creatures who go about
unclad as when they were born, I have myself found
no spot, save only Equatorial Africa, where women
dispense with clothing habitually and without shame.
Indeed, I have seen girls far more scantily clad on the
stage of the Ziegfeld Roof or the Winter Garden
than I ever have in those distant lands which have not
yet received the blessings of civilization. In most of
the Polynesian islands the painter or photographer can
usually bribe a native girl to disrobe for him, just as
in Paris or New York he can find models who for a
consideration will pose in the nude, but when the pic-
ture is completed she promptly resumes the shapeless
and hideous garments of Mother Hubbard cut which

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 151

the missionaries were guilty of introducing and whose
all-enveloping folds, they naively believe, form a
shield and a buckler against temptations of the flesh.
But there are no missionaries in Bali, not one though
the Board of Foreign Missions may interest itself in
the islanders after this book appears and the women
continue to dress as they should with such figures and
in such a climate.

Because of a flat tire, the driver stopped the car
beside a little stream in which two extremely pretty
girls were bathing. With the evening sun glinting on
their brown bodies and their piquant, oval faces
framed by the dusky torrents of their loosened hair,
they looked like those bronze maidens which disport
themselves in the fountain of the Piazza delle Terme
in Rome, come to life. I felt certain that they would
take to flight when Hawkinson unlimbered his motion-
picture camera and trained it upon them, but they
continued their joyous splashing without the slightest
trace of self-consciousness or confusion. In fact, when
a Balinese girl becomes embarrassed, she does not be-
tray it by covering her body but by drawing over her
face a veil which looks like a piece of black fishnet.
Their bath completed, the maidens emerged from the
water on to the farther bank, paused for a moment
to arrange their hair, like wood nymphs of the Golden
Age, then wound their gorgeous kains about them and
vanished amid the trees. From somewhere on the
distant hillside came the sweet, shrill quaver of a reed

152 STRANGE TRAILS

instrument. The driver said it was a native flute, but
I knew better. It was the pipes of Pan. . . .

Rather than that you should be scandalized when
you visit Bali, let me make it quite clear that in mat-
ters of morality the Balinese women are as easy as an
old shoe. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say
that they are unmoral rather than immoral. This is
one of the conditions of life in the Insulinde which
must be accepted by the traveler, just as he accepts as
a matter of course the heat and the insects and the dirt.
Though polygamy is practised, it is confined, because
of the expense involved in maintaining a matrimonial
stable, to the wealthier chiefs and other men of means.
A Turkish pasha who maintained a large harem once
told me that polygamy is as trying to the disposition
as it is to the pocketbook, because of the incessant
jealousies and bickerings among the wives. And I
suppose the same conditions obtain in the seraglios of
Bali. The former rajah of Kloeng Kloeng, now known
as the Regent, a stout and jovial old gentleman ar-
rayed in a cerise kain, a sky-blue head-cloth, and a
white jacket with American twenty-dollar gold pieces
for buttons, told me with a touch of pride that he had
twenty-five wives in his harem. But his pride subsided
like a pricked toy balloon when the Controleur, who
had overheard the boast, mentioned that another
regent, the ruler of a district at the western end of the
island, possessed upward of three hundred wives of
the exact number he was not certain as it was con-

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 153

stantly fluctuating. To my great regret I could not
spare the time to pay a visit to this Balinese Brigham
Young. There were a number of questions relative
to domestic economy and household administration
which I should have liked to have asked him.

Until very recent years, the young Balinese girl who
married an old husband incurred the risk of meeting
an untimely and extremely unpleasant end, for the
island was the last stronghold of that strange and
dreadful Hindu custom, suttee the burning of
widows. The last public suttee in Bali was held as
recently as 1907, but, in spite of the stern prohibition
of the practise by the Dutch, it is said that some women
faithful to the old customs and to their dead husbands
continue to join the latter on the funeral pyre. In
fact, the Controleur at Kloeng Kloeng told me that,
only a few weeks before my arrival, two women had
begged him on their knees for permission to be burned
with the body of the dear departed, whom they wished
to share in death as in life.

The Balinese, being devout Hindus, burn their dead,
but the cremations are held only twice yearly, being
observed as holidays, like Thanksgiving and the
Fourth of July. If a man dies shortly before the cre-
mation season is due, his remains are kept in the house
until they can be incinerated with befitting ceremony
though I imagine that, in view of the torrid climate,
the members of his family perforce move elsewhere
for the time being but if he is so inconsiderate as to
postpone his dying until after one of these semi-annual

154 STRANGE TRAILS

burnings, it becomes necessary to bury him. In a land
where the thermometer frequently registers 100 and
above, you couldn't keep a corpse around the house for
several months, could you? When cremation day
comes round again, however, he is dug up, taken to a
temple and burned. There is no escaping the funeral-
pyre in Bali. As we were leaving one of the crema-
tion places I overheard the Doctor irreverently hum-
ming a paraphrase of a song which was very popular
in the army during the war :

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
If the grave don't get you the wood-pile must."

Unlike the South Sea islanders, who are rapidly
dying out as the result of diseases introduced by Euro-
peans, the population of Bali which is one of the
most densely peopled regions in the world, with 325
inhabitants to the square mile is rapidly increasing,
having more than doubled in the last fifteen years.
This is due in some measure, no doubt, to the climate,
which, though hot, is healthy save in certain low-lying
coastal districts, but much more, I imagine, to the fact
that there are scarcely a hundred Europeans on the
island, and that, as there are no harbors worthy the
name, European vessels rarely touch there. It is well
for the Balinese that their enchanted island has no
harbors, for harbors mean ships, and ships mean white
men, and white men, particularly sailors, all too often

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 155

leave undesirable mementoes of their visits behind
them.

The men of Bali are a fine, strong, dignified, rather
haughty race, fit mates in physique for their women.
They are considerably taller than any other Malays
whom I saw and possess less Mongoloid and Negroid
characteristics, these being subdued by some strong
primeval alien strain which is undoubtedly Caucasian.
Though now peaceable enough, every Balinese man
carries in his sash a kris the long, curly-bladed knife
which is the national weapon of Malaysia. Most of
the krises that I examined were more ornamental than
serviceable, some of them having scabbards of solid
gold and hilts set with precious stones. Moreover,
they are worn against the middle of the back, where
they must be difficult to reach in an emergency. I
imagine that the kris, universal though it is, serves as
a symbol of former militancy rather than as a fighting
weapon, just as the buttons at the back of our tailcoats
serve to remind us that their original purpose was to
support a sword-belt. But, though the Balinese have
made no serious trouble for their Dutch rulers for
upward of a decade, they long resisted European
domination, as evidenced by the four bloody uprisings
in the last three-quarters of a century the last was
in 1908 which were suppressed only with difficulty
and considerable loss of life. When the shells from
the gunboats began to burst over their towns, the
rajahs, recognizing that their cause was lost, nerved
themselves with opium and committed the traditional

156 STRANGE TRAILS

puputan, or, with their wives, threw themselves on the
Dutch bayonets. But, though the Balinese have bowed
perforce to the authority of the stout young woman
who dwells in The Hague, they have none of the cring-
ing servility, that look of pathetic appeal such as you
see in the eyes of dogs which have been mistreated, so
characteristic of the Javanese.

Though the three-quarters of a million natives in
Bali have behind them the traditions of countless wars,
the Dutch, who seem to possess an extraordinary tal-
ent for governing brown-skinned peoples, maintain
their authority with a few companies of native sol-
diery officered by a handful of Europeans. The suc-
cess of the Dutch in ruling Malays, who are notori-
ously turbulent and warlike, is largely due to the fact
that, so long as the customs of the natives are not
inimical to good government or to their own well-
being, they studiously refrain from interfering with
them. Nor is there the same social chasm separating
Europeans and natives in the Insulinde which is found
in Britain's Eastern possessions. Were a British of-
ficial in India to marry a native woman he would be
promptly recalled in disgrace; if a Dutch official mar-
ries a native woman she is accorded the same social
recognition as her husband. Though in the old days
probably ninety per cent of the Dutch officials and
planters in the Insulinde lived with native women,
these unions are constantly decreasing, today probably
not more than ten per cent of the Europeans thus solv-
ing their domestic problems. It struck me, moreover,

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 157

that the Dutch are more in sympathy with their native
subjects, that they understand them better, than the
British. It is a remarkable thing, when you stop to
think of it, that a little nation like Holland, with a
colonial army of less than thirty-five thousand men and
no fleet worthy of the name, should be able to main-
tain its authority over fifty millions of natives, ten
thousand miles away, with so little friction.

We passed the night in the small rest-house at Den
Pasar which the government maintains for the use
of its officials. I have said that we passed the night,
mark you; I refuse to toy with the truth to the extent
of saying that we slept. Why they call it a rest-house
I cannot imagine. Never that I can recall, save only
in a zoo, have I found myself on such intimate terms
with so many forms of animal life as in that passan-
grahan. Cockroaches nearly as large as mice (before
you raise your eyebrows at this statement talk with
anyone who has traveled in Malaysia), spiders, centi-
pedes, ants and beetles made my bedroom an entomolo-
gist's paradise. Some large winged animal, presum-
ably a fruit-bat or a flying-fox, entered by the window
and circled the room like an airplane; and, judging
from the sounds which proceeded from beneath the
bed, I gathered that the room also harbored a snake
or a large rat, though which I was not certain as I
saw no reason for investigating. A family of lizards
disported themselves on the ceiling and when I men-
aced them with a stick they departed so hastily that
one of them abandoned his tail, which dropped on the

158 STRANGE TRAILS

wash-stand. A squadron of mosquitoes a sort of
escadrille de chasse, as it were kept me awake until
daybreak, when they were relieved by a skirmishing
party of cimex lectulariae, which are well known in
America under a shorter and less polite name. Fishes
only were absent, but I am convinced that their neglect
of me was due to ignorance of my presence. Had they
known of it I feel certain that the climbing fish, which
is one of the curiosities of these waters, would have
flopped on to my pillow.

Upon our arrival at Kloeng Kloeng I found the
Controleur, who had been notified by the Resident at
Singaradja of our coming, had made arrangements for
an elaborate series of native dances to be given that
afternoon on the lawn of the residency. It is a simple
matter to arrange a dance in Bali, for every village,
no matter how small, supports a ballet, and usually a
troupe of actors as well, just as an American com-
munity supports a baseball team. The money for the
gorgeous costumes worn by the dancers is raised by
local subscription and the ballet frequently visits the
neighboring towns to give exhibitions or to engage in
competitions, contingents of the dancers' townspeople
usually going along to root for them.

The Balinese dances require many years of arduous
and constant training. A girl is scarcely out of the
sling by which Balinese children are carried on the
mother's back before, under the tutelage of her
mother, who has herself perhaps been a dancing-girl
in her time, she begins the severe course of gymnastics

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 159

and muscle training which are the foundations of all
Eastern dances. From infancy until, not yet in her
teens, she becomes a member of the village ballet or
enters the harem of a local rajah, she is as assiduously
trained and groomed as a race-horse entered for the
Derby. From morning until night, day after day,
year after year, the muscles of her shoulders, her back,
her hips, her legs, her abdomen are suppled and de-
veloped until they will respond to her wishes as readily
as her slender, henna-stained fingers.

The lawn on which the dances were held sloped
down, like a great green rug, from the squat white
residency to an ancient Hindu temple, whose walls, of
red-brown sandstone, were transformed by the setting
sun into rosy coral. The Bali temples are but open
courtyards enclosed within high walls, their entrances
flanked by towering gate-posts, grotesquely carved.
Within the courtyards, which have arrangements for
the cremation of the dead as well as for the refresh-
ment of the living, are numerous roofed platforms and
small, elevated shrines, reached by steep flights of nar-
row steps, every square inch being covered with intri-
cate and fantastic carvings. These carvings are for
the most part beautifully colored, so that, when illumi-
nated by the sun, they look like those porcelain bas-
reliefs which one buys in Florence, or, if the colors are
undimmed by age, like Persian enamel. In some of
the temples which I visited, the colorings had been
ruthlessly obliterated by coats of whitewash, but in
those communities where Hinduism is still a living

160 STRANGE TRAILS

force, the inhabitants frequently impoverish them-
selves in order to provide the gold-leaf with which
the interiors of the shrines are covered, just as the
congregations of American churches praise God with
carven pulpits and windows of stained glass.

The stage setting for the dances consisted of a
small, portable pagoda, heavily gilded and set with
mirrors nothing more, unless you include the back-
drop provided by the Indian Ocean. On either side of
the pagoda, which was set in the centre of the lawn,
squatted a motionless native holding a long-handled
parasol of gold, known as a payong. So far as I
could discover, the purpose of these parasol holders
was purely ornamental, like the palms that flank a
concert stage, for they never stirred throughout the
four hours that the dancing lasted. The dancers them-
selves were extremely young barely in their teens, I
should say but I could only guess their ages as their
faces were so heavily enameled that they might as well
have been wearing masks. Their costumes, faithful
reproductions of those depicted in the carvings on the
walls of the temples, were of a gorgeousness which
made the creations of Bakst seem colorless and tame :
tightly-wound kains of cloth-of-gold over which were
draped silks in all the colors of the chromatic scale.
Their necks and arms, which were stained a saffron
yellow, were hung with jewels or near-jewels. On
their heads were towering, indescribable affairs of
feathers, flowers and tinsel, faintly reminiscent of those

DOWN TO AN ISLAND EDEN 161

fantastic headdresses affected by the lamented Gaby.
The music was furnished by a gamelan, or orchestra,
of half-a-hundred musicians playing on drums, gongs
and reeds, with a few xylophones thrown in for good
measure. I am no judge of music, but it seemed to me
that when the gamelan was working at full speed it
compared very favorably with an American jazz or-
chestra.

All the dances illustrated episodes from the Rama-
yana or other Hindu mythologies localized, the story
being recited in a monotonous, sing-song chant, in the
old Kawi or sacred language, by a professional ac-
companist who sat, cross-legged, in the orchestra. As
a result of constant drilling since babyhood, the Balin-
ese dancers attain a perfection of technique unknown
on the western stage, but the visitor who expects to
see the verve and abandon of the Indian dances as por-
trayed by Ruth St. Denis is certain to be disappointed.
To tell the truth, the dances of Bali, like those I saw in
Java and Cambodia, are rather tedious performances,
beautiful, it is true, but almost totally lacking in that
fire and spirit which we associate with the East. It is
probable, however, that I am not sufficiently educated
in the art of Terpsichore to appreciate them. It was as
though I had been given a selection from Die Niebe-
lungen Lied when I had looked for rag-time. But the
natives are passionately fond of them, it being by no
means uncommon, I was told, for a dance to begin in
the late afternoon and continue without interruption un-
til daybreak. The Controleur told me that he planned

1 62 STRANGE TRAILS

to utilize his next long leave in taking a native ballet to
Europe, and, perhaps, to the United States. So,
should you see the Bali dancers advertised to appear on
Broadway, I strongly advise you not to miss them.

Instead of going to Palm Beach next winter, or to
Havana, or to the Riviera, why don't you go out to
Bali and see its lovely women, its curious customs, and
its superb scenery for yourself? You can get there in
about eight weeks, provided you make good connec-
tions at Singapore and Surabaya. With no railways,
no street-cars, no hotels, no newspapers, no theatres,
no movies, it is a very restful place. You can lounge
the lazy days away in the cool depths of flower-smoth-
ered verandahs, with a brown house-boy pulling at the
punkah-rope and another bringing you cool drinks in
tall, thin glasses for the Volstead Act does not run
west of the i6oth meridian or you can stroll in the
moonlight on the long white beaches with lithe brown
beauties who wear passion-flowers in their raven hair.
Or, should you weary of so dolce far nlente an exist-
ence, you can sail across to Java with the opium-
runners in their fragile prahaus, or climb a two-mile-
high volcano, or in the jungles at the western extremity
of the island stalk the clouded tiger. And you can wear
pajamas all day long without apologizing. Everything
considered, Bali offers more inducements than any
place I know to the tired business man or the abscond-
ing bank cashier.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA

I ENTERED Java through the back door, as it were.
That is to say, instead of landing at Batavia, which is
the capital of Netherlands India, and presenting my
letters of introduction to the Governor-General, Count
van Limburg Stirum, I landed at Pasuruan, at the
eastern extremity of the six-hundred-mile-long island.
It was as though a foreigner visiting the United States
were to land at Sag Harbor, on the far end of Long
Island, instead of at New York. I learned afterward,
from the American Consul-General at Batavia, that in
doing this I committed a breach of etiquette. Though
the Dutch make no official objections to foreigners
landing where they please in their Eastern possessions,
they much prefer to have them ring the front door-
bell, hand in their cards, and give the authorities an
opportunity to look them over. In these days, with
Bolshevik emissaries stealthily at work throughout the
archipelago, the Dutch feel that it behooves them to
inspect strangers with some care before giving them
the run of the islands.

We landed at Pasuruan because iti is the port
nearest to Bromo, the most famous of the great vol-
canoes of Eastern Java, but as there is no harbor, only

163

1 64 STRANGE TRAILS

a shallow, unprotected roadstead, it was necessary for
the Negros to anchor nearly three miles offshore. So
shallow is the water, indeed, that it is a common sight
at low tide to see the native fishermen standing knee-
deep in the sea a mile from land. Until quite recently
debarkation at Pasuruan was an extremely uncomfort-
able and undignified proceeding, the passengers on the
infrequent vessels which touch there being carried
ashore astride of a rail borne on the shoulders of two
natives. A coat of tar and feathers was all that was
needed to make the passenger feel that he was a victim
of the Ku Klux Klan. But a narrow channel has now
been dredged through the sand-bar so that row-boats
and launches of shallow draught can make their way
up the squdgy creek to the custom house at high tide.

Until half a century ago Pasuruan was counted
as one of the four great cities of Java, but with the
extension of the railway system throughout the island
and the development of the harbor at Surabaya, forty
miles away, its importance steadily diminished, though
traces of its one-time prosperity are still visible in its
fine streets and beautiful houses, most of which, how-
ever, are now occupied by Chinese. Perhaps the most
interesting feature of the place today is found in the
costumes of the native women, particularly the girls,
who wear a kind of shirt and veil combining all the
colors of the rainbow.

From Pasuruan to Tosari, which is a celebrated
hill-station and the gateway to the volcanoes of eastern
Java, is about twenty-five miles, with an excellent

motor road all the way. For the first ten miles the
road, here a wide avenue shaded by tamarinds and
djati trees, runs across a steaming plain, between fields
of rice and cane, but after Pasrepan the ascent of the
mountains begins. The highway now becomes ex-
tremely steep and narrow, with countless hairpin turns,
though all danger of collision is eliminated by the regu-
lations which permit no down-traffic in the morning
and no up-traffic in the afternoon. During the final
fifteen miles, in which is made an ascent of more than
six thousand feet, one has the curious experience of
passing, in a single hour, from the torrid to the tem-
perate zone. In the earlier stages of the ascent the
road zigzags upward through magnificent tropical
forests, where troops of huge gray apes chatter in the
upper branches and grass-green parrots flash from tree
to tree. Palms of all varieties, orchids, tree-ferns,
bamboos, bananas, mangoes, gradually give way to
slender pines; the heavy odors of the tropics are re-
placed by a pleasant balsamic fragrance; the hill-
sides become clothed with familiar flowers daisies,
buttercups, heliotrope, roses, fuchsias, geraniums, can-
nas, camelias, Easter lilies, azaleas, morning glories,
until the mountain-slopes look like a vast old-fashioned
garden. In the fields, instead of rice and cane, straw-
berries, potatoes, cabbages, onions, and corn, are seen.
As the road ascends the air becomes cold and
very damp; rain-clouds gather on the mountains and
there are frequent showers. At one point the mist be-
came so thick that I could scarcely discern the figure

i66 STRANGE TRAILS

of my chauffeur and we were compelled to advance
with the utmost caution, for at many points the road,
none too wide at best, falls sheer away in dizzy preci-
pices. But as suddenly as it came, just as suddenly did
the mist lift, revealing the great plain of Pasuruan,
a mile below, stretching away, away, until its green
was blended with the turquoise of the Java Sea. It
is a veritable Road of a Thousand Wonders, but there
are spots where those who do not relish great heights
and narrow spaces will explain that they prefer to walk
so that they may gather wild-flowers.

Were it not for the wild appearance of its Tenn-
gri mountaineers, Tosari, which is the best health
resort in Java, might be readily mistaken for an Alpine
village, for it has the same steep and straggling
streets, the same weather-beaten chalets clinging pre-
cariously to the rocky hillsides, the same quaint shops,
their windows filled with souvenirs and postcards, the
same glorious view of green valleys and majestic peaks,
the same crisp, cool air, as exhilarating as champagne.
The Sanatarium Hotel, which is always filled with
sallow-faced officials and planters from the plains, con-
sists of a large main building built in the Swiss chalet
style and numerous bungalows set amid a gorgeous
garden of old-fashioned flowers. Every bedroom has
a bath but such a bath! a damp, gloomy, cement-
lined cell having in one corner a concrete cistern, filled
with ice-cold mountain water. The only furniture is a
tin dipper. And it takes real courage, let me tell you,

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 167

to ladle that icy water over your shivering person in
the chill of a mountain morning.

The mountain slopes in the vicinity of Tosari are
dotted with the wretched wooden huts of the native
tribe called Tenggerese, the only race in Java which
has remained faithful to Buddhism. There are only
about five thousand of them and they keep to them-
selves in their own community, shut out from the rest
of the world. They are shorter and darker than the
natives of the plains and, like most savages, are lazy,
ignorant and incredibly filthy. Because the air is cool
and dry, and water rather scarce, they never bathe, pre-
ferring to remain dirty. As a result the aroma of their
villages is a thing not soon forgotten. The doors of
their huts, which have no windows, all face Mount
Bromo, where their guardian deity, Dewa Soelan Iloe,
is supposed to dwell. Once each year the Tenggerese
hold a great feast at the foot of the volcano, and, until
the Dutch authorities suppressed the custom, were ac-
customed to conclude these ceremonies by tossing a liv-
ing child into the crater as a sacrifice to their god.
Though an ancient tradition forbids the cultivation of
rice by the Tenggerese, they earn a meager living by
raising vegetables, which they carry on horseback to the
markets on the plain, and by acting as guides and
coolies. They are incredibly strong and tireless, the
two men who carried Hawkinson's heavy motion-
picture outfit to the summit of Bromo making the
round trip of forty miles in a single day over some of
the steepest trails I have ever seen.

i68 STRANGE TRAILS

Growing on the mountainsides about Tosari are
many bushes of thorn apple, called Datara alba, their
white, funnel-shaped flowers being sometimes twelve
inches long. From the seeds of the thorn apple
the Tenggerese make a sort of flour which is strongly
narcotic in its effect. Because of this quality, it is occa-
sionally utilized by burglars, who blow it into a room
which they propose to rob, through the key-hole, there-
by drugging the occupants into insensibility and mak-
ing it easy for the burglars to gain access to the room
and help themselves to its contents. Which reminds me
that in some parts of Malaysia native desperadoes
are accustomed to pound the fronds of certain varie-
ties of palm to the consistency of powdered glass.
They carry a small quantity of this powder with them
and when they meet anyone against whom they have a
grudge they blow it into his face. The sharp particles,
being inhaled, quickly affect the lungs and death usually
results. A friend of mine, for many years an Amer-
ican consul in the East, once had the misfortune to be
next to the victim of such an attack, and himself in-
haled a small quantity of the deadly powder. The
lung trouble which shortly developed hastened, if it
did not actually cause, his death.

That we might reach the Moengal Pass at daybreak
in order to see the superb panorama of Bromo and
the adjacent volcanoes as revealed by the rising sun, we
started from Tosari at two o'clock in the morning.
Our mounts were wiry mountain ponies, hardy as
mustangs and sure-footed as goats. And it was

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 169

well that they were, for the trail was the steepest and
narrowest that I have ever seen negotiated by horses.
The Bright Angel Trail, which leads from the rim of
the Grand Canon down to the Colorado, is a Central
Park bridle-path in comparison. In places the grade
rose to fifty per cent and in many of the descents I had
to lean back until my head literally touched the pony's
tail. It recalled the days, long past, when, as a student
at the Italian Cavalry School, I was called upon to ride
down the celebrated precipice at Tor di Quinto. But
there, if your mount slipped, a thick bed of sawdust
was awaiting you to break the fall. Here there was
nothing save jagged rocks. We started in pitch dark-
ness and for three hours rode through a night so black
that I could not see my pony's ears. The trail,
which in places was barely a foot wide, ran for miles
along a sort of hogback, the ground falling sheer away
on either side. It was like riding blindfolded along
the ridgepole of a church, and, had my pony slipped,
the results would have been the same.

But the trials of the ascent were forgotten in the
overwhelming grandeur of the scene which burst upon
us as, just at sunrise, we drew rein at the summit of the
Moengal Pass. Never, not in the Rockies, nor the
Himalayas, nor the Alps, have I seen anything more
sublime. At our feet yawned a vast valley, or rather
a depression, like an excavation for some titanic build-
ing, hemmed in by perpendicular cliffs a thousand feet
in height. Wafted by the morning breeze a mighty
river of clouds poured slowly down the valley, filling

i yo STRANGE TRAILS

it with gray-white fleece from brim to brim. Slowly
the clouds dissolved before the mounting sun until there
lay revealed below us the floor of the depression,
known as the Sand Sea, its yellow surface, smooth as
the beach at Ormond, slashed across by the beds of
dried-up streams and dotted with clumps of stunted
vegetation. Like the Sahara it is boundless a sym-
bol of solitude and desolation. When, in the early
morning or toward nightfall, the conical volcanoes
cast their lengthening shadows upon this expanse of
sand, it reminds one of the surface of the moon as
seen through a telescope. But at midday, beneath the
pitiless rays of the equatorial sun, it resembles an enor-
mous pool of molten brass, the illusion being height-
ened by the heat-waves which flicker and dance above it.
From the center of the Sand Sea rises the extinct crater
of Batok, a sugar-loaf cone whose symmetrical slopes
are so corrugated by hardened rivulets of lava that
they look for all the world like folds of gray-brown
cloth. Beyond Batok we could catch a glimpse of
Bromo itself, belching skyward great clouds of bil-
lowing smoke and steam, while from its crater came
a rumble as of distant thunder. And far in the dis-
tance, its purple bulk faintly discernible against the
turquoise sky, rose Smeroe, the greatest volcano of
them all.

The descent from the Moengal Pass to the Sand Sea
is so steep that it is necessary to make it on foot, even
the nimble-footed ponies having all they can do to
scramble down the precipitous and slippery trail. It is

The volcano of Bromo, Eastern Java, in eruption

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 171

well to cross the Sand Sea as soon after daybreak as
possible, for by mid-morning the heat is like a blast
from an open furnace-door. It is a four mile ride
across the Sand Sea to the lower slopes of Bromo, but
the sand is firm and hard and we let the ponies break
into a gallop an exhilarating change from the tedious
crawl necessary in the mountains. Then came a stiff
climb of a mile or more over fantastically shaped hills
of lava, the final ascent to the brink of the crater being
accomplished by a flight of two hundred and fifty stone
steps. The crater of Bromo is shaped like a huge fun-
nel, seven hundred feet deep and nearly half a mile
across. From it belch unceasingly dark gray clouds jof
smoke and sulphurous fumes, while now and then
large rocks are spewed high in the air only to fall back
again, rolling down the inside slope of the crater with
a thunderous rumble, as though the god whom the
Tenggerese believe dwells on the mountain was playing
at ten-pins. Deep down at the bottom of the crater
jets of greenish-yellow sulphur flicker in a cauldron
of molten lava, from which a red flame now and then
leaps upward, like an out-thrust serpent's tongue. No
wonder that the ignorant mountaineers look on Bromo
with fear and veneration, for it huddles there, in the
midst of that awful solitude, like some monster in
its death agony, gasping and groaning.

The transition from the lofty solitudes of the Teng-
ger Mountains to the steaming, teeming thoroughfares
of Surabaya, the metropolis of eastern Java, is not a
pleasant one. For Surabaya there are no less than

172 STRANGE TRAILS

half-a-dozen ways of spelling its name though the
greatest trading port in Java, from the point of view of
the visitor is not an attractive city. Neither is it a
healthy place, for it has a hot, humid, sticky climate, it
lacks good drinking water and enjoys no refreshing
breeze; mosquitoes feed on one's body and red ants on
one's belongings; malaria and typhoid are prevalent
and even bubonic plague is not unknown, the combined
effect of all these showing in the sallow and enervated
faces of its inhabitants. Yet it is a bustling, up-and-
doing city, as different from phlegmatic, conservative
old Batavia as Los Angeles is from Boston.

Unlike the houses of Batavia, which stand far back
from the street in lovely gardens, the houses of Sura-
baya are built directly on the street, with their gardens
at the back. Most of the houses of the better class
are in the Dutch colonial style low and white with
green blinds and across the front a stately row of
columns. Every house is marked with a huge sign-
board bearing the number and the owner's name, thus
making it easy for the stranger to find the one for
which he is looking. There are no sidewalks and, as a
consequence, walking is anything but pleasant, the
streets being deep in dust during the dry season and
equally deep in mud during the rains. I do not recall
ever having seen a city of its size with so much wheeled
traffic. Indeed, the scene on the Simpang Road about
three in the afternoon, when the merchants are re-
turning to their offices after the midday siesta, re-
sembles that on Fifth Avenue at the rush hour, the

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 173

broad thoroughfare being literally packed from curb
to curb with vehicles of every description: the ram-
shackle little victorias known as mylords, the high,
two-wheeled dog-carts, with their seats back to back,
called sados, the two-pony cabs termed kosongs, creak-
ing bullock carts with wheels higher than a man,
hand-cars and rickshaws hauled by dripping coolies,
and other coolies staggering along beneath the weight
of burdens swinging from the carrying-poles called
pikolans, and every make and model of motor-cars
from ostentatious, self-important Rolls-Royces to
busybody Fords. Standing in the middle of the road-
way, controlling and directing this roaring river of
traffic with surprising efficiency are diminutive Javan-
ese policemen wearing blue helmets many sizes too
large for them and armed with revolvers, swords and
clubs.

The port of Surabaya, which is the busiest in the
entire Insulinde, is four miles from the business section
of the city, with which it is connected by a splendid as-
phalt highway lined by huge warehouses, factories, go-
downs and oil-tanks, many of them bearing familiar
American names. In fact, one of the first things to at-
tract my attention in Java was the great variety of
American articles on sale and in use motor cars, tires,
typewriters, office supplies, cameras, phonographs,
agricultural machinery of all descriptions.

More than a tenth of Surabaya's population is Chi-
nese and their commercial influence dominates the
whole city. They have the finest residences, the most

174 STRANGE TRAILS

luxurious clubs, the largest shops, the handsomest mo-
tor cars. I was shown a row of warehouses extending
along the canal for one long block which are the prop-
erty of a single Chinese. Wherever I traveled in the
Indies I was impressed by the business acumen and
success of these impassive, industrious sons of the
Flowery Kingdom. They are the Greeks of the Far
East but without the Greek's unscrupulousness and
lack of dependability. A Chinese will not hesitate to
take advantage of you in a business deal, but if he once
gives you his word he will always keep it, no matter at
what cost to himself, and if you should leave your
pocketbook in his shop he will come hurrying after
you to restore it. The Chinese living in the Indies
are uniformly prosperous many of them are mil-
lionaires they have their own clubs and chambers
of commerce and charitable organizations; they not
infrequently control the finances of the districts in
which they live and, generally speaking, they make ex-
cellent citizens.

Java has almost exactly the same area 50,000
square miles and the same population 34,000,000
as England. Agriculturally, it is the richest country
of its size in the world. Because I wished to visit
the great tea and coffee and indigo plantations of
its interior and to see its palaces and temples and
monuments, I decided to traverse the island from end
to end by train and motor car. Accordingly we left
the Negros at Surabaya, directing Captain Galvez to

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 175

pick us up a fortnight later at Batavia, at the other end
of the island.

There are at present more than three thousand miles
of railways in operation in Java, about two-thirds of
which are the property of the government. With a few
exceptions, the lines are narrow gauge. The railway
carriages are a curious combination of English, Swiss
and American construction, being divided into compart-
ments, which are separated by swinging half-doors, like
those which used to be associated with saloons. The
seats in the second-class compartments, which are cov-
ered with cane, are decidedly more comfortable than
those of the first class, which are upholstered in leather.
Owing to the excessive heat and humidity, the leather
has the annoying habit of adhering to one's clothing,
so that you frequently leave the train after a long jour-
ney with a section of the seat-covering sticking to your
trousers or with a section of your trousers sticking to
the seat. To avoid the discomfort of the midday heat,
the long-distance express trains usually start at day-
break and reach their destinations at noon, which,
though doubtless a sensible custom, necessitates the
traveler arising when it is still dark. The express
trains have dining cars, in which a meal of sorts can be
had for two guilders (about eighty cents) and the first
and second-class carriages are equipped with electric
fans and screens. In spite of these conveniences, how-
ever, travel in Java is hot and dusty and generally dis-
agreeable. After a railway journey one needs a bath, a
shave, a haircut, a shampoo, a massage, and a complete

176 STRANGE TRAILS

outfit of fresh clothes before feeling respectable again.

In many respects, motoring is more comfortable
than railway travel. The roads throughout the island
are excellent and have been carefully marked by the
Java Motor Club, though fast driving is made danger-
ous by the bullock carts, pack trains and carabaos,
which pay no attention to the rules of the road. Nor
is motoring particularly expensive, for an excellent
seven-passenger car of a well-known American make
can be hired for forty dollars a day. Visitors to Java
should bear in mind, however, that all their motoring
and sight-seeing must be done in the morning, as, during
the wet season, it invariably rains in torrents during the
greater part of every afternoon.

The hotels of Java, taking them by and large, are
moderately good, while certain of them, such as the
Oranje at Surabaya, the Grand at Djokjakarta, and
the Indies at Batavia, are quite excellent in spots, with
orchestras, iced drinks, electric fans, and well-cooked
food. Though every room has a bath a necessity in
such a climate tubs are quite unknown, their place
being taken by showers, or, in the simpler hostleries,
by barrels of water and dippers. The mattresses and
pillows appeared to be filled with asphalt, though it
should be remembered that a soft bed is unendurable
in the tropics. Every bed is provided with a cylin-
drical bolster, six feet long and about fifteen inches in
diameter, which serves to keep the sheet from touching
the body. They are known as "Dutch widows."
If you are fond of good coffee, I should strongly

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 177

advise you to take your own with you when you go to
Java. From my boyhood "Old Government Java"
had been a synonym in our household for the finest
coffee grown, so my astonishment and disappointment
can be imagined when, at my first breakfast in Java,
there was set before me a cup containing a dubious look-
ing syrup, like those used at American soda-water foun-
tains, the cup then being filled up with hot milk. The
Germans never would have complained about their
war-time coffee, made from chicory and acorns, had
they once tasted the Java product. Yet I was assured
that this was the choicest coffee grown in Java.
I might add that, as a result of a blight which all but
ruined the industry in the '705, fifty-two per cent of the
total acreage of coffee plantations in the island is now
planted with the African species, called Coffea robusta,
and thirteen per cent with another African species,
Coffea liberia, and the rest with Japanese and other
varieties. Though the term "Mocha and Java" is
still used by the trade in the United States, few Amer-
icans of the present generation have ever tasted either,
for virtually no Mocha coffee and very little Java have
been imported into this country for many years.

The lazy, leisurely, luxurious existence led by the
great Dutch planters in Java is in many respects a
counterpart of that led by the wealthy planters of our
own South before the Civil War. Dwelling in stately
mansions set in the midst of vast estates, waited upon
by retinues of native servants, they exercise much the
same arbitrary authority over the thousands of brown

178 STRANGE TRAILS

men who work their coffee, sugar and indigo planta-
tions that the cotton-growers of the old South exer-
cised over their slaves. Indeed, it was not until 1914
that a form of peonage which had long been author-
ized in Java was abolished by law, for up to that year
private landowners had the right to enforce from all
the laborers on their estates one day's gratuitous work
out of seven.

There are no shrewder or more capable business
men to be found anywhere than the Dutch traders and
merchants in Java. Many of the great trading houses
of the Dutch Indies have remained the property of the
same family for generations, their staffs being as care-
fully trained for the business as the Dutch officials are
trained for the colonial service. The young men come
out from Holland as cadets with the intention of spend-
ing the remainder of their lives in the Insulinde, study-
ing the native languages and acquainting themselves
with native prejudices, predilections and customs. They
are usually blessed with a phlegmatic temperament,
well suited to life in the tropics, take life easily, live in
considerable luxury, play a little tennis, grow fat, spend
their afternoons in pajamas and slippers, stroll down
to the local Concordia Club in the evenings to sit at
small tables on the terrace and drink enormous quanti-
ties of beer and listen to the band, not infrequently
marry native women, and often amass great fortunes.

Though the Javanese peasant is, from necessity, in-
dustrious, the upper classes, particularly the nobles,
are effeminate, indolent, decadent, and servile. Their

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 179

amusements are cock-fighting, dancing, shadow plays,
and gambling, and they lead an utterly worthless exist-
ence which the Dutch do nothing to discourage. Their
Mohammedanism is decadent and has none of the
virility which distinguishes those followers of Islam
who dwell in western lands. Though there is no deny-
ing that the natives are immeasurably more prosper-
ous, on the whole, than before the white man came, the
Dutch have done little if anything to improve their liv-
ing conditions. True, their rule is a just and a not un-
kind one; they have built roads and railways, but
this was done in order to open up the island; and they
have established a number of industrial and technical
schools, but there is no system of compulsory education,
and no systematic attempt has been made to ameliorate
the condition of the great brown mass of the people.
I do not think that I am doing them an injustice when
I assert that the Dutch are administrators rather than
altruists, that they are more concerned in maintaining a
just and stable government in their insular possessions,
and in increasing their productivity, than they are in
improving the moral, mental, and material condition
of the natives.

Lying squarely in the middle of Java are the Vor-
stenlanden, "the Lands of the Princes" Soerakarta
and Djokjakarta the most curious, as they are the
most picturesque, states in the entire Insulinde. But,
because in their form of government and the lives and
customs of their inhabitants they are so vastly different

i8o STRANGE TRAILS

from the other portions of the island, I feel that they
are deserving of a chapter to themselves and hence
shall omit any account of them here.

Bandoeng, the prosperous and extremely up-to-date
capital of the Preanger Regencies, is the fifth largest
city in Java, being exceeded in population only by Ba-
tavia, Surabaya, Surakarta and Samarang. The city,
which is the healthiest and most modern in Java, stands
in the middle of a great plain, 2300 feet above the sea,
having, therefore, a delightful all-the-year-round cli-
mate. It has excellent electric lighting, water and sani-
tary systems, miles of well-paved and shaded streets,
and many beautiful residences the finest I saw in
Malaysia set in the midst of charming gardens. It is
planned to remove the seat of government from Ba-
tavia to Bandoeng in the not far distant future and
the handsome buildings which will eventually house
the various departments are rapidly nearing comple-
tion. When they are completed Bandoeng will be one
of the finest, if not the finest colonial capital in the
world. But, attractive though the city is, it holds noth-
ing of particular interest to the casual visitor unless it
be the quinine factory. This company seems likely to
succeed in cornering the supply of Javanese cinchona
bark and is fast building up a world market for its
product. The cinchona tree, from which the bark is ob-
tained, was first introduced from South America in
the middle of the last century and is now widely grown
throughout the Preanger Regencies, both by the gov-

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 181

ernment and by private planters. After six or seven
years the tree is sufficiently matured for the removal
of its bark, which, after being carefully dried, sorted,
and baled, is shipped to the factory in Bandoeng,
where it is manufactured into the quinine of commerce.
The process of manufacture is a secret one, which ex-
plains, though it does not excuse, the extreme discour-
tesy shown by the management toward foreigners de-
siring to visit the plant.

It takes three and a half hours by express train from
Bandoeng to Buitenzorg, the summer capital of the
Indies, and the journey is one of the pleasantest in
Java, the railway being bordered for miles by marvel-
lously constructed rice terraces which climb the slopes
of the Gedei, tier on tier, transforming the mountain-
sides into a series of hanging gardens. When the
shallow, water-filled terraces are illuminated by the
tropic sun, they look for all the world like a titanic
stairway of silver ascending to the heavens. Take my
word for it, the rice terraces of the Preangers are in
themselves worth traveling the length of Java to see.

Though Batavia is the official capital of Netherlands
India, the hill-station of Buitenzorg, some twenty miles
inland, is the actual seat of government and the resi-
dence of the Governor-General. Buitenzorg the
name means "free from care" is to Java what Simla
is to India, what Baguio is, in a lesser degree, to the
Philippines. It has often been compared to Versailles,
and, in its pleasant existence, in the enchanting effects
which have been produced by its landscape gardeners,

1 82 STRANGE TRAILS

in its great white palace even, one can trace some
slight resemblance to the famous home of le Roi Soleil.
Buitenzorg is conspicuously different from other Jav-
anese cities, partly because, being the seat of govern-
ment, its European quarter is exceptionally extensive,
but primarily because it boasts the famous Botanical
Gardens, in many respects the finest in the world. Its
avenues, shaded by splendid trees, are lined with
charming, white-walled villas, the residences of the gov-
ernment officials and of retired officers and merchants,
set far back in lovely, fragrant gardens. The pal-
ace of the Governor-General, a huge, white building
of classic lines, faintly reminiscent of the White House
in Washington, is superbly situated in the Botanic
Gardens, the rear overlooking a charming lotos pond,
its surface covered with the huge leaves of the water-
plant known as Victoria Regla, amid which numbers of
white swans drift gracefully; while the colonnaded
front commands a magnificent view of a vast deer
park which reminds one of the stately manor parks of
England.

When you arrive at the Hotel Bellevue in Buiten-
zorg, be sure and ask for one of the "mountain rooms."
The view which is commanded by their balconies has
few equals in all the world. Far in the distance rises
the majestic, cloud-wreathed cone of Salak, its wooded
slopes wrapped in a cloak of purple-gray. From its
foot, cutting a way toward Buitenzorg through a sea of
foliage, is a ribbon of brown the Tjidani River. Its
banks, lined by miles of waving palms, are crowded

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 183

with the quaint, thatched dwellings of the natives, hun-
dreds of whom men, women and children are bath-
ing in its water. One of the most curious and amus-
ing sights in Java is that of the native women bathing
in the streams. They enter the river wearing their
sarongs, gradually raise them as they go deeper into
the stream, slip them over their heads when the water
has reached their armpits, and, when they have com-
pleted their ablutions, reverse the process, thus achiev-
ing the feat of bathing in full view of hundreds of
spectators without the slightest improper revelation.
Hawkinson set up his camera on the bank of the
Tjidani and spent several hundred feet of film in re-
cording one of these performances. Even the Pennsyl-
vania State Board of Censors will be unable to find any
objection to that bathing scene.

Though the gardens of Buitenzorg are a veritable
treasure-house for the botanist and the horticulturist
for the Dutch are the best gardeners in the world
from the standpoint of the casual visitor they cannot
compare, to my way of thinking, with the Peradenya
Gardens of Ceylon. It is beyond all doubt, however,
the finest collection of tropical trees and plants in exist-
ence. Here, besides full-grown specimens of every
known tree of the torrid zone, are culture gardens for
sugar cane, coffee, tea, rubber, ilang-ilang; for all the
spice, gum, and fruit trees ; for bamboo, rattan, and the
hard woods, such as mahogany and teak in short, for
every variety of tree or plant of commercial, ornamen-
tal, or utilitarian value. There are also gardens for all

1 84 STRANGE TRAILS

the gorgeous flowers of Java : the f rangipani, the wax-
white, gold-centered flower of the dead, the red and
yellow lantanas, the scarlet poinsetta, the crimson bou-
gainvillea, and others in bewildering variety. There
are greenhouses to shelter the rarer and more sensitive
plants to shelter them not, as in our hothouses, from
the cold, but, on the contrary, from the heat and the
withering rays of the sun. Here too is one of the
finest collections of orchids in existence, tended by an
ancient Javanese gardener who is as proud of his curi-
ous blooms as a trainer is of his race horses or a
collector of his porcelains. As for the palms, I had
no idea that so many varieties existed until I visited
Buitenzorg emperor palms, Areca palms, Banka
palms, cocoanut palms, fan palms, cabbage palms, sago
palms, date palms, feather palms, travelers' palms, oil
palms, Chuson palms, climbing palms over a hundred
feet long palms without end, Amen. Small wonder
that the palm is regarded with affection wherever it can
be grown, for what other tree can furnish food, shel-
ter, clothing, timber, fuel, building materials, fiber,
paper, starch, sugar, oil, wax, dyes and wine?

But, when all is said and done, nothing in those
splendid gardens, not the stately avenue of kanari trees
whose interlacing branches form a nave as awe-inspir-
ing as that of some great cathedral, not the rare and
curious orchids which would arouse the envy of a mil-
lionaire, appealed to me so powerfully as a little Gre-
cian temple of white marble, all but hidden by the en-
circling shrubbery, which marks the sleeping-place of

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 185

Lady Raffles, wife of that Sir Stamford Raffles who
once was the British lieutenant-governor of Java. It
pleases me to think that it is toward this little, moss-
grown temple that the bronze statue of the great em-
pire-builder, which stands on the Esplanade in Singa-
pore, is peering with wistful eyes, for on its base he
carved these lines:

"Oh thou whom ne'er my constant heart

One moment hath forgot,
Tho' fate severe hath bid us part
Yet still forget me not."

Batavia, the capital of the Indies, is built on both
banks of the Jacatra River, in a swampy and unhealthy
plain at the head of a capacious bay. Just as New
York is divided into the boroughs of Manhattan and
the Bronx, so the metropolis of Netherlands India is
divided into the districts of Batavia and Weltevreden,
the suburb of Meester Cornelis corresponding to
Brooklyn. Batavia is the business quarter of the
city; Weltevreden the residential. The former, which
is built on the edge of the harbor, is very thickly popu-
lated and, because of its lowness, very unhealthy. Only
natives, Malays, Chinese and Arabs live here and the
great European houses which were once the homes of
the Dutch officials and merchants have either fallen
into decay or have been converted into warehouses and
shops. The Europeans now live in Weltevreden, or
Meester Cornelis, though they have their offices in
the lower town. Both the upper and lower towns are

1 86 STRANGE TRAILS

traversed by the Jacatra sometimes called the Tjili-
woeng from which branch canals that spread through
the city in all directions, thereby emphasizing its dis-
tinctly Dutch atmosphere. The streets are for the
most part straight and regular, being paved, as in the
mother-country, with cobblestones. Old Batavia con-
tains very few relics of the early days, but it is quaint
and delightfully picturesque and its canals, though any-
thing but desirable from the standpoint of health, add
much to its individuality and charm. The most charac-
teristic feature of Batavia, that distinguishes it from
all other colonial_cities of the East, is that in all its con-
struction, both public and private, permanency seems to
be the dominant note. The Dutch do not come to Java,
as the English go to India and the Americans to the
Philippines, in order to amass fortunes in a few years
and then go home ; they come with the intention of re-
maining. When their children grow up they are sent
back to Holland to be educated, but, once their school-
ing is completed, they almost invariably return to the
East and devote their lives to the development of the
land in which they were born.

Batavia, which means literally 'Fair meadows,' was
originally called Jacatra. The Dutch established a
trading post here in 1610, the land being obtained from
the natives by a trick similar to that associated by tra-
dition with the acquisition of the lower end of Man-
hattan Island by the founders of Nieuw Amsterdam.
The Javanese, it seems, were reluctant to sell to the
Dutch a parcel of land sufficiently large for the erec-

THE GARDEN THAT IS JAVA 187

tion of a fort and trading station, but after much dis-
cussion they finally consented to part with as much
land as could be included within a single bullock's hide,
which was their way of saying that their land was not
for sale. This crafty stipulation did not worry the
equally crafty Dutch, however, for they promptly ob-
tained the largest hide available, cut it into narrow
strips, and, placing these end to end, insisted on their
right to the very considerable parcel of ground thus
enclosed under the terms of the bargain.

A relic illustrative of the barbarous punishments
which were in vogue during the colony's earlier days is
to be seen by driving a short distance up Jacatra Road,
in the lower town. Close by the ancient Portuguese
church you will find a short section of old wall. Atop
the wall, transfixed by a spear-point, is an object which,
despite its many coats of whitewash, is still recogniz-
able as a human skull. Set in the wall is a tablet bear-
ing this inscription:

"In detested memory of the traitor, Peter Erberveld, who was
executed. No one will be permitted to build, lay bricks or
plant on this spot, either now or in the future.

Batavia, April 14, 1772."

Erberveld was a half-caste agitator who had con-
spired with certain disaffected natives to launch a re-
volt, massacre all the Dutch in Batavia, and have him-
self proclaimed king. Fortunately for the Dutch, the
plot was betrayed through the faithlessness of a native
girl with whom Erberveld was infatuated. Because
of the imperative need of safeguarding the little hand-
ful of white colonists against massacre by the natives, it

i88 STRANGE TRAILS

was decided that the half-caste should be punished in
a manner which would strike fear to the hearts of the
Javanese, who have no particular dread of death in its
ordinary forms. The judges did their best to achieve
this object, for Erberveld was sentenced to be impaled
alive, broken on the wheel, his hands and head cut off,
and his body quartered. Why they omitted hanging
and burning from the list I can not imagine. The sen-
tence was carried out the contemporary accounts
record that he endured his fate with silent fortitude
and his head is on the wall to-day. But I think that,
were I the Governor-General of the Indies, I should
have that grisly reminder of the bad old days taken
down. Many nations have family skeletons but they
usually prefer to keep them out of sight.

CHAPTER IX

PUPPET RULERS AND COMIC OPERA COURTS

HAMANGKOE BOEWOENOE SENOPATI SAHADIN
PANOTO GOMO KALIF PATELAH KANDJENG VII,
Ruler of the World, Spike of the Universe, and Sultan
of Djokjakarta, is an old, old man, yet his brisk walk
and upright carriage betrayed no trace of the worries
which might be expected to beset one who is burdened
with the responsibility of supporting three thousand
wives and concubines. When one achieves a domestic
establishment of such proportions, however, he doubt-
less shifts the responsibility for its administration, dis-
cipline and maintenance to subordinates, just as the
commander of a division delegates his authority to the
officers of his staff. The Sultan, who is now in his
eighty-ninth year, is a worthy emulator of King Solo-
mon, the lowest estimate which I heard crediting him
with one hundred and eighty children. These are the
official ones, as it were. How many unofficial ones he
has, no one knows but himself. The youngest of his
children, now five years old, was, I imagine, a good
deal of a surprise, being sometimes referred to by dis-
respectful Europeans as "the Joke of Djokjakarta."

Djokjakarta, or Djokja, as it is commonly called, is
set in the middle of a broad and fertile plain, at

189

190 STRANGE TRAILS

the foot of the slumbering volcano of Merapi, whose
occasional awakenings are marked by terrific earth-
quakes, which shake the city to its foundations and
usually result in wide-spread destruction and loss of
life. It is a city of broad, unpaved thoroughfares,
shaded by rows of majestic waringins, and lined, in
the European quarter, by handsome one-story houses,
with white walls, green blinds and Doric porticos.
There are two hotels in the city, one an excellently kept
and comfortable establishment, as hotels go in Java; a
score or so of large and moderately well-stocked Euro-
pean stores, and many small shops kept by Chinese ; an
imposing bank of stone and concrete; and one of the
most beautiful race-courses that I have ever seen, the
spring race meeting at Djokja being one of the most
brilliant social events in Java. The busiest part of the
city is the Chinese quarter, for, throughout the Insu-
linde, commerce, both retail and wholesale, is largely in
the hands of these sober, shrewd, hard-working yellow
men, of whom there are more than three hundred
thousand in Java alone and double that number in the
archipelago. Beyond the European and Chinese
quarters, scattered among the palms which form a
thick fringe about the town, are the kampongs of the
Javanese themselves clusters of bamboo-built huts,
thatched with leaves or grass, encircled by low mud
walls. Standing well back from the street, and
separated from it by a splendid sweep of velvety
lawn, is the Dutch residency, a dignified building whose
classic lines reminded me of the manor houses built

COMIC OPERA COURTS 191

by the Dutch patroons along the Hudson. A few
hundred yards away stands Fort Vredenburg, a
moated, bastioned, four-square fortification, garrisoned
by half a thousand Dutch artillerymen, whose guns
frown menacingly upon the native town and the palace
of the Sultan. Though its walls would crumble before
modern artillery in half an hour, it stands as a visible
symbol of Dutch authority and as a warning to the dis-
loyal that that authority is backed up by cannon.

Between Fort Vredenburg and the Sultan's palace
stretches the broad aloun-aloun, its sandy, sun-baked
expanse broken only by a splendid pair of waringin-
trees, clipped to resemble royal payongs or parasols.
In the old days those desiring audience with the sove-
reign were compelled to wait under these trees, fre-
quently for days and occasionally for weeks, until "the
Spike of the Universe" graciously condescended to re-
ceive them. Here also was the place of public execu-
tion. In the days before the white men came, public
executions on the aloun-aloun provided pleasurable
excitement for the inhabitants of Djokjakarta, who
attended them in great numbers. The method em-
ployed was characteristic of Java: the condemned
stood with his forehead against a wall, and the exe-
cutioner drove the point of a kris between the verte-
brae at the base of the neck, severing the spinal cord.
But the gallows and the rope have superseded the wall
and the kris in Djokjakarta, just as they have super-
seded the age-old custom of hurling criminals from the
top of a high tower in Bokhara or of having the brains

i 9 2 STRANGE TRAILS

of the condemned stamped out by an elephant, a meth-
od of execution which was long in vogue in Burmah.

But, though certain peculiarly barbarous customs
which were practised under native rule have been abol-
ished by the Dutch, I have no intention of suggesting
that life in Djokjakarta has become colorless and tame.
Au contraire! If you will take the trouble to cross the
aloun-aloun to the gates of the palace, your attention
will be attracted by a row of iron-barred cages built
against the kraton wall. Should you be so fortunate as
to find yourself in Djokjakarta on the eve of a religious
festival or other holiday, each of these cages will be
found to contain a full-grown tiger. For tiger-baiting
remains one of the favorite amusements of the native
princes. Nowhere else, so far as I am aware, save
only in East Africa, where the Masai warriors en-
circle a lion and kill it with their spears, can you
witness a sport which is its equal for peril and excite-
ment.

On the day set for a tiger-baiting the aloun-aloun is
jammed with spectators, their gorgeous sarongs and
head-kains of batik forming a sea of color, while from
a pavilion erected for the purpose the Sultan, sur-
rounded by his glittering household and a selection
of his favorite wives, views the dangerous sport in
safety. In a cleared space before the royal pavilion
several hundred half-naked Javanese, armed only with
spears, stand shoulder to shoulder in a great circle, per-
haps ten-score yards across, their spears pointing in-
ward so as to form a steel fringe to the human barri-

COMIC OPERA COURTS 193

cade. A cage containing a tiger, which has been
trapped in the jungle for the occasion, is hauled for-
ward to the circle's edge. At a signal from the Sultan
the door of the cage is opened and the great striped cat,
its yellow eyes glaring malevolently, its stiffened tail
nervously sweeping the ground, slips forth on padded
feet to crouch defiantly in the center of the extempor-
ized arena. Occasionally, but very occasionally, the
beast becomes intimidated at sight of the waiting spear-
men and the breathless throng beyond them, but
usually it is only a matter of seconds before things be-
gin to happen. The long tail abruptly becomes rigid,
the muscles bunch themselves like coiled springs be-
neath the tawny skin, the sullen snarling changes to a
deep-throated roar, and the great beast launches itself
against the levelled spears. Sometimes it tears its way
through the ring of flesh and steel, leaving behind it a
trail of dead or wounded spearmen, and creating con-
sternation among the spectators, who scatter, panic-
stricken, in every direction. But more often the spear-
men drive it back, snarling and bleeding, whereupon,
bewildered by the multitude of its enemies and mad-
dened by the pain of its wounds, it hurls itself against
another segment of the steel-fringed cordon. After
a time, baffled in its attempts to escape, the tiger re-
treats to the center of the circle, where it crouches,
snarling. Then, at another signal from the Sultan,
the spearmen begin to close in. Smaller and smaller
grows the circle, closer and closer come the remorse-

194 STRANGE TRAILS

less spear-points . . . then a hoarse roar of fury, a
spring too rapid for the eye to follow, a wild riot of
brown bodies glistening with sweat . . . spear-hafts
rising and falling above a sea of turbaned heads as the
blades are driven home . . . again . . . again . . .
again . . . yet again . . . into the great black-and-
yellow carcass, which now lies inanimate upon the sand
in a rapidly widening pool of crimson.

Like the palaces of most Asiatic rulers, the kraton of
the Sultan of Djokjakarta is really a royal city in the
heart of his capital. It consists of a vast congeries of
palaces, barracks, stables, pagodas, temples, offices,
courtyards, corridors, alleys and bazaars, containing
upward of fifteen thousand inhabitants, the whole
encircled by a high wall four miles in length. Every-
thing that the sovereign can require, every necessity
and luxury of life, every adjunct of pleasure, is
assembled within the kraton. As the Sultan's world
is practically bounded by his palace walls, the kraton
is to all intents and purposes a little kingdom in itself,
for there dwell within it, besides the officials of the
household and the women of the harem, soldiers,
priests, gold and silversmiths, tailors, weavers, makers
of batik, civil engineers, architects, carpenters, stone-
masons, manufacturers of musical instruments, stage
furniture, and puppets, all supported by the court. The
Sultan rarely leaves the kraton save on occasions of
ceremony, when he appears in state, a thin, aristocratic-
looking old man, somewhat taller than the average of

COMIC OPERA COURTS 195

his subjects, wrapped in a sarong of cloth-of-gold, hung
with jewels, shaded by a golden parasol, surrounded by
an Arabian Nights court, and guarded curious con-
trast ! by a squadron of exceedingly businesslike-look-
ing Dutch cavalry in slouch hats and green denim uni-
forms.

The first impression which one receives upon en-
tering the inner precincts of the kraton is of tawdri-
ness and dilapidation. Half-naked soldiers of the
royal body-guard, armed with ten-foot pikes and clad
only in baggy, scarlet breeches and brimless caps of
black leather, shaped like inverted flower-pots, lounge
beside the gateway giving access to the Sultan's quar-
ters or snore blissfully while stretched beneath the
trees. The "Ruler of the World" receives his
visitors who, if they are foreigners, must always be
accompanied by the Dutch Resident or a member of his
staff in the pringitan, or hall of audience, an im-
mense, marble-floored chamber, supported by many
marble columns. The pringitan is open on three sides,
the fourth communicating with the royal apartments
and the harem, to which Europeans are never ad-
mitted. At the rear of the pringitan are a number
of ornate state beds, hung with scarlet and heavily
gilded, evidently placed there for purposes of dis-
play, for they showed no evidences of having been
slept in. Close by is a large glass case containing
specimens of the taxidermist's art, including a number
of badly moth-eaten birds of paradise. On the walls I
noticed a steel-engraving of Napoleon crossing the

196 STRANGE TRAILS

Alps, a number of English sporting prints depicting
hunting and coaching scenes, and three villainous chro-
mos of Queen Wilhelmina, Prince Henry of the Neth-
erlands, and the Princess Juliana.

Thanks to the courtesy of the Resident, who had
notified the authorities of the royal household of our
visit in advance, we found that a series of Javanese
dances had been arranged in our honor. Now Javan-
ese dancing is about as exciting as German grand
opera, and, like opera, one has to understand it to
appreciate it. Personally, I should have preferred to
wander about the kraton, but court etiquette demanded
that I should sit upon a hard and exceedingly uncom-
fortable chair throughout a long and humid morning,
with the thermometer registering one hundred and
four degrees in the shade, and watch a number of anae-
mic and dissipated-looking youths, who composed the
royal ballet, go through an interminable series of pos-
turings and gestures to the monotonous music of a
native orchestra.

Those who have gained their ideas of Javanese
dancing from the performances of Ruth St. Denis and
Florence O'Denishawn have disappointment in store
for them when they go to Java. To tell the truth I
found the dancers far less interesting than their audi-
ence, which consisted of several hundred women of the
harem, clad in filmy, semi-transparent garments of the
most beautiful colors, who watched the proceedings
from the semi-obscurity of the pringitan. I cannot be
certain, because the light was poor and their faces were

COMIC OPERA COURTS 197

in the shadow, but I think that there were several ex-
tremely good-looking girls among them. There was
one in particular that I remember a slender, willowy
thing with an apricot-colored skin and an oval, piquant
face framed by masses of blue-black hair. Her orange
sarong was so tightly wound about her that she might
as well have been wearing a wet silk bathing-suit,
so far as concealing her figure was concerned. When-
ever she caught my eye she smiled mischievously. I
should have liked to have seen more of her, but an
unami able-looking sentry armed with a large scimitar
prevented.

By extraordinary good fortune we arrived in Djok-
jakarta on the eve of the celebration of a double royal
wedding, two of the Sultan's grandsons marrying two
of his granddaughters. Thanks to the cooperation of
the Dutch Resident, Hawkinson was enabled to obtain
a remarkable series of pictures of the highly spectacu-
lar marriage ceremonies, it being the first time, I be-
lieve, that a motion-picture camera had been permitted
within the closely guarded precincts of the kraton.

The festivities, which occupied several days, con-
sisted of receptions, fireworks, reviews, games, dances,
and religious ceremonies, culminating in a most impres-
sive and colorful pageant, when the two bridegrooms
proceeded to the palace in state to claim their brides.
Nowhere outside the pages of The Wizard of Oz could
one find such amazing and fantastic costumes as those
worn by the thousands of natives who took part in
that procession. Every combination of colors was

198 STRANGE TRAILS

used, every period of European and Asiatic history was
represented. Some of the costumes looked as though
they owed their inspiration to Bakst's designs for the
Russian ballet or perhaps Bakst obtained his ideas
in Djokjakarta; others were strongly reminiscent
of Louis XIV's era, of the courts of the great Indian
princes, of the Ziegfeld Follies.

The procession was led by four peasant women bear-
ing trays of vegetables and fruits, symbols of fecun-
dity, I assumed. Behind them, sitting cross-legged in
glass cages swung from poles, each borne by a score
of sweating coolies in scarlet liveries, were the four
chief messengers of the royal harem former concu-
bines of the Sultan who had once been noted for their
influence and beauty. The cages I can think of no
better description were of red lacquer, about four
feet square, with glass sides, and, so far as I could see,
entirely air-tight. They looked not unlike large gold-
fish aquariums. As they were passing us the proces-
sion halted for a few moments and the panting coo-
lies lowered their burdens to the ground. Whereupon
Hawkinson, who is no respecter of persons when the
business of getting pictures is concerned, set up his
camera within six feet of one of the cages and pro-
ceeded to take a "close-up" of the indignant but help-
less occupant, who, unable to escape or even turn away,
could only assume an indifference which she was evi-
dently far from feeling.

Following the harem attendants marched a company
of the royal body-guard, in scarlet cutaway coats like

COMIC OPERA COURTS 199

those worn by the British grenadiers during the Ameri-
can Revolution, pipe-clayed cross-belts, white nankeen
breeches, enormous cavalry boots, extending half-way
up the thigh, and curious hats of black glazed leather,
of a shape which was a cross between a fireman's helmet
and the cap of a Norman man-at-arms. They were
armed indiscriminately with long pikes and ancient
flint-locks, and marched to the music of fife and drum.
The leader of the band danced a sort of shimmy as he
marched, at the same time tootling on a flute. He
looked like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Perhaps
the most curious feature of the procession was pro-
vided by the clowns, both men and women an inter-
esting survival of the court-jesters of the Middle
Ages powdered and painted like their fellows of the
circus, and performing many of their stereotyped an-
tics. One of them, wearing an enormous pair of black
goggles, bestrode a sort of hobby-horse, made of
papier-mache, and, when he saw that Hawkinson was
taking his picture, cavorted and grimaced, to the huge
delight of the onlookers. The female clowns, all of
whom were burdened by excessive avoirdupois, wiggled
their hips and shoulders as they marched in a sort of
Oriental shimmy.

Following a gorgeous cavalcade of mounted princes
of the blood, in uniforms of all colors, periods, and
descriptions, their kepis surmounted by towering os-
trich plumes, came a long procession of the great dig-
nitaries of the household the royal betel-box bearer,
the royal cuspidor-carrier, and others bearing on

200 STRANGE TRAILS

scarlet cushions the royal toothpicks, the royal
toothbrush, the royal toilet set, and the royal mirror,
all of gold set with jewels. The mothers of the brides,
painted like courtesans and hung with jewels, were
borne by in sedan-chairs, in which they sat cross-legged
on silken cushions. Then, after a dramatic pause, their
approach heralded by a burst of barbaric music, came
the brides themselves, each reclining in an enormous
scarlet litter borne by fifty coolies. Beside them sat at-
tendants who sprinkled them with perfumes and cooled
them with fans of peacock-feathers. In accordance with
an ancient Javanese custom, the faces, necks, arms, and
breasts of the brides were stained with saffron to a
brilliant yellow ; their cheeks were as stiff with enamel
as their garments were with jewels. Immediately be-
hind the palanquins bearing the brides one of whom
looked to be about thirteen, the other a few years
older rode the bridegrooms; one, a sullen-looking
fellow who, I was told, already had five wives and
plainly showed it, astride a magnificent gray Arab ; the
other, who was still a boy, on a showy bay stallion,
both animals being decked with flowers and capari-
soned in trappings of scarlet leather trimmed with
silver. The bridegrooms, naked to the waist, were,
like their brides, dyed a vivid yellow; their sarongs
were of cloth-of-gold and they were loaded with
jeweled necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. Royal grooms
in scarlet liveries led their prancing horses and other
attendants, walking at their stirrups, bore over their
heads golden payongs, the Javanese symbol of roy-

COMIC OPERA COURTS 201

alty. Following them on foot was a great con-
course of dignitaries and courtiers, clad in cos-
tumes of every color and description and walking
under a forest of gorgeous parasols, the colors of
which denoted the rank of those they shaded. The
payongs of the Sultan, the Dutch Resident, and the
royal princes are of gold, those of the princesses of the
royal family are yellow, of the great nobles white, of
the ministers and the higher officials of the country,
red; of the lesser dignitaries, dark gray, and so on.
This sea of swaying parasols, the gorgeous costumes
of the dignitaries, the fantastic uniforms of the sol-
diery, the richly caparisoned horses, the gilded litters,
the burnished weapons, the jewels of the women, the
flaunting banners, and the rainbow-tinted batiks worn
by the tens of thousands of native spectators combined
to form a scene bewildering in its variety, dazzling in
its brilliancy and kaleidoscopic in its coloring. Mr.
Ziegfeld never produced so fantastic and colorful a
spectacle. It would have been the envy and the de-
spair of that prince of showmen, the late Phineas T.
Barnum.

A dozen miles or so northwest of Djokjakarta,
standing in the middle of a fertile plain which
stretches away to the lower slopes of slumbering
Merapi, are the ruins of Boro-Boedor, of all the Hindu
temples of Java the largest and the most magnificent
and one of the architectural marvels of the world.
They can be reached from Djokjakarta by motor

202 STRANGE TRAILS

in an hour. The road, which skirts the foothills
of a volcanic mountain range, runs through a number of
archways roofed with red tiles which in the rainy sea-
son afford convenient refuges from the sudden tropical
showers and in the dry season opportunities to escape
from the blinding glare of the sun. Leaving the main
highway at Kalangan, a quaint hamlet with a pictur-
esque and interesting market, we turned into a side
road and wound for a few miles through cocoanut plan-
tations, then the road ascended and, rounding the shoul-
der of a little hill, we saw, through the trees, a squat,
pyramidal mass of reddish stone, broken, irregular and
unimposing. It was Tjandi Boro-Boedor (the name
means "shrine of the many Buddhas") considered by
many authorities the most interesting Buddhist remains
in existence. Though in magnitude it cannot compare
with such great Buddhist monuments as those at Ajunta
in India, and Angkor in Cambodia, yet in its beautiful
symmetry and its wealth of carving it is superior to
them all.

Strictly speaking, Boro-Boedor is not a temple but
a hill, rising about one hundred and fifty feet above
the plain, encased with terraces constructed of hewn
lava-blocks and crowded with sculptures, which, if
placed side by side, would extend for upwards of three
miles. The lowest terrace now above ground forms
a square, each side approximately five hundred feet
long. About fifty feet higher there is another terrace
of similar shape. Then follow four other terraces of
more irregular contour, the structure being crowned

COMIC OPERA COURTS 203

by a dome or cupola, fifty feet in diameter, surrounded
by sixteen smaller bell-shaped cupolas, known as
dagobas. The subjects of the bas-reliefs lining the
lowest terrace are of the most varied description,
forming a picture gallery of landscapes, agricultural
and household episodes and incidents of the chase,
mingled with mythological and religious scenes. It
would seem, indeed, as though it had been the archi-
tect's intention to gradually wean the pilgrims from
the physical to the spiritual, for as they began to as-
cend from stage to stage of the temple-hill they were
insensibly drawn from material, every-day things to the
realities of religion, so that by the time the dagoba at
the top was reached they had passed through a course
of religious instruction, as it were, and were ready, with
enlightened eyes, to enter and behold the image of
Buddha, symbolically left imperfect, as beyond the
power of human art to realize or portray. From base
to summit the whole hill is really a great picture-bible
of the Buddhist creed.

The building of Boro-Boedor was probably begun
in the ninth century, when King Asoka was distribut-
ing the supposed remains of Buddha throughout all
the countries of the East in an endeavor to spread the
faith. A portion of the remains was brought to Boro-
Boedor, which had been the center of Buddhist influ-
ence in Java ever since 603, when the Indian ruler,
Guzerat, settled in Middle Java with five thousand of
his followers. In the sixteenth century, when a wave
of Mohammedanism swept the island from end to

204 STRANGE TRAILS

end, the Buddhist temples being destroyed by the fa-
natic followers of the Prophet and the priests slaugh-
tered on their altars, the Buddhists, in order to save
the famous shrine from desecration and destruction,
buried it under many feet of earth. Thus the great
monument remained, hidden and almost forgotten, for
three hundred years, but during the brief period of
British rule in Java, Sir Stamford Raffles ordered its
excavation, the work being accomplished in less than
two months. Since then the Dutch have taken further
steps to restore and preserve it, though unfortunately
the stone of which it is built was too soft to withstand
the wear and tear of centuries, many of the bas-reliefs
now being almost effaced. It remains, however, one
of the greatest religious monuments of all time.

Conditions at Surakarta usually called Solo for
short are the exact counterpart of those in Djokja-
karta : the same puppet ruler, who is called Susuhunan
instead of Sultan, the same semi-barbaric court life,
the same fantastic costumes, a Dutch resident, a Dutch
fort, and a Dutch garrison. But the kraton of the
Susuhunan is far better kept than that of his fellow
ruler at Djokjakarta, and shows more evidences of
Europeanization. The troopers of the royal body-
guard are smart, soldierly-looking fellows in well-
cut uniforms of European pattern, to which a dis-
tinctly Eastern touch is lent, however, by their steel
helmets, their brass-embossed leather shields, their
scimitars, and their shoulder-guards of chain mail. The

COMIC OPERA COURTS 205

royal stables, which contain several hundred fine Aus-
tralian horses and a number of beautiful Sumbawan po-
nies, together with a score or more gilt carriages of
state, are as immaculately kept as those of Buckingham
Palace. In the palace garage I was shown a row of
powerful Fiats, gleaming with fresh varnish and pol-
ished brass, and beside them, as among equals, a mem-
ber of the well-known Ford family of Detroit, proudly
bearing on its panels the ornate arms of the Susuhunan.
I felt as though I had encountered an old friend who
had married into royalty.

As though we had not seen enough dancing at Djok-
jakarta, I found that they had arranged another per-
formance for us in the kraton at Surakarta. This
time, however, the dancers were girls, most of them
only ten or twelve years old and none of them more
than half-way through their teens. They wore sarongs
of the most exquisite colors purple, heliotrope, vio-
let, rose, geranium, cerise, lemon, sky-blue, burnt-
orange and they floated over the marble floor of the
great hall like enormous butterflies. As a special mark
of the Susuhunan's favor, the performance concluded
with a spear dance by four princes of the royal house
blase, decadent-looking youths, who spend their
waking hours, so the Dutch official who acted as my
cicerone told me, in dancing, opium-smoking, cock-
fighting and gambling, virtually their only companions
being the women of the harem. If the Dutch Govern-
ment does not actively encourage dissipation and de-
bauchery among the native princes, neither does it

206 STRANGE TRAILS

take any steps to discourage it, the idea being, I imag-
ine, that Holland's administrative problems in the
Forstenlanden would be greatly simplified were the
reigning families to die out. The princes, who were
armed with javelins and krises, performed for our
benefit a Terpsichorean version of one of the tales of
Javanese mythology. The dance was characterized by
the utmost deliberation of movement, the dancers hold-
ing certain postures for several seconds at a time,
reminding me, in their rigid self-consciousness, of the
"living pictures" which were so popular in America
twenty years ago.

All of the dancers, as I have already remarked, were
of the blood royal and one, I was told, was in the
direct line of succession. Judging from the vacuity of
his expression, the Dutch have no reason to anticipate
any difficulty in maintaining their mastery in Soera-
karta when he comes to the throne. But the Dutch
officials take no chances with the intrigue-loving native
princes ; they keep them under close surveillance at all
times. It is one of the disadvantages of Christian
governments ruling peoples of alien race and religion
that methods of revolt are not always visible to the
naked eye, and even the Dutch Intelligence Service in
the Indies, efficient as it is, has no means of knowing
what is going on in the forbidden quarters of the
kratons. In Java, as in other Moslem lands, more
than one bloody uprising has been planned in the safe-
ty and secrecy of the harem. Potential disloyalty is
neutralized, therefore, by a discreet display of force.

COMIC OPERA COURTS 207

Throughout the performance in the palace a Dutch
trooper in field gray, bandoliers stuffed with cartridges
festooned across his chest and a carbine tucked under
his arm, paced slowly up and down an ever-present
symbol of Dutch power watching the posturing
princes with a sardonic eye. That is Holland's way
of showing that, should disaffection show its head, she
is ready to deal with it.

CHAPTER X

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE TO
ELEPHANT LAND

SINCE the world began the peacock's tail which we
call the Malay Peninsula has swung down from Siam
to sweep the Sumatran shore. A peacock's tail not
merely in configuration but in its gorgeousness of color.
Green jungle a bewildering tangle of trees, shrubs,
bushes, plants, and creepers, hung with ferns and
mosses, bound together with rattans and trailing vines
clothes the mountains and the lowlands, its verdant
riot checked only by the sea. Penetrating the deepest
recesses of the jungle a network of little, dusky, wind-
ing rivers, green-blue because the sky that is reflected
in them is filtered through the interlacing branches.
Orchids death-white, saffron, pink, violet, purple,
crimson festooned from the higher boughs like in-
candescent lights of colored glass. The gilded, cone-
shaped towers of Buddhist temples rising above steep
roofs tiled in orange, red, or blue, their eaves hung
with hundreds of tiny bells which tinkle musically in
every breeze. The scarlet splotches of spreading fire-
trees against whitewashed walls. Shaven-headed
priests in yellow robes offering flowers and food to
stolid-faced images of brass and clay. Long files of

208

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 209

elephants, bearing men and merchandise beneath their
hooded howdahs, rocking and rolling down the dim
and deep-worn forest trails. Snowy, hump-backed
bullocks, driven by naked brown men, splashing
through the shallow water on the rice-fields harnessed
to ploughs as primeval in design as those our Aryan an-
cestors used. Bronze-brown women, their lithe figures
wrapped in gaily colored cottons, busying themselves
about frail, leaf-thatched dwellings perched high on
bamboo stilts above the river-banks. And, arching
over all, a sky as flawlessly blue as the dome of the
Turquoise Mosque in Samarland. Such is the land
that the ancients called the Golden Chersonese but
which is labeled in the geographies of today as Lower
Siam and the Malay States.

If you will look at the map you will see that Lower
Siam extends half-way down the Malay Peninsula, run-
ning across it from coast to coast and thus forming a
barrier between British Burmah and British Malaya,
precisely as German East Africa formerly separated
the British holdings in the northern and southern por-
tions of the Dark Continent. And, were I to indulge
in prophecy, I should say that the day would come
when the fate of German East Africa will overtake
Lower Siam. History has shown, again and again,
that the nation, particularly if it is as small and feeble
as Siam, which forms a barrier between two portions
of a powerful and aggressive empire is in anything
but an enviable position.

Politically that portion of the Malay Peninsula

210 STRANGE TRAILS

which is within the British sphere is divided into three
sections : the colony of the Straits Settlements, the four
Federated Malay States, and the five non-federated
states under British protection. The crown colony of
the Straits Settlements consists of the twenty-seven-
mile-long island of Singapore and the much larger
island of Penang; the territory of Province Wellesley,
on the mainland opposite Penang; Malacca, a narrow
coastal strip between Singapore and Penang; and, to
the north of it, the tiny island and insignificant terri-
tory known as the Dingdings. By the acquisition of
these small and scattered but strategically important
territories, England obtained control of the Straits of
Malacca, which form the gateway to the China Seas.
In 1896, as the result of a treaty between the British
Government and the rajahs of the native states of
Perak, Selangor, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan, these
four states were brought into a confederation under
British protection. Though they are still under the
nominal rule of their own rajahs now known as sul-
tans each has a British adviser attached to his court,
the Governor of the Straits Settlements being ex
officio the High Commissioner and administrative head
of the confederation. The non-federated states con-
sist of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu, the
rights of suzerainty, protection, administration, and
control of which were transferred by treaty from Siam
to Great Britain in 1909, and the Sultanate of Johore,
which occupies the extreme southern end of the penin-
sula, opposite Singapore. In the non-federated, as in

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 211

the Federated Malay States, British advisers reside at
the courts of the native sultans.

Starting at Johore, which, some Biblical authorities
assert, is identical with the Land of Ophir, and run-
ning through the heart of British Malaya from south
to north, is the Federated Malay States Railway,
which has recently been linked up with the Siamese
State Railways, thus making it possible to travel by
rail from Singapore to Bangkok in about four days.
Aside from the heat (in the railway carriages the mer-
cury occasionally climbs to 120), the insects, the dust,
and the swarms of sweating natives who pile into every
compartment regardless of the class designated on their
tickets, the journey is a comfortable one.

That section of the F. M. S. Railways which tra-
verses the Sultanate of Johore runs through the great-
est tiger country in all Asia. The tiger is to Johore
what the elephant is to Siam and the kangaroo to
Australia a sort of national trademark. Even the
postage stamps bear an engraving of the striped mon-
arch of the jungle. There is no place in the world, so
far as I am aware, save only a zoo, of course, where
one can get a shot at a tiger so quickly and with such
minimum of effort. In this connection I heard a story
at the Singapore Club, the truth of which is vouched
for by those with whom I was having tiffin. Shortly
before the war, it seems, an American business man
who had amassed a fortune in the export business, and
who was noted even in down-town New York as a
hustler, was returning from a business trip to China.

212 STRANGE TRAILS

In the smoking-room of the home ward bound liner,
over the highballs and cigars, he listened to the stories
of an Englishman who had been hunting big game in
Asia. The conversation eventually turned to tigers.

"Johore's the place for tigers," the Englishman re-
marked, pouring himself another peg of whiskey.
"The beggars are as thick as foxes in Leicestershire.
You're jolly well certain of bagging one the first day
out."

"I've always wanted a tiger skin for my smoking
room," commented the American. "Could buy one at
a fur shop on the Avenue, of course, but I want one
that I shot myself. Think I'll run over to Johore while
we're at Singapore and get one."

"But I say, my dear fellow," expostulated the Briton,
"you really can't do that, you know. We only stop at
Singapore for half a day get in at daybreak and
leave again at noon. You can't get a tiger in that

time."

"There's no such word as 'can't' in my business.
Business methods will bring results in tiger shooting
as quickly as in anything else," retorted the American,
rising and heading for the wireless room.

A few hours later the American's representative in
Singapore, a youngster who had himself been educated
in the school of American business, received a wireless
message from the head of his house. It read: "Arriv-
ing Singapore daybreak Thursday. Leaving noon
same day. Wish to shoot tiger in Johore. Make
arrangements."

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 213

Now the representative in Singapore knew perfectly
well that his promotion, if not his job, depended upon
his employer getting a tiger. And, as the steamer was
due in four days, there was no time to spare. From
the director of the Singapore zoo he purchased for
considerably above the market price, a decrepit and
somewhat moth-eaten tiger of advanced years, which
he had transported across the straits to Johore, whence
it was conveyed by bullock cart to a spot in the edge
of the jungle, a dozen miles outside the town, where it
was turned loose in an enclosure of wire and bamboo
hastily constructed for the purpose.

When the steamer bearing the American magnate
dropped anchor in the harbor, the local representative
went aboard with the quarantine officer. Ten minutes
later, thanks to arrangements made in advance, a
launch was bearing him and his chief to the shore,
where a motor car was waiting. It is barely a dozen
miles from the wharf at Singapore to Woodlands, the
ferry station opposite Johore, and the driver had
orders to shatter the speed laws. A waiting launch
streaked across the two miles of channel which sepa-
rates the island from the mainland and drew up along-
side the quay at Johore, where another car was wait-
ing. The roads are excellent in the sultanate, and
thirty minutes of fast driving brought the two Ameri-
cans to the zareba, within which the tiger, guarded by
natives, was peacefully breakfasting on a goat.

"He's a real man-eater," whispered the agent, hand-
ing his employer a loaded express rifle. "We only

2i 4 STRANGE TRAILS

located him yesterday. Lured him with a goat, you
know . . . the smell of blood attracts 'em. You'd
better put a bullet in him before he sees us. One just
behind the shoulder will do the business."

The magnate, trembling with excitement for the first
time in his busy life, drew bead on the tawny stripe
behind the tiger's shoulder. There was a shattering
roar, the great beast pawed convulsively at the air,
then rolled on its side and lay motionless.

"Good work," the local man commented approving-
ly. "It's only an hour and forty minutes since we left
the boat a record for tiger shooting, I fancy. We'll
be back at Raffles' for breakfast by nine o'clock and
after that I'll show you round the city. Don't worry
about the skin, sir. The natives'll tend to the skin-
ning and I'll have it on board before you sail."

Now so the story goes after dinner in the mag-
nate's New York home he takes his guests into the
smoking room for cigars and coffee. Spread before
the fireplace is a great orange and black pelt, a trifle
faded it is true, but indubitably the skin of a tiger.

"Yes," the host complacently in reply to his guests'
admiring comments, "a real man-eater. Shot him my-
self in the Johore jungle. Easy enough to get a
tiger if you use American business methods."

When, upon reaching Singapore, the great seaport
at the tip of the Malay Peninsula which is the gateway
to the Malay States and to Siam, I learned that

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 215

small but not uncomfortable steamers sail weekly for
Bangkok a four-day voyage if the monsoon is blow-
ing in the right direction or that, by crossing the nar-
row straits on the ferry to Johore, we could reach the
capital of Siam in about the same time by the Federated
Malay States and Siamese railways, there seemed no
valid excuse for keeping the Negros any longer. So,
bidding good-by to Captain Galvez and his officers, I
gave orders that the little vessel, on which we had
cruised upward of six thousand miles, amid some of the
least-known islands in the world, should return to Ma-
nila. To leave her was like breaking home ties, and I
confess that when she steamed slowly out of the har-
bor, homeward bound, with her Filipino crew lining
the rail and Captain Galvez waving to us from the
bridge and the flag at her taffrail dipping in farewell, I
suddenly felt lonely and deserted.

When the people whom I met in Singapore learned
that I was contemplating visiting Siam they attempted
to dissuade me. I was warned that the train service up
the peninsula was uncertain, that the steamers up the
gulf were uncomfortable, that the hotel in Bangkok was
impossible, the dirt incredible, the heat unendurable,
the climate unhealthy. And when, desiring to learn
whether these indictments were true, I attempted to
obtain reliable information about the country to which
I was going, I found that none was to be had. The lat-
est volume on Siam which I could find in Singapore
bookshops bore an 1886 imprint. The managers of the
two leading hotels in Singapore knew, or professed to

2i6 STRANGE TRAILS

know, nothing about hotel accommodations in Bang-
kok. Though the administration of the Federal Malay
States Railways generously offered me the use of a pri-
vate car over their system, I could obtain no reliable in-
formation as to what connections I could make at the
Siamese frontier or when I would reach Bangkok. And
the only guide book on Siam which I could discover
quite an excellent little volume, by the way was pub-
lished by the Imperial Japanese Railways!

The Siamese are by no means opposed to foreigners
visiting their country, and they would welcome the
development of its resources by foreign capital, but,
owing to the insularity, indifference, timidity and pride
which are inherent in the Siamese character, they have
taken no steps to bring their country to the attention
of the outside world. When one notes the energetic
advertising campaigns which are being conducted by
the governments of Japan, China, Java, and even Indo-
China, where the visitor is confronted at every turn by
advertisements urging him to "Spend the Week-End
at Kamakura," "Go to the Great Wall," "Don't
Miss Boroboedor and Djokjakarta," "Take Advant-
age of the Special Fares to the Ruins of Angkor," you
wonder why Siam, which has so much that is novel
and picturesque to offer, makes no effort to swell its
revenues by encouraging the tourist industry. That
the royal prince who is the Minister of Communica-
tions recently made a tour of the United States for
the purpose of studying American railway methods
suggests, however, that the Land of the White Ele-

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 217

phant is planning to get its share of tourist travel in
the future.

I might as well admit frankly that my first impres-
sions of the Siamese capital were extremely disappoint-
ing. I didn't expect to be conveyed to my hotel atop a
white elephant, through streets lined with salaaming
natives, but neither did I expect to make a wild
dash through thoroughfares as crowded with traf-
fic as Fifth Avenue, in a vehicle which unmistakably
owed its paternity to Mr. Henry Ford, or to be bruskly
halted at busy street crossings by the upraised hand
of a helmeted and white-gloved traffic policeman.
Nor, upon my arrival at the hotel there is only one
in Bangkok deserving of the name did I expect to
find on the breakfast table a breakfast food manu-
factured in Battle Creek, or beside my bed an electric
fan made in New Britain, Connecticut, or behind the
desk a very wide awake American youth the son, I
learned later, of one of the American advisers
to the Siamese Government who eagerly inquired
whether I had brought any American newspapers with
me and whether I thought the pennant would be won
by the Giants or the White Sox.

Bangkok, which, with its suburbs, has a population
about equal to that of Boston, is built on the banks of
the country's greatest river, the Menam, some forty
miles from its mouth. Though the city has a number
of fine thoroughfares, straight as though laid out with
a pencil and ruler, between them lie labyrinths of dim
and evil-smelling bazaars, their narrow, winding,

2i8 STRANGE TRAILS

cobble-paved streets lined on either side by stalls
in which are displayed for sale all the products of the
country. Because of the intense heat these stalls
are open in front, so that the occupants work
and eat and sleep in full view of everyone who
passes. The barber shaves the heads of his customers
while they squat in the edge of the roadway. In the
licensed gambling houses groups of excited men and
women crowd about gaming tables presided over
by greasy, half-naked Chinese croupiers, and, when
they have squandered their trifling earnings, hasten to
the nearest pawnshop with any garment or article of
furniture that is not absolutely indispensable to their
existence in order to obtain a few more coins to hazard
and eventually to lose. As a result of this passion for
gambling, the city is full of pawnshops, some streets
containing scarcely anything else. At the far end of
one of the bazaar streets is the largest idol manu-
factory in Siam, for the temples whose graceful, taper-
ing towers dot the landscape are filled with images of
Buddha, in all sizes and of all materials from wood
to gold set with jewels, most of them donated by the
devout in order to "make merit" for themselves. As
all Buddhists wish to accumulate as much merit for
themselves as possible, in order to be assured at death
of a through ticket to Nirvana, the idol-making indus-
try is in a flourishing condition.

Pushing their way through the crowded thorough-
fares, their raucous cries rising above the clamor, go
the ice cream and curry vendors, carrying the para-

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 219

phernalia of their trade slung from bamboo poles
borne upon the shoulders perambulating cafeterias
and soda fountains, as it were. For a satang a coin
equivalent to about a quarter of a cent you can pur-
chase a bowl of rice, while the expenditure of an-
other satang will provide you with an assortment of
savories or relishes, made from elderly meat, decayed
fish, decomposed prawns and other toothsome ingredi-
ents, which you heap upon the rice, together with a
greenish-yellow curry sauce which makes the concoc-
tion look as though it were suffering from a severe
attack of jaundice. These relishes are cooked, or
rather re-warmed, by the simple process of suspending
them in a sort of sieve in a pot of boiling water, the
same pot and the same water serving for all customers
alike. By this arrangement, the man who takes his
snack at the close of the day has the advantage of
receiving not merely what he orders, but also flavors
and even floating remnants from the dishes ordered by
all those who have preceded him. The ice cream
vendors drive a roaring trade in a concoction the basis
of which is finely shaven ice, looking like half-frozen
and very dirty slush, sweetened with sugar and flav-
ored, according to the purchaser's taste from an array
of metal-topped bottles such as barbers use for bay
rum and hair oil. But, being cold and sweet, "Isa-kee,"
as the Chinese vendors call it, is as popular among the
lower classes in Siam as ice cream cones are in the
United States.

Though the streets of Bangkok are crowded with

220 STRANGE TRAILS

vehicles of every description ramshackle and dis-
reputable rickshaws, the worst to be found in all the
East, drawn by sweating coolies; the boxes of wood
and glass on wheels, called gharries, drawn by de-
crepit ponies whose harness is pieced out with rope;
creaking bullock carts driven by Tamils from Southern
India ; bicycles, ridden by natives whose European hats
and coats are in striking contrast to their bare legs
and brilliant panungs; clanging street cars, as crowded
with humanity as those on Broadway; motors of 5
every size and make, from jitneys to Rolls-Royces
the bulk of the city's traffic is borne on the great
river and the countless canals which empty into it.
Bangkok has been called, and not ineptly, the Venice
of the East, for it is covered with a net-work of
canals, or klongs, which spread out in every direc-
tion. In sampans, houseboats and other craft, moored
to the banks of these canals, dwells the major portion
of the city's inhabitants. The city's water population
is complete in itself and perfectly independent of its
neighbors on land, for it has its own shops and dwell-
ings, its own markets and restaurants, its own theaters,
and gambling establishments, its own priests and po-
lice. When you go to Bangkok, I strongly advise you
to hire a sampan and visit the floating portion of the
city after nightfall. The houseboats are open at both
ends and you will see many things that the guidebooks
fail to mention.

The Oriental Hotel, the banks, the shipping offices,
the business houses, and all the legations save only the

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 221

American, are clustered on or near the river in a low-
lying and unattractive quarter of the town. But fol-
low the long, dingy, squalid highway known as the
New Road, a thoroughfare lined with third-rate Chi-
nese shops and thronged with rickshaws, carriages,
bicycles, motors, street-cars, and Asiatics of every
religion and complexion, and you will come at length
into a portion of the city as different from the mercan-
tile district as Riverside Drive is from the Bowery.
Here you will find broad boulevards, shaded by rows
of splendid tamarinds, lined by charming villas which
peep coyly from the blazing gardens which surround
them, and broken at frequent intervals by little parks
in which are fountains and statuary. There is a great
common, green with grass during the rainy season,
known as the Premane Ground, where military reviews
are held and where the royal cremations take place;
a favorite spot in the spring for the kite-flying con-
tests in which Siamese of all classes and all ages par-
ticipate. Fronting on the Premane Ground are the not
unimposing stuccoed buildings which house the Min-
istries of Justice, Agriculture and War. Not far away
is the new Throne Hall, a huge, ornate structure of
white marble, in the modern Italian style, its great
dome faintly reminiscent of the Capitol at Washington.
From the center of the spacious plaza rises a rather
fine equestrian statue of the late king, Chulalungkorn,
and, close by, the really charming Dusit Gardens, beau-
tifully laid out with walks and lagoons and kiosks and
a great variety of tropical flowers and shrubs and

222 STRANGE TRAILS

trees. But, most characteristic and colorful of all, a
touch of that Oriental splendor which one looks for in
Siam, is the congeries of palaces, offices, stables, court-
yards, gardens, shrines and temples, the whole en-
circled by a crenelated, white-washed wall, which is the
official residence of King Rama VI.

There are said to be nearly four hundred Buddhist
temples within a two-mile radius of the royal palace,
of which by far the most interesting and magnificent is
the famous Wat Phra Keo, or Temple of the Emerald
Buddha, which is really a royal chapel, being within the
outer circumference of the palace walls. I doubt if
any space of similar size in all the world contains such
a bewildering display of barbaric magnificence, such
a riot of form and color, as the walled enclosure in
which this remarkable edifice and its attendant
structures stand. From the center of the marble-
paved courtyard rises an enormous, cone-shaped
prachadee, round at the bottom but tapering to a
long and slender spire said to be covered with plates
of gold. It certainly looks like a solid mass of that
precious metal, and at daybreak and nightfall, when it
catches the level rays of the sun, it can be seen from
afar, shining and glittering above the gorgeously
colored roofs of the temples and the many-tinted
lesser spires which surround it. Close by the gilded
prachadee is the bote or chapel used by the king, sur-
mounted by a similar spire which is overlaid with sap-
phire-colored plates of glass and porcelain, while a
little distance away stands the temple itself, its gilded

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE. 223

walls set with mosaics of emerald green. Flanking
the gateways of the temple courtyard are gigantic,
grotesque figures, fully thirty feet in height, carved
and colored like the creatures of a nightmare. They
represent demons and are supposed to guard the ap-
proaches to the temple, being so placed that they glare
down ferociously on all who enter the sacred enclosure.
Other figures in marble, bronze, wood and stone, rep-
resenting dolphins, storks, cows, camels, monkeys and
the various fabulous monsters of the Hindu mythol-
ogy, are scattered in apparent confusion about the
temple courtyard, producing an effect as bizarre as it
is bewildering. It is so unreal, so incredibly fantas-
tic, that I felt that I was looking at the papier-mache
setting for a motion picture spectacle, such as Griffith
used to produce, and that the director and the camera-
man would appear shortly and end the illusion.

The interior of the main temple is extremely lofty.
The walls and rafters are of teak and the floor is
covered with a matting made of silver wire. At the
far end of this imposing room an enormous, pyram-
idal shrine of gold rises almost to the roof, its
dazzling brilliancy somewhat subdued by the semi-
obscurity of the interior. Wat Phra Keo is unique
amongst Siamese temples in containing objects of real
value. Everything is genuine and costly, as becomes
the gifts of a king, though it must be admitted that
certain of the royal offerings which are ranged at the
foot of the shrine, such as jeweled French clocks, figu-
rines of Sevres and Dresden porcelain, and a large

224 STRANGE TRAILS

marble statue of a Roman goddess, are of doubtful
appropriateness. Ranged on a table at the back of
the altar are seven images of Buddha in pure gold, the
right hand of each pointed upward. On the thumb
and fingers of each hand glitters a king's ransom in
rings of sapphires, emeralds and rubies, while from the
center of each palm flashes a rosette of diamonds.
High up toward the rafters, at the apex of the golden
pyramid, in a sort of recess toward which the fingers
of the seven images are pointing, sits an image of
Buddha, perhaps twelve inches high, said to be cut
from one enormous emerald whence the temple's
name. As a matter of fact, it is made of jade and is of
incalculable value. Set in its forehead are three eyes,
each an enormous diamond. The history of this extra-
ordinary idol is lost in the mists of antiquity. Tradi-
tion has it that it fell from heaven into one of the
Laos states, being captured by the Siamese in battle.
Since then it has been repeatedly lost, captured or
stolen. Its story, like that of so many famous jewels,
might fittingly be written in blood.

It is the custom in Siam for every man to spend a
portion of his life in a monastery. This rule applies
to everyone from the poorest peasant upward, the
king and all the male members of the royal family hav-
ing at some period worn the yellow robe of a monk.
This curious custom is, no doubt, an imitation of the
so-called Act of Renunciation of Gautama, the future
Buddha, who, at the age of twenty-nine, moved by the
sufferings of humanity, renounced his rights to his

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 225

father's throne and, abandoning his wife and child,
devoted the remainder of his life to religion. Just as
every American boy is expected to go to school, so
every Siamese youth is expected to enter a monas-
tery, the stern discipline enforced during this period
accounting, I have no doubt, for the docility which
is so noticeable a part of the Siamese character.
While I was in Siam I was the guest one day of the
officers' mess of the crack regiment of the household
cavalry. Though my hosts, with few exceptions, spoke
fluent English, though several of them had been edu-
cated at English schools and universities, and though
the conversation over the mess table was of polo and
racing and big game shooting and bridge, I learned
to my astonishment that every one of these debonair
young officers, with their worldly manners and their
beautifully cut uniforms, had at one time shaved his
head, donned the yellow robe of a monk, and begged
his food from door to door. In view of the univer-
sality of the custom, it is small wonder that Siam has
ten thousand monasteries and that 300,000 of its in-
habitants wear the ocher-colored robe.

The periods of time which men devote to monastic
life are not uniform. Some spend between a month
and a year, others their entire lives. Some enter the
monastery in their youth, others in middle age or when
old men. But they all shave their heads and don the
coarse yellow robe and lead practically the same ex-
istence. Each morning, carrying their "begging
bowls," they beg their food at the doors of lay-

226 STRANGE TRAILS

men. They come quietly and stand at the door, and,
accepting the offerings, as quietly depart without ex-
pressing thanks for what is given them, the idea being
that they are not begging for their own benefit but in
order to evoke a spirit of charity in the giver. During
the dry season it is the custom of the monks to make
long pilgrimages for the purpose of visiting other mon-
asteries. Each of these itinerant monks is accompa-
nied by a youth known as a yom, who carries the simple
requisites of the journey, the chief of which is a large
umbrella. Traveling in the interior one frequently
meets long files of these yellow-clad pilgrims, with
their attendant yoms, moving in silence along a forest
trail. When night comes the yom opens the large
umbrella which he carries, thrusts its long handle into
the ground, and over it drapes a square of cloth, thus
extemporizing a sort of tent under which his master
sleeps.

To visit Siam without seeing the royal white ele-
phants would be like visiting Niagara without seeing
the falls. The elephant stables stand in the heart of
the palace enclosure, sandwiched in between the palace
gardens and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Each
animal there were only three in the royal stables at
the time of my visit has a separate building to itself,
within which it stands on a sort of dais, one hind leg
lashed with a rope to a tall, stout post painted scarlet
and surmounted by a gilded crown. Much as I dis-
Jike to shatter cherished illusions, were I to assert that

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 227

the elephants I saw in the royal stables were white, I
should be convicting myself of color-blindness. The
best that can be said of two of them, is that they were
a dirty gray, about the color of a much-used wash-rag.
The third, had it been a horse, might have been de-
scribed as a roan, the whole body being a pale reddish-
brown, with a sprinkling of real white hairs on the
back. All three animals were, in reality, albinos, hav-
ing the light-colored iris of the eye, the white toe-nails,
and the pink skin at the end of the trunk which distin-
guish the albino everywhere. As a matter of fact,
"white elephant" is not a correct translation of the
Siamese chang penak, which really means "albino ele-
phant." But most foreigners will continue, I have no
doubt, to use the term made famous by Barnum.

Though the albino elephants are never used now-
adays save on occasions of great ceremony, being
regarded by the educated Siamese with the same
amused tolerance with which an Englishman regards
the great gilt coach, drawn by eight cream-colored
horses, in which the king goes to open Parliament, the
ordinary elephant is of enormous economic value to
the country, being a combination, as it were, of a motor
truck, a portable derrick, and a freight car. Almost
anywhere in the back country, where the only roads
are trails through the jungle, one can see "elephants
a-pilin' teak in the sludgy, squdgy creeks" or being
loaded with merchandise for transport into the far
interior. Indeed, the traveler who wishes to take a

228 STRANGE TRAILS

short cut from Siam to Burmah can hire an elephant
for the journey almost as easily as he could hire a
motor car in America. It is a novel means of travel,
but a little of it goes a long way. A good working
elephant is a valuable piece of property, being worth
in the neighborhood of $2,500., but the prospective
purchaser should remember that the possession of one
of these giant pachyderms entails considerable over-
head, or rather, internal expense. De Wolf Hopper
was telling only the literal truth when he sang in
Wang of the tribulations of the peasant who had an
elephant on his hands :

"The elephant ate all night,
The elephant ate all day;
Do what he would to furnish food,
The cry was 'Still more hay!' "

Although, as I have already remarked, sophisticated
Siamese regard the white elephant with amusement
tinged with contempt, there is no doubt that among the
bulk of the people the animals are considered as sac-
red and are treated with great veneration. Indeed,
when Siam was forced to cede certain of her eastern
provinces to France, the treaty contained a clause pro-
viding that any so-called white elephants which might
be captured in the ceded territory should be considered
the property of the King of Siam and delivered to him
forthwith. A number of years ago, a traveling show
known as Wilson's English Circus, gave a number of
exhibitions in Bangkok, which were attended by the
King, the nobility, and members of the European

A large herd of wild elephants being driven across a river

The elephants, herded by domesticated animals, are driven into the corral
An elephant hunt in Siam

colony. When the proprietor saw that the popular
interest in his exhibition was beginning to wear off, he
distributed broadcast handbills announcing that at the
next performance "a genuine white elephant" would
take part in the exhibition. Public curiosity was re-
awakened and that evening the circus was crowded.
After the usual bareback riding, in which the Siamese
were treated to the sight of European women in pink
tights and tulle skirts pirouetting on the backs of
cantering Percherons, two clowns burst into the ring.

"Hey, you!" bawled one of them, "Have you seen
the white elephant?"

"Sure, I have," was the response. "The King has
a stable full of them."

"Oh, no, he ain't," shouted the first fun-maker.
"The King ain't got any white elephants. His are all
gray ones. I'll show you the only genuine white
elephant in the world," whereupon a small ele-
phant, as snowy as repeated coats of whitewash could
make it, ambled into the ring. Though a suppressed
titter ran through the more sophisticated portion of
the audience when it was observed that the ridiculous
looking animal left white marks on everything it
touched, it was quite apparent that the bulk of the
spectators resented fun being made of an animal
which they had been taught to consider sacred, certain
of the more devout asserting that the sacrilegious per-
formance would call down the wrath of Buddha.
Their prophecies proved to be well founded, for the
"white" elephant died at sea a few days later as the

230 STRANGE TRAILS

result, it was hinted, of poison put in its food by the
Siamese priests and Wilson himself, who had been
suffering from dysentery, died the day after he landed
at Singapore.

Being a young nation, so far as the adoption of
Western methods are concerned, the Siamese are ex-
tremely sensitive, being almost pathetically eager to
win the good opinion of the Occidental world. Thus,
upon Siam's entry into the Great War (perhaps you
were not aware that the little kingdom equipped and
sent to France an expeditionary force composed of
aviation, ambulance and motor units, thus being the
only independent Asiatic nation whose troops served
on European soil) the king abolished the white ele-
phant upon a red ground which from time immemorial
had been the national standard, substituting for it a
nondescript affair of colored stripes which at first
glance appears to be a compromise between the flags
of China and Montenegro. In doing this, I think that
the king made a mistake, for he deprived his country
of a distinctive emblem which was associated with
Siam the whole world over.

Fortune was kind to us in the Siamese capital, for
we reached that city on the eve of a series of royal
cremations, the attendant ceremonies providing enough
action and color to satisfy even Hawkinson. It
should be explained that instead of cremating a body
immediately, as might be expected in so torrid a cli-
mate, the remains are placed in a large jar and kept

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 231

in a temple or in the house of the deceased for a period
determined by the rank of the dead man the King
for twelve months and so downward. If the relatives
are too poor to afford the expenses incident to crema-
tion, they bury the body, but exhume it for burning
when their financial condition permits. On the day
of the cremation, which is usually fixed by an astrolo-
ger, the remains are transferred from the jar to a
wooden coffin and carried with much pomp to the
meru, or place of cremation. When the deceased is
of royal or noble blood the meru is frequently a mag-
nificent structure, sometimes costing many thousands
of dollars, built for the purpose and torn down when
that purpose has been served. The coffin is placed
on the pyre, which is lighted by relatives, the occa-
sion being considered one for rejoicing rather than
mourning. The royal meru, which had been erected
in a small park in the outskirts of the capital at a
cost of one hundred thousand ticals, was a really beau-
tiful structure of true Siamese architecture, elab-
orately decorated in scarlet and gold and draped
with hangings of the same colors. Within the
meru were three pyres, concealed by gilt screens, on
which were set the coffins containing the bodies. As
there were a number of bodies to be burned, the cere-
monies lasted upward of a week, King Rama going in
state each afternoon to the meru, where he took his
place on a throne in an elaborately decorated pavilion.
After brief ceremonies by a large body of yellow-
robed Buddhist priests, the King set fire to the end of

232 STRANGE TRAILS

a long fuse, which in turn ignited the three pyres
simultaneously, the ascending clouds of smoke being
greeted by the roll of drums and the crash of saluting
cannon.

When I first suggested to friends in Bangkok that I
wished to obtain permission for Hawkinson to take
pictures of the cremation, they told me that it was
out of the question.

"But why?" I demanded. "Motion-pictures were
taken of the funerals of the Pope, and of King Ed-
ward, and of President Roosevelt, without anyone
dreaming of protesting, so why should there be any
objection here? Nothing in the least disrespectful is
intended."

"But this is Siam," my friends replied pessimisti-
cally, "and such things simply aren't done here. No
one has ever taken a motion-picture of a royal
cremation."

"It's never too late to begin," I told them.

So I took a rickshaw out to the American Legation
and enlisted the cooperation of our charge d'affaires,
Mr. Donald Rodgers, the very efficient young diplo-
matist who was representing American interests in
Siam pending the arrival of the new minister.

"I'll do my best to arrange it," Rodgers assured me,
"but I'm not sanguine about meeting with success.
The Siamese are fine people, kindly, hospitable and all
that, but they're as conservative as Bostonians."

Two days later, however, he sent me a letter, signed
by the minister of the royal household, authorizing

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 233

Hawkinson to take motion-pictures in the grounds of
the meru on the following day prior to the cremation.
I didn't quite like the sound of the last four words,
"prior to the cremation," but I felt that it was not an
occasion for quibbling. So the next day, at the ap-
pointed hour which was two hours ahead of the time
set for the cremation Hawkinson set out for the
meru, accompanied by his interpreter. He did not
return until dinner-time.

"What happened?" I inquired, by way of greeting.

"What didn't happen?" he retorted. "They turned
me out just as the cremation was commencing. When
we reached the meru I was met by an official wearing
bright-blue pants, who told me that he had been sent
to assist me in taking the pictures. Well, I got a few
shots of the meru itself, and of the royal pavilion, and
of some of the priests and soldiers, but there wasn't
much doing because there wasn't any action. So I sat
down to wait for things to happen. Pretty soon the
troops began to arrive lancers and a battery of artil-
lery and a company of the royal body-guard in red
coats and after them came the guests: officials and
dignitaries in all sorts of gorgeous uniforms covered
with decorations. A few minutes later I heard some-
one say, 'The King is coming,' so I got the camera
ready to begin cranking. Just then up comes my
Siamese chaperone. 'You will have to leave now,' says
he. 'Leave? What for?' said I. 'Because the cre-
mation is about to begin,' he tells me. 'But that's
what I've come to take pictures of,' I told him. 'What

234 STRANGE TRAILS

did you think that I attended this party for?' 'Oh, no,'
says he, very polite; 'your permission says that you
can take pictures prior to the cremation.' So they
showed me the gate."

"Then you didn't get any pictures?" I queried, deep
disappointment in my tone.

"Sure, I got the pictures," was the answer. "Some
of them, at any rate. That's what I went there for,
wasn't it?"

"But how did you work it?" I demanded.

"Easy," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "I told the
driver to back his car up against the iron fence which
encircles the meru; then I set up the camera in the ton-
neau, so that it was above the heads of the crowd,
screwed on the six-inch lens which I use for long-
distance shots, and took the pictures."

The present ruler of Siam, King Rama VI, is in
most respects the antithesis of the popular conception
of an Oriental monarch. Though polygamy has been
practised among the upper classes in Siam from time
beyond reckoning, he has neither wife nor concu-
bines. Instead of riding atop a white elephant, in a
gilded howdah, or being borne in a palanquin, as is
always the custom of Oriental rulers in fiction, he shat-
ters the speed laws in a big red Mercedes. For the
flaming silks and flashing jewels which the movies have
educated the American public to believe are habitually
worn by Eastern potentates, King Rama substitutes the
uniform of a Siamese general, or, for evening functions

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 235

at the palace, the dress coat and knee-breeches of
European courts. He was educated at Oxford and
Cambridge and later graduated from the Royal Mili-
tary College at Sandhurst, being commissioned an
honorary colonel in the British Army. He is the
founder and chief of an organization patterned after
the Boy Scouts and known as the Wild Tigers, which
has hundreds of branches and carries on its rolls the
name of nearly every youth in the kingdom. Each
year the organization holds in Bangkok a grand rally,
when thousands of youngsters, together with many
adults from all walks of life, for membership in the
corps is not confined to boys, are reviewed by the
sovereign, who appears in the gorgeous and original
uniform, designed by himself, of commander-in-chief
of the Wild Tigers.

In one respect, however, King Rama lives up to the
popular conception of an Oriental ruler: like his father
before him, he is generous to the point of prodigality.
This trait was illustrated not long ago, when he sent
eight thousand pounds to the widow of Mr. Westen-
gaard, the American who was for many years general
adviser to the Government of Siam, accompanied by a
message that it was to be used for the education of her
son. This recalls a characteristic little anecdote of the
present ruler's father, the late King Chulalongkorn.
The early youth of the late king and his brothers was
spent under the tutelage of an English governess, who
was affectionately addressed by the younger members
of the royal family as "Mem." Upon her return to

236 STRANGE TRAILS

England she wrote a book entitled An Englishwoman
at the Siamese Court, in which she depicted her em-
ployer, King Mongkut, the father of Chulalongkorn,
in a none too favorable light. Some years later, upon
the occasion of King Chulalongkorn's visit to England,
his former governess, now become an old woman,
called upon him.

"Mem," he said, in a course of conversation, "how
could you write such unkind things about my father?
He was always very good to you."

"That is true, Majesty," the former governess ad-
mitted in some confusion, "but the publishers wouldn't
take the book unless I made it sensational. And I had
to do it because I was in financial difficulties."

When she had departed the King turned to one of
his equerries. "Send the poor old lady a hundred
pounds," he directed. "She meant no harm and she
needs the money."

The chief hobby of the present ruler is, curiously
enough, amateur dramatics, of which his orthodox and
conservative ministers do not wholly approve. In ad-
dition to having translated into Siamese a number of
Shakesperian plays, he is the author of several orig-
inal dramas, which have been produced at the palace
under his personal direction and in several of which
he has himself played the leading parts. As a result
of this predilection for dramatics, he has accumulated
an extensive theatrical wardrobe, to which he is con-
stantly adding. When I was in Bangkok I had some

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 237

clothes made by the English tailor who supplies the
court an excellent tailor, but expensive.

"You'll excuse my taking the liberty, I hope, sir,"
he said during the course of a fitting, "but, being as
you are an American, perhaps you could assist me with
some information. I've received a very pressing
order for a costume such as is worn by the cowboys
in your country, sir, but, though I've found some pic-
tures in the English illustrated weeklies, I don't rightly
know how to make it.

"A cowboy's costume?" I exclaimed. "In Siam?
Who in the name of Heaven wants it?"

"It's for his Majesty," was the surprising answer.
"He's written a play in which he takes the part of an
American cowboy and he's very particular, sir, that
the costume should be quite correct. Seeing as you
come from that country, I thought I'd make so bold,
sir, as to ask if you could give me some suggestions."

It was quite apparent that he believed that when I
was at home I customarily went about in chaps, a
flannel shirt and a sombrero, and, knowing the English
mind, I realized that nothing was to be gained by at-
tempting to disillusionize him.

"Let's see what you've made," I suggested, where-
upon he produced an outfit which appeared to be a
compromise between the costume of an Italian bandit,
the uniform of an Australian soldier, and the regalia
of a Spanish bull-fighter. Suppressing my inclination
to give way to laughter, I sketched for the grateful
tailor the sort of garments to which cowpunchers

238 STRANGE TRAILS

cowpunchers of the screen, at least are addicted. If
he followed my directions the King of Siam wore a
costume which would make William S. Hart green
with envy.

King Rama's literary efforts have not been confined
to playwriting, however, for his book on the wars of
the Polish Succession is one of the standard authorities
on the subject. If you go to Siam expecting to see an
Oriental potentate such as you have read about in
novels, His Majesty, Rama VI, is bound to prove
very disappointing.

But, though the monarch and his court are as up-to-
the-minute as the Twentieth Century Limited, many
of the spectacular and colorful ceremonies of old Siam
are still celebrated with all their ancient pomp and
magnificence. For example, each year, at the close
of the rainy season, the King devotes about a fort-
night to visiting the various temples in and near Bang-
kok. On these occasions he goes in the royal barge,
a gorgeously decorated affair, 150 feet in length, look-
ing not unlike an enormous Venetian gondola, rowed
by three-score oarsmen in scarlet-and-gold liveries.
The King, surrounded by a glittering group of court
officials, sits on a throne at the stern, while attendants
hold over his head golden umbrellas. From the land-
ing place to the temple he is borne in a sedan chair
between rows of prostrate natives who bow their fore-
heads to the earth in adoration of this short, stout,
olive-skinned, good-humored looking young man whom

Once each year the King visits the various temples in and near Bangkok, travelling in the royal
barge, a gorgeously decorated affair rowed by threescore oarsmen

The rice-planting ceremony. The Minister of Agriculture ploughs a few furrows in a field outside

Bangkok, being fallowed by four young women of the court who scatter rice

grains on the freshly opened soil

Colorful ceremonies of old Siam

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 239

nearly ten millions of people implicitly believe to be
the earthly representative of Buddha.

Another picturesque observance, the Rice-Planting
Ceremony, takes place early in May, when the Minis-
ter of Agriculture, as the deputy of the King, leads a
long procession of officials and priests to a field in the
outskirts of the capital, where a pair of white bullocks,
yoked to a gilded plough, are waiting. Surrounded
by a throng of functionaries glittering like Christmas
trees, the Minister ploughs a few furrows in the field,
being followed by four young women of the court who
scatter rice grains on the freshly turned soil. Until
quite recent years, the officials taking part in this pro-
cession claimed the privilege of appropriating any
articles which caught their fancy in the shops along
the route. But this quaint practise is no longer fol-
lowed. It was not popular with the merchants. The
Siamese, like all Orientals, place much reliance on
omens, the position of the lower hem of the panung
worn by the Minister of Agriculture on this occasion
indicating, it is confidently believed, the sort of
weather to be expected during the ensuing. year. If
the edge of the panung comes down to the ankles a dry
season is anticipated, even a drought, perhaps. If, on
the contrary, the garment is pulled up to the knees a
raining-in-London effect, as it were, it is freely pre-
dicted that the country will suffer from floods. But if
the folds of the silk reach to a point midway between
knee and ankle, then the farmers look forward to a

2 4 o STRANGE TRAILS

moderate rainfall and a prosperous season. It is as
though the United States Weather Bureau were to
base its forecasts on the height at which the Secretary
of Agriculture wore his trousers.

The panung a strip of silk or cotton about three
yards long is the national garment of Siam and
among the poorer classes constitutes the only article of
clothing. It is admirably adapted to the climate, being
easy to wash and easy to put on : all that is necessary
is to wind it about the waist, pass the ends between the
legs, and tuck them into the girdle, thus producing the
effect of a pair of knickerbockers. As both sexes wear
the panung, and likewise wear their hair cut short, it is
somewhat difficult to distinguish between men and
women. Siamese women keep their hair about four
or five inches long and brush it straight back, like
American college students, without using any comb or
other ornament, thus giving them a peculiarly boyish
appearance. In explanation of this fashion of wear-
ing the hair there is an interesting tradition. Once
upon a time, it seems, a Siamese walled city was
besieged by Cambodians while the men of the city
were fighting elsewhere and only women and children
remained behind. A successful defense was out of the
question. In this emergency, a woman of militant
character the Sylvia Pankhurst of her time pro-
posed to her terrified sisters that they should cut
their hair short and appear upon the walls in men's
clothing on the chance of frightening away the Cam-
bodians. The ruse succeeded, for, while the invaders

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 241

were hesitating whether to carry the city by storm, the
Siamese warriors returned and put the enemy to flight.
The Siamese prince who told me the story, an officer
who had spent much of his life in Europe, remarked
that he understood that American women were also
cutting off their hair.

"True enough," I admitted. "In the younger set
bobbed hair is all the vogue. But they don't cut off
their hair, as your women did, to frighten away the

men."

If you will take down the family atlas and turn to
the map of Southern Asia you will see that Siam, with
an area about equivalent to that of Spain, occupies the
uncomfortable and precarious position of a fat wal-
nut clinched firmly between the jaws of a nut-cracker,
the jaws being formed by British Burmah and French
Indo-China. And for the past thirty years those jaws
have been slowly but remorselessly closing. Until
1893 the eastern frontier of Siam was separated from
the China Sea by the narrow strip of Annam, at one
point barely thirty miles in width, which was under
French protection. Its western boundary was the Lu
Kiang River, which likewise formed the eastern boun-
dary of the British possessions in Burmah. On the
south the kingdom reached down to the Grand Lac of
Cambodia, while on the north its frontiers were coter-
minous with those of the great, rich Chinese province
of Yunnan. Now here was a condition of affairs
which was as annoying as it was intolerable to the

242 STRANGE TRAILS

land-hungry statesmen of Downing Street and the
Quai d'Orsay. That a small and defenseless Orien-
tal nation should be permitted to block the colonial
expansion of two powerful and acquisitive European
nations was unthinkable.

The first step in the spoilation of the helpless little
kingdom was taken by France in 1893, when, claiming
that the Mekong which the French were eager to
acquire under the impression that it would provide
them with a trade-route into Southern China formed
the true boundary between Siam and Annam, she de-
manded that the Siamese evacuate the great strip of
territory to the east of that river. Greatly to the
delight of the French imperialists, the Siamese refused
to yield, whereupon, in accordance with the time-
honored rules of the game of territory grabbing,
French gunboats were dispatched to make a naval
demonstration off Bangkok. The forts at the mouth
of the Menam fired upon the gunboats, whereupon the
French instituted a blockade of the Siamese capital
and at the same time enormously increased their de-
mands. England, which had long professed to be a
disinterested friend of the Siamese, shrugged her
shoulders whereupon they yielded to the threat of a
French invasion and ceded to France the eastern
marches of the kingdom. Meanwhile the frontier be-
tween Siam and the new British possessions in Bur-
mah had been settled amicably, though, as might have
been expected, in Britain's favor, Siam being shorn of
a small strip of territory on the northwest. In 1904

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 243

the French again brought pressure to bear, their ter-
ritorial booty on this occasion amounting to some eight
thousand square miles, comprising the Luang Prabang
district lying east of the Mekong and the provinces
of Malupre and Barsak. Seeing that the process of
filching territory from the Siamese was as safe and
easy as taking candy from children, the French tried
it again in 1907, this time obtaining the provinces of
Battambang, Sisophon and Siem-Reap, constituting a
total of some seven thousand square miles, thus bring-
ing within French territory the whole of the Grand
Lac and the wonderful ruins of Angkor. In 1909 it
was England's turn again, but, disdaining the crude
methods of the French, she informed the Siamese
Government that she was prepared to relinquish her
rights to maintain her own courts in Siam, the Siamese
being expected to show their gratitude for this con-
cession to their national pride by ceding to England
the states of Kelantan, Trengganu and Kedah, in the
Malay Peninsula, with a total area of about fifteen
thousand square miles. It was a costly transaction for
the Siamese, but they assented. What else was there
for them to do? When a burly and determined per-
son holds you up in a dark alley with a revolver and
intimates that if you will hand over your pocketbook
he will refrain from hitting you over the head with a
billy, there is nothing to do but accede with the best
grace possible to his demands. In a period of only
sixteen years, therefore, France and England, by
methods which, if used in business, would lead to an

244 STRANGE TRAILS

investigation by the Grand Jury, succeeded in strip-
ping Siam of about a third of her territory. The
history of Siam during that period provides a striking
illustration of the methods by which European powers
have obtained their colonial empires.

It was the Great War which, by diverting the atten-
tion of France and England, probably saved Siam
from complete dismemberment. Now, in robbing her,
they would be robbing an ally and a friend, for in July,
1917, Siam declared war on the Central Powers, des-
patched an expeditionary force to France, interned
every enemy alien in the kingdom and confiscated their
property, thus ridding France and England of the last
vestige of Teutonic commercial rivalry in southeast-
ern Asia. The Siamese, moreover, have had a na-
tional house-cleaning and have set their country in
thorough order. Their national finances are now in
admirable condition; they have accomplished far-
reaching administrative reforms; they are opening up
their territory by the construction of railway lines in
all directions; and they have obtained the practical
abolition of French and British jurisdiction over cer-
tain of their domestic affairs, while a treaty which
provides that the United States shall likewise surren-
der its extra territorial rights and permit its citizens
to be tried in Siamese courts has recently been signed.

The future of Siam should be of interest to Ameri-
cans if for no other reason than that it is the one
remaining independent state of tropical Asia. Indeed,
it is known to its own people as Muang-Thai the

THROUGH THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE 245

"Kingdom of the Free." Whether it will remain so
only the future can tell. I should be more sanguine
about the continued independence of the Land of the
White Elephant, however, were it not for the colonial
records of its two nearest neighbors, which heretofore,
in their dealings with Asiatic peoples, have usually
followed

"The good old rule . . . the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."

CHAPTER XI

TO PNOM-PENH BY THE JUNGLE TRAIL

INDO-CHINA is a great bay-window bulging from
the southeastern corner of Asia, its casements opening
on the China Sea and on the Gulf of Siam. Of all the
countries of the Farther East it is the most mysterious ;
of them all it is the least known. Larger than the
State of Texas, it is a land of vast forests and unex-
plored jungles in which roam the elephant, the tiger
and the buffalo; a land of palaces and pagodas and
gilded temples ; of sun-bronzed pioneers and priests in
yellow robes and bejeweled dancing girls. Lured by
the tales I had heard of curious places and strange
peoples to be seen in the interior of the peninsula, I
refused to content myself with skirting its edges on a
steamer. Instead, I determined to cross it from coast
to coast.

I had looked forward to covering the first stage of
this journey, the four hundred-odd miles of jungle
which separate Bangkok, in Siam, from Pnom-Penh,
the capital of Cambodia, on an elephant. Everyone
with whom I had discussed the matter in Singapore
had assured me that this was perfectly feasible. And
as a means of transportation it appealed to me. It
seemed to fit into the picture, as a wheel-chair accords

246

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 247

with the spirit of Atlantic City, as a caleche is con-
gruous to Quebec. To my friends at home I had
planned to send pictures of myself reclining in a how-
dah, rajah-like, as my ponderous mount rocked and
rolled along the jungle trails. To me the idea
sounded fine. But it was not to be. For, in shaping
my plans, I had been ignorant of the fact that during
the dry season, which was then at hand, Asiatic ele-
phants are seldom worked that they become morose
and irritable and are usually kept in idleness until their
docility returns with the rains. I was greatly dis-
appointed.

The overland route thus proving impracticable, so
far as the first part of the journey was concerned, the
sea road alone remained. Of vessels plying between
Bangkok and the ports of French Indo-China there
were but two the Bonite, a French packet slightly
larger than a Hudson River tugboat, which twice
monthly makes the round trip between the Siamese
capital and Saigon; and a Danish tramp; the Chutu-
tutch, an unkempt vagrant of the seas which wanders at
will along the Gulf Coast, touching at those obscure
ports where cargo or passengers are likely to be found.
The Bonite swung at her moorings in the Menam, op-
posite my hotel windows, so, made cautious by previous
experiences on other coastwise vessels, I went out in a
sampan to make a preliminary survey. But I did not
go aboard. The odors which assailed me as I drew
near caused me to decide abruptly that I wished to
make no voyage on her. The Chutututch, I reasoned,

248 STRANGE TRAILS

must be better; it certainly could not be worse. And
when I approached her owners they offered no ob-
jections to earning a few-score extra ticals by extend-
ing her itinerary so as to drop me at the tiny Cam-
bodian port of Kep. The next day, then, saw me on
the bridge of the Chutututch, smoking for politeness'
sake one of the genial captain's villainous cigars, as we
steamed slowly between the palm-fringed, temple-
dotted banks of the Menam toward the Gulf.

On many kinds of vessels I have voyaged the Seven
Seas. I once spent Christmas on a Russian steamer,
jammed to her guards with lousy pilgrims bound for
the Holy Land, in a tempest off the Syrian coast. On
another memorable occasion I skirted the shores of
Crete on a Greek schooner which was engaged in con-
veying from Canea to Candia a detachment of British
recruits much the worse for rum. But that voyage on
the Chutututch will linger longest in my memory.
From stem to stern she was packed with yellow, half-
naked, perspiring humanity Siamese, Laos, Burmans,
Annamites, Cambodians, Malays, Chinese journey-
ing, God knows why, to ports whose very names I had
never before heard. They lay so thick beneath the
awnings that the sailors literally had to walk upon
them in order to perform their work. From the glassy
surface of the Gulf the heat rose in waves blasts from
an opened furnace door. The flaming ball of molten
brass that was the sun beat down upon the crowded
decks until they were as hot to the touch as a railway
station stove at white heat. The odors of crude,

Transportation in the Siamese jungle

Long files of elephants, bearing men and merchandise beneath the hooded howdahs, rocking and
rolling down the dim and deep-worn jungle trails

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 249

sugar, copra, tobacco, engine oil, perspiration and fish
frying in the galley mingled in a stench that rose to
heaven. In the sweat-box which had been allotted to
me, called by courtesy a cabin, a large gray ship's rat
gnawed industriously at my suit-case in an endeavor
to ascertain what it contained; insects that shall be
nameless disported themselves upon the dubious-
looking blanket which formed the only covering of the
bed; cockroaches of incredible size used the wash-
basin as a public swimming-pool.

The other cabin passengers were all three Anglo-
Saxons a young Englishman and an American mis-
sionary and his wife. These last, I found, were con-
voying a flock of noisy Siamese youngsters, pupils at
an American school in Bangkok, to a small bathing
resort at the mouth of the Menam, where, it was
alleged, the mercury had been known to drop as low
as 90 on cold days. Because of its invigorating cli-
mate it is a favorite hot weather resort for the well-
to-do Siamese. Here, in a bungalow that had been
placed at their disposal by the King, the missionary
and his charges proposed to spend a glorious fortnight
away from the city's heat. Now do not draw a mental
picture of a sanctimonious person with a Prince Al-
bert coat, a white bow tie and a prominent Adam's
apple. He was not that sort of a missionary at all.
On the contrary, he was a very human, high-spirited,
likeable fellow of the type that at home would be a
Scout Master or in France would have made good as a
welfare worker with the A. E. F. Once, when a par-

250 STRANGE TRAILS

ticularly obstreperous youngster drew an over-draft
on his stock of patience, he endorsed his disapproval
with an extremely vigorous "Damn!" I took to him
from that moment.

When, their energy temporarily exhausted, his
charges had fallen asleep upon the deck and pande-
monium had given place to peace, he told me some-
thing of his story. For four years he had labored in
the Vineyard of the Lord in Chile, but, feeling that he
"was having too good a time," as he expressed it, he
applied to the Board of Missions for transfer to a
more strenuous post. He obtained what he asked for,
with something over for good measure, for he was
ordered to a post in the northeastern corner of Siam,
on the Annam frontier. If there is a more remote or
inaccessible spot on the map it would be hard to find it.
Here he and his wife spent ten years preaching the
Word to the "black bellied Laos," as the tattooed
savages of that region are known. Then he was
transferred to Bangkok. There are no roads in
Siam, so he and his wife and their five small children
made the long journey by river, in a native dugout of
less than two feet beam, in which they traveled and
ate and slept for upwards of two weeks.

I asked him if he wasn't becoming weaned of Bang-
kok, which, as a place of residence, leaves much to be
desired.

"Yes, I've had about enough of it," he admitted.
"I'm anxious to get away."

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 251

"Back to the Big Town?" I suggested. "To God's
Country?"

"Oh, no; not back to the States," he hastened to as-
sure me. "I haven't finished my job out here. I want
to get back to my people in the interior again."

Whether you approve of foreign missions or not, it
is impossible to withhold your respect and admiration
from such men as that. Though at home they are too
often the butts of ignorant criticisms and cheap witti-
cisms, they are carrying civilization, no less than
Christianity, into the world's dark places. They are
the real pioneers. You might remember this the next
time an appeal is made in your church for foreign
missions.

The young Englishman was likewise an outpost of
progress, though in a different fashion. For seven
years he had worn the uniform of an officer in the
Royal Navy. At the close of the war, seeing small
prospect of promotion, he had entered the employ of
a British company which held a vast timber con-
cession in the teak forests of northern Siam, far
up, near the Chinese border. He was, he explained, a
"girdler," which meant that his duties consisted in
riding through the forest area allotted to him, selecting
and girdling those trees which, three years later, would
be cut down. To girdle a tree, as everyone knows, is
to kill it, which is what is wanted, there being no mar-
ket for green teak, which warps. He remained in the
forest for four weeks at a stretch, he told me, without
seeing a white man's face, his only companions his

252 STRANGE TRAILS

coolies and his Chinese cook. His domain comprised
a thousand square miles of forest through which he
moved constantly on horseback, followed by elephants
bearing his camp equipage and supplies. Once each
month he spent three days in the village where the com-
pany maintains its field headquarters. Here he played
tennis and bridge with other girdlers young English-
men like himself who had come in from their respec-
tive districts to make their monthly reports and in
gleaning from the eight-weeks-old newspapers the
news of that great outside world from which he was
a voluntary exile. One would have supposed that,
after seven years spent in the jovial atmosphere of a
warship's wardroom, his solitary life in the great for-
ests would quickly have become intolerable, and I ex-
pressed myself to this effect. But he said no, that he
was neither lonely nor unhappy in his new life, and
that his fellow foresters, all of whom had seen serv-
ice in the Army, the Navy or the Royal Air Force,
were equally contented with their lot. I could under-
stand, though. The wilderness holds no terrors for
anyone who went through the hell of the Great War.
We dropped anchor at midnight off Chantaboun,
where a launch was waiting to take him ashore. He
was going up-country, he told me, to inspect a timber
concession recently acquired by the company that em-
ployed him. Yes, he would be the only white man, but
he would not be lonely. Besides, he would only be in
the interior a couple of months, he said. He followed
the coolies bearing his luggage down the gangway and

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 253

dropped lightly into the tossing launch, then looked up
to wave me a farewell.

"Good luck," he called cheerily.

"Good luck to your said I.

That is the worst of this gadding up and down the
earth it is always "How d'ye do?" and "Good-
by."

Three days out of Bangkok the anchor of the
Chutututch rumbled down off Kep, on the coast of
Cambodia. Kep consists of a ramshackle wooden pier
that reaches seaward like a lean brown finger, an
equally decrepit custom house, a tin-roofed bungalow
which the French Government maintains for the use
of those fever-stricken officials who need the tonic of
sea air, a cluster of bamboo huts thatched with nipa
nothing more. You will not find the place on any
map; it is too small.

It is in the neighborhood of three hundred kilo-
meters from Kep to Pnom-Penh, the capital of Cam-
bodia, and for nearly the entire distance the highway
has been hewn through the most savage jungle you can
imagine. There was only one motor car in Kep and
this I hired for the journey. I say hired, but bought
would be nearer the truth. It was an aged and de-
crepit Renault, held together with string and wire, and
suffering so badly from asthma and rheumatism that
more than once I feared it would die on my hands
before I reached my destination. It had as nurses
two Annamites, who took unwarranted liberties with
the truth by describing themselves as mechaniciens.

254 STRANGE TRAILS

Accompanying them were two sullen-faced Chinese.
All four of them, I found, proposed to accompany me
to Pnom-Penh. At this I protested vigorously, on the
ground that, as the lessee of the machine, I had the
right to choose my traveling companions, but my ob-
jections were overruled by the Chef des Douanes, the
only French functionary in Kep, who assured me that
if the car went the quartette must go, too. One of the
Annamites, he explained, was the chauffeur, the other
was the cranker, for in Indo-China automobiles are not
equipped with self-starters and the chauffeurs firmly
refuse to crank their own cars. They thus "save their
face," which is a very important consideration in the
estimation of Orientals, and they also provide easy
and pleasant jobs for their friends. It is an idea which
some of the labor unions in America might adopt to
advantage. I make no charge for the suggestion.
The two Chinese, it appeared, were the joint owners
of the machine, and both insisted on going along be-
cause neither would trust the other with the hire-
money. Thus it will be seen, we made quite a cozy
little party.

The road to Pnom-Penh, as I have already re-
marked, leads through a peculiarly lonely and savage
region. And it is very narrow, bordered on either
side by walls of almost impenetrable jungle. A place
better adapted for a hold-up could hardly be devised.
And of the reputations or antecedents of my four self-
imposed companions, I knew nothing. Nor was there
anything in their faces to lend me confidence in the

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 255

honesty of their intentions. As we were about to start
a native gendarme beckoned me to one side.

"Beaucoup des pirats sur la route, M'sieu," he
warned me in execrable French.

"Brigands, you mean?" I asked him.

"Oui, M'sieu."

That was reassuring.

"How about these men?" I inquired, indicating the
motley crew who were to accompany me. "Are they
to be trusted?"

He shrugged his shoulders non-commitally. It was
evident that he did not hold of them a high opinion.

Producing my .45 caliber service automatic, I
slipped a clip into the magazine and ostentatiously laid
it beside me on the seat. It is the most formidable
weapoa carried by any civilized people. True, the
German Lu'ger is larger. . . .

"Tell them," I said to the policeman, "that this gun
will shoot through twenty millimeters of pine. Tell
them that they had better dispose of their property
and burn a few joss-sticks before they start to argue
with it. And tell them that, no matter what happens,
the car is to keep going."

But I was by no means as confident as I sounded,
for the road was notoriously unsafe, nor did I put
much trust in my companions. I confess that I felt
much happier when that portion of my journey was
over.

As the road to Pnom-Penh is quite uninteresting
just a narrow yellow highway chopped through a

256 STRANGE TRAILS

dense tangle of tropic vegetation suppose I take ad-
vantage of the opportunity to tell you something of
this little-known land in which we find ourselves.

French Indo-China occupies perhaps two-thirds of
that great bay-window-shaped peninsula which pro-
trudes from the southeastern corner of Asia. In area
it is, as I have already remarked, somewhat larger
than Texas; its population is about equal to that of
New York and Pennsylvania combined. It consists of
five states: the colony of Cochin-China, the protecto-
rates of Cambodia, Annam and Tongking, and the
unorganized territory of Laos, to which might be
added the narrow strip of borderland, known as
Kwang Chau Wan, leased from China. In 1902 the
capital of French Indo-China was transferred from
Saigon, in Cochin-China, to Hanoi, in Tongking.

By far the most interesting of these political divi-
sions is Cambodia, which, for centuries an independent
kingdom, was forced in 1862 to accept the protection
of France. An apple-shaped country, about the size
of England, with a few score miles of seacoast and
without railway or regular sea communications, it lies
tucked away in the heart of the peninsula, its south-
ern borders marching with those of Cochin-China, its
frontier on the north co-terminous with that of Siam.
Though the octogenarian King Sisowath maintains a
gorgeous court, a stable of elephants, upwards of two-
hundred dancing-girls, and one of the most ornate
palaces in Asia, he is permitted only a shadow of
power, the real ruler of Cambodia being the French

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 257

Resident-Superior, who governs the country from the
great white Residency on the banks of the Mekong.

I know of no region of like size and so compara-
tively easy of access (the great liners of the Mess^a-
geries Maritimes touch at Saigon, whence the Cam-
bodian capital can be reached by river-steamer in two
days) which offers so many attractions to the hunter
of big game. Unlike British East Africa, where, as a
result of the commercialization of sport, the cost of
going on safari has steadily mounted until now it is a
form of recreation to be afforded only by war profi-
teers, Cambodia remains unexploited and unspoiled.
It is in many respects the richest, as it is almost the
last, of the world's great hunting-grounds. It is, in-
deed, a vast zoological garden, where such formalities
as hunting licenses are still unknown. In its jungles
roam elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, pan-
thers, bear, deer, and the savage jungle buffalo,
known in Malaya as the seladang and in Indo-China
as the gaur considered by many hunters the most
dangerous of all big game.

Nailed to the wall of the Government rest-house at
Kep was the skin of a leopard which had been shot
from the veranda the day before my arrival, while
raiding the pig-pen. The day that I left Kampot an
elephant herd, estimated by the native trackers at one
hundred and twenty head, was reported within seven
miles of the town. Twice during the journey to Pnom-
Penh I saw tracks of elephant herds on the road it
looked as though a fleet of whippet tanks had passed.

258 STRANGE TRAILS

Nevertheless, I should have put mental question-
marks after some of the big game stories I heard while
I was in Indo-China had I not been convinced of the
credibility of those who told them. Only a few days
before our arrival at Saigon, for example, an Amer-
ican engaged in business in that city set out one morn-
ing before daybreak, in a small car, for the paddy-
fields, where there is excellent bird-shooting in the
early dawn. The car, which, owing to the intense
heat, had no wind-shield, was driven by the Annamite
chauffeur, the American, a double-barrel loaded with
bird-shot across his knees, sitting beside him on the
front seat. Rounding a turn in the jungle road at
thirty miles an hour, the twin beams of light from the
lamps fell on a tiger, which, dazzled and bewildered
by the on-coming glare, crouched snarling in the mid-
dle of the highway. There was no time to stop the
car, and, as the jungle came to the very edge of the
narrow road, there was no way to avoid the animal,
which, just as the car was upon it, gathered itself and
sprang. It landed on the hood with all four feet, its
snarling face so close to the men that they could feel
its breath. The American, thrusting the muzzle of
his weapon into the furry neck of the great cat, let
go with both barrels, blowing away the beast's throat
and jugular vein and killing it instantly. With the
aid of his badly frightened driver, he bundled the
great striped carcass into the tonneau of the car and
imperturbably continued on his bird-shooting expe-

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 259

dition. Some people seem to have a monopoly of
luck.

Though Saigon and Pnom-Penh do not possess the
facilities for equipping shooting expeditions afforded
by Mombasa or Nairobi, and though in Indo-China
there are no professional European guides, such as the
late Major Cunninghame; the elaborate and costly
outfits customary in East Africa, with their mile-long
trains of bearers, are as unnecessary as they are un-
known. The arrangements for a tiger hunt in Indo-
China are scarcely more elaborate and certainly no
more expensive, than for a moose hunt in Maine. A
dependable native shikari who knows the country, a
cook, half-a-dozen coolies, a sturdy riding-pony, two
or three pack-animals, a tent and food, that is all you
need. With such an outfit, particularly in a region so
thick with game as, say, the Dalat Plateau, in Annam,
the hunter should get a shot at a tiger before he has
been forty-eight hours in the bush. In a clearing in a
jungle known to be frequented by tigers, the carcass
of a bullock, or, if that is unavailable, of a pig, is
fastened securely to a stake and left there until it smells
to high heaven. When its odor is of sufficient potency
to reach the nostrils of the tiger, the hunter takes up
his position in the edge of the clearing, or on a platform
built in a tree if he believes in Safety First. For inves-
tigating the kill the tiger usually chooses the dimness
of the early dawn or the semi-darkness which precedes
nightfall. With no warning save a faint rustle in the
undergrowth a lean and tawny form slithers on padded

260 STRANGE TRAILS

feet across the open and the man behind the rifle has
his chance. I have found, however, that even in tiger
lands, tigers are by no means as plentiful as one's
imagination paints them at home. It is easy to be a
big-game hunter on the hearth-rug.

Pnom-Penh, the capital of Cambodia, stands on the
west bank of the mighty Mekong, one hundred and
seventy miles from the sea. Pnom, meaning "moun-
tain," refers to the hill, or mound, ninety feet high,
in the heart of the city; Penh was the name of a cele-
brated Cambodian queen. Until twenty years ago
Pnom-Penh was a filthy and unsanitary native town, its
streets ankle-deep with dust during the dry season and
ankle-deep with mud during the rains. But with the
coming of the French the flimsy, vermin-infested
houses were torn down, the hog-wallows which served
as thoroughfares were transformed into broad and
well-paved avenues shaded by double rows of handsome
trees, and the city was provided with lighting and
water systems. The old-fashioned open water sewers
still remain, however, lending to the place, a rich, ripe
odor. Pnom-Penh possesses a spacious and well ven-
tilated motion-picture house, where Charlie Chaplin
known to the French as "Chariot" and Fatty Ar-
buckle convulse the simple children of the jungle just
as they convulse more sophisticated assemblages on
the other side of the globe.

But all that is most worth seeing in Pnom-Penh is
cloistered within the mysterious walls of vivid pink
which surround the Royal Palace. Here is the resi-

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 261

dence of His Majesty Prea Bat Samdach Prea Siso-
wath, King of Cambodia ; here dwell the twelve score
dancing-girls of the famous royal ballet and the hun-
dreds of concubines and attendants comprising the
royal harem; here are the stables of the royal elephants
and the sacred zebus; here a congeries of palaces,
pavilions, throne halls, dance halls, temples, shrines,
kiosks, monuments, courtyards, and gardens the like
of which is not to be found outside the covers of The
Thousand and One Nights. It is an architectural ex-
travaganza, a bacchanalia of color and design, as fan-
tastic and unreal as the city of a dream. The steep-
pitched, curiously shaped roofs are covered with tiles
of every color peacock blue, vermilion, turquoise,
emerald green, burnt orange ; no inch of exposed wood-
work has escaped the carver's cunning chisel; every-
where gold has been laid on with a spendthrift hand.
And in this marvelous setting strut or stroll figures
that might have stepped straight from the stage of
Sumurun fantastically garbed functionaries of the
Household, shaven-headed priests in yellow robes,
pompous mandarins in sweeping silken garments, be-
jeweled and bepainted dancing-girls. It is not real,
you feel. It is too gorgeous, too bizarre. It is the
work of stage-carpenters and scene-painters and cos-
turners, and you are quite certain that the curtain will
descend presently and that you will have to put on
your hat and go home.

From the center of the great central court rises the
famous Silver Pagoda. It takes its name from its

262 STRANGE TRAILS

floor, thirty-six feet wide and one hundred and twenty
long, which is covered with pure silver. When the
sun's rays seep through the interstices of the carv-
ing it leaps into a brilliancy that is blinding. On the
high walls of the room are depicted in startling col-
ors, scenes from the life of Buddha and realistic
glimpses of hell, for your Cambodian artist is at his
best in portraying scenes of horror. The mural deco-
rations of the Silver Pagoda would win the unquali-
fied approval of an oldtime fire-and-brimstone
preacher. Rearing itself roofward from the center of
the room is an enormous pyramidal altar, littered with
a heterogeneous collection of offerings from the de-
vout. At its apex is a so-called Emerald Buddha
probably, like its fellow in Bangkok, of translucent
jade which is the guardian spirit of the place.
But at one side of the altar stands the chief trea-
sure of the temple a great golden Buddha set
with diamonds. The value of the gold alone is esti-
mated at not far from three-quarters of a million dol-
lars; at the value of the jewels one can only guess.
It was made by the order of King Norodom, the
brother and predecessor of the present ruler, the whole
amazing edifice, indeed, being a monument into which
that monarch poured his wealth and ambition. Ranged
about the altar are glass cases containing the royal
treasures rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds
of a size and in a profusion which makes it difficult to
realize that they are genuine. It is a veritable cave of
Al-ed-Din. The covers of these cases are sealed with

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 263

strips of paper bearing the royal cypher nothing
more. They have never been locked nor guarded, yet
nothing has ever been stolen, for King Sisowath is to
his subjects something more than a ruler; he is vene-
rated as the representative of God on earth. For a
Cambodian to steal from him would be as unthinkable
a sacrilege as for a Roman Catholic to burglarize the
apartments of the Pope. And should their religious
scruples show signs of yielding to temptation, why,
there are the paintings on the walls to warn them of
the torments awaiting them in the hereafter. It
struck me, however, that the Silver Pagoda offers a
golden, not to say a jeweled opportunity to an enter-
prising American burglar.

On the south side of the courtyard containing the
Silver Pagoda is a relic far more precious in the eyes
of the natives, however, than all the royal treasures put
together a footprint of Buddha. It was left, so the
priests who guard it night and day reverently explain,
by the founder of their faith when he paid a flying visit
to Cambodia. Over the footprint has been erected a
shrine with a floor of solid gold. Buddha did not
do as well by Cambodia as by Ceylon, however, for
whereas at Pnom-Penh he left the imprint of his foot,
at Kandy he left a tooth. I know, for I have seen it.

In an adjacent courtyard is the Throne Hall, a fine
example of Cambodian architecture, the gorgeous
throne of the monarch standing on a dais in the center
of a lofty apartment decorated in gold and green.
Close by is the Salle des Fetes, or Dance Hall, a mod-

264 STRANGE TRAILS

ern French structure, where the royal ballet gives its
performances. Ever since there have been kings in
Cambodia each monarch has chosen from the daugh-
ters of the upper classes two hundred and forty show-
girls and has had them trained for dancing. These
girls, many of whom are brought to the palace by their
parents when small children and offered to the King,
eventually enter the monarch's harem as concubines.
Admission to the royal ballet is to a Cambodian
maiden what a position in the Ziegfeld Follies is to a
Broadway chorus girl. It is the blue ribbon of female
pulchritude. Unlike Mr. Ziegfeld's carefully selected
beauties, however, who frequently find the stage a step-
ping-stone to independence and a limousine, the Cam-
bodian show-girl, once she enters the service of the
King, becomes to all intents and purposes a prisoner.
And Sisowath, for all his eighty-odd years, is a jealous
master. Never again can she stroll with her lover in
the fragrant twilight on the palm-fringed banks of the
Mekong. Never again can she leave the precincts of
the palace, save to accompany the King. The bars
behind which she dwells are of gold, it is true, but they
are bars just the same.

When I broached to the French Resident-Superior,
who is the real ruler of Cambodia, the subject of taking
motion-pictures within the royal enclosure, he was
anything but encouraging.

"I'm afraid it's quite impossible," he told me. "The
King is at his summer palace at Kampot, where he will
remain for several weeks. Without his permission

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 265

nothing can be done. Moreover, the royal ballet,
which is the most interesting sight in Cambodia, is
never under any circumstances permitted to dance dur-
ing his Majesty's absence."

"But why not telegraph the King?" I suggested,
though with waning hope. "Or get him on the tele-
phone. Tell him how much the pictures would do to
acquaint the American public with the attractions of
his country; explain to him that they would bring here
hundreds of visitors who otherwise would never know
that there is such a place as Pnom-Penh. More than
that," I added diplomatically, "they would undoubt-
edly wake up American capitalists to a realization of
Cambodia's natural resources. That's what you par-
ticularly want here, isn't it foreign capital?"

That argument seemed to impress the shrewd and
far-seeing Frenchman.

"Perhaps something can be done, after all," he told
me. "I will send for the Minister of the Royal House-
hold and ask him if he can communicate with the King.
As soon as I learn something definite, you will hear
from me."

The second day following I received a call from the
chief of the political bureau.

"Everything has been arranged as you desired,"
was the cheering news with which he greeted me. The
defile will take place in the grounds of the palace to-
morrow morning. Already the necessary orders have
been issued. Thirty elephants with their state hous-
ings ; eighty ceremonial cars drawn by sacred bullocks ;

266 STRANGE TRAILS

the royal body-guard in full uniform; a delegation of
mandarins in court-dress; a hundred Buddhist priests
attached to the royal temple; and, moreover, his
Majesty has granted special permission an unheard-
of thing, let me tell you ! for the royal ballet to give
a performance expressly for you to-morrow afternoon
on the terrace of the throne-hall. It will be a marvel-
ous spectacle."

"Bully 1" I exclaimed. "Won't you have a drink?"

"There is one thing I forgot to mention," the offi-
cial remarked hesitatingly, as he sipped the gin sling
which is the favorite drink of the tropics. "There
will be a small charge for expenses tips, you know,
for the palace officials."

"Oh, that's all right," I replied lightly. "How much
will the tips amount to?"

"Only about two hundred piastres," was the some-
what startling answer, for, at the then current rate
of exchange a piastre was worth about $1.50 gold.
"The resident will pay half of it, however, as he be-
lieves that the pictures will prove of great value to the
country."

Yet most people think that tipping has reached its
apogee in the United States !

When we entered the gate of the palace the next
morning, I felt as though I had been translated to the
days of Haroun-al-Raschid, for the vast courtyard,
flanked on all sides by marble buildings with tiled roofs
of cobalt blue, of emerald green, of red, of bril-
liant yellow, was literally crowded with elephants, bul-

) o

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 267

locks, horses, chariots, palanquins, soldiers, priests,
and officials all the pomp and panoply of an Asiatic
court, in short. Though close examination revealed
the gold as gilt and the jewels as colored glass, the
general effect was undeniably gorgeous. In spite of the
brilliance of the scene, Hawkinson was as blase as ever.
He issued orders to the Minister of the Household as
though he were directing a Pullman porter.

"Have those elephants come on in double file," he
commanded. "Then follow 'em with the bullock-carts
and the palanquins. I'll shoot the priests and the man-
darins later."

"But the priests must be taken at once," the minister
protested. "They have been waiting a long time, and
they are already late for the morning service in the
royal temple."

"Well, they'll have to wait still longer," was the
unruffled answer. "Tell them not to get impatient.
I'll get round to them as soon as I finish with the ani-
mals. Think what it will mean to them to have their
pictures shown on the same screen with Charlie Chap-
lin and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford! I
know lots of people who would be willing to wait a
year for such a chance."

Just then there approached across the courtyard a
trio of youths in white uniforms and gold-laced
kepis, their breasts ablaze with decorations. At
sight of them the minister doubled himself in the
middle like a jack-knife. They were, it appeared,
some of the royal princes sons of the King.

268 STRANGE TRAILS

There ensued a brief colloquy between the minister
and the eldest of the princes, the conversation evidently
relating, as I gathered from the gestures, to the Lovely
Lady and the Winsome Widow, who at the moment
were delightedly engaged in feeding candies to a baby
elephant.

"His Highness wishes to know," the minister inter-
preted, "when the ladies of your company are to ap-
pear. His Highness is a great admirer of American
actresses; he saw your most famous one, Mademoi-
selle Theda Bara, at a cinema in Singapore."

It seemed a thousand pities to destroy the prince's
delusion.

"Tell his Highness," I said, "that the ladies will
not act in this picture. They only play comedy parts."

The princes received the news with open disappoint-
ment. If the Lovely Lady and the Winsome Widow
had only consented to appear on the back of an ele-
phant, or even in a palanquin, I imagine that they
might have received a mark of the royal favor in
the form of a Cambodian decoration. It is a gor-
geous affair and is called, with great appropriateness,
the "Order of a Million Elephants and Parasols."

That afternoon, on the broad marble terrace of the
throne-hall, which had been covered with a scarlet
carpet for the occasion, the royal ballet gave a special
performance for our benefit. The dancers were much
younger than I had anticipated, ranging in age from
twelve to fifteen. Dancing has ever been a great insti-
tution in Cambodia, the dances, which have behind

THE JUNGLE TRAIL 269

them traditions of two thousand years, being illus-
trative of incidents in the poem of the Ramayana and
adhering faithfully to the classical examples which
are depicted on the walls of the great temple at
Angkor, such as the dancing of the goddess Apsaras,
her gestures, and her dress. The costumes worn by
the dancing-girls were the most gorgeous that we saw
in Asia : wonderful creations of cloth-of-gold heavily
embroidered with jewels. Most of the dancers wore
towering, pointed head-dresses, similar to the historic
crowns of the Cambodian kings, though a few of
them wore masks, one representing the head of a fox,
another a fish, a third a lion, which could be raised or
lowered, like the visors of medieval helmets. The
faces of all of the dancers were so heavily coated with
powder and enamel that they would have been
cracked by a smile. It was a performance which
would have astonished and delighted the most blase
audience on Broadway, but there in the heart of Cam-
bodia, with the terrace of a throne-hall for a stage,
with palaces, temples, and pagodas for a setting, with
a blazing tropic sun for a spot-light, and with actors
and audience clad in costumes as curious and colorful
as those worn at the court of the Queen of Sheba,
it provided a spectacle which we who were privileged
to see it will remember always. What a pity that
Cap'n Bryant was not alive so that I might sit on the
steps of his Mattapoisett cottage and tell him all
about it.

CHAPTER XII

EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS

FROM Pnom-Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to
Saigon, the capital of Cochin-China, is in the neigh-
borhood of two hundred miles and two routes are open
to the traveler. The most comfortable and consider-
ably the cheapest is by the bi-weekly steamer down the
Mekong. The alternative route, which is far more
interesting, consists in descending the river to Banam,
a village some twenty miles below Pnom-Penh, on the
opposite bank of the Mekong, where, if a car has
been arranged for, it is possible to motor across the
fertile plains of Cochin-China to Saigon in a single
day. That was the way that we went.

Though separated only by the Mekong, that mighty
waterway which, rising in the mountains of Tibet, bi-
sects the whole peninsula, Cochin-China is as dissimilar
from Cambodia as the ordered farmlands of Ohio are
from the Florida Everglades. In Cambodia, stretches
of sand covered with low, scraggy, discouraged-looking
scrub alternate with tangled and impenetrable jungles.
It is a savage, untamed land. Cochin-China, on the
other hand, is one great sweep of plain, green with
growing rice and dotted with the bamboo poles of well-
sweeps, for water can be found everywhere at thirty

270

EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS 271

to forty feet. These striking contrasts in contiguous
states are due in some measure, no doubt, to differences
in their soils and climates and to the industry of their
inhabitants, but more largely, I imagine, to the fact
that while the Frenchman has been at work in Cochin-
China for upwards of sixty years, Cambodia is still on
the frontier of civilization.

The roads which the French have built in Indo-
China deserve a paragraph of mention, for, barring
the rivers and the three short unconnected sections
of railway on the East coast of the peninsula, they form
the country's only means of communication. The na-
tional highways consist of two great systems. The
Route Coloniale, which was the one I followed, has
its beginning at Kep, on the Gulf of Siam, runs north-
eastward through the jungles of Cambodia to Pnom-
Penh, and, recommencing at Banam, swings southward
across the Cochin-China plain to Saigon. The Route
Mandarine, beginning at Saigon, hugs the shores of
the China Sea and, after traversing twelve hundred
miles of jungle, forest and mountain land in Annam
and Tongking, comes to an end at Hanoi, the capital of
Indo-China. The entire length of the Route Manda-
rine may now be traversed by auto-bus an excellent
way to see the country provided you are inured to
fatigue, do not mind the heat, and are not over-par-
ticular as to your fellow passengers. A motor car is,
of course, more comfortable and more expensive; a
small one can be rented for ninety dollars a day.

Nowhere has the colonizing white man encountered

272 STRANGE TRAILS

greater obstacles than those which have confronted the
French road-builders in Indo-China; nowhere has Na-
ture turned toward him a sterner and more forbidding
face. But, though their coolies have died by the thou-
sands from cholera and fever, though their laboriously
constructed bridges have been swept away in a night by
rivers swollen from the torrential rains, though the
fast-growing jungle persistently encroaches on the
hard-won right-of-way, though they have had to com-
bat savage beasts and still more savage men, they have
prosecuted with indomitable courage and tenacity the
task of building a road "to Tomorrow from the Land
of Yesterday."

Saigon, the capital of Cochin-China and the most
important place in France's Asiatic possessions, is a
European city set down on the edge of Asia. So far
as its appearance goes, it might be on the Seine in-
stead of the Saigon. The original town was burned
by the French during the fighting by which they ob-
tained possession of the place and they rebuilt it on
European lines, with boulevards, shops, cafes,
a Hotel de Ville, a Theatre Municipal, a Musee,
a Jardin Botanique, all complete. The general
plan of the city, with its regular streets and in-
tersecting boulevards, has evidently been modeled on
that of the French capital and the Saigonnese proudly
speak of it as "the Paris of the East." In certain
respects this is taking a considerable liberty with the
truth, but they are very lonely and homesick and one
does not blame them. Most of the streets, which are

EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS 273

paved after a fashion, are lined with tamarinds, thus
providing the shade so imperatively necessary where
the mercury hovers between 90 and no, winter and
summer, day and night. At almost every street inter-
section stands a statue of some one who bore a hand in
the conquest of the country, from the cassocked figure
of Pigneau de Behaine, Bishop of Adran, the first
French missionary to Indo-China, to the effigy of the
dashing Admiral Rigault de Genouilly, flanked by
charging marines, who took Saigon for France.

The most characteristic feature of Saigon is its cafe
life. During the heat of the day the Europeans keep
within doors, but toward nightfall they all come out
and, gathering about the little tables which crowd the
sidewalks before the cafes in the Boulevard Bonnard
and the Rue Catinat, they gossip and sip their ab-
sinthes and smoke numberless cigarettes and mop their
florid faces and argue noisily and with much gesticula-
tion over the news in the Courrier de Saigon or the six-
weeks-old Figaro and Le Temps which arrive fort-
nightly by the mail-boat from France. They wear
stiffly starched white linen though the jackets are all
too often left unfastened at the neck and enormous
mushroom-shaped topees which come down almost to
their shoulders and are many sizes too large for them,
and they consume vast quantities of drink, the evening
usually ending in a series of violent altercations.
When the disputants take to backing up their argu-
ments with blows from canes and bottles, the cafe
proprietor unceremoniously bundles them into pousse-

274 STRANGE TRAILS

pousses, as rickshaws are called in Saigon, and sends
them home.

Along the Rue Catinat in the evenings saunters a
picturesque and colorful procession haggard, sloven-
ly officers of the troupes coloniales and of the Foreign
Legion, the rows of parti-colored ribbons on their
breasts telling of service in little wars m the world's
forgotten corners ; dreary, white-faced Government em-
ployees, their cheeks gaunt from fever, their eyes
bloodshot from heavy drinking; sun-bronzed, swagger-
ing, loud-voiced rubber planters in riding breeches and
double Terais, down from their plantations in the far
interior for a periodic spree; women gowned in the
height of Paris fashion, but with too pink cheeks and
too red lips and too ready smiles for strangers, equally
at home on the Bund of Shanghai or the boulevards of
Paris; shaven-headed Hindu money-lenders from
British India, the lengths of cotton sheeting which
form their only garments revealing bodies as hairy and
repulsive as those of apes; barefooted Annamite tirail-
leurs in uniforms of faded khaki, their great round
hats of woven straw tipped with brass spikes like those
on German helmets; slender Chinese women, tripping
by on tiny, thick-soled shoes in pajama-like coats and
trousers of clinging, sleazy silk; naked pousse-pousse
coolies, streaming with sweat, graceful as the bronzes
in a museum; friars of the religious orders in shovel-
hats and linen robes ; sailors of the fleet and of the mer-
chant vessels in the harbor, swaggering along with the
roll of the sea ; -n their gait; Armenian peddlers with

EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS 275

piles of rugs and embroideries slung across their shoul-
ders; Arabs, Indians, Malays, Cambodians, Laos,
Siamese, Burmese, Chinese, world without end, Amen.

But, beneath it all, a paralysis is on everything the
paralysis of the excessive administration with which
the French have ruined Indo-China. There are too
many people in front of the cafes and too few in the
offices and shops. There is too much drinking and too
little work. The officials are alternately melancholy
and overbearing; the natives cringing and sullen. It
is not a wholesome atmosphere. Corruption, if not
universal, is appallingly common. Foreigners en-
gaged in business in Saigon told me that it is necessary
to "grease the palms" of everyone who holds a Gov-
ernment position. As a result of this practise, officials
who are poor men when they arrive in the colony re-
tire after four or five years' service with comfortable
fortunes and France does not pay her public servants
highly either. And there are other vices. The man-
ager of a great American corporation doing business
in Saigon told me that ninety per cent of the city's
European population are confirmed users of opium.
And, judging from their unhealthy pallor and lack-
lustre eyes, I can well believe it. But what else could
you expect in a country where the drug is sold to
anyone who has money to pay for it; where it is one of
the Government's chief sources of revenue?

On the native population the hand of the French
lies heavily. In 1916 there was an attempted jail de-
livery of political prisoners in Saigon, but the plot was

276 STRANGE TRAILS

discovered before it could be put into execution, the
ring-leaders arrested, and thirty-eight of them con-
demned to death. They were executed in batches of
four, kneeling, blind-folded, lashed to stakes. The
firing party consisted of a platoon of Annamite tirail-
leurs. Behind them, with machine guns trained, was
drawn up a battalion of French infantry. The occa-
sion was celebrated in Saigon as a public holiday, hun-
dreds of Frenchmen, accompanied by their wives and
children, driving out to see the sight. The next day
picture postcards of the execution were hawked about
the streets. But the authorities in Paris evidently dis-
approved of the proceeding, for the governor of the
colony and the commander of the military forces were
promptly recalled in disgrace. The terrible object-
lesson doubtless had the desired effect, for the natives
cringe like whipped dogs when a Frenchman speaks to
them. But there is that in their manner which bodes
ill for their masters if a crisis ever arises in Indo-
China. I should not like to see our own brown wards,
the Filipinos, look at Americans with the murderous
hate with which the Annamites regard the French. In
Africa, by moderation and tolerance and justice,
France has built up a mighty colonial empire whose in-
habitants are as loyal and contented as though they
had been born under the Tricolor. But in far-off Indo-
China French administration seems, even to as staunch
a friend of France as myself, to be very far from an
unqualified success.

During the ten days that I spent in Saigon I stayed

EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS 277

at the Hotel Continental. I shall remember it as the
place where they charged a dollar and a half for a high-
ball and fifty cents for a lemonade. It was insufferably
hot. I can sympathize now with the recalcitrant con-
vict who is punished by being sent to the sweat-box.
Battalions of ferocious mosquitoes launched their as-
saults against my unprotected person with the per-
sistence that the Germans displayed at Verdun. In
the next room the tenor of the itinerant grand opera
company that was giving a series of performances at
the Theatre Municipal squabbled unceasingly with his
woman companion. Both were generally much the
worse for drink. One particularly sultry afternoon,
when the whole world seemed like the steam room of
a Turkish bath, their voices rose to an unprecedented
pitch of violence. Through the thin panels of the
door came the sound of scuffling feet. Some heavy
article of furniture went over with a crash. Then
came the thud of a falling body.

"Thou accurst one!" I heard the tenor groan.
Then "Help me! ... I'm dying!"

"She's done it now!" I exclaimed, springing from
my bed.

"Are you stifling with blood?" the woman hissed,
fierce exultation in her tone.

"Help me! . . . I'm dying!" moaned the man.
"And done to death by a woman!"

It was murder no doubt about that. Clad only
in my pajamas though I was, I prepared to throw
myself against the door.

278 STRANGE TRAILS

"Die, thou accurst one! Perish!" shrieked the
woman.

I was on the point of bursting into the room when
I was arrested by the sound of the tenor's voice speak-
ing in normal tones. There followed a woman's
laugh. I paused to listen. It was well that I did s_o.
They were rehearsing for the evening's performance
the murder scene from La Toscaf

On another occasion, long after midnight, I was
aroused from sleep by a terrific racket which suddenly
burst forth in the streets below. I heard the crash
of splintering bottles followed by the steps of the
native gendarmes beating a hasty retreat. Then, from
throats that spoke my own tongue, rose the rollicking
words of a long-familiar chorus :

"I was drunk last night,
I was drunk the night before,
I'll get drunk tomorrow night
If I never get drunk any more;
For when I'm drunk
I'm as happy as can be,
For I am a member of the Souse Fam-i-lee!"

Leaning from my casement, I hailed a passing
Frenchman.

"Who are they?" I asked him.

"Les touristes Americains sont arrives, M'sieu," he
answered dryly.

By the light of the street-lamps as he turned away
I could see him shrug his shoulders.

Thinking it over, it struck me that I had been over-
harsh in my judgment of the homesick exiles who in

EXILES OF THE OUTLANDS 279

this far corner of the earth are clinching the rivets of
France's colonial empire.

The next morning I set sail from Saigon for China.
Leaving the mouth of the river in our wake, we
rounded the mighty promontory of Cap St. Jacques
and headed for the open sea. The palm-fringed shore
line of Cochin-China dropped away; the blue moun-
tains of Annam turned pale and ghostly in the evening
mists. A sun-scorched, pestilential land. ... I was
glad to leave it. But already I am longing to return.
I want once more to sit at a cafe table beneath the
awnings of the Rue Catinat, before me a tall glass
with ice tinkling in it. I want to hear the pousse-
pousse coolies padding softly by in the gathering twi-
light. I want to see the little Annamite women in
their sleazy silken garments and the boisterous, swag-
gering legionnaires in their white helmets. I want
to stroll once more beneath the tamarinds beside the
Mekong, to smell the odors of the hot lands, to hear
again the throbbing of the tom-toms and the soft
music of the wind-blown temple bells. For

"When you've 'card the East a-callin'
You won't never 'eed naught else."

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